"Rraggghhh"
It was as if all semblance of human reasoning had vanished from the man's brain as he charged at Olivia. It was as if his whole purpose in life now was to just take her out.
As he neared, he swung both his sword and his shield at the same time, crossing them over his body as he reached her.
Olivia managed to bring her morning star up to block, but not expecting such an attack, her block was not as effective as she would have liked.
She managed to halt his blade and shield from going any further, but while the blade was stuck in the middle, its tip had managed to slice into her skin and penetrate rather deeply.
She hissed at the pain and pushed back as hard as she could to keep it from going deeper.
The scary thing was that when she had fought the archer and spear user she had been able to push him back with ease. The shield user's build, however, was more based on strength, compared to the archer who was more agile and dexterous. This meant that while she had the strength to push him back, whatever that potion did to him, it was now very much a struggle and not a foregone conclusion.
She was able to barely push his blade back, pulling it out of her flesh. She twisted her morning star, the head moving down and its rear up. This allowed her to separate both his shield and sword, which he was pushing with all his might towards her.
As she kept doing so, he all of a sudden faltered from his injuries playing up. This then meant all the strength Olivia was putting in, burst through, which shocked even her. With its trajectory, sent his sword arm downwards, and his shield up. It was so sudden and with such strength that in that quick moment where he slipped up from his injuries, she sent him turning over himself.
He bent to the side, following his sword down. She also heard the sound of something breaking, likely from her weapon's shaft pushing and twisting his arms, probably out of its socket.
Her morning star ended its swing sending the spiked ball downwards, and into his leg, puncturing it in several places.
He made no cry of agony though.
But he did fall flat onto the ground.
He was in a mess, and if his potion wore off, she was sure he would have passed from the pain. But as it stood, with its effects, he was still going.
Not that it meant he could make his way up from the ground.
Olivia had thought that when he first managed to right himself before, the battle would be going on for a lot longer. But, with him acting more like an animal with a single-minded nature and not being able to deal with his injuries, well, the battle was a very quick one.
He lay on the floor moving his arms about, trying to find purchase against the ground to right himself.
Every time his hand tried to push against the ground, there was no strength to be had. Whatever she had done to his arms in that attack had made it impossible for him to use them to get up.
His legs also were out of commission. Her Morning Star impaling his leg must have torn through something, as he could hardly move the thing. So with only one, reasonably good leg left, if you can call it that, he had no way to pick himself up.
…
As Olivia just looked at the man, part of her wondering what to do about him and another part about whether he would manage to find a way back to his feet, she heard footsteps behind her.
Turning, she saw all the girls running over to her.
"Are you all okay?"
"Yeah, we…we're fine." Lyrika quickly told her. "But you on the other hand. Philly get the potions."
Olivia was about to say it wasn't necessary, but it would seem that with all the adrenalin pumping through her, her injuries hadn't felt so bad. Now that the battle was over…she was really feeling the extent of it all.
She slowly sat herself down, lest she fall over by accident. The girls all circled her, a look of worry on their faces. Philly was already on it, going through her bag and looking for the right potions to use, where she quickly handed one to Lyrika and one to Ameril.
"To drink" she said to Lyrika and "For her wounds" to Ameril.
Then the girls got to work, Lyrika tilted her head back and held the bottle to her lips. Olivia wouldn't have been able to do it herself, as the strength seemed to have just been sapped out of her arms. Ameril and Philly poured the potions they had over her wounds, helping to clean, heal and then seal them up.
It wasn't instant, and would likely take a few goes to deal with the deep wounds, but from what they had done, she felt a lot better. She stood but did so with a wobble and lingering limp along with some pain here and there.
"Thank you. That was…those guys were tough." Olivia said as she looked down at the men.
At some point in all of this, the potion must have worn off as the shield user looked to have passed out.
It was then that something occurred to Olivia.
"Do you know if all the men guarding the chief are as good a fighter as those two?" She asked Lyrika.
"…I don't know. I hope not."
"It's unlikely. These two were probably some of the best to keep this village and its secrets safe. He probably has others, but I doubt they would all be as skilled." Was Philly's assessment of the situation.
"She's right. There were only so many good fighters left after what happened here. So, unless there were others in the other villages, there wouldn't be many that are as skilled." Kathleen brought up to which Beatrix nodded in agreement.
It was still a frightening prospect. Of the people taken from the other villages, and that was quite a number now, who knew how many were skilled fighters? It was then a question of how many were completely down for his cause. Even if they aren't as skilled as these two, that would still be quite the number.
*Slam*
All of the girls were startled at the sound of a door slamming and looked in its direction, seeing that it came from the chief's manor.
With all the fighting going on, they had completely forgotten about the man who had started this all.
'But why would he run to his manor and not away from the village?'
All of a sudden, Olivia realised why. Remembering his words about having heard of them coming here and his devotion to the chief, there was only one thing he would be going for.
"Quick, we have to stop him!" Olivia shouted and she started to run towards the manor.
Well, run is a strong word for someone still injured as such, but she moved as fast as she could.
Thankfully, most of the girls realised what she was eluding to and sped off ahead of her to get to him as soon as possible, leaving her in the dust with Beatrix and Kathleen not sure what was happening.
Olivia could only hobble towards the place as fast as she could, worry on her face at the girls going after him alone.
As she got closer, she could very quickly hear the sounds of things being broken and the chief shouting. She moved as fast as she could, hoping to get there in time before anything bad happened to the girls.
But, it was all for nought.
…
Because nothing bad happened to them.
As she made it to the door, she found Philly, Lyrika and Ameril all holding the chief who was battered and bruised and slumped over on the floor.
Olivia could only stare at the scene in shock, to which the girls just looked at her and shrugged. It would seem her somewhat 'protective nature' over the girls at least, had kicked in, making her forget that 'Yeah, they can take care of themselves'.
"He will kill you. He will kill you and save me. He will-"
The chief was cut short by Lyrika kicking him in the side, sending him into a coughing fit.
"He didn't get to it did he?" Olivia asked.
"No, we managed to stop him in time."
She sighed in relief at that. Had he managed to get to whatever communication orb he had been contacted by the chief with, well who knows what might have happened. While he wouldn't be able to get the new chief here to save him any quicker, he could have told him about each of them and who was in her group or other information that may have made it easier for him to take them out.
But given that he was stopped in time, they had a little breather.
The only question now was what to do with all of these people.
…
All wrangled up and tied with ropes and various other linen, the girls all looked at the mass of villagers, the two guards and the chief.
"We could put them in the village jail." Beatrix brought up as the group were wondering what they could do.
"It won't fit all of them though," Kathleen interjected.
As a village, it wasn't likely that it had a very big jail. It was probably just enough for a few thieves.
"Even if they all fit, it wouldn't help. He said that the chief was coming here to kill us. We have to leave and that just means when he gets here, he will just free them." Was Lyrika's voiced thoughts.
"Assuming he actually comes here. If he doesn't then they would just starve."
"I would not feel right about just leaving them all to starve," Ameril said in response to Philly's analysis.
It was possible that he wouldn't come. They had no clue how far away he was from them. Then there was the matter of how much he cared about killing her compared to his plan of recruitment. He may have said that to the chief here to placate him.
They went back and forth on this for a while, before Olivia had a brainwave. Why didn't they just ask?
…
Not the horrible chief that was the cause of all this mind you. While they could use the orb and try to find out where he was, well she highly doubted that would work.
No, but they could ask Teagan. He might have an idea of the new chief's whereabouts and an idea of what they can do with the people here.
But before that, they needed to do something about these people, if only temporarily, before they woke up and caused a fuss, struggling against their bonds. It only took one to break free and cause a problem.