The other soldiers gritted their teeth and attacked at the same time. Rizaneth managed to dodge a sword coming her way, before stabbing forward with her short sword. The person on the receiving end of the blade looked down, and saw the blade piercing through his stomach. He immediately lost consciousness and fell over. Riza didn't stop though. She kept running until she arrived at the young man's side.
"Are you all so useless that you can't kill one person?" shouted the enraged Lord Severin. Beside him, his wife was looking flustered. It was evident that the event happening currently was not affecting her at all. Her mind was somewhere else instead.
Riza took the young man's hand and started dragging him. She coughed, trying to adjust her voice, before whispering, "If you don't want to end up like that, we have to leave now! You need to come back and kill everyone who did this with your own hands. However, you have to be alive for that!"
After saying that, she turned to see if anyone else had heard her. Well, the Lords and Ladies sitting on the banquet table and their maids just sat there as if they were watching some entertaining play.
The soldiers who were being shouted at by Lord Severin increased the intensity of their attacks as they pounced on Riza. The daggers which were flying from nowhere and killing most of them weren't helping. But at least Soren had become active, not that it helped anyways.
Riza rushed towards one soldier, who, before she could reach him, fell over in mid-air. He was dead. Riza couldn't imagine how many daggers this Red Crow had in order to be able to kill so many people. However, she would be glad if they could last until she got through the door.
"Whoever is killing my men, I dare you to come out now!" yelled Lord Severin when he realized that Riza wasn't the one throwing the daggers. Well, that didn't help, since the daggers kept flying and killing people. Whenever a dagger flew by, a body would drop down.
Riza dodged a blade that had been swung by someone, before stabbing forward with the short sword in her hands. The blade embedded itself in the solar plexus of the soldier who had swung a sword.
"Regorius, isn't it time you stepped in? It looks like your prey is about to escape!" shouted Lord Severin.
Riza was not inclined to pay any attention. After all, she was almost at the door. However, that didn't stop the soldiers from attacking. Instead, they kept on going even if their numbers were slowly dwindling.
It was then, that a man who had been sitting by, eating nice food in front of him stopped eating and stood up. With a sigh, he said, "I'll take care of it."
As he said this, he took up a giant axe, and moved towards the door where Riza was about to leave. The man had a large build, with blue hair and he was wearing leather armor which was similar to the one worn by the soldiers. However, his was quite different. Not only did it have brown straps on the shoulder area, it also had shades of red on the abdominal area.
Regorius dashed towards Riza, but he halted mid-step, before dodging to the side. A dagger whistled by his ear, drawing some blood. Had he been slower, the dagger would have been embedded deep in his forehead. This pause helped Riza to leave the room, even though more soldiers continued to chase her.
"Who are you and why are you helping me?" asked Soren, as they ran in the corridors.
"We don't have time for this!! Just keep running, will you?" snapped Riza, as she ran.
Soren couldn't help but feel like the voice was familiar. However, he didn't have the liberty to recall where he had heard it. They were running for their dear lives, and pausing for a moment meant death. The tears on his face had dried forming white lines, while his eyes had reddened.
As they were running, a figure came out from a room they had just passed and jumped towards the soldiers who were following Riza. Soren wanted to turn and look, but Riza urged him to keep moving. A short while later, loud sounds of metal clashing could be heard.
Riza didn't know how large the Severin mansion was. But she ended up discovering that it was quite large. It took them almost thirty minutes to get to the large doors. When they arrived at the large doors, they realized that they were blocked by some soldiers, who were holding spears. Riza got ready to fight, but that turned out to be unnecessary. Two daggers flew from behind them and embedded themselves in the foreheads of the soldiers. They died before they even knew what killed them.
The two opened the door, without looking back and kept running into the darkness. They chose to go in another direction that didn't lead straight to the gate. Riza new that there were more soldiers at the gate, so she decided to avoid conflict altogether. Even Red Crow who was following them couldn't see the logic in that decision. However, Red Crow still followed.
They finally reached a secluded corner, where Riza had entered from. Sounds of dogs barking could be heard in the distance, and this was very bad for them. It meant that they were being followed.
After getting through the small space, they left the mansion. One person had gone into the mansion, but three people had left. Two of the three were wearing masks, while the other one was wearing bloodied clothes. After escaping from the mansion, Riza headed towards the smaller gate that she had entered the city from. As they ran through the silent streets, Riza couldn't help but feel nostalgic. She was reminded of the day that she had run away from home. However, unlike that day, right now she was being chased by soldiers with dogs. It wasn't the ideal situation she had imagined, but at least she was alive.