“Proceed!” City guard shouted and the merchant caravan that was in the line before Lana and Leo slowly entered the city after the wagons were checked and the toll was payed.
Lana was not the only lone hunter and didn’t look out of place when she walked up to the table the city officials sat at to pay the tax. The sky was already getting dark and the guards were tired, therefore after she put few coins on the table and Leo’s pelts were taken a look at, the two were allowed to proceed through the gate.
On both sides of it stood small groups of guards and casually chatted not paying much attention to the visitors and those who departed from the city. The atmosphere was calm and from what it looked like the inspection at the gates was mostly there to check for the illegal goods from going out or to make the collection of the tax look more justified.
Everything seemed to go well and it didn’t sound out of place when someone loudly announced the change of guard shifts.
Lana was at the gate and the new guard squad passed right by, when she heard someone say, “Hello, Lana! End of the road!”
Her eyes widened in shock recognizing the face of the woman in the city guard armor who spoke and reacting purely on instinct she managed to pull out her machete only to get hit on the head and neck with several swords at the same time. Her head didn’t roll off her shoulders though since the attackers made sure she was struck by the flat sides of their swords, but she did pass out on the spot with a bloodied face.
It all happened in an instant and Leo, just like the rest of the people in the both lines didn’t managed to react when a loud shout made everyone in both lines freeze.
“Nobody moves! Kill anyone who dares to even breathe!” One of the seemingly regular guards shouted, but then turned to the person who spoke to Lana earlier and asked, “Are you sure it’s her?”
“Hahaha! Definitely!” The woman laughed and kicked Lana’s unconscious body in delight, “I’d recognize the bitch from a mile away. Watch out for the rest – they usually infiltrate a city in group of four or five. Especially keep an eye out for her sister – she’s a slim and blonde blue-eyed girl and doesn’t look dangerous, but her speed is second to none. Sooner or later we’ll catch the others, but she’s the one we need to kill the most since her job is to deliver the report to the Southern queen in case the rest fail.”
“Excuse me!” A merchant lady leading a larger group that was next in the line after Lana politely bowed towards the two and said with a smile, “May I ask …”
But the next moment she lifelessly dropped to the ground.
“No, You may not!” The first guard angrily shouted already cleaning her bloodied sword against the merchant’s robe, “As I said – nobody moves!”
‘This is so f*cking scary! They’re nuts!’ Leo was was frozen stiff from fear.
Even when he first met the mutated cat he wasn’t as afraid as he was now, surrounded by these crazed women. But despite that he still registered what the two spoke about. No wonder Lana got recognized – someone who knew her and her squad well was after them. And the two women had to be incredibly strong for them to be confident to take her on.
Unfortunately for the empress’s forces a thorough search didn’t net any results. It was already dusk when the last person in the line was partially stripped for a detailed inspection and their goods checked, the guards had no other choice but to let the people in both lines go on their way.
Because the search lasted quite a while it inevitably caused a slight commotion since most of those who wanted to leave the city earlier decided to return for the night and leave only the next morning and those who arrived tried to rush inside to secure a better lodging.
Already when the people were searched, Leo pretended to be a part of male-slave group belonging to the stupid merchant who got killed for daring to ask a question, but when everyone began to move again, he rushed forward with a shout ‘master, don’t leave me behind!’ and mixed in the chaotic stream of people who entered the city.
There were quite a few panicked male-slaves like him and his actions weren’t suspicious whatsoever. His luck lie in the fact that earlier the two experts were fully focusing on Lana, probably because of the danger she posed and didn’t pay any heed to the nearby slaves – in their eyes the slaves were not people anyway. When she was knocked unconscious, everyone immediately began to search for her squad members and not a male-slave, thus providing Leo with a chance to disappear in the crowd.
His heart beating wildly, Leo walked through the streets of Kinta, pretending to be a part of one group and soon switching to another. His mind was a complete mess, not being able to figure out the next step because he knew him regaining freedom was an illusion that was bound to be shattered the moment anyone guessed he didn’t have a master.
All he had at the moment was the water bottle hanging at the rope that filled the role of the belt and the large stack of pelts he had been carrying for the past days. And there was not much he could do with either. He really needed a plan and urgently at that, but the final words of the guard leader at the gate still lingered in his ears.
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“So she came alone after all …” She said to the person who recognized Lana, “It’s fine! We’ll use her to flush the rest out. If their group is as you said, they won’t stand her being humiliated or getting executed.”
It obviously has been a trap and Lana was about to be used as a bait in another one. Leo didn’t know if the rest were already in the city or were only about to arrive, but he knew the girls wouldn’t tolerate watching their leader getting killed. The question was whether he was willing or able to do anything to assist them.
When the sun finally set the city was covered in darkness in an instant and soon only torches carried by guards and the few ones illuminating marketplaces were the only sources of light left.
Leo didn’t have anywhere to go and the stone buildings on both sides of the streets looked all the same thus in order to not get lost or caught he followed the last large male-slave group belonging to few merchants who entered the city after him. They settled down in one of the marketplaces and while few tired guards were left to keep an eye on the slaves, merchants went to a nearby inn to finally spend a night sleeping comfortably in beds.
The male-slaves were ordered to rest at one corner of the market square, but fortunately they were too excited about the earlier events and, while Leo pretended to be asleep, everyone passionately discussed the topic of an enemy of the empire getting caught right in front of their eyes. Even their guards did the same, although they chatted with each other and not the slaves, but at least no one noticed the young male-slave who didn’t belong to their group.
When the city began to wake up and merchants one after another showed up at the marketplace well rested and slightly hangover after drinking to their heart’s content last night, Leo woke up being in a slight daze. After everything that happened, probably because of the amount of stress, his mind switched off and allowed the boy to soundly sleep until the streets were already busy.
“Sorry, master! Coming!” He shouted not too loud to not seem out of place and after grabbing his bundle of pelts rushed towards the other side of the market square. There, continuing the last night’s charade, he pretended to be a part of different groups of people and until noon strolled the streets of Kinta.
Truth to be said the city wasn’t like anything he had seen before. It was built on and in the mountain and a breathtaking view awaited everyone as long as a building didn’t block the southern side since the northern consisted of a mountain wall that continued to stretch up in the sky.
It was a cloudy morning, but they were so high up, the clouds were gathered a hundred yards or so below, creating an image of a puffy white carpet stretching to the horizon. The feeling Leo got was not as otherworldly compared to the floating islands in the Golden city, but the view was still incredible.
Unfortunately he couldn’t enjoy the sights, because he had a more pressing problem to solve – what the hell was he supposed to do now?
He couldn’t run around the city like this forever not only because he was already starving. The people one after another began to notice him and while his signature ‘Master! Sorry, I’m coming!’ worked for now, sooner or later someone would put him in chains and enslave for real. He finally understood why everyone in their group was so weary of the Kinta’s geographical location – there was simply no way to escape! No wonder Lana was caught in the trap last night even with how powerful she was.
Wrecking his brains didn’t lead to anything, but at least gossip he overheard on the streets was helpful. Not only Leo overheard details of the yesterday’s arrest that seemed to be spread on purpose by the empire’s forces. He also learned the perpetrator was about to get publicly whipped and maybe even executed on the main square of the city, right in front of the warlord’s keep.
Without a second thought Leo followed a group of locals who went there intending to enjoy the event. According to them ‘finally something interesting happened in this boring city’ and apparently the crowd that was already gathered fully agreed with them.
Even though Leo arrived early, the only spot he could stay unnoticed at was at the very far end of the square and behind the many tall women in the crowd he couldn’t see anything. Fortunately his miserable appearance made it seem like he was waiting until his master had fully enjoyed the show thus not causing the squad of guards that stopped right next to him have any suspicion.
The air was rather chill this high up the mountain, but at the same time for some reason the sun felt scorching hot. Despite that the crowd patiently waited until noon when Lana was finally brought out and tied to two poles at a small stage that was previously erected.
Finally Leo could see one of his masters, although only partially and from a great distance, but the sight was rather pitiful. Lana’s hunter gear was torn off leaving only a poor cloth covering her private parts. Her muscular body was covered in bruises and blood, but despite that she stood tall and proudly looked at the crowd while many in the first rows involuntarily took a step back after meeting her eyes.
The local warlord, Vaiva Shaulis showed up not long after and held a touching speech about the empire’s courageous people capturing the dangerous criminal who had slaughtered both children and elderly. In the end she sentenced ‘the cruel Lana Rimkus from the south’ to three hundred lashes, but for the execution she was to be transported to the capital.
The crowd gasped hearing the verdict – even twenty lashes could kill or permanently cripple a person, but this one was about to get three hundred. The fact that they were about to split the punishment in three parts and lash her hundred times a day for three days straight made it even worse.
Leo wasn’t the smartest person in the city, but immediately guessed what the warlord’s intentions were. Punishing Lana like this was not only humiliating – after the first lashing she would be disabled and there was no chance for her to ever escape. That would only leave her with one hope – her squad would come to the rescue.
To provoke them even further she would be punished for several days under the stares of a ridiculing crowd, but even if by a miraculous chance she survived and was actually transported to the capital, the convoy would become the next trap for the rest of the girls.
The scheme was extremely simple and completely transparent, but left Lana’s squad without a choice. Well, there were two choices – either try to spring her free in the city, which was a complete madness, or during the transportation, but there was no guarantee she would be alive and even if she was – most likely she would be permanently crippled.
There was only one oversight in this plan. Lana’s squad had never stepped in Kinta’s mountainous region and at this point already waited for her far in the south east. The only cavalry that could come to her rescue was the puny male-slave who stood at the end of the square, staring in disbelief at Lana’s burly body getting lashed over and over.
The sounds of a whip hitting a piece of meat filled the square while the crowd fell dead silent. The tenacity of this woman made many think the warlord might’ve been right to call her a monster, but even monsters sooner or later had to fall.
When the executioners switched for the second time after running out of breath, Lana finally fainted. She was woken up a moment later though, but during the whole ordeal she didn’t let out a single sound. Leo wondered why she didn’t follow the example of his opponents when they attacked the empire’s forces around the previous cities – biting off tongue and dying seemed a much smarter choice compared to her stubbornly standing tall as if she was an immortal.