Her mind worked quickly and her eyes darted across the items in her carriage. Although she couldn’t prove it, that uncanny feeling was enough to provoke Sol into dismissing more common plans. As it stood, her carriage couldn’t stop or the enemy would catch up to her.

Continuing the chase was unlikely to be effective as well. Even now, Sol could glance behind her and see that distant dust growing larger. It appeared there was no way to outrun the enemy either. Despite her status as Duke Reviarra’s daughter, Sol was traveling light with only a few changes of clothes and the bare necessities for camping. The equipment and her luggage weren’t enough to block the trail, nor heavy enough to dramatically boost their pace if abandoned.

If she couldn’t out run them and her group was incapable of defeating them, Sol made her decision. Her hands worked at an accelerated pace drawing strings from the carriage cushions. Moments later, the bell to signal her guards rang out. Despite their scattered formation, a representative was always nearby the carriage in rotation. The man had already been expecting the call after the inexplicable scene earlier.

He could hardly trust his eyes after seeing Lady Reviarra’s maid leap from the carriage. As she had gestured to them immediately after, the guards remained alert, but took no extra steps. Now with a bell to call them, their representative maneuvered his horse to the side of the carriage. He had expected the Lady to slide the window open but was flabbergasted when the carriage door swung open once more.

His mind went blank after seeing the frail lady standing at the edge of the door. Held between her arms were two large cushions withs clothing slipped over them. Sol waved her hand to bring the man back to his senses. She knew there was little time left, so she had to deliver her plan as soon as possible.

“Get your leader over here now!”

Her tone was assertive and left no room for argument. The man capitulated and signaled the team leader. In their heightened state, the man only took seconds to respond. The large knight arrived at the side of the carriage no less confused than his subordinate. Sol never gave the poor man a chance to speak before she issued orders.

“Our group is being hunted by someone. Maid Ann went to buy us time, however there was probably too many for her to stop. Our group needs to split up and divide the enemy if we want a chance to survive this.”

Despite the absurd information dropped on the leader. He only glanced behind into the distance to see the billowing dust, evidence of hurried horses. His brows furrowed before returning to the little girl. There were many rumors floating around about this little girl. Prodigy, monster, cripple, demon, misjudged, and more.

As a leader of one of the Reviarra Household’s Knight squadrons, the man kept his opinion of the lady withheld. If he had to be honest though, he truly admired this young lady. Others might think Duke Reviarra controlled Iridescent and allowed the girl to be the business head, but he was good friends with Sir Dirk.

Not a day had gone by since the man was placed under Lady Reviarra’s entourage that his friend hadn’t bragged about this genius girl. Despite having never seen it himself, he believed in Sir Dirk’s assessment.That alone was enough for the leader to take Sol’s words seriously. Judging by her tone and actions, the Lady had a plan already.

He nodded his head and signaled for his group to pull their scattered patrol in tighter. After his gaze shifted back to Sol, he found her face mixed with relief and disbelief. Swirling emotions be damned, Sol broke from the unexpected obedience and summarized their situation. The man’s face became more stern as he listened.

“...We need to divide our group. Have two teams break off while carrying these. We’ll leave another team with the carriage to continue down the main trail. Pick whoever has the best combat strength and is familiar with fighting one against many. They’ll protect me.”

Sol tossed the two bundles to the Knight who quickly relayed her orders. Two teams broke off immediately under Sol’s pitying eyes. She knew the chances of survival for the men were low given the likely skill of the men chasing them, however she could only do so much. Her situation wasn’t much better. Sol took a final look into the carriage to see if anything else was needed before leaping off the carriage into the arms of one very surprised Knight leader.

“My Lady?!”

The well trained horse didn’t even bat an eye at the slight addition of weight. Rather, the Knight atop it was flustered. There were many core rules for being a Knight. One of the more important was to respect the boundaries of their master. Having this little girl leap into his arms, the man could only smile wryly and put the courtesies to the back of his mind. Clearly, his master understood the severity of the situation. Why would he slow them down? It’s rare to have such a cooperative noble.

Using his foot, the leader kicked the carriage door shut before issuing his last orders to the group. The remaining team divided once more with the Leader and two other men grouped up. They remained beside the carriage until a particularly flat and hard segment of land reached them. The two broke apart in that exact moment leaving the carriage to dash down the original trail and Sol with her group to dash into the side trail.

Leaves ripped into Sol’s clothing despite the Knights best efforts to shield her. The trail they selected appeared to be a natural trail carved by deer and similar animals. It was anything but ready for a team of horses to rush through it.Their speed dropped dramatically forcing Sol to divide the team once more.

“Leader, stay with me. Hand the reins over to your men and have them continue. We’re going to jump off.”

“Lady Reviarra, at this point we’d lose our advantage if we lose our horse.”

“What’s your name, Sir Knight?”

Despite the random question, he responded in kind.

“Leory.”

“Very well then, Sir Leory… This trail is too narrow for our horse, much less a team of them. Should any scouts tracking beside the road catch the damage we’ve caused to the trail, then these horses will only create a trail for our enemies. Rather than lure the men to us, we should split once more and use the obvious trail as a distractor.”

“Are you certain? This is Dominatic Forest. Without horses, we’ll have to deal with the forest predators until help arrives.”

Despite his clever words, Sol knew what Leory was hinting at. Should they lose the horse, Sol, a noble born daughter with a weak constitution, would be stranded in a forest for potentially weeks with a man beside her. Even if her body could survive, her reputation would be destroyed. Was that reputation worth more than her life? Few female nobles would claim otherwise.

Despite that, Sol understood the severity of the situation. Well, that and there was a cross dressing maid she felt would be able to find her in a relatively short time. She nodded her head at the Knight who held a complex look. Sir Leory issued his orders to the two Knights beside him before taking Sol into his arms. He kept his eyes sharp and waited until a particular patch of land showed itself.

The moment an opening in the branches and bushes appeared, Leory leapt from his horse’s back and cleared the top of the bushes. His hand reached to a branch while holding poor Sol as luggage in the other. The jolting movement nearly drove Sol sick, however the seriousness of the situation kept her in check.

The sounds of pounding dirt and scattering bushes quickly escaped into the distance. Sir Leory released his hand and the two dropped to the ground with a roll. Despite the rather crude method of handling Sol, Sir Leory made sure to protect the girl as much as possible during the roll.

The two recovered themselves and hastened away from the side trail. As it stood now, their goal was to stall for time and wait for rescue. Specifically, Sol was praying An would have a method to track her. The man always could find her despite her efforts in Arcgate.

The cross dressing An knew nothing of Sol’s situation as he continued combat with the men left behind. There were already a dozen or so heads littered across the trail. Despite being surrounded by nearly two dozen more men, An kept himself calm and aware. Their fight lasted for nearly 10 minutes now and while he might not have any issues killing these men, the cost of it continued to rise.

The team the leader sent off had long since vanished from his sight. An wasn’t sure Sol could defend herself, so the pressure on his mind started creeping further into a fear rather than a worry. Just as that worry was about to become a distraction, he felt the soul mark left on Sol branch off to the East. Had she left the trail? An had some guesses, however his attention focused once more on the men before him.

If it wasn’t for the fact these men somehow knew his original form and had long prepared means to subdue him had he transformed, they would have been cleaned up long ago. An’s pupils compressed into vertical slits and his nails extended. Energy rushed through his humanoid body and his figure vanished from his spot.

Screams lashed out against the bandits’ ears as another companion was decapitated. The leader remained calm despite his blanched face. It was clear he only remained behind on this suicide mission to keep his men from running away and letting the beast go.