Group of men, over thirty of them, standing around the trap hole almost as large as a trench. circling the area, they found their captured victims were not their target. They were expecting Arete, their main bounty but they captured Agave and Matea instead. Refuse to let their hard work be wasted and seeing Agave’s shiny golden thyrsus, they decided to rob her.

“Yeah! Let’s take their belongings and that golden thyrsus!”

“Oh, yeah? You guys want a piece of my thyrsus?” Agave grabbed her thyrsus and turned the handle. The mechanism caused the pines on the thyrsus’s head to open up, and the sharp edges of the pines made it look like a mace. The thyrsus, which was supposed to be a festival dancing wand, had turned into a sharp weapon.

“Hehe…” a smirk appeared on Agave’s face. “You guys never heard about the Maenad?”

“Huh? Maenad? The raving one?”

She then pushed the mechanical handle, and the pines fired out with metal strings attached to it. The blades hit a tree and stuck on it, she then pulled the handle again, the wires retracted and pulled her out of the trap hole in seconds.

She pulled the thyrsus again, and the blades released from the tree trunk. The flying blades and metal strings struck and cut the hunters when it retracted back to Agave’s thyrsus. The men were shocked because they had never seen such a weapon before in their life. The metal strings are sharp and leave a cut on their body.

While Agave was out of the trap hole, Matea tried to use her spear to climb up the hole, by stabbing the spear to the ground wall, using it as a climbing tool. Agave dropped the fillet knife to her, using the knife as the second piton, which made it easier to climb up.

“Bounty hunters never rob! Who are you!” Agave shouted.

A man attacked Agave with his machete, she hit him with the Thyrsus, the pines stuck on the man’s flesh when he backed off. But the metal strings attached to the pines cut his body, slicing him through his rib cage.

“I’m not in the mood now, and I haven’t had a proper dinner yet!” she shouted, and kicked the man away from her.

“Ahhh! That’s insane!!!” The other men saw the gruesome scene of his fellow peer being cut into pieces alive.

“The… the Maenad of Dionysus?!”

“You’re right! I’ll tear all of you into pieces if you dare to offend me!”

The men moved back, the leader’s expression turned serious. He raised his hand, and gestured with a hand signal. They suddenly jumped towards Agave and attacked her with their long flails. The flail was not aimed at her but they aimed at her thyrsus. Agave noticed about their move, she attempted to dodge them to avoid their large flail from hitting her thyrsus. She was caught off guard, as when she avoided the flail, another man waved his machete towards her head.

Matea successfully climbed out of the trap hole, she dashed towards the attacker with the spear and blocked the machete that was about to hit Agave. The leader ordered the arrows, and another group of men pulled out their swords and attacked them. Matea noticed their movement and attack strategy, they were well trained combatants, not some loose bounty hunters. While trying to dodge the arrows, they found themselves being surrounded by the hunters. Two men held long metal chains running around them to capture them and tied them up on their waist.

“That’s a Syracusian spear and their hoplite armor! Kill both of them!” The leader shouted, seeing Matea’s spear and outfit.

“Dug down!” Agave shouted and she pushed Matea lower, then she triggered her thyrsus to fire the pines. Learned from their previous encounter with the weapon, the men immediately dug down to avoid the flying pines and wires.

“Stay away, she will retract it and the wires are sharp!”

“Damn, they are smart!” Agave had to trigger the retract mechanism to pull back the pines. The men avoided the wires, and they immediately wielded their swords towards them. While Agave and Matea were tied up, Matea was relatively taller, she had to lift up Agave in order to move and dodge the swords. She noticed one of the swordsmen was with a fire torch. She lifted Agave toward that person.

“What are you doing!?” Agave shouted at her.

“Trigger at their torch!” Matea replied.

Matea kicked the surrounding leaves on the ground while Agave triggered her thyrsus, the flying metal pines with the impact blew the leaves towards the torch and ignited the leaves. The burning leaves flew all over the surrounding area. Some men caught the spark, thinking it did very little harm as those were just leaves. But they soon realised the more they tried to put off the fire, the more it burned.

“What’s on those leaves?” Agave puzzled on the ignited leaves. Those leaves were still fresh and it seems strange that they were ignited without much smoke. She noticed some strange scent though.

Seeing some of his men getting burnt alive, the leader panicked. He tried to run away, but a spear stabbed right through his thigh, and he fell.

“Who are you? Who sent you?” A cloaked person appeared in front of him. He saw the blonde hair and green eyes under the cloak. His expression turned, from panic to a sad smile. He did not answer, but pulled out a dagger, stabbed it on his own chest.

Arete removed her cloak. When Agave saw her, she was angry.

“You! You knew both of you were targeted! And you send us out on purpose as their bait?!”

“Shut up!” Arete stabbed her spear through the chain that tied them up, and twisted it to break the weak link of the chain, freeing the two of them. Arete was worried about them as she assumed that Agave might not be able to defend herself. Although she sent Matea to be with her, there was still something she worried about. As she had confirmed that Agave was not as weak as she thought. With that thyrsus on her hand, she might be a useful member.

“Get the horses up from the trap hole! We need to leave before others find us out.”

They pulled out the trapped horses and left the place immediately.

Who are those men? They killed themselves when captured! They are not bounty hunters! They must be trained assassins!

To be continued…