"Petch." Raven muttered under her breath when one of the men called out to his friends after clearly noticing Markus fat head behind the tree, she bit her lip fighting the urge to groan loudly at the man's lack of tact. Why had he even followed her, she had just wanted to take a curious peak at whatever was going on behind the tree, but no, he followed and now instead of returning to their trip home she was hiding in a tree and Markus was about to be faced with three not too friendly looking men.
Markus' order to her before he stepped out from behind the tree and into view caused her to close her eyes in annoyance, she so desperately wanted to tell him that if he'd just stayed where he had been everything would have been fine, but it was both too late and not the time. A nervous sting began in her chest as she watched the handsome squire, who she disliked, have a little exchange with the men. His plan was for her to escape while he took all of the attention and more likely, the beatings, another small spoke, this time she realised it was concern for her escort. He may have been little other than an annoyance to her since they'd met, but that didn't mean she wished for him to come to harm, let alone death.
Death. Her amber eyes widened slightly as she realised that this wasn't one of those situations where she could confidently stroll her way through safely, Markus was in danger, she was in danger and the chance of someone else coming to their rescue was minuscule at best, in fact they were more likely to attract even worse odds than to stumble upon better ones. She took a deep silent breath, 'okay, calm down Raven, there's only three of them and Markus is pretty massive and he's a squire, that's gotta count for something.' she thought to herself in an attempt to convince herself that they'd be fine, it helped some but not enough to eliminate the anxiety. One thing was for sure though, she wasn't going to flee like some damsel, no, the entire point of this trip was to prove that she was capable of looking after herself. Even with her determination to be independent, Raven couldn't help but wish her parents were here, they may have been in their late forties, but they were knights and were more than capable of handling such a threat.
Raven forced herself to ignore the inner turmoil she was experiencing and focus on the situation at hand, Markus was now talking with the three men, bow and arrow ready, that would at least be one less to deal with, although she hoped no one would have to die, but if need be, better them than herself and Markus. One of the men was speaking in a loud and annoyingly demanding tone, 'boy' he called Markus, a small smirk crossed Raven's face, he wouldn't like that, not at all. Then it was his turn to respond, which he did, playing the knight card as expected, unfortunately it seemed to have little to no effect on the men. "You out here alone, boy?" came the man's question and Raven's heart sped up in response before she realised that there was no way that Markus would give her up to the men, she may have just met him, but she knew that much at least. In fact, now that she thought about it, he had already expressed many good qualities, he seemed to be carrying himself with confidence even with the odds stacked against him, not to mention he was clearly willing to put himself in harm's way to protect her, something that should have annoyed her but instead she found herself respecting. Maybe Markus wasn't so bad after all.
The 'old man' poke that the handsome squire responded with made Raven bite her lip, even in the current situation she couldn't deny that his confidence and strong-will weren't attractive traits. The men were clearly growing in annoyance as well, especially when Markus turned his back on them and made his way back to his pack, the men following at a safe distance and passing right beneath Raven who had long since frozen on the spot. His glance did not go unnoticed, although it was discarded just as quickly as it had been registered, she refused to stand idly by if anything did happen.
The familiar and usually sweet sound of gold coins, a sound she'd never thought she would dread hearing, caused her to wince. Really? If there had been any chance of the situation being defused it was gone now, thanks to those accursed coins. The men seemed to perk up at the sound only confirming her suspicions, even with an arrow pointed directly at them, god they were stupid.
Markus responded with another tough sounding threat but the men were clearly too determined for the gold now, even Raven would have backed down if she knew there was a certainty that someone was going to get an arrow embedded in them, unfortunately these men didn't seem to have that much common sense. The men began testing the large squire, taking turns shifting and watching him change targets, three against one, even if the arrow put one down the other two would already be upon him before he could do much, Markus was a large man, but Raven doubted he was skilled enough to handle that kind of onslaught. It had become painfully obvious that she would have to participate in the coming battle.
The fools didn't even notice when, just as silently as she'd climbed up, Raven descended the tree, with their attention completely focused on the large and intimidating form of Markus she hardly had
to worry about them finding her out before she chose to make her presence known. Her mind was racing, sure she had some training, sure she was a capable fighter(in her mind at least) but she had never been in an actual battle, let alone one with armed men, so as calm and determined as she seemed on the outside, Raven was a ball of nerves on the inside as she inched slowly, carefully and quietly up to the men's backs.
She thought back on her many training sessions recalling something she'd been told several times, 'You're capable yes, but you're still no champion fighter. You're focus should be your agility, strike quick, yes, but most importantly, evade.' the words only made her heart beat faster as the adrenaline began to pump. It was time. Not daring to look at Markus, not wanting to see the dread his face was most probably expressing, Raven snuck up behind the left most man, one of the sword wielders, he would be her target.
Mustering all the courage she could, Raven finally made her surprise attack, her current priority being to disarm the man in order to level the playing field. Her leg shot out striking the back of the man's knee followed immediately by a rough and hard pull on the man's collar sending stumbling back a step or two until inevitably landing roughly on the ground with a grunt. She wasted no time in darting towards the downed man and kicking his wrist as hard as she could causing the man to release his hold on the blade with a loud scream. Two for Markus, one for her, her plan seemed sound, at least in theory. |
