When the crack of the gunshot came Caeileera took the glaive off her back. She saw that Aki reached for her swords rather than the gun. Good. The girl knew that it would be bad to use fire here.

Suddenly, Lilyth screamed. She noticed that their leader’s left arm was hanging loosely by her side, while she was pressing her right on the shoulder. Caei wanted to rush over to her but Lilyth stopped her with a gesture of the “hanging” arm. She just hoped the slimeling knew what she was doing. Her decisions that day have been… questionable.

Then, suddenly, a deep angry voice came from behind one of the bushes.

‘Light damn you, Tarvil. I told you not to hurt any of them.’

There was rustling of leaves from around them mixed with cracks of broken twigs. Slowly seven men emerged from the cover of trees and bushes and surrounded them. Most of them wore ragged clothes and carried dented swords and spears. One, a wiry malnourished-looking young man with dirty scraggly orange hair and a weedpatch of a beard was busy reloading a simple flintlock pistol. There was a cutlass at his side.

That must be Tarvil, she decided.

Next to Tarvil stood a muscular man with a shaved head, carrying a long sword. They appeared to be the “honour” guard for the man she assumed to be their leader. He was actually a semi-imposing figure and the only one who had properly maintained equipment: a blue brigantine and steel helmet and an arming sword-and-shield combo. There was a demonic red mask painted on the latter which matched the one the man wore. Caeileera could have been biased but it had nothing on the ones Sanguine had. It was clearly just a man with long fangs, slanted eyes and a pair of wooden horns. Aki looked more terrifying than this, and she was an innocent-looking cute girl.

‘I’m sorry for my man there,’ the Red Mask said. ‘This was meant to just be a warning shot. Don’t worry we will pay for the healing potion. Tarvil will be happy to pay it from his share, right Tarvil?’

‘Y-yes,’ the boy stammered out. ‘S-sorry, boss.’

‘See, M'Lady? No harm, no foul. So ask your companions to lower your weapons and no more healing potions will be necessary.

Tarvil couldn't believe his rotten luck. He seriously didn't want to hurt the elf. Just a shot over her head like the boss ordered. Now, he would lose most of the Divines he would get from selling them. At that rate, the Red Masks would never accept him.

‘Lower our weapons?’ the elf asked, clearly in pain.

She was a pretty thing. A bit shorter than he was, her hair long and like a cloud with a blue streak. The wet green tunic and brown pants were clinging to her in a very revealing way. She was a bit pale, but hopefully, the boss would let him and the boys put some colour into her.

Her companions were drop-dead gorgeous too. The glaive wielder was taller than the elf, though almost just as pale and had three horns protruding from her forehead in a crown-like manner, while eyes and hair were blood-red. She wore black robes, with some gold embroidering that must have been worth a fortune, and a red stole. She also had a pair of crow-feathered wings.

What is she?

The last member of the group was a young demonborn girl. She had sea-green eyes while her tied-into-ponytail hair was sky blue and there was a pair of short black-and-red horns curving up from her forehead. She wore the same clothes as the elf, with the exception of also having a grey wrap-around cloak. Her thin arrow-tipped tail was twitching nervously, but there was a visage of grim determination on her face.

‘Yes,’ the Boss answered the elf’s question. ‘There is no need to fight. I promise we mean you no harm…’

He paused and looked at her injured shoulder.

‘No more harm,’ he corrected himself. ‘Come with us peacefully and I promise you will be treated well.’

Tarvil thought something flashed in the elf’s eyes but it could have just been a light reflection.

‘And prithee tell me, kind sir, what dost thou intend of us?’ the elf asked, almost incomprehensibly.

What?

‘Oh… there are establishments where women such as you would be most welcome, I merely wish to offer you work in one. Surely it beats dying in an ambush, or getting wounded and dragged there anyway?’

Then a thought struck Tarvil, and hope sprung in his heart. Maybe his rotten luck was turning after all. He pointed at the girl and asked:

‘Hey, boss. Isn't she the one the Inquisitor is looking for?’

The man in the Red Mask, Tarvil had never learned his name, looked at the demonborn and studied her.

‘I think you may be right. In which case I really must insist you lower your weapons. The Inquisitor may take exception to us if we bring her damaged, so surely you must understand we will ensure you cannot interfere.’

Resignation appeared on the elf’s face but was quickly replaced with a look that chilled Tarvil to the bone. She looked like a predatory animal. Then Dolman, the man with the longsword, pointed at the elf’s shoulder.

‘Uh… why isn't the elf bleeding?’

Tarvil looked at it and saw that there indeed was no blood. Suddenly, a flash of red caught his attention.

A crimson something was gathering in the palm of the elf’s hand. And it was then that the very bad end to what looked to be a promising day began.

Tarvil tried to utter a warning but it was too late. With speed he thought impossible the elf threw what turned out to be a lance of blood at the boss. The projectile impaled him through the throat and the Red Masked man dropped dead on the floor. The winged woman capitalising on the elf’s success weaved with her glaive towards Wilf and Matis, opening the stomach of the former and cutting off the left hand of the latter.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Why didn't they move? Why am I not moving?

The answer was simple. They were almost all green. Except for the Boss and Dolman none of them had ever been in a fight. At least not one like this. A knife fight in an alley of Ror-Bhyk did not compare to this.

Matis dropped his axe and grabbed at the stump, screaming from pain and shock. Robard regained his wits then and charged at the elf. She didn't even need to draw her weapon. Something gathered around her arm and she punched at him. Her fist seemed to have carried the power of a hurricane as a massive gust of wind was emitted on impact and Robrido flew at one of the trees, his chest a gory mess. The impact finished the job and what slumped to the ground was less a man and more a fleshy bag of broken bones.

Magic, Tarvil finally realised.

He felt a warm stream of urine go down his leg. Nobody had said anything about facing magic users. This was also apparently enough for Dolman as the muscular man turned tail and ran away screaming, leaving only Tarvil and Gennensen on the field. No. It was just him, as when he was looking at Dolman his last companion ended up with blades of the demonborn’s swords lodged in his chest.

The realisation that no one else was left finally broke him out of the stupor. Tarvil started to turn around but then he realised that the robed woman was missing. Suddenly, he noticed that something was blocking the sun above him, and then there was searing pain in his stomach.

‘Caei!’ someone faraway shouted. ‘Get the last guy! Alive!’

Tarvil looked down and saw a long piece of wood protruding from his belly and he himself was at an angle. He tried to right himself, but something was coming out of his back too. He gripped the shaft with his hands and tried to pull it out but it was stuck.

Oh.

His problem was solved when the robed woman dropped from the sky next to him. Tarvil saw her grab the glaive and start pulling it out.

He raised one of his hands pleadingly and weakly croaked:

‘Don’t…’

This Caei paid him no heed. The most agonising few seconds of his life followed, after which his body fell sideways to the ground. The last thing he saw before losing consciousness was bloody fleshy snakes emerging from his stomach.

When he woke up he was standing on a white disk surrounded by darkness. All of his friends were standing next to him: Wilf, Matis, Gennensen, Robrido and… a clean-shaven man with short blonde hair.

Must be the boss, he realised. But where are we?

Suddenly there was a puff of smoke in front of them and out of it a slender woman with long white hair emerged from it. On her feet she had black high-sole shoes and knee-high red-black striped socks protruding out of them. The woman also wore a short black pleated skirt and some sort of shirt with a hood. There was a long-eared animal in the middle of this peculiar piece of clothing. Weirdest of all, the stranger’s nails were painted pink.

She waved at them in a friendly manner.

‘Hey boys!’ she shouted happily, though her smile reminded Tarvil of a wolf pleased to see its prey.

Dolman was running faster than he had ever run in his life. He had to get away. He had to! There was no way he was fighting magic users. NO WAY!

Suddenly something hard hit him in the back and pushed him to the ground.

‘Sorry, hon,’ he heard a woman say. ‘A valiant attempt, though.’

NO! NO! NO!

He tried to get up but someone was standing on his back.

‘Sorry,’ the woman continued. ‘We have questions for you.’

They waited in silence and after a few minutes, two sets of footsteps started approaching.

‘Get off him, Caei,’ Dolman heard the elf say,’ I’d rather speak this chucklefuck face to face. And good catch.’

Chucklefuck?

‘Aww… Thank you, Lilyth,’ this Caei responded. ‘I always relish a good hunt.’

The weight disappeared from his back.

‘On your feet!’ the elf - Lilyth ordered.

Dolman obeyed. Maybe he would get out of this alive if he worked along with them. The demonborn and Caei flanked him, while Lilyth stood in front of him. He noticed that she was no longer covering the bullet hole and the inside was blue and black.

What in the Abyss?

‘Let’s start by you introducing yourself,’ Lilyth said.

‘I’m Dolman.’

‘So Dolman… tell me about this Inquisitor.’

‘I don’t know anything!’ he cried.

The elf drew her sword and put the tip of it on Dolman’s throat.

‘Why don’t I believe you?’

‘It’s true! We heard rumours that there was an Inquisitor around, looking for some demonborn girl. Apparently, the boss was warned about his coming by someone he knew, but he was the one handling the details.’

‘The boss would be the one in the red mask? What’s his name?’

‘Yes. Kiren. I was the only one of us who knew… please…’

The elf processed the information for a moment.

‘Any more of your friends around?’

‘No!’ he denied truthfully. ‘It was just the seven of us!’

She pressed the sword slightly and Dolman felt pain and a bead of blood trickle down his throat.

‘I’m not lying!’

‘Anything else we should ask him?’ Lilyth asked her companions.

There was a brief silence and then this Caei asked in return:

‘No. And do you seriously just take him at his word?’

Oh no…

‘No. But I doubt we’ll get more useful answers from him. On my…. where I’m from we kinda figured out that torture doesn’t work.’

A certain sadness appeared in Lilyth’s eyes.

‘Now what do we do about you?’

She lowered her sword giving him hope, but she continued:

‘Normally, I am a strong believer in second chances, but every instinct tells me I should remove you from the equation, Dolman. You know about Aki. You know what we look like. You were hanging out with someone willing to sell us to a whore house.’

A pained expression ran through her face.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said and then she swung her sword sideways across his throat.

Dolman tried to scream but the only thing to come out was gurgles.

He did not know how long he was lying there holding his throat. The world became indistinct and grey.

Am I dying?

‘Yes,’ a deep voice said. ‘But I can save you. All you have to do is… serve.’