He was sweating profusely, running away from the beasts that have invaded his home. It’s been already half an hour they have been chasing him for, he was slowly losing strength. He won’t be able to keep running for long.
They killed everything, the dogs, cows, and in the end killed his mother and sister right in front of him. Forcing him to watch as they had their way with them and then just slit their throats. If not for Little White, he would probably die next and in the end they killed even him.
He wanted to give up. To just lay on the ground and let them kill him, he didn’t have anyone left in this world. Nothing to care for. Why struggle so much for no reason. He could just die and meet them in the afterlife.
He was tired, exhausted, his mind telling him that maybe death was not that bad of an option. But in the end he couldn’t do it. In his head the words of his father echoing through time.
“A real man never gives up no matter how the world tries to break you, you must always stand up and face it with a smile on your face."
“Remember a man is not weak because he run away, but because he gave up. As long as you never give up in the pursuit of your beliefs, you will always be strong.” Remembering all that he could not give up. Because as a man his duty now was to enact Vengeance on the people who took his family from him, but not now.
He was too weak, he would bide his time and come for them when they least expected him. If he managed to survive what was to come soon.
He couldn’t keep going like this, there was no escape in the way he was going, only an open field with nowhere to hide. But he couldn’t go anywhere else. They had an Apprentice Tracker with them, there is no escaping that. Not with his Skills. All he could do was run and hope he had enough strength to get to the village.
The Stranglers were becoming brazen as of late, but they wouldn’t just rush into a fortified town right onto the guards’ spears. He had hope, all he had to do is to hold on until the town.
Slowly his breaths started coming out rugged, his lungs taking less and less air with every breath. His legs growing weaker with every step. Suddenly a light blinded him, and he run out of the cover of the forest.
That’s when he saw it. The town. It was so close, just a little bit more and he would be safe. He started hearing shouts from behind, it seems the bandits were slowly catching up with him.
Suddenly his left leg gave out and he fell onto the ground. He looked down and he saw an arrow protruding from his thigh. He looked back just in time to see a bandit on the edge of the tree line nocking a second arrow ready to finish the kid, or at least make sure he doesn't run away any further. Only then the pain shot out through his leg. Two other bandits slowly walking over, seeing the boy on the ground they started jeering at him.
“Haha, nice shot. What now little rabbit? Not so hoppy now are you huh? Why don’t you just give up and go see your family, I am sure they are already missing you hahahaHAHA, maybe the little one could’ve lived longer if she didn’t struggle that much HAHAHA, made my hand slip, and she was such a good screamer too. Ah.”
Something boiled in Donny, he was never this furious and so powerless at the same time, he was about to stake it all and just throw himself at the bandit in a suicidal attempt at taking at least one of those beast with him to the grave.
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When out of nowhere the boy saw a shadow step behind the archer without a sound with even the other two bandits none the wiser, still walking over without a care in the world. Not knowing that their companion is about to die right behind their backs.
The shadow reached for the archers’ mouth at the same time slicing his throat with a dagger, a spray of blood pumped out of the guys throat making the boy widen his eyes.
The archer tried to scream with his last breath, but all the air escaped through his windpipe.
The bandits saw the boy widen his eyes but thankfully they thought the boy was just looking at their archer like that, as he was already wounded once by him. They even smirked at Donny gloating at his fear. Then the shadow gently put the dying archer on the ground, while making his way to the two other bandits.
One was walking a little slower, clearly deferential of the bigger bandit in front. It was as if fate was working on the side of the shadowy figure. He crept up on the bandit in the back, slowly drawing closer, his steps never making a single sound. He walked low putting himself behind the bandit in the back, hiding his body in the latter's shadow. he grabbed the man's mouth and sliced his throat.
Unfortunately, this time the target was too close to the leading bandit and the leader seemed to have heard something because he momentarily stopped mocking the boy and turned to his friend only to see him frothing from the mouth and gargling his last sounds.
Before the leader was able to react the assassin threw a dagger right at his face, only for the bandit to cover himself at the last moment.
The dagger pierced through his arm with no resistance, blood getting onto his right eye obscuring his vision. Enraged the bandit took a mighty swing at the killer with his sword wanting to cut the bastard in two.
“I will fuck you up you maggot, nobody messes with the Stranglers”. But the figure nimbly ducked under his arm blurring slightly as he went and simultaneously drawing two new daggers slashing one at the nape of his opponents’ neck while the other pierced towards his right kidney.
The cut to the neck was too shallow and only drew a couple drops blood, but when the leather cuirass worn by the shadowy figure’s enemy was about to stop the damage, the dagger almost imperceptibly glowed and sped up, easily piercing through the leather and into the body of the thug.
“Guh” an almost inaudible groan escaped the Strangler's throat as his whole body seized up in a moment as if paralyzed. He opened his mouth wanting to scream, say something, maybe beg for mercy, but no sound came out.
His eyes popping out staring into his killers’ eyes terrified of what was coming. What he saw were the eyes of a murderer, cold unfeeling ice blue eyes, as if taking a life was no different than slaughtering a pig. That’s what he was in his eyes, a pig. A dagger flew across his throat and he fell to the ground his eyes no longer able to see anything, a last bit of air escaping through the hole in the man's windpipe.
Mark collected his knifes, carefully cleaned them with a scrap from the bandit’s shirt and then hid them into their respective sheaths, once again looking like a harmless civilian with but a single knife to protect him from the outside world, with not a single speck of blood on his person. Slowly he walked over to the wounded boy and looking at the wound said calmly
“You will be fine kid, the arrow missed all the major blood vessels, so it’s mostly a flesh wound. With proper care should be fine in two to three weeks. Maybe faster if there is someone actually qualified in this place.”
While the boy was looking at the man listening to his analysis Mark suddenly broke the arrow and pulled it free from the boy’s leg. Shocked the boy took a while to realize what has happened and screamed in pain just when Mark put a clean rag to the wound and bound it with a short bit of rope. He said:
“Come on we gotta go to your house, deal with the bodies, then we will go to Pharia, you will need some rest, early in the morning we will go to a friend of mine in the guard, we have to report this and it will be less troublesome if we go to Ralph” while muttering under his nose "at least I hope so, I hate working with the police"
Mark helped the boy up and threw his left arm over his back. Slowly they made their way back to the farm in the forest. It was time to deal with the aftermath of this mess.