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  Chapter Fifty-Two - Hard to Ignore

  Riding on Throat Ripper was not nearly as as I thought it would be. For ohing, he had a really wide back, and while I was able to hook my ankles around some of the spikes behi still left me with my legs stretched out unfortably.

  Then there was the stant bumping gait that had me almost boung off of the bone doggy’s back with every step.

  Behind us a group of a little over a dozen cervid skeletons formed up inth line, eae hanging onto a spear and shield, their eyes glowing even in the midday sunlight.

  “Faster,” I told Throat Ripper. It didn’t matter that it hurt, if I wao save Amaryllis I had to get there before they did anything nasty to her. Throat Ripper plied, huge cws digging into the earth to shoot up forwards at a speed that would have had me whooping with joy were the situation any different.

  We soon arrived at the bridge and I pointed ahead towards my bag. “That’s where I left my stuff,” I said. “We take it ter, but Amaryllis was taken around here.”

  Throat Ripper, being the very smart and good boy that he was, uood and slowed down his mad dash to a trot, then a slow walk that allowed me to sit back down a my behind on the saddle built into his armour.

  The skeletal doggy crossed the river, then spun around a few times, nose close to the ground. There wasn’t any sniffing, and I wondered how he was managing to make out any smells at all without a nose, but that didn’t seem to matter as he perked up and started moving off the road.

  Wheopped a little while ter my heart sank. I was afraid that he had lost the st, but Throat Ripper was the best and, with a growl that made my entire body vibrate, he pounced forwards and hopped from otle marshy isnd to the .

  Soon I caught signs that the cervid had been around. Hoofprints in the soggy soil, bushes that had been cut apart in unnatural ways and patches of the ground that seemed... lifted.

  I guessed that they had stopped g about stealth after a little ways.

  The sun was high overhead when I heard a distant sound. Talking. Too far away for me to uand, but that didn’t matter. Voices meant people and the only people I thought we would be meetihe vilins we were chasing.

  “I’m going to scout ahead,” I told Throat Ripper. “ you and the other skeletons wait here?”

  He nodded his big doggy head.

  “Alright. Hide. If they spot me they might chase me, and it might be best that they don’t see you.”

  The doggy growled. Not one long tinuous rumble, but a series of grumbles that were interrupted a few times. The skeletons all darted this way and that. Some spshing into the muddy waters and submerging themselves until only the top of their heads were visible. Others jumped into the skeletal branches of some nearby trees and then stood frozen on the spot, pletely immobile. The rest burrowed into bushes and hid in their shadows.

  In under a mihe only pinly visible skeleton was Throat Ripper. He padded back a way and sat behind a rock.

  “Right,” I said. “I’ll be ba no time at all, but if I don’t return... then save Amaryllis for me?”

  The dog looked my way, the out a whine.

  I could only respond with a sad smile.

  The area wasn’t as marshy as some of the spots assed over the st day or so. There were more rivulets here and fewer rge ponds, and the ground was rockier. I could see the mountain rao the east a whole lot clearer, which meant that we were probably on the edge of Deepmarsh’s territory.

  That was both good and bad news. It meant that moving was easier. It also meant that the bad guys would be getting further away faster.

  I scowled. I couldn’t pin the moment I had decided that the cervid, at least this group of them, were the bad guys. It robably because they were no-good meanies who kidnapped my friend.

  Still, thinking of people as ‘bad guys’ was dehumanizing. Or whatever the word was for dehumanizing something that wasn’t a human. It made it too easy to think of them as non-people, whi tur that hurting them was easier to justify.

  That was the kind of mihat started wars and racism and it wasn’t a nice way of thinking.

  I was better than that.

  So, these cervid, bad as they might be, might have had good reasons to kidnap Amaryllis. Maybe her family was secretly evil. Maybe their loved ones were being held hostage. Maybe... there were lots of maybes.

  Did it matter?

  I hopped over to the edge of a hill and immediately fell to the ground as I heard talking nearby. They were close. I reized Amaryllis’ voice.

  On hands and knees I snuck up to the edge of the hill and slowly looked over it.

  “--And then, once we’re done ruining your ey, pitiful as it is, we’ll ruin that filthy misogynistic culture of yours!” Amaryllis was saying.

  I grinned. She was still alive.

  Sure, she had ropes ed all around her chest and was slung over the shoulder of one of the cervid--The Lancer I had fought--but she was in one piece. Her wounds even looked better, with a strip of cloth ed around her leg. Her jacket was long gone, and it looked as if they had frisked her, but she was in good enough shape to pin.

  It was as if a stone had been lifted from my shoulders.

  “ we shut her up yet?” One of the cervids asked. The mage that Amaryllis had fought. “We have some cloth ying around.”

  The leader shook his head. “No. She might choke herself just to spite us.”

  “Wheop,” the Pins Speaker spoke up. “ I have a bit of fun with her?”

  This time the leader took a while to reply. “The t didn’t specify if she o be intact or not.”

  “Is that a yes?” he asked.

  The leader shook his head. “Not until we get firmation.”

  “Stop talking over my head in your barbarigue!” Amaryllis shouted.

  “ we at least sp her until she stops screaming?” one of them asked. “She’s going to attract trouble. And she’s giving me a headache besides.”

  I loosened my hand. It had been ched so tight that my nails were digging into my palms hard enough to leave marks. They were going to... to do bad things to her.

  “Someone’s watg us,” one of the cervid said.

  I looked up in time to see a few sets of eyes looking my way. “Oh, shoot.”

  “Two, Four, after her!” the leader said.

  I didn’t wait to see which cervid that meant. I just shoved off the hill and jumped aushing enough stamina into the motion that I practically flew across the ndscape.

  I heard hooves thundering after me. They were catg up, even with my head start.

  A gnce over my shoulder showed a cervid waving a staff in the air, a sort of almost transparent whip flig up and out above him. Then it shot forwards.

  My jump threw me sideways and around a tree, ohat I knew held a skeletal cervid in it.

  The whip-crack was like a rifle going off behind me, and the tree’s trunk exploded into a shower of splihat had me c my head.

  Any doubt I had that they hadn’t been holding back at the bridge fled.

  I jumped over the rock where Throat Ripper hid and backed up into it.

  gratutions! Through repeated as your Jumping skill has improved and is now eligible for rank up!Rank B costs two (2) Css Points

  “Not now,” I muttered to Mister Menu.

  Throat Ripper tilted his head at me.

  “e on out, girl, and we’ll only kill you slowly,” one of them said.

  Were they trying to sound like b-rated vilins?

  Throat Ripper made a noise deep in his bohat shook the air around him. It sunk into me, and soon I found myself having a hard time just breathing.

  Then he roared.

  You have heard the roar of a fearsome creature! Your soul is shaken.

  Throat Ripper grabbed onto the edge of the stone we were hiding behind, cws digging into the rock hard enough that little pieces of it rained down arouhen he leapt over the edge.

  I heard two screams, then one.

  The mud to the side exploded apart as a skeleton ran out of it and I heard another dropping from a tree.

  Soon there were no more screams.

  gratutions! You have killed Titan, (Wind Runner Level 12 / Wind Tear Level 4 ) and Rex, (Fming Lancer level 10)! Bonus Exp was granted for killing a person above your level! Due to not being the primary batant your reward is reduced!

  “No,” I whispered.

  The prompt, the accusation, disappeared.

  Bing Bong! gratutions, your amon Bun css has reached level 7!Stamina +5Flexibility +10You have gained: One Css Point

  “No,” I said. “Take it back? Please?” I begged to Mister Menu. I didn’t deserve a level, I didn’t deserve to get stronger.

  The level up prompt just floated there.

  Maybe I did deserve it.

  Maybe it was my nation. Absolute proof that I had dohe worst thing a person could do.

  Titan awo people that wouldn’t be going home. That wouldn’t be seeing their families. They wouldn’t spend any more time with their friends. Two people that I had killed, that I had takehing away from.

  I was having a bit of difficulty breathing. My heart couldn’t decide if it should be rag or seizing and I felt torn up, as if some huge monster was tugging me every which way.

  A o the side had me looking up.

  Throat Ripper didn’t have eyes, not really, but there was still radiating off of him.

  “A-Amaryllis,” I said. “We still o save her.”

  Throat Ripper opened his mouth. I looked away. There was too much blood there.

  I moved out from around the rock, eyes firmly shut. I didn’t want to see. I should have looked. I should have allowed the se to sear itself into my mind for the rest of my life.

  But in the end I was a coward.

  We moved past, Throat Ripper guiding me as I held onto one of the bony spikes on his armour.

  “Wh-when we arrive,” I began. “Let me talk. Please? There’s still a ce. We egotiate, or... or I apologize. At the very least? To their friends?”

  The skeletal dog didn’t seem to uand most of what I had said, but I think he khat I wao go ahead on my own again. We moved a little slower, with me setting the pad the skeletons moving in a wedge behind us.

  We were giving the cervid time to prepare, time to get ready to attack us as soon as we showed up. That was okay. It gave me time to breath too, to... bury what I had caused. Not very deep, but enough that I could fun for a little bit.

  Mom had always told me not to hide how I felt about the world, that I should always let my tears and my smiles run free.

  So, while we walked, I mourned for two men whose names I knew, but whose faces were still unknown to me, and would probably remain that way forever.

  And then we were he hill, and the time for sadness and such was over.