Page 135 of I Ran Away to Evil
Keith continued to concentrate on flying. “Too bad; that’s four less opportunities to gain experience.”
They were almost to the castle when Henrietta let him know that she’d detected enemies. By that point, there were only seventy-five of the original hundred and eight targets.
The more fool they were for traveling in the forest beside the Great Road instead of on its much safer cobblestone path. It was normal, of course, for Rogue types to hide in the bushes … but not when the bushes could eat you.
Keith noted the assassins had returned en masse to the Great Road. It’d only taken losing thirty or so people.
Henrietta called out, her voice enhanced by some skill or perk to resound around the forest, “Surrender peacefully, or on my name, Princess Henrietta Doryn of Drendil, I shallendthee.”
And then things got interesting.
CHAPTER 81
Veralyn’s Enchanted Restraint Manacles
Henrietta
[You have attempted to use the PerkQuick Step. You have succeeded.]
[You have attempted to use the Perk:Quick Draw. You have succeeded.]
I let go of Keith, dropping twenty feet to the earth below. I landed kneeling on one knee between the assassins and the road to the castle.
“It’s the target!” a beastman with drooping dog ears and a bushy moustache cried out, pointing at me. “Get her!”
I drew Jacqueline from her sheath in the blink of an eye as I stood. A knife ricocheted off my blade, falling to the side.
[You have attempted to use the Perk:Force Thrust. You have succeeded.]
The assassin who’d attacked me was impaled in her right shoulder, and I swung her in the way of four blades that were thrown my way. Two short swords were lunged toward my legs, but I jumped in the air and kicked the assassin off my blade, sending her tumbling through a line of attackers. One arrow nicked my sleeve as I twisted in the air.
[You have attempted to use the Perk:Multitask. You have succeeded.]
My mind suddenly had no difficulty compartmentalizing the groups of assassins attacking me. Jacqueline sang in my hand as I let myself go and let my senses keep me on my feet. I had little opportunity to check on Keith, but I wasn’t worried about him.
He fought off assassins more often than I did.
My abilities kept me from being overrun and stabbed to death. [Force Thrust] had a pushback effect that I utilized when it was available again, and my Strength stat alone let me knock back anyone caught by my strike.
Every chance I got, I sent assassins flying into the woods. Only one in four came back. Seventy-five became sixty, which became fifty-two and then thirty-nine. At that point, I had to use [Resist Poison], because an acrobatic masked assailant had flipped behind me, diverting my focus.
I could only [Multitask] to defeat attackers I could see. It cost me a split second, granting a window for a poisoned spear to stab into my left leg.
I was used to losing limbs from my earlier dungeon delves, so a mere stab wound was but a painful annoyance. The spearman, a half elf, broke out into a self-satisfied grin that shifted to horror when Jacqueline crit [Void Damage] in his chest.
There wasn’t much left of the assassins on that side of the battle … Actually, Keith had managed to subdue and chain up the few who remained standing.
He raised an eyebrow my way. “You know, Ria, it’s hard to question them if there isn’t anything left. It’s a lot of extra work putting the pieces back together. It’s only good manners to [Revive] them and send them back to …” Keith lifted and shook one of the assassins, a partially transformed wolfman. “Who is your guild leader?”
“We’ll never say!” The assassin tried to spit on Keith, but the Dark Lord was holding him aloft and simply turned the beastman to his neighbor to take the spittle.
“So I knock you all out and send half of you back to Gloria Welns and the other half to Derek Stannard with a letter demanding an explanation for why they’ve sent assassins after me and broken our little agreement,” Keith told the bunch.
“Jokes on you, we—” a sneering voice jeered from one of the tied-up members before his neighbor silenced him with an elbow to the solar plexus.
“What?” Keith crossed his arms and pressured them with his kingliness aura. I really needed to ask him if it was an actual ability so I could learn the actual name.
“He means that it wouldn’t matter because you aren’t their target,” I guessed. “I am.”
