Chapter 8

"We have a problem. It appears that killing their own men doesn't seem to be a problem for whoever took the wagon. I'm kind of surprised they even left Gem and Haley breathing," said Ariel as she got up from kneeling over the body of the second man they found today.

It looked as if someone had strangled him, but Ariel was hard pressed to figure out why, as they had no defensive wounds on them anywhere. It meant the man was in some position where he couldn't fight back.

They lost a day due to dealing with the ambush and then later picking up the trail again. It was obvious they were expected to have died in the ambush as the trail wasn't that hard to follow. Well for Ariel that was. The others still had a hard time seeing what she saw.

But Ariel was also bothered that once they were back on the right track, with-in the day they had found yet another body so close to the first one on the trail just outside the town.

It was like whoever took the wagon didn't care that they left them there. They weren't on a beaten path, but someone would eventually stumble across them. The men had been dead for at least two days. So they were killed about the time the wagon was taken and she was at a lost to figure out why. Why kill the men helping you she wondered.

She expected that because of what they were finding the wagon would be well past the last town they had visited, and so far she hadn't been disappointed with that assumption. The only thing that pissed her off was that they had to move so slow that it took them two days to get to this point

"Well they managed to elude us because they had surprise on their side, used someone else to do their dirty work and ambush us, and we have to move slower because we have to confirm where they are going. Let's hurry up and get back on the trail," said Beth.

She was still upset that this happened on her watch. She hoped to have found them by now. The longer it took the more likely it would be near impossible to track them down.

As Ariel remounted they took off and headed northwest of the town of Mercerville that they had entered and then left earlier.

When they reached the town no one seemed to know anything. And when they asked if there were any bandits who were causing problems everyone seemed to clam up.

Beth cursed herself for being so mixed up about Ayden that she missed this the first time they passed through. Something like people avoiding her eyes and talking quietly was something to pay attention whenever it happened. While she still wanted him so desperately as hers exclusively, she needed to get back to being a professional first.

But even as she thought about her failure, she still casually looked over at Ayden's profile as he still attempted to use magic to see if he could get their trail. He had nothing to work with, but he kept trying anyway.

Seeing him still here with her gave her a secret thrill because he insisted on coming with them instead of staying behind with Maria. He could have turned around at the first town, he didn't and he stayed close to her and that made her feel better.

She just hoped it was because he wasn't to the point where Maria was already important to him. But as she looked at him she knew she would do whatever it took to make him hers. She messed up as a thirteen season old kid and she wouldn't make the same mistakes ever again.

Since she just recently turned eighteen seasons last month, and Ariel was due to be that next month, she realized that Ayden would start to have women trying really hard for him before long so they could settle down since he would be nineteen shortly. She wouldn't let that ever happen.

As they headed even further outside the city they soon found the trail in the thick forest again that started for abandoned farm house way off in the distance just outside of the deep forest. As they slowly approached it something bothered them all.

Again Ariel raised her hand like she did last time, but this time before she could do anything else Haley screamed out "Off the horses! MOVE!" and threw herself from her horse just an arrow whistled through the air where she was once sitting.

As they scrambled into the tree's as a few arrows rained through the air they realized they had just rode into another ambush.

But this time it was far more elaborate and so much better disguised that they almost didn't see it. Something caught Haley's eye right before the arrows came out of the trees. It was almost like someone flashed her with something right in the eyes.

Once in the trees the girls again melted into the forest leaving Ayden and Michael behind. The boys this time didn't wait until they disappeared but immediately started to use their magic to give them cover and to find out where they were being attacked.

About ten men seemed to come out of nowhere.

Ayden and Michael created staffs and started fighting with them.

With their skill and fighting style they easily held their own and they were able to put down the men fighting with them pretty quickly between their staff usage and spells. It was so fast that they both wondered if the men had any real training or just were handed weapons and pointed their direction.

Some of them they froze to the ground to limit the number coming directly at them and on others they used lighting from their staffs as they struck them, but soon it was the two of them standing over the prone bodies of the men in the forest with them.

As they were fighting they were sure they could hear the ring of weapons and from time to time and could feel a large magical discharge, most likely from Gem, go off as well.

But all of this happened while they were trying to concentrate on getting this over as quick as possible, and so none of the men on the ground before them really stood a chance.

Haley, as she separated from the group, easily got behind the men who were lurking in the tree line in the direction she was headed. They were eager for a quick kill and kept looking at where she entered the trees for her to reappear and not above them, where she came down in their midst.

She landed in the mist of them, and as she did, she was already pulling her sword free of its scabbard.

The battle was over so quickly that most didn't even have defensive wounds.

As Haley dropped to the ground she had landed just to the front of about ten men and two were killed in under a second from a single strike by her.

Before she had ever touched the ground she had already swung her weapon in a wide arc killing the first two men by slashing deeply into their throats while still in the air catching them completely by surprise.

But once she hit the ground, she straightened and angled her body looking directly down, almost to the point where it looked as if she was trying to kissing the ground because she was just inches from it, right before Haley's head snapped up to look at the men and she explosively launched herself forward using just her legs and the forward momentum of gravity and her fall to assist her movements.

Once she did this, it greatly increased her speed.

It was so much that she shot past the various surviving men as they vainly tried to swing at her, but they all clearly missed and swung at where she "used" to be as she quickly flew past. While she was moving she was still attacking and was easily able to slash their stomachs, backs, and their exposed necks.

At one point she leaped onto the back of one man as he was falling to push off and use him for extra speed, in which she used that to kill another, who was still looking on in shock at what she was doing.

She then quickly landed, stood up straight, and regained her balance once she passed through the group, and then she quickly turned and back flipped before the survivors could even turn to face her, and was easily back in front of the two surviving men as they turned to look at where she should have been.

Her first pass when she dropped to the ground had taken less than two seconds in total and took out six men.

As she returned to strike again she easily stepped into the two remaining terrified men and knocked their swords aside as she single strike killed the men without a second thought.

She worked hard to keep these abilities from being seem by the others as she didn't want to advertise her real strength. Most that saw what she could really do never were able to tell anyone what she did.

Once finished, Haley started out looking for where the other girls were fighting without a backwards glance behind her at the untold devastation she had just caused.

While Gem knew that she might be about a little better than average with a weapon, there was no way she was going to be able to take on twelve armed men unless they were complete novices with them. And to be truthful she really didn't want to ask them.

Since blue was her most powerful skill, as she entered the forest she immediately created a fake of herself, at the same time she quickly turned herself invisible. It was her favorite trick to use against multiple opponents.

In doing so she used the fake to draw the men's attention as she quickly entered their mist.

As the men started for her fake, she noticed that they seemed more intent on capturing her than killing her, probably planning to rape her at some point. She could see where most where trying to strike at her fake with the flat of their blades.

They were trying to cause the least amount of damage, but she kept the fake moving just out of their reach and they couldn't land a blow on it.

Gem then changed tactics.

She made the fake appear to fall on the blade of one of the men as he tried to strike it, and then let it appear to bleed profusely. As the men appeared to look down at the body in shock, she then made two more fakes that looked just like how she remembered her father and uncle to be, and used them to charge into the distracted men.

Once they were in the middle of the men, she then quickly overlaid those features of her fakes on each of the men in the group to make the men believe that the other men around them appeared to be her father and uncle.

It wasn't long until they all quickly killed each other and the fight was over.

One man was left standing and it wasn't too hard to dispatch him and move on to find out what the others were now doing.

He tried to slash around at nothing in fear not knowing where she was, as he figured it was magic being used on him as all of his friends returned to normal on their death, but she picked up a fallen sword while she was invisible and quickly dispatched him.

She started making a wide circle around where the boys were as well looking for any other surviving men who were attacking them.

The men facing Ariel and Beth also never stood a chance.

As the two of them charged the men in different areas separately, they did it without making a sound, as their twin swords barely flashed in the light as they cut men down quickly. They for some reasons always took their targets head on preferring that type of fight.

They both had a similar style of fighting that was of using one sword to sweep away their opponents blade even while the second sword was going in for the kill. None of the men could get their blades back into position before the girls quickly killed them.

Their quiet approach always unnerved whoever they were facing with their blades moving so quickly. The lack of emotion on their faces always made their targets fear them even more.

Their spinning and jumping, while using their legs to kick one target or sweep their legs from underneath them as they killed another, caused for a quick fight.

Once finished they also quickly made a sweep to see if any were left before they returned to where they left the horses.

Sitting very high in the trees a dark haired young man sat as he watched the various battles below him. He barely got the signal off with his mirror that saved them before they got killed. If the brown haired one hadn't been looking his way they would all be dead by now.

He had to move quickly and get away from the men he was with and climb as high in this tree as he could, and was now waiting until they moved on before he came down from the trees.

As he waited he noticed that of them all the brown haired woman might have had the nicest build from what he could see from the trees, she was also the most devastating in her attacks, and he didn't want to tempt fate that he might be able to convince her not to kill him before he told her he was the one who saved them all.

No matter how attractive he thought she was, she was far too cold and efficient for his taste anyway. He still found the black haired one the most appealing to him.

As the boys caught their breath for a second time, the girls came back out of the trees, but this time they were all covered in varying degrees of blood. It was apparent from the hands of Gem, where she fought with the last man, to forearms and chest of Ariel and Beth.

Haley was covered the worst, where she was even splattered on her face and back. Her fighting was the most vicious as she quickly killed so many men in hand to hand combat. She had found a couple more lurkers trying to join the fray.

Looking at the girls in shock at the amount of blood on them, Beth then said before they could speak, "They put up quite the fight. There had to have been about 30 of them in the surround forest. They definitely have the shipment here. These must have been the guards posted to keep others out."

As the slowly approached the farmhouse, they could see the wagon clearly from the overgrown road, and it was partially hidden in the barn of the farm house and two teams of horses, plus eight other ones, freely milling around the farm house and the barn.

Getting off their horses, and leaving them near the barn, they all slowly the approached the barn and found that the wagon no longer contained the shipment. They decided to move slowly up and investigate the farm house. They were looking for any more ambushes

As the approached the farm house the door swung open and a rather large and muscular man, who appeared to be a strange shade of blue, stumbled out of the house and fell down onto the ground.

He faced them but his face was a mask of pain as he garbled something out. They thought he might be trying to say "Help me" but with all the ambushes and traps to get here they weren't taking any chances.

Jackson gasped for awhile, trying desperately to say something, as they slowly approached, but eventually he stopped making noise. And his sightless eyes just stared at them as he lay unmoving. For all his careful planning he died a painful death.

After opening the crate he and his men thought to have a quick party with the contents thinking they could break up the shipment and still make a tidy profit. That proved to be a fatal mistake on his part.