We continued our journey decently despite having trouble with the poor road, and having decided on Mireille’s hometown first, we were one day away from Sheera village, when at last an incident occurred.
“Aegir, did you see that?”
“It was only an instant so I’m not exactly sure, but there was something.”
At a basin surrounded by hills, shadows visible earlier on top of the surrounding hills disappeared.
From here, there is pretty much no distance left to the hill.
If it’s wolves, they’d chase us from our scents even if we don’t go any closer, all directions besides leewards is visible in the first place, so it’d be weird to hide.*
“Carla, did you see it?”
“Just an instant but, a lot of people.”
That was easy to figure out, there are few cases where people who hide themselves as they follow you are friendly.
“Carla, Mireille, be on the lookout all around! Ruu, curl up and stay quiet!”
I unfasten the luggage from Schwarz and jumped on him.
Sensing the tense atmosphere, they quickly followed my orders.
“Where are you going?”
“Being shot by arrows from the surrounding hills is trouble! I’m going on top of the hills to hold them up! You guys follow behind me!”
I kicked Schwarz’s stomach, galloping like I never done during practice… a full-power sprint.
“Fast”, I earnestly felt.
He is not simply big, for example even if there was another horse of the same size it would be slower by far, that he was born just to run comes to mind.
This may be the first time in his life running all out, it felt like his back was laughing in a good mood.
We arrived to the top of the hill in the twinkling of an eye, perhaps it could be as expected, there was a group of 5 dirty-looking men wielding axes and crude spears, their eyes peeled toward our direction.
“Hey, he’s climbed up!”
“Since when!!”
“I’ll ask first, why are you following us!”
The men were silent for a moment, then brandished their weapons and began yelling as if they’d regained control.
“We’ll have you leave your luggage behind!”
“The women too!”
It’s still going as I expected.
“I refuse”
“Eh?”
“Eh?
They sure are a stupid bunch.
“I said I refuse. What’ll you do, give up and leave? Or will you fight?”
Horse-riding, mounted warriors give off immense pressure to foot soldiers.
Not to mention that Schwarz boasts a large size even among warhorses, the sense of intimidation he gives off is not ordinary.
It would’ve been better for them to get scared and run away.
“Don’t look down on us!”
“What can just a single rider do!”
It seems negotiations have broken down.
With weapons in their hands, the men first rushed me in order to pull me off the horse, but their movements were so slow their leadership was ineffective.
With the men rushing in from the front, Schwarz did the smart thing and ran in an oblique direction.
The horse’s head disappeared from my view, I roused up my spear at the men and two spears and four arms danced in the air.
“●▲■!!!!!!!!”