Giving a sigh of relief, he looked towards the caravan as well and noticed for the first time that the woman sitting on the leading wagon seemed to be holding something weird in her hands. It looked kind of like a small bow, but it was hard to say for sure from this distance. Hmm... It did make sense that she would have a bow with her. The merchant must have given it to her as a kind of protection, and of course being a woman, she wouldn't be able to use a full sized hunting bow, so perhaps that's why he had bought a smaller one for her. He put the woman out of his mind for now. There would be time to think a lot more about her, but that would come after they had won the coming battle.

Still, he knew it wasn't going to be as easy dealing with the caravan now, as it would have been if they had just two guards, but with Nokozal on their side, he was still pretty sure that they could take on their six guards without too much difficulty. He would still have to make sure to keep one of the guards or the merchant alive. He really needed to find out how the informer had gotten it so wrong. Chief Torhan would want to know about it for sure - especially if young master Lanidas had anything to do with it - and the chief might even reward him with some gold for this information.

He grinned thinking about that gold, and the pleasures he could buy using it in Kirnos, not that there was much available in a village. Hmm... Maybe he could even ask for a leave to travel to Cinran in the future. If the chief was happy enough with him, he might just get the permission as well. He grinned even more while running a hand over his hairless pate, getting giddy just thinking about how he was going to spend that gold.

Suddenly he noticed Joric glancing towards them for a quick moment, before he slowly raised both of his hands up and interlocked them. Perfect! So the wagons were indeed carrying food! Just as he was going to call everyone to start the attack, starting with the archer they had brought, Nokozal gave a loud roar and began running to the caravan at full tilt.

Shit! This damned idiot! He should have waited for the archer to shoot first!

Reminding himself to make sure that the giant got a good scolding after the fight, he quickly gave a long whistle, and immediately saw their archer shoot towards the wagons.

"Attack!" he yelled loudly to signal the rest of their swordsmen, and with a loud war cry he and the others began running to the caravan with their swords raised high in the air. It was time to take what they deserved. New slaves, the food, and the woman. All of it!

******

~ Hyola ~

As soon as Feroy had shouted the warning, she and the others immediately jumped out of the wagon. Just like they had planned earlier about what to do in case of an ambush after leaving Tiranat, she and Yufim quickly ran to the small space between the wagons, which had been parked in parallel, so the archers would be better protected from any swordsmen. Feroy and two guards were standing on the right side of the wagons, looking to their front and right with their swords ready, while Tesyb and the remaining two guards had adopted a similar position on the left side, and were looking there in case they were attacked from that direction as well. This way, with the archers standing in the middle of the wagons to support others from a safe place, the swordsmen would be able to cover all the directions around them. At least, that was the plan.

However, they had barely taken their positions when she felt an arrow whistling close to her head. Shit! That could have killed her! Her heart started beating so loudly after that near miss that it felt like it was going to jump out of her chest.

"There!" One of the guards shouted while pointing to their right. She turned to look and froze in fear when she saw a huge guy running towards them with his sword raised high. It was like seeing a huge, angry bear which wanted nothing more in its life than to send them to the goddess and make them its dinner tonight. Or at least, to separate their heads from their bodies. Wait, she knew who that was!

"That's the bastard Nokozal!" Tesyb shouted, just before they saw two more bandits coming out of the forest from behind the giant, one of them being a heavily muscular bald guy. At the same time, three bandits started running at them from the other side of the road, with another one coming at them from the west, behind them. Just how many of them were there! These bandits would reach here in moments!

The primal sight of so many people coming at her to kill her froze her completely. Instead of shooting at them with her crossbow, her hands were hanging limp on her sides in fear. Would she and the others even be able to defeat and kill them? What if she died here? What if the others died as well? What if she never got to see Calubo again? What if Nokozal captured her and took her to the quarry once again? What if...

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Hyola's mind was feeling so overwhelmed that it took a bop to her head from Yufim to bring her mind to the present. "Start shooting you idiot! There is no time to waste!"

She blinked and realised that barely a moment had passed while she was lost in her thoughts. She took a deep breath and steeled her mind. This was no time for self-doubts. She could do this. She knew it! She brought the crossbow in front of her eyes, thankful that it was already loaded, and targeted the giant running towards them.

She shot the bolt at his chest, hoping to kill him first, but Nokozal somehow moved at the last moment and the bolt narrowly glanced away from his huge biceps, barely affecting his run.

Shit! She quickly began loading the crossbow again, hoping she wouldn't be too late to help. At the same time, she noticed from the corner of her eyes that Yufim had also shot an arrow at the lone bandit coming at them from the west, but his aim was much better, and his arrow hit the bandit directly in his head, killing him before his body even hit the ground.

Suddenly another arrow struck the side of a wagon with a thwack, but thankfully no one was hit by it. She was pretty sure it came from their right, but there was no way to find the archer and kill him quickly from this far.

Knowing that she would get only one more chance before the bandits were upon them, she quickly finished loading it with a broadhead bolt, and shot again, this time at a bandit on their left side, so Tesyb and the other guards on that side wouldn't get overwhelmed.

Whether by luck or skill, or perhaps simply because the bandit was barely a dozen feet away by now, the iron-tipped broadhead bolt hit directly on his chest, spraying blood and gore all around. However, it didn't stop there. The bolt simply kept moving ahead and ahead until barely an inch of it was left outside the bandit's chest. The sight of the bandit's eyes opened wide in fear as he fell over in his tracks was captured in her eyes forever, and she froze once again.

She had just taken the life of a man for the first time. A real breathing human being, who must have had dreams and hopes of the future. How could she have done something like this? The goddess would never forgive her for this...

However, the sound of iron striking iron from close behind her brought her to the present. Turning around, she saw two guards barely defending their lives against Nokozal's powerful strikes. Feroy was already in a battle with the muscular bald man, while she saw the body of another bandit on their right with an arrow sticking out of his chest, whom Yufim must have killed before he reached them. On their left side, Tesyb and two other guards were fighting with two bandits now, since she had already killed the third one.

Suddenly she saw another bandit running towards them from the right. This must be the archer, who must have realised that he couldn't help others from far away in this melee without risking killing his own men. But how would he even use his bow even from up close? She aimed her crossbow to target him and shot the recently loaded bolt, but the sudden sound of a sword hitting the side of a wagon distracted her and the bolt went wide.

Noticing her movement, Nokozal looked directly at her, and roared in anger, while still easily dealing with the two guards. "You! I know you! You ran away from the quarry! You are coming back with me today!"

"Fuck you!" She yelled at him, and quickly began loading the crossbow again. To hell with this bastard! There was no way she would go with him again! There would be nothing good in store for her if she got captured, and that meant she had to try her best to kill him.

At this point, she knew that the goddess would certainly forgive her for getting rid of a lowlife like him. The giant and all his bandits didn't deserve to live in this world and she wasn't doing anything wrong by killing them. If anything, she was doing all the women in the world a favour!

That archer who had arrived last turned out to have a sword with him, and joined Nokozal, making it a fight of three against three on the right side of the wagons, with Feroy fighting the baldy, and the giant and the archer fighting with two guards. She glanced to see where that bastard Joric was, hoping to kill him as well, since he was the reason they had been caught in this ambush, but she couldn't find him anywhere. Perhaps he had already been hit by a sword and had died. Good riddance! The horses were also neighing loudly in fear, but thankfully the fight had been away from them so far, so they hadn't started running away with the wagons still hitched to them.

By now, she had loaded the crossbow once again, but everyone was moving around so much right now that she knew that there probably wouldn't be a chance for her to help anymore, since there would be a risk of hitting a guard just as much as killing a bandit. She also couldn't just jump in the scuffle with her dagger, since she would only be a liability there. Yufim already had another arrow nocked on his bow, but he also seemed to be looking for a good opportunity right now so he wouldn't hit their own men.

However, the giant was enraged now, and with a huge roar, he kicked one of the guards back, and slashed his sword at him, easily cutting off the guard's sword arm from his elbow. The man screamed in pain and fell backwards, his falling sword clattering on the ground with his cut-off hand still clutching it.

As angry as Hyola was at Nokozal for doing this, her heart broke on seeing the guard like that. She had even served on watch duty with him many times!

She immediately targeted her crossbow towards the giant, waiting for an opening to kill the bastard, but it just wasn't coming. The remaining guard was now finding it more and more difficult even to protect his life against Nokozal by himself, while the injured guard had slowly crawled back under the wagons to protect himself, until he was also in the small space between the wagons, right next to her and Yufim.