I quickly went to the entrance where Cleo and Leana were waiting. Cleo handed Nina to Leana and said "What happened?"
"We are in trouble! The female guard is taking Tien back to the prison."
Cleo swore and Leana seemed distressed.
"Now what?" asked Leana.
"We take her out," said Cleo with coldness in her eyes.
"She is on her way to prison now. If we are doing this, we need to go now." I said anxiously.
Cleo nodded and started making her way inside. I ran ahead of her while making no noise to see where the guard was. I saw her making her way by the torch just as I reached the hiding place. I told Cleo that she went in to the prison. We gave a quick look around to make sure that no one else was there and followed her guard.
The female guard stopped probably in surprise just as she reached the end of the passage. Cleo quickly dashed forward and hit her in the neck to knock her unconscious.
The guard fell down and dropped Tien as well. Cleo bent down to punch her again to make sure that she was down. Thankfully, the female guard was knocked out. I checked Tien's condition and like Nina he was unconscious but breathing.
"What should we do now?" I asked Cleo.
We were going to take the guard at the door, but this guard might have more useful information. We need to interrogate her.
I was a bit worried since the guard was quite strong based on how easily she had overpowered Tien. What if we couldn't restrain her? My doubts must have shown but Cleo added "If it looks like we can't restrain her, we will kill her. "
I swallowed and nodded my head. I had never killed anyone and didn't want to see anyone being killed in front of me either. So I was hoping that this doesn't become an issue.
I looked down and asked "So do you want me to carry her?"
"No, I will carry both of them. Don't worry, I am stronger than Tina and she could carry two that were heavier than these two remember?"
"Alright, if you are sure. I will go ahead and check the way again."
I waited for Cleo to put both of them on her shoulders. It didn't look like it was too difficult for her, so I relaxed a bit.
"I will scout ahead." I started looking for any more surprises that might show up now. I didn't see anyone and gave Cleo the go ahead. We quietly walked out of the cave and saw Leana waiting there. She widened her eyes seeing Cleo carrying two people. Leana was still carrying Nina on her shoulder.
"What happened? Is that Tien? Who is the woman?" asked Leana.
"Let's start walking and I will explain." replied Cleo.
When we came to where Turek was waiting, we saw that he was still waiting there anxiously. We explained what had happened and what the new plan was to him. Cleo put down the two people she was carrying.
"So how are we going to carry three people?" asked Turek. The original plan was to carry Nina and a guard. This meant Cleo and Leana had to carry only one person each. Now we had found Tien unexpectedly so we need to decide how to handle it.
"How about Turek and me take turns carrying Nina?" I asked hoping to solve this issue. Nina was the smallest of the people we needed to carry.
"No. You two have to carry the supplies as well. Leana and me can take turns carrying two people."
"Alright, but we need to tie her up first." replied Leana.
"Let's get going. We shouldn't linger here for too long. The bandit queen might be awake and waiting for this guard to come back."
I hadn't thought of this and started to get worried. Indeed, we didn't know what the female guard was going to do after dropping off Tien. What if she was supposed to go back to the bandit queen?
We tied up the female guard and gagged her so she couldn't alert our pursuers. We also searched her to make sure she didn't have any hidden weapons.
I grabbed half of the supplies while Turek picked up the other half. Leana carried Tien on her shoulder while Cleo carried the female guard and Nina. Since Tien was the heaviest, it made sense to divide the weight this way.
We started making our way towards Tiaanway.