She ran as fast as her injured legs could carry her. The two men behind her were gaining, albeit slowly. In the distance, she could see several people gathered along the wooden wall of the village. While, because of the distance she couldn't make out anything about who they were, she could clearly see them all taking hold of bows and nocking arrows, waiting to get a clear shot on the monster that was attacking them.
The only saving grace that Olivia had was that she had a good several massive fields that she had to travel through. All of them had crops of varying colours, from yellows, to greens, one purple, whatever that was, but thankfully there were some that were brown. Not the exact same tone as her skin, but they did have large stalks of the crop, which should enable her to blend in with it for a while, keeping her hidden from the archers.
The only problem to this though, was that the brown field was not in the direction she was being forced into. No she was headed for a very lush field, made from a green crop that was short and stumpy, which would provide absolutely no cover for her.
Once she had made it to the first field, all she could do was head towards the brown field, which in this case had her heading towards the corner at the other end. She needed to make it there to then hop over the fence, and dash through to the brown one. The men behind her continued to shout, and it wasn't long before they entered the green field with her.
As they shouted, now closer to the village, it ended up alerting the people on the wall, who shifted their gaze that way. And wouldn't you know it, saw a large hulking brown monster struggling to speed through a sea of green plants.
Nearly all of them took aim and fired their arrows at her. It was tense as she heard the twang of the bow string. It got even more tense when she couldn't even look to see where they were landing, too focused on making it to the hopefully safety of the brown field.
When the first few arrows landed only a few meters in front of her, it gave her quite the fright, almost making her freeze mid-step, but she managed to regain herself. She really hoped that the field would provide the safety she needed.
Thuds of arrows in dirt more or less surrounded her, and not long after, she heard the bow strings twang again. She pushed through the pain still affecting her body and continued, finally making it to the break in the green field.
When she had finished struggling over the fence, she ended at what was basically a dirt path, separating the fields, which would have let people move between them and stop the crops from mixing. She only had a few more steps before she would be in the brown one.
But the thoughts of some form of safety were shattered when she felt a massive amount of pain in her shoulder as something embedded itself there.
"Ahhhh," she cried out from the pain. She felt the need to check out what happened, but she knew she had to keep going, and she knew it was an arrow that had done the deed. The rest of the arrows again thunked into the dirt.
But thankfully, by this point, she had made it into the brown crop field.
The two men still followed behind her a short distance away, and she knew she had to somehow lose them in this one. She also heard more arrows be loosed from bows, but instead of just heading in the same direction, she shifted to her right and took a different path.
She really hoped this would work, that the brown crops would provide enough of a camouflage to hide her, but she would only know when the archers took another shot.
The arrows from before hit the dirt again, and when she expected to hear them go again, all she got was silence.
'Yes' she all but shouted in her head.
The only reason she could think for them not firing again was because they couldn't see her. No point firing into a field as large as this when you didn't know where you were aiming.
She was very happy that her idea had worked, but she knew it might only be temporary. And while a good idea against the archers, the two men that had followed her in here would have a much easier time finding her, them being at the same level.
She continued making her was through the field but was starting to slow as she did. It was partly due to the injuries she had sustained, but it also occurred to her that her lumbering about in the field would surely cause a lot of damage to the crops. Damage that these guys could easily follow. So, she slowed her movements and tried to slip past the crops with as little disturbance to them as possible, hoping to hide her movements and get them off her tail.
…
It felt like she had been moving in and amongst the crops in this field for hours, but it had only been a several minutes.
Things were going well. Reasonable, anyway. As she moved she still felt pain with every step, even more so given the exertion from the run and the fall, probably damaging things even more. She also had the time to check out the damage on her arm, not that she could do anything about it. With a baby creature in her arms, and two people with swords after her, she couldn't just stop to yank it out. There was also the fact that she wasn't sure yanking it out was the best option. All she could do was look and see that the arrow had embedded itself nicely in her shoulder, causing an excruciating amount of pain whenever she shifted it.
She decided to just push that to the back of her mind and figure out how to get out of this mess. She hoped that Lyrika would be able to do something, but who knows what had happened to her inside the village. Being a civilian they might keep her out of things, stopping her from talking to the chief, now that they were 'under attack'. She honestly had no idea and all she could do was hope she was fine and safe.
Now, as she got further and further into the field, she was at a loss of what else she could do. The only thing she could think of reasoning with them. She had yet to try and talk to them given all the excitement but she could only hope that if she talked to them, it might put them at ease. The only problem was that the only people near her were armed, so if diplomacy didn't go well, she might not make it out of here.
But, with no other options, she had to try it. As soon as she left this field, the archers would be on her again. And surely, if she did stay in this field, either those two would find her, or more people would turn to hunt her down.
…
It wasn't long though, and she got a chance to try out that diplomacy. As she was walking, trying to think of other options, she spotted one of the men, treading through the field. He had his sword brandished as she expected, and before long, he turned and ended up facing her.
His eyes went wide, and she knew what he was going to do, so before he could, she spoke.
"Please, stop. I'm not here to hurt anyone!" she cried out, with one of her arms outstretched, while the other still held the creature.
This had the desired effect, practically shocking the man. He was speech less for a while, but quickly shook himself out of his stupor.
"An Orc that can talk." he said looking shocked. But a few seconds later he took control of his emotions and showed only one on his face. Anger. "I've heard that monsters that can talk are far more dangerous than others, being more intelligent than the rest. I best deal with you quickly then", the man said replied, more so to himself than to her, as if what she had said went in one ear and out the other.
He then started to walk towards her, his sword at the ready, forcing Olivia to backtrack and keep away from him.
"No, stop. I'm not here to hurt anyone. You don't need to attack me."
"I won't be deceived by the lies of a monster that kidnaps and rapes women. One of your ilk took my wife from me and I will be damned if I let you do the same to another in my village. The world will be much better without you in it!" he shouted before speeding and running at her.
'Well, looks like diplomacy has failed.'