Sara and Rosalind continued their journey through the woods, accompanied by Murder and Splyce. It was now afternoon, the sun had started to set.
"How are you holding up little doe?"
"Hah, I want to stop, I have been walking non stop for hours while practicing spells, are we there yet?"
"You don't have such a great physical condition for a commoner, we will need to work on that later."
"Well yes, I am a merchant, I don't usually do hard labor uck."- Rosalind bumped into Sara who suddenly stopped walking.
"Ouch, what is it?"- The atmosphere turned serious, Splyce started growling towards something hidden in the woods.
"We have got company, they followed us."- Said Sara with a serious cold face.
"Show yourselves, I know you are there."
"You have got good senses little girl, as expected of a fellow tamer, what is your beast? is that a Megalania?"- The men and their beasts came into view, the men showing a disturbing grin on their faces, their beasts mouth drooling saliva.
"Let me guess, the Baron sent you?"
"Well of course, you made a mess at the hideout and took what is ours, don't even think about escaping little girls, if you surrender right now we will take you back in one piece."
"No, you won't"
Sara took a brief moment to analyze the situation. 'Three advanced beast tamers and 3 war hyenas, this is a bad match up for me. War hyenas have a strong sense of smell so stealth won't be as effective; their thick loose fur makes them somewhat resistant to slashing and piercing attacks; they have good resistance againts poisons and diseases, and lastly, they have incredible stamina, luckily hyenas have one glaring weakness.'
"Miss Sara, can't we just run?"- Said Rosalind while hiding behind Sara.
"No, we can't."
"(Murder, Splyce, take Rosalind, you know what to do.)"-Sara communicated using voice transmission.
"Rosalind, follow Murder's orders."
"Huh, wait what are y.."- Before Rosalind could continue speaking, Splyce grabbed Rosalind, mounted her over himself and dashed away, and just a moment later...
"Boom"- Sara threw a smoke bomb at the assailants.
"Splyce wait, we can't leave her alone."- Rosalind yelled at Splyce.
"Calm down little girl, this is all part of the plan."
"But she can't handle them all alone."
"Don't worry about her; when it comes to battles between tamers the most important thing is knowledge, and no one knows more about beasts than her, trust me."
"Okay, what do I do?"
"We need to find a big tree."
"Huh? a tree?"
Right behind them Sara was fighting the three hounds by herself, she used the smoke bomb to put a bit of distance between themselves, and to give Rosalind more time to get ahead. Each one of the beast tamers wielded a different weapon; one of them wielded a spear, the other one a bow, and the leader was wielding a morning star.
'I need to make sure to get rid of the one wielding the bow first, war hyenas have a terrible bite, but none of their other attacks are lethal, so I can just dodge the important ones.'
The three men mounted on their beasts continued to give chase, Sara was effectively kiting them, making sure of always staying in between Rosalind and the pursuers. Sara took out some needles from under her cloak and them put them in her mouth, every now and then she would turn around and throw needles at the enemies.
"Aghh, what the hell are these annoying things? needles?"- Said the tamer wielding the spear.
"How are we still not able to catch up to her? I am not able to aim properly, her moves are too random."- Said the tamer wielding the bow.
"Whatever, stop complaining, we still have the advantage, there is now way she can keep that speed for long, once she slows down we will get her."- Said the leader.
The leader's words were not wrong, while hyenas are not fast runners they can keep a high pace for hours without stopping, even if the men and their hyenas were being showered with needles, this was nothing but a small hindrance to the chasers. By the second, Sara's stamina continued to drop, and the pursuers distance continued to shorten, all the while Sara continued evading the arrows shooting from behind her.
'Damn it, I can't keep doing this for too long, it's about time.'
Sara continued throwing needles at the enemies, at this point the tamers were not even trying to block all the needles, as long as they were not hit in the eyes of face it wouldn't be more than a small annoyance, so they would just block the needles using one of their arms, but this complacency was a mistake.
"Shiiing, Aaack, that little bitch"- Instead of throwing needles, this time Sara threw two throwing knives at the tamer holding the bow, the bowman blocked the knives using one of his arms, but this was way more painful than just a few needles, the pain shared through their bond made his hyena whimper, but ignoring the pain continued running.
'Finally, it is done.'- Sara smirked and quickly changed directions.
She was now out of needles to throw, but she continued running reardless until she reached a very tall tree, visibly exhausted and breathing rapidly, she finally stopped and put her back againts the tree.
"Looks like you finally ran out of energy little brat, did you really think you could escape from us? very few beasts can rival a hyena in endurance."
The men dismounted their beasts and grabbed their weapons, Sara was now surrounded by the three men and the three beasts againts the tree with no way out, Sara wielded her kamas in kind.
"After what you did to us, killing you won't be enough, we will cut off your hands and feet and feed them to our beasts, after that we will drag what is left of you to the Baron."
"You really are sick twisted bastards, what is that you said about endurance?"- Sara stopped panting and regained her calm breathing, as if her exhaustion had never even existed.
"Have you ever tried dire wolf meat? I have, it is very chewy and gamy, had to use a lot of seasoning to gulp it down."
"What the hell are you talking about? have you gone mad?"- Said the tamer wielding the morning star.
"What I am trying to say is, my stamina is like that of a dire wolf, I wonder what hyena meat tastes like."
"Hah, this brat really has gone mad"-Said the bowman aiming at Sara, a furious expression in his eyes.
"Aim at her legs, wouldn't want this to end too quickly."-Said the spearman.
The bowman pulled his bow but could not properly aim, his arm was injured and bleeding due to the needles and the knives. Despite the pain, he pulled his bow completely, but before he could release his arrow...
"Magic bullet" "Bang"- From atop the tree, a magic bullet came down with lightning speed, crushing the arrow and the bowman's arm all together.
"Aaaghhh, my arm" "Kyaaaang"- Both the bowman and his hyena were now both rolling in the ground writhing in pain.
"What the hell?"- The enemy tamer looked up and saw Rosalind sitting on top of a tree branch, on one hand her wand, and a raven perched on her shoulder.
"Good,job little girl, just keep shooting."-Said murder to Rosalind
"Yes."- Rosalind replied with determination, but she was still visibly shaken, this was her first time fighting, not to mention her first time hurting someone else.
"Ugh damn it, quickly, send your beast to kill the mage, we will take care of the tamer together."
The two tamers sent their hyenas towards Rosalind, while the two men and the injured hyena continued their attack on Sara. The injured hyena, limping badly from one of it's legs had it's speed considerably reduced and was unable to land a bite, the spearman with his longer range and speed managed to grace Sara a few times, dealing a few bleeding cuts, but the enemy leader, with his wide range and telegraphed swings was unable to connect a single hit.
None of the enemies were able to focus completely on the attack, because they constantly had to dodge the magic bullets raining from above.
"What is taking those damn beasts so long? kill the mage already."- The enemy leader looked at the hyenas, and it finally dawned on him.
"You finally noticed huh?"-Said Sara in a mocking tone.