"Are you sure they will come this way?" A man with droopy eyes, long nose, and a large scar running across his cheek said as he looked over a quiet trail that ran next to a small creek.

The only thing he could see at the moment was dirt, water, and trees.

A small man with big eyes and equally big ears that clashed with his baby like face lifted his hand to stop the other from talking, "You hear that, boss?”

The droopy eyed man put his hand to his ear and listened, "I don't hear anything.”

"I hear talkin', though it's still far away.”

"All right," the droopy-eyed man nodded towards some bushes a distance away from the trail, "Those maids ain't nothin' to mess with, we best be hidin' away from the trail.”

The baby-faced man nodded, and the two hid, and only a few minutes later the voices were loud enough to for them to hear what was being said.

A dark-haired woman with a severe look on her face was the first person they saw. She was riding a fine horse that looked like one of those breeds built for speed. She was watching the surrounding scenery, and the men held their breath on instinct as the feeling she gave off was that of a predator.

A second horse came into view. It was an average-sized horse and looked to be the gentle type. Riding it were two young girls. The older looked to be nearly at the age where she would soon become an adult. She was chatting happily to the other, younger girl. A small Terran that looked like a doll being held on to the horse by an older girl, and if the men didn't know any better, they would have thought it some fancy doll only nobles could afford.

Not far behind the two girls was another woman. She was smiling happily at the two girls in front of her. Despite this, the men got the feeling that she too was someone they shouldn't underestimate.

The men kept still until they could no longer hear the older girl's voice. 

"What you think, boss?" 

The droopy eyed man didn't take his eyes off from the direction the women had gone, "I don't like the feeling the two older broads gave off. Something dangerous about them.”

The baby-faced man glanced back to where he had last seen the women, "You think they're some of those assassin maids?”

"No way the daughters of two dukes would be out here without some guard, but with the ransom we could get from those two might make it worth hiring some anti mage mercs.”

“And I know a great place not far down the road to set up an ambush.” The baby-faced man looked towards some large rock outcroppings not too far in the distance.

"Let's hope that they keep these horse rides going. Don't wanna hire some expensive mercs only to find out our prey isn't coming out any more.”

The baby face man nodded, and the two glanced once more back to where the women had gone before leaving.

***

Nal was really enjoying all the horseback riding they had been doing and was getting in as much as she could before she had to go back to the academy. She felt bad for having missed a few weeks of learning, but she felt that getting Iysinyr better was a good cause to miss some of her education. Syl had been tutoring her, so it wasn't like she would fall behind.

Nal looked down to the small girl between her arms. Since the incident where they had had to tie her up, Iysinyr had had no issue with Nal touching her. She still wouldn't react much to anything, but to Nal this was a huge step. Not just because Iysinyr's panic attacks were much less violent when anyone else tried to touch her, but she was so soft and huggable. Nal was still trying to convince Deko to let Iysinyr sleep with her, but the women would have nothing of it.

"Iysinyr, today we will have some honey cakes, then we will going to have Deko and Syl do tricks on the horses. I have also been practicing a new song that I want to sing to you," Iysinyr twitched when Nal said this, "and I think you will absolutely love it!”

Nal turned from Iysinyr and began watching the now familiar path they had taken to riding recently.

"Lady Nalulthyn, remember to not stray from Deko and I." Syl said as she brought her horse next to Nal.

"Syl! You need not tell me every day. You know I would not do that." Nal puffed up her cheeks with irritation. But rules were rules.

Syl slowed her horse down and took her usual position behind Nal, "And if I don't remind you, you might think it's okay because I did not remind you.”

Nal sighed, "I will not!”

No one spoke any more. It was still well in to spring, and the scenery behind the Duke's estate was gorgeous. Nal could still remember the day they had found the small stream that ran nearby. Her favorite thing to do by far was to follow it past a large rock outcrop that nearly blocked the way to a grove of wild fruit trees that had blossomed later than the ones in the estate. There were also many wild flowers blooming on the way, so the view was enjoyable the entire time.

The group reached the rock outcropping when Deko's usual emotionless expression became serious and she signaled for the group to stop, "Something seems off.”

Nal began looking around but saw nothing out of the ordinary, but could still feel her heart speed up.

"Get closer to me," Syl moved her horse so Nal was between her and the stream.

Suddenly a gust of wind surrounded Deko.

Nal jumped at the act and her horse became spooked, so she began wrestling with the reigns to keep the animal under control, but became distracted by a scream from Syl's horse. When she looked over to see what had happened, all she saw was Syl being thrown off her horse before Syl's horse slammed into her. 

Before she knew it, she too was falling onto the ground. The last thing she saw was the shape of a horse above her. Her head hit something hard and her vision immediately went dark. The last things she remembered was and crunching sound and a sharp pain in her leg and a scream of pain, her scream. Her last thought was if Iysinyr was all right.

***

Deko could smell several people coming from behind the outcroppings ahead. As this was the Duke’s land she knew there shouldn’t be anyone besides them out here so she signaled the others to stop, “Something seems off.”

No sooner had she done so she could feel the smell of the people ahead of her change. She recognized the smell. It was that of a predator, and on instinct she raised a shield of wind.

No sooner had she done, so she saw several men with bows come from behind the outcroppings and send arrows their way. Her shield of wind had no trouble deflecting the arrows, but behind her she heard the pained screams of a horse followed by a crash and yelp from Lady Nalulthyn.

“Nal!” was the last thing she heard before turning her focus to the men in front of her. Sylvain was there, so she shouldn’t have to worry about the girls for now.

Most of the men had dropped their bows and were now charging her.

Deko had no intention of letting them close and prepared her offensive magic. A man had stayed back and was still sending the occasional arrow her way. She could still fight with the shield of wind up, but if she could get rid of him first, then she could fight with her full strength.

Her conjured ball of fire found its way true, but something flashed in front of him and stopped it from impacting. It was a shield forged with magic crystal.

The man lowered the shield, looked right into her eyes, and grinned.

A new sense of urgency took hold of Deko. She was certain she could defeat a group of untrained brigands, but this changed things. She nearly looked to Syl to see if she could help, but her battle instincts held her eyes forward.

The man sprinted towards her while the brigands split and surround her.

Deko conjured several small fireballs and hurled at the men. The fireballs impacted and staggered the men, but they hadn’t been strong enough to stop them. From a quick look, they had at least suffered wounds bad enough to impact their fighting strength.

There was a loud crack of thunder behind her accompanied by a flash, and she soon became buffeted by a strong wind. When the men approaching her hesitated and looked at the direction behind her, looks of fear appearing momentarily on their faces, she finally took a quick glance.

It was Sylvain. Her face was that of pure rage, but that wasn’t the thing that took Deko by surprise. It was the growing cloud above her. A cloud filled with lightning and shards of ice. Deko had always been confident in her magic, but knew there were many better than her. Sylvain was one of them.

More men appeared from behind a large outcropping on the other side of the stream, lead among them a man with clothes no brigand could afford and he too had a crystal forged shield and, unlike the other man, a crystal forged blade.

Deko turned to the men closest to her. Now that the other group of men had appeared, they were no longer looking at Syl and were closing in on her.

Deko waited until they were near before she poured her strength into her shield of wind and pushed it away from her. The force pushed the men back several meters and most of them fell down, all except for the man with the shield. He had braced himself and used the shield to deflect the wind. It was enough for Deko.

Enough time for her to turn into her panther form.

The transformation only took a second, and she was soon bounding towards the now dumbfounded man.

By the time the man with the shield had recovered from the surprise of seeing someone turn into a giant cat, Deko was in melee range with him and was tearing the shield from his arm.

The man conjured a barely visible sword in his hand. Deko had seen nothing like it before, and she had seen a lot of magic.

As she was unsure of the sword was capable of, she jumped away from the man.

“Never seen this before, cat?” The man grinned and the length of the sword tripled in length, now twice his height.

The man’s eyes glanced behind her, and he raised his shield.

A torrent of ice shards shattered all around her. Many hit the man in front of her, but after a quick glance around she saw that most of the brigands were now writhing on the ground in pain, shards covering their bodies.

The sound of thunder rocked the area again, and Deko saw it strike the fancy-looking man on the other side of the stream. No, it had struck his sword.

The thunder strike sent the new group of men charging across the stream. The fancy looking man jumped high into the air, a cloud of dust forming where he had stood.

Syl had already positioned herself between the men and what could only be Lady Nalulthyn and her master, though the body of Syl’s horse made it hard to see.

Deko looked back to her opponent just in time to dodge a blow heading her way. He swung that nearly invisible sword around with ease. She suspected it wouldn’t have a lot of weight behind its blows, but didn’t want to find out what it was capable of.

“Nal!” Came Sylvain’s scream.

Deko’s opponent grinned and stepped back, “You lose.” He nodded towards Sylvain.

Deko didn’t want to take her eyes off the man, but when the noise from Sylvain’s storm went away, she knew something was wrong so she put more distance between herself and the man and looked behind her.

The fancy looking man was now where the horse had been, where the horse was Deko didn’t care, and had one of his feet on Lady Nalulthyn, sword to her neck.

Deko growled but sat down in defeat.

“Over there and turn back into that pretty woman form again.” The man pointed towards the nearest outcrop. He then turned to some now recovering men, “Do whatever you want with her. She knows what’ll happen if she resists.”

Deko returned to her human form and began walking towards the rock outcropping, though no one followed her as most had trouble standing with the injuries they had. A few didn’t get up at all.

The man with the invisible sword ended up following Deko when he saw the men were in no shape to watch her.

From the rock outcrop Deko saw that Sylvain had slumped to the ground and made no resistance against the still uninjured men that had come with the fancy-looking man and they, unlike the first group, looked like they had every intention of having their way with her.

The fancy man knelt over and began inspecting Lady Nalulthyn. Deko was too far away now to see his expression or hear anything, but he seemed to pick up his pace after inspecting her. Deko could only think the horse had landed on her and caused some serious injuries.

The men around Sylvain began laughing as they tore her clothes off. Deko knew she had gotten lucky as the man watching her appeared to show no interest in doing the same to her.

Something caught her by surprise. Her master sat up. It was the first time Deko had seen her move in months on her own.

The fancy looking man looked to jump, but then yelled something.

Her master ignored him and slowly turned her head to where the men were preparing to have their way with Sylvain.

A loud scream. Her master charged towards the now startled men. She grabbed the nearest man and tore his arm off, sending a stream of blood in a wide arc to her master’s right side, the arm flying into the distance. 

She then moved to the next man and hit him in the chest so hard that Deko could see gore splatter onto the man behind him. This man clutched his chest in pain and staggered backwards. 

The rest of the men screamed in terror and ran. 

Her master reached the next man and caught him by his spine. Her master yanked him so hard that only part of the spine her master grabbed came out instead of pulling the man towards her. Before he fell to the ground she had already caught up to the next after an inhumanely long jump and twisted his head so hard that it tore off. The last man had gotten a fair distance away, and she threw the severed head she was holding at the fleeing man. The impact knocked the man over, the severed head making a crunch so loud Deko could hear it despite how far she was away.  But this still didn’t seem to kill him as he started crawling not long after falling over.

While this was going on the man guarding her turned to her, “I didn’t get paid to help kidnap a monster. I’m out,” and sprinted away.

Deko scowled at him, but looked to the fancy man who was still holding Lady Nalulthyn hostage. And saw that he was merely watching the scene in front of him in horror. Deko knew that now was the best opportunity the rescue her, but it would probably mean letting this man get away.

Just then her master turned to look at the fancy-looking man.

“Get back! Monster!” He began backing away from Lady Nalulthyn and had his crystal forged shield and sword ready to meet her. Several balls of fire appeared around him and flew towards her master.

Her master took off towards the man as soon as he sent the balls of fire her way.

The sight of her master dodging every ball of fire effortlessly and then close the distance between her and the target in a moment terrified but amazed Deko at the same time. She knew her master would be stronger than she had been, but not this strong.

Her master punched at the man, and he raised his shield to block. There was a loud crack, and the man flew backward, his shield shattering. Her master pause for a moment, her right arm dangling at her side. Even from this distance, it was obvious her arm had most likely shattered from the impact and was even dripping large amounts of blood.

This wasn’t why her master had stopped. She looked to where Lady Nalulthyn lay, then back to the fancy-looking man. She walked to the man, who was on the ground crying out in terror and holding his shield arm in pain.

She picked him up as best she could by the neck with her uninjured arm, even considering the enormous height difference between the two, and dragged him towards Lady Nalulthyn.

The man frantically struck at her with his sword, and she caught him by the arm with barely a look before he could hit her. She then twisted his wrist hard enough that not only did he drop the sword, but his wrist now bent in a place it shouldn’t.

When they reached Lady Nalulthyn, her master knelt next to her and placed her nearly heald right hand on her chest.

“Please, you have won! Let me go! I can give you riches! I can give you land!” The fancy looking man cried in fear and agony as he struggled to free himself.

As the cries of the man died, Deko had an idea of what her master was doing but couldn’t know for certain, because now she had a man to catch. She doubted it would take long for her to catch up to him in her panther form.

Deko looked towards her master one last time and saw she was standing motionless. There would be many questions, but she could ask them later. She had some prey to catch.

***

Syl sat where the men had knocked her over and couldn’t move because of the shock she had received from what she had just witnessed. It wasn’t the death she had seen; her training helped with that, but the sheer brutality the Lady Iysinfyr had shown. She knew the strength the girl had, but to see it applied in such a way.

Lady Iysinfyr was kneeling next to Nal, and the man dressed like a noble. The noble had stopped moving, so Syl assumed he was unconscious from the pain of his wounds. Why Lady Iysinfyr had dragged him next to Nal, she had no idea.

Syl jumped up. She had to check on Nal. She suspected her to have broken bones after taking a fall like she had and then have a horse land on her. It could be worse. She hoped it wasn’t worse. If anything happened to Nal, she wouldn’t bare living with the shame, especially because she knew she had let her rage cloud her judgement and let the noble use his magic to jump over her and land next to Nal.

Syl ran next to Lady Iysinfyr and Nal and knelt down to check the latter. There was some blood on the back of her head, but no visible wound. When she checked for broken bones, she couldn’t find any. She couldn’t find any wounds at all. If there hadn’t been blood, she would have expected that nothing had happened. But she had seen Nal land on the back of her head, heard the loud crack of her skull hitting the ground. Nothing. Syl knew she should be thankful that Nal didn’t have any wounds, but with Nal unconscious on the ground she knew something had happened.

She looked up to Lady Iysinfyr. Had she done something? No, even the most powerful of magics couldn’t heal a wound. It could close wounds and help stop bleeding, but it did nothing to heal tissue. But a part of Syl thought Lady Iysinfyr might do it. With that inhuman strength she had shown… Her rapid healing...

Syl looked at Lady Iysinfyr’s arm and then to the shattered shield the noble had held. She was certain the Lady Iysinfyr had broken her arm badly when she had struck the shield. There was no way a bone wouldn’t shatter if it was used to punch and shatter a shield that was stronger than the finest steel.

Nal stirred below her. Syl sighed with relief. From what she could tell, it wouldn’t be long before she woke up. Syl would have to get Nal away from here. She didn’t want Nal to have to see the carnage that lie around them.

But what about Lady Iysinfyr? Syl had been putting off facing the girl, but knew that she needed to and so finally got a good look at her.

Lady Iysinfyr was covered in surprisingly little blood, considering what had happened and was uninjured.

For the first time Lady Iysinfyr looked at Syl. Her eyes were trembling and would occasionally dart around in different directions.

“They’re dead. They’re dead. They’re dead. I killed them.” Lady Iysinfyr said, barely loud enough for Syl to hear her. “Did I save my family this time? Did I save them? I killed him. He killed them. Did I save her? Did I save her? My brother. I killed him. My family. They killed them. It’s my fault. There’s nothing I could have done to stop them. I killed my brother. He hated me. I’m dead. I deserved to die. I killed him. My family. It’s my fault they killed them. I killed her. It was his fault. I killed him. The fire. It hurts! It hurts! I don’t want to die! It hurts! It’s my fault he killed himself. It’s my fault. It’s my fault. I deserve to get killed. I deserve to die again. It’s hurts! I don’t want to die...”

Though all the stress of the battle, seeing Nal fall off the horse and hit her head hard enough it might have killed her, almost getting raped, seeing the carnage Lady Iysinfyr had unleashed, and finally hearing her bottled up emotions and memories finally flood out made Syl weep.