The man who, a few seconds earlier, had tried to grab Pavas to catch her, had suddenly found himself without a hand attached to his arm.
Cut off in one fell swoop.
With terror, he screamed as he fell to his knees and took his bloody wrist in his remaining hand, blood flowing profusely from the severed limb.
And quickly emerging from the darkness, Ewan appeared, holding a bloody long sword in his right hand. He himself was covered in blood splatters, from head to toe, and looked like he had been running, the way he was breathing loudly while lifting and lowering his shoulders and chest greatly.
The little girl couldn't believe her eyes.
He had... really come?
And as if to confirm that it was not a hallucination, Ewan smiled at her - with a sorry look - and breathlessly said:
"I told you I'd come for you, didn't I?"
With these words, he thrust his sword into the heart of the man still screaming in pain, killing him instantly.
With his body on the ground, Ewan quickly looked around the room he was in. There were no people hiding in the shadows, no traps. There were no other children trapped either, which suggested that those in the auction room were the only ones to be rescued, in addition to-
He was interrupted in his thinking by something hitting his stomach.
Instantly, he raised his sword and looked down...
To see that Pavas had thrown herself against him and put her little arms around his waist.
Shaking off the aggression he still had in him, he lowered his sword; and with a tight throat, told her:
"It's all right now... It's all right."
For all answer, Pavas tightened her embrace, and began to tremble.
Ewan was sure she was crying, but said nothing about it.
Sometimes it was better to let things take their course without interrupting them.
He heard the distinct sound of people running down the hallway to the room they were in, as well as screaming.
The army was surely arresting or killing the last of the traffickers. And soon; it would all be a distant nightmare.
He just hoped that this bad dream would not come to haunt Pavas every night.
Lowering his sword even further so that its tip touched the ground, he watched the man lying on the ground in front of him.
Killing monsters was his daily life, and it was what allowed him to live. But in all his years of hunting, he had never felt as much hatred or anger as he was feeling right now, in front of this human-looking monster lying on the ground.
Then he heard the distinct clanking of small metal chains, and knew that some army officer was heading for their position. Sure enough, he looked up and saw Carciem in the doorway, dressed in his full Quartermaster General's uniform, with a white and black cap, and a blue cloak with the city's coat of arms in the center.
He hadn't really paid attention to his friend's outfit, whom he had only briefly seen. But now that he felt the pressure coming down, he could observe the military man's outfit in detail. He could see blood spatters in places, and also traces of dirt and dust.
However, what stopped his gaze was the coat of arms he had noticed a few seconds earlier.
Ewan felt a pang of bitterness as he saw the design of a knight emerging sword in hand from the wide open mouth of a manticore. He didn't know if he should have seen it as a metaphor for resilience or despair. But for now, all the crest reminded him of was the underlying evil that had taken over the city.
"I see... So that was it..." Carciem smiled, amused.
Ewan nodded slightly.
"Ewan... You..." Carciem began to say slowly, before shouting with a dramatic air. "You hid from me all this time that you had a daughter!"
Ewan nearly fell over backwards.
What could this guy have been thinking?
No, important question: how could he deduce something so grotesque? And with what clues?!
If he hadn't been blocked by Pavas, he would certainly have tried to slice up the moron who was now laughing his ass off on the doorstep.
This guy had once again succeeded in taking the piss out of him in style.
"Ah, I missed your fish-out-of-water expression so much!" Carciem exclaimed while laughing harder. "But still breathe a little, okay?"
Ewan contented himself with blowing noisily by the nostrils and with throwing the sword that he had stolen to the ground, while staring at the blond man with a disillusioned air.
Deep down, he was far too reassured to have finally rescued Pavas, to get so easily irritated by the stupid jokes of his old friend.
During several minutes, he continued to caress the head of the small girl, what allowed him also to regain his calm. Then, seeing that she finally wanted to move, he held her close to prevent her from moving.
"Pavas, I'm going to ask you to close your eyes until I tell you it's alright, okay?" He asked in a soft voice so as not to scare her too much.
He then heard a small voice reply 'okay', partly muffled by his own clothes, then put his arm around the girl's body, making sure that she indeed had her eyes closed.
He mentally thanked the surrounding darkness that hid most of the bloody scene he had just created, and walked out of the room down a hallway now littered with corpses. She had already seen too many terrible things, and Ewan wanted to spare her the hellish vision that was coming their way.
A few minutes later, they were finally on the surface, in a street where passers-by, made curious by the nightly commotion, had gathered against wooden barriers guarded by guards in shining armor.
Some prison carts had already left, full of arrested people.
And near a lamppost, Ewan spotted a small group surrounding a mage who was providing first aid.
He decided to approach the gray-haired man, and asked him to take care of the little girl he was holding.
Having been relieved of his burden for a moment, he wiped the blood that had spattered on his face with his sleeve, making it dirtier than it already was.
However, he soon found himself with Pavas snuggled up against him again, the mage having found only slight cuts and having already completely healed the girl's skin. And the young hunter had to face the facts, as he stood there with the little girl clinging to his clothes: never again would he entrust her to complete strangers.
And obviously, the little girl was surely not going to let him go all night, especially considering the way she was clinging to his tunic as if her life depended on it. What, in itself, had almost been the case a little earlier.
Exhausted, he sighed, before briefly patting Pavas's hair to indicate that they were going to move. Then, taking one last look at the steady stream of military personnel that continued to emerge from the building's basement, he began walking in the direction of the Ylesse military barracks.
Carciem wouldn't mind if he abused their hospitality a little. Wouldn't he?