"Tia!" While checking on Mama and the other villager on the ground, he heard the scream followed by a slap that stopped the shout and rushed into the hut.
Upon busting in, he spotted three figures on the ground, the two bandits having had their pants down and kneeling. Their positions are vile as one was forcing her legs to spread while the other had pressed her arms down as his barely erect member was closing in on the distraught girl's face.
Pa slipped a bit off James' back when the lad grabbed the mortar on the table next to the trio and smashed it onto the temple of the bandit on her legs, sending the thug onto the wooden wall with a loud thud.
The other thug immediately jumped up, grabbing the hostage by her hair and using her as a shield while pulling out a dagger, "stay where you are!" He barked with wild swings of his weapon and violent tugging that threatened to rip the scalp off.
James could only gnash away as Tia's tear soaked and bruised face, he watched the man threaten to slit her throat and even start to draw blood as the spasming bastard pressed the point on her skin.
"Drop it! Now!" As the man nervously looks at the accomplise not getting up from James' assault and waves the dagger at James, "I will fucking kill her and then you, you fuck!"
James breathes out and takes a step forward, scaring the thug more as he shouts belligerently while backstepping. He considered throwing the mortar, but could not risk hitting her along the way. His grip tightened on the stone bowl's edge, fingers whitened from the force as tension built and his slow brain racking for ideas, before letting the stoneware go in defeat.
The sound and sight of the mortar dropping seems to be a signal for the bandit, his face warped into a sickening joy as he pushes Tia awkwardly forward whilst trying awkwardly to end James, only to bark out his changed idea as he notices that James could still fight. "Back! Move back out of the hut!" With every step he takes tugging her forward, the lad complied.
Tia whimpers something only to have the thug yanking her hair to shut her up while James could only feel the gnawing in his chest worsened. With his teeth clenched, he exits the hut without breaking the line of sight and that is when he spots the downed duo from earlier, who now stood beside the doorway for an ambush.
Unfortunately, the bandit had caught something as James' quick glance to the side did not go unnoticed. "WHAT IS IT?!" When the lad did not reply and only stared back blankly at him, anger surged within the bandit as he bellowed. "YOU FUCKER, WHAT IS IT!?" The dagger once again pokes into Tia's fair neck once more, drawing a second trickle of the red that flowed down with the sweat.
"Nothing, just wondering if I should put Pa down and charge at you."
"Then I'll-"
"You will kill her. But then you will lose your only reason to live and I will kill you like what I did to all you bastards out there."
Whatever James tried to convey, it had an effect as the hostage taker ended less confident than before as he continued to force him out of the hut. The bandit, attention stolen by the lad's blank visage, had failed to notice the two right next to him at the doorway.
The villager quickly tried to wrestle the dagger off and the village doctor immediately sprayed something straight at the bandit's face, distracting the man with pain long enough for Mama to pull the deeply shocked girl into her arms as they ran off to safety.
James ended the fiasco by driving his heel into the thug's stomach, sending the man flying back into the house as the table broke his fall.
"There goes my good table," Mama joked while soothing the frightened girl in her arms, "James, be a dear and help Carl to throw them out, I have something to do before going to the centre."
Nodding, James secured Pa on his back and proceeded to drag the unconscious bodies out with the villager's help and threw them onto the front of the hut. As Carl tied the duo up just in case, Mama gestured at James to wipe his face, "you are scaring Tia with all that blood you know."
Briefly stunned by her words and then at his torn tunic caked in blood, he could already imagine how terribly he looks. Even more so when he looked at Tia and the girl immediately ducked into the old lady's chest.
"Go find the twins, your father is worsening," the witch doctor read the pulse of comatose Pa with a deepening frown. Such ominous words shook him to move again, only to pause while glaring at the unconscious pair of bandits.
"It'll be fine," Mama gives him an assuring smile, "we will be quick to take some stuff and will see you there."
He could only nod at her words and took off in a jiffy.
***
Don panted tiredly as his sight fixed upon the so called bandit head. The burly man wearing nothing but rags is taller than him, wielding a broad double head axe and shouting inanely like "fear the name of Hundred Man Slayer!" of sorts. While the burly man could physically overwhelm him in an instant, his method of combat was downright unscrupulous. From sending his men as distractions and dealing sneaky swings to actively harassing those that the swordsman is trying to protect just to ire him, his wife and her sister have been the main focus of harm since their healing capabilities had been exposed.
"Kukuku, what a pretty pair, such body, such beauty, I wonder what face they will make when I split their holes wide apart?" The head licks his lips lasciviously with his disgusting words, leading to Don's wilder strikes. "Hohoho, one of them is your wife right? I will leave you a good spot limbless when me and mah boys rail 'em good!"
Serving as his rebuttal, Don caught on a gap between his men's shuffling and the axeman's rest and with a leap, he rushed in with a swift slash that almost took the crude man's nose.
"FUCK! Are you all dead!? Block him!" He then backed off swiftly as his men immediately blocked Don's path.
The swordsman clenched his teeth in frustration once more as he managed to spare a moment to glimpse at the retired soldier Eugene, who was forced to deal with the real problem at hand.
The man in question is dual wielding short swords and currently getting his left ear lopped off by a rapier thrust as the best swordsman in the village is only capable of futilely blocking and evading his opponent.
From the non lethal cuts and slashes etched on the soldier, it is safe to say that the man with a navy blue rapier who runs circles around Eugene is having fun toying with him. A predatory grin plastered on the blonde armored man's face and eyes crescent as he looked at the dual wielding man like a bug, slowly being crushed underneath his supreme thrusting.
At the rear side where he is still dealing with the pesky bunch, Don could only wonder in agony of why such a man of this caliber is assaulting them, the knight's sword technique that consists of fast thrusts and swipes followed by that footwork will kill anyone who isn't Eugene almost instantly. He could only grit his teeth in his continuous attempt to break through and kill the leader in order to go help Eugene, but the problem of even defeating the armored man is an uncertainty. One thing is certain is that neither Eugene nor the group circling around chief William's house are able to hold on for long.
"Is it finally here?" Quizzed William the village chief standing in the middle of the defense next to the teacher with the same name. He stroked the magnificent white beard of his and grimaced at the sight of the bandits that are crowding around them, there is no call for surrender, no negotiation, the main group just targeted them for destruction while other smaller groups wreaked havoc around.
"Probably," William the teacher sighs, "I mean, is this not what we guessed would happen?" He looks at the twin healers gasping painfully as they had been wring dry from the continuous healing and blessing given to Don and the guards while Eugene's wife and kids can only watch in horror as their pillar is slowly getting skinned alive.
The armored man seems to understand that the healers have a range that they cover and whenever Eugene tried to patch his wounds via backpedalling and maybe even assist the defence, the man will be there to block him and straight up killing those who got too close, the corpses of villagers and guards continue to serve as a strong deterrence for the swordsman.
As the fight continued to drag, Don had managed to put down a couple of the dozen bandits while nearly losing an arm to an overhead axe swing. He could feel the warmth from his wife's Heal is weaker than the previous, the leader snickers as he notices the ex-adventurer's fatigue. The other guards are struggling as well, initially there were up to a dozen of them excluding the two swordsmen up againsting the 30 plus bandits, with the armored man's occasional intrusion and reckless charges from the mooks, their number has faltered to less than half. The bandits might be losing more people in the attrition but ultimately they will get through.
In midst the clinking chaos, the ex-adventurer managed to spot James piggybacking someone as he run towards the encirclement, something the armored man notices as well as he immediately closes in on the lad, the dual swordsman could only shout in horror for James to run whilst struggling with his mortal wounds.
The armored man thrusted his rapier with glee to the lad's throat, a favourite spot seeing how most bodies on the ground contributed by him have the similar wound, only for him to miss as James abruptly changed his pace and dodge it narrowly. In stupor and with a flash of anger, he then pulled back his weapon for another strike, only to be interrupted by Eugene's rapid strikes onto his back as the two combatants continued their deadly waltz.
Don did not concern himself further with the approaching lad as the distraction earlier had almost given the leader a chance to behead him. Though a soft crunch and a howl were heard later and Don, after pushing the leader back, has the luxury to see a skinny bandit crying on the ground, his shin is bent, foot dangles loosely and James along with his father is already inside the encirclement. Don, upon the confirmation, then faces the axe wielder once more as he parries the axe that is going for his head. The blow felt heavier than before as the ex-adventurer lost his strength and the blow managed to graze his shoulder. While feeling his new wound closing up, he could hear frantic shouts from the back, with lines coming out from the farm boy like "help my father", "faint", "help him" and desperately ignore the pointless banter to focus on what's in front. This however causes him to raise his brow when the leader is focusing more on whatever that is happening behind him instead of the ongoing fight.
A whirring sound then erupted from the back with some shouts of surprise as the leader's eyes bulged in amusement to the swordsman. A loud thud followed with Don noticing two bandits who got knocked far away from the defense line behind, their faces smashed and he half expecting that James had taken up a bludgeoning club. What he did not expect, with his eyes widening, was the lad using a wooden handcart with a broken wheel axle and swinging the thing as though possessed.
The leader had been focusing on James and his improvised weapon from the beginning and lack of minions at hand backed off in a quick pace towards the armored man. All while keeping his eyes peeled at the both of them with a threatening gaze as though it might help to stop the pair from closing in.
Whatever the case, Don took the chance to disengage as he speaks to the lad, "ok, so now we have some breathing room, we should-"
James, on the other hand, did not let the swordsman finish as he charged in with an overhead swing towards the leader. Infuriated by his actions, the bandit charged back, axe swinging towards James' waist.
Before the lad could be bifurcated, Don leaped in in a hurry to block the blow while James' swing smashed the bandit's collarbone, shattering the makeshift weapon in the process. As his guard was dropped from the agonising pain, Don plans to finish the fight by plunging his sword into his chest, only for James to show the lack of coordination as he lunges at the bandit first, tackling himself and the wounded man to the ground as he then grabs hold of the man's legs while dragging him back. The bandit was finally neutralized when the annoyed swordsman kicked his axe away from his grasp.
"Now we can-" his words were swallowed as the frustrated Don once again paused his idea abruptly and glared at the lad, because James had managed to lift the bandit off the ground and rather purposefully slamming him where pieces of the cart were at.
A painful howl erupts on the active battlezone and shook the participants as small bits of metal had been lodged into the bandit's back, James ignoring his cries and repeatedly slamming the bandit. By now, his actions are earning him looks from the armored man, thugs and especially those in the defense like those of the Williams.
Don frowns as he can clearly see how the lad is fuming and yet madly prepares to slam the dying man again even though he is out of breath, the swordsman decides to stop him right when a sharp smacking sound stirred him into action.
The armored man, now with a nick on his furious face, had pierced Eugene's limbs in quick succession and was now directing his fury towards James.
"SHIT!" Don immediately puts himself between the two, only to lose the presence of the man for a moment, barely blocked the fatal blow to the neck and felt the bite of the rapier on his stomach. A slash intended to spill his guts dyes his shirt crimson as he watched the rapier wielder charging at James with the rapier about to impale his throat.
With the leader that James had already raised, the lad immediately used him as a worthless shield when the rapier punched through the waist of the bandit as though paper, James got lucky when the blow had struck his right shoulder instead. Before his assailant could withdraw the weapon, he immediately throws the still alive bandit with the stuck weapon at him.
The fumbling man stumbles back when the bandit almost lands on his face and is forced to let go of the weapon as the body falls. James immediately tackles the armored man onto the ground, crushing his chest as he sits on it while raining fists on the now weaponless knight.
Don, who is hugging his wound, witnesses the absurdity with disbelief as he and Eugene limp their way towards the two while the bandits around are too shocked at the sudden turn of event to even continue their attack. With their leader dead and the capable one on the ground, many of them even started to frantically look at their brethrens for the next order.
All of a sudden, James stopped pounding.
"James?" Don quizzed while both men hastened their shuffling to his side, where they notice the handle of a dagger sticking out of the lad's chest.
