Chapter 80: Chapter 80
Reya waited until they were upon her before making a mad dash to escape. She used [Imprison] on the fastest of the bandits, ducking under his frozen attack and throwing her cloak up behind her to buy another few seconds.
This wasn’t the first time she’d run from an angry crowd, but it definitely was the first time she’d run from one that she’d intentionally made. Reya ducked and dodged to the best of her ability, but even that wasn’t enough to avoid everything.
A blade cut across her cheek and another scraped along her back, cutting through her robes and colliding with the armor that Arwin’ had made her. The armor shimmered and magical energy poured into it.
Reya squeezed her eyes shut a moment before a brilliant flash lit the night. Surprised yells rose up, but it was too late. Reya used the distraction to slip away, sprinting into the alleyway.
It was too late to stop the brawl, though. The fight had started in earnest, and as long as they didn’t know where Reya was, it would continue for at least a little while. It wouldn’t be long before the Iron Hounds came looking to figure out what in the world was going on outside their guild hall.
Reya slipped into the darkness, where Rodrick stepped out of an alley to meet her, a stone in each of his hands.
“Nice work,” Rodrick said. “You didn’t get hurt too badly, did you?”
“Just a cut on the face,” Reya replied, wiping the blood from her cheek. The wound was a little deeper than she’d initially thought, but it wasn’t anything too serious – though it would probably scar if Anna didn’t take care of it.
“Good,” Rodrick said as the clamor of battle intensified behind them. “That’s our role, then. Let’s go meet back up with Anna and see if we need to bail Arwin and Lillia out.”
“They’ll handle it,” Lillia said. “Shall we?”
“Lead the way,” Arwin replied. “I take it you remember the direction Anna said Erik would be coming from?”
“Yeah,” Lillia said, setting off into the dark with Arwin at her side. “It should be a little while until Erik makes it since he was farther. We don’t know anything about him, so hopefully he isn’t too difficult to spot. The fight is getting bigger behind us, so the guild might have gotten involved.”
“Good. That’ll buy us all the time we need,” Arwin said, but he couldn’t shake a building unease in his stomach. Yul was dead – of that, there was no doubt. Their plan had gone exactly how he’d wanted it to, but the man had truly been far too shit of a fighter to be a Journeyman. Something was going on, and Arwin didn’t like not knowing what it was.