82 The Ambush - Part 7
Framed by the doorway to the carriage stood Ameril in all her glory.
She was still as beautiful as Olivia remembered. She still had her long blond hair that flowed down her back almost reaching her hip. Piercing brown eyes looked at the mess of crumpled bodies around before turning towards herself. Once she spotted her, Ameril blinked a couple of times, her long eyelashes fluttering as she did. Her skin was still free from any sort of blemishes and was still the same pale skin tone that she remembered. Then lastly was the aspect that had surprised her the first time they met, her elven ears, introducing her to one of the races in this fantasy world.
"Olivia!"
As soon as Ameril spotted her, she cried out in joy and jumped down from the carriage. She dashed across the dirt road and leapt at her. It didn't help however that she was holding her Morning Star and could hardly stand on her leg without feeling intense pain.
Not wanting to hurt her, Olivia quickly dropped her weapon and braced for impact. Ameril flew through the air and slammed right into her, wrapping her arms around the Half-Orc she had not seen for so long.
While Ameril was by no means strong or heavy, the impact caused Olivia to wince and cry out in pain, ending with her toppling backwards onto the floor as she wrapped her own arms around Ameril as well.
Ameril was overjoyed to see her, given the overzealous greeting that was not becoming of a noble lady. But even amongst all the excitement, she realised something was wrong.
"What happened? Are you alright?" She asked as she pushed herself up.
"Not...exactly. One of your guards managed to cut my leg."
Shock and horror on her face, Ameril jumped off of Olivia and checked the wound for herself, seeing if there was anything she could do.
"Oh, I'm so sorry. I was just so excited to see you I...Oh, it looks bad. We need to get you somewhere to treat it."
"I've got that covered. *wince* We just need to get back to the camp and there are a few potions that I can use."
Right as she finished her sentence, she went cold and froze. So too did the Ameril.
It wasn't because of any of the guards. No, they were all still out cold and oblivious to the reunion. It also wasn't because the driver they had forgotten about had decided to be a hero. No, because as it turns out they didn't exactly forget about him...he had actually fled when the battle started and none of them noticed. No, what caused the sudden onset of paralysis was from the sound of horseshoes hitting the ground.
"We need to go. Now." Olivia quickly said.
Moving to stand up, she cried out in pain and toppled back down as she put weight on her wounded leg. Ameril seeing this quickly moved over to catch her...with no luck. But, while she had failed to stop her from hitting the ground again, she was now there to help lift Olivia and stead her as they moved over the carriage.
"Wait here. I need to grab a few things."
Jumping into the carriage, Ameril then spent only a few seconds grabbing a couple of items from inside, both of which were leather bags, where one was pretty much a backpack, but the other was much smaller and square.
No time to go into what it was that she had taken, she waited for Ameril to jump off the carriage and then move under her arm. They then hurried as best they could around the carriage and into the woods.
The sound of hoofs clunking against the ground grew louder as they slowly walked away, but thankfully, they could not see any carriage as they passed the tree line. But even though this was the case, they wouldn't stick around. As when the carriage arrives and the people onboard try to rouse the guards from their slumber, they would likely be very quickly informed of who attacked them, and probably also figure out the direction they had headed.
Well, two of the guards would be able to say who attacked them, and if one Orc was fighting them, it wasn't a stretch for them to think the ones firing arrows were Orcs as well. Then on the direction they are travelling, it's not like they've been covering their tracks as they limped away. Because of all that, they needed to go and figure out a way to stop themselves from being tracked.
As they were doing this, Olivia's mind wandered to how they would stop themselves from being tracked.
It was possible that no one would even follow them. If the guards thought they were being attacked by several people, Orcs at that, then the people turning up may just help them rather than pursue a bunch of Orcs. But there was a chance that they would take the opportunity to claim the bounty for an Orc head and be gung-ho about going after them.
This means they had to deal with the tracks they had left behind. Or more than likely the ones they would be leaving as they left the campsite. Going back to deal with the tracks they left coming here would be a terrible thing to do, and might end with them being caught instantly.
The place they were in was a dense forest with roots and shrubbery everywhere, but it's not like there are no patches of dirt that they could step on. Even just stepping on shrubbery would deform it so, making it easy to see if someone had walked that way.
Hiding those sorts of tracks was a must in order for them to not be pursued.
Option one was to just not stop anywhere you could clearly see a footprint. But how likely and easy would it be to do that when trying to get away as fast as they could?
That left option two, which took a while, but Olivia eventually found it when she was glancing around and saw Lyrika's tail moving about.
...
"This is humiliating," Lyrika grumbled.
"That may be. But it's necessary in case someone is trying to follow us."
Olivia had thought it was a great idea, but it seemed that Lyrika wasn't too happy about it. It probably didn't help that Philly had a permanent smirk on her face and that Ameril, a girl Lyrika had only just met, couldn't stop giggling behind her hand.
"Once we are about halfway to Teagan's village you should be able to stop. By then, there wouldn't have been anything for them to follow, so we should be in the clear."
"I know, but still."
The group was heading through the dense forest all in a line, going towards the 'path' that they had taken before. At the front was Philly, her keen observing eyes on the lookout for any hazards, and her ears for any signs of life other than them. Behind her was the new addition to the group, who was staying quiet until they were out of the woods. Aside from the random giggling every time she heard Lyrika complain.
Behind her was Olivia. The wound was completely healed, or at least it felt like it. So, she had no problem keeping up with the rest of the group. And at the back was Lyrika...with a grumpy look on her face.
Nothing looked amiss when you looked at her, but every now and then, when she swung her tail, you could see a bunch of leaves from a tree swing by with it.
That's right, Lyrika was being used as a broom.
Before they left, Olivia had seen her tail moving back and forth, along with broken branches and the like in the background. Her mind instantly put them together, and so with some of the leftover vines to tie them both to each other, you then gained a semi-automatic broom.
The simple idea worked very well, where as they walked Lyrika would swing her tail, and the branch covered in leaves that was attached to it, ended up being swept along the floor to cover up any footprints they had left behind. It even helped shift any patches of grass and shrubbery, removing the indentations of footprints.
As Olivia looked behind them, she could see nothing in the dirt whatsoever. It was like they hadn't even been walking through the forest at all. It worked so well, she started to wonder if they could create a permanent version that they would put on and take off of her tail as needed.
09:06
Whether Lyrika would be fine with that though, was a whole other question.