"...You Sure that's what they said?" Alister speaks quietly as he questioned Hardy.
"Really sure lad!"
"Ha!" Ishnaia sneered, "I guess they're selling out Kes because he's weak and a coward asshole!"
"I guess loyalty can really be bought after all amidst their suffering…" Alister said wistfully.
"That's slave mentality for you!" Hardy said wittingly while sheathing his knife to his waist, "Some will eat dirt just to get a doe!"
"I don't care!" Ishnaia said in a brass manner, "What I care most of all is that why would we save that damn furry!"
"I know when someone's speaking truth," Hardy answers, "And sod we're gonna postpone this repose."
"Fuck yeah, it's all fine by me!" Ishnaia nodded in agreement, "This bed is full of dirtfuck! Wouldn't want my skin turn in reddish polkadots!"
"But Hardy," Alister says skeptically, "Are you not too hasty doing this?"
"Nah lad! I'm sure in what I'm doin' in a bazillion percent!" Hardy replied irately as he pitch at Alister his leather sheathed rapier wherein the latter caught it quickly with a swipe of arm, "Who'd you think finding critters when we're out huntin, eh?"
"Oh…"
"What? The dwarf has some superpower shit I haven't heard of?", Ishnaia asks.
"Superpower?" Alister tilts his head, "Do you mean his good hearing?"
"Yeah, whatever the fuck you call it."
"Of course! My Ears are sharp all the time!" Hardy proudly said as he handed Alister his unstringed bow and quiver with arrows, "I've been practicin' my hearing in woodlands since I was three! Heck, I can even hear cockroaches crawlin' a miles away!"
"Yeeeeeeaah. I understand enough. Please." Ishnaia said in a deadpan tone.
Then Hardy opened the door and surveyed from left to right. Just outside of their room, There's only one narrow way with a stair on the right with a railway just a few meters away from the room. In face front, there are two doors existing apart, but none directly in front of their room. But on the left, there exist a window, opened, and also big enough for a person to fit in. From there, Hardy threw their things outside, went inside again and closed the door.
"Oi, Oi! Dwarf!" Ishnaia protested, "What you do that for!?"
"Here's the plan!" Hardy hurriedly says, "Go to the upper decks! Pretend to sleep! Someone's gonna come here! If that's someone's not Kes, we ambush and interrogate here and now!
"Why?" Ishnaia groaned "I've seen other rooms outside! Can't we just hide there?"
"It's safer I dare!" Hardy replied.
"The ceiling's too low to jump you moron! Fuck maybe only your kind could do that!"
"Shut up! As if your idea is better than mine!"
Then the door slammed opened
"Goodness! You're here!"
The two who was bickering at each other paused and glanced towards the door. It was Kes.
"What in the Praddis happened? Is there a strife!?"
Alister unsheathes his rapier and pointed it unto Kes' neck
"Wh-"
"Close the door, slowly." Alister ordered in which Kes did as he was told.
"Good." Alister sheathes back his blade, "Speak quietly as possible Sir Kes."
"What in tarnation! I had enough blades on my neck for tonight!" Kes said as he grasps his own neck where the point of blade was in close proximity.
"No shit if it will ever end on that!" Ishnaia sneered.
"Wait, what do you mean?"
"It ploughing means you comin' with us, or had the blades not only pointed on your neck, but also being sliced by it!" Hardy growled.
"What!?" Kes said in disbelief, "I don't understand!"
"Hardy says your pals are going to betray you." Alister answered.
"They say 'bout you being weak like a dried turd," Hardy continued, "I've no idea who they're talkin to, but at any moment now by my guess, they're gonna get y-!" then Hardy cursed as he had a realization, moving his eyes to Alister and back at Kes, "Ploughing sod, it's us! They're gonna get you with us!"
"W-W-,me with you?"
"You know why!" he glances at Alister, "Alister knows why!"
Hearing that, Alister bit his lips;
And Kes sat down in the nearest bed, deep in thought and raises his head, looking at Hardy, "…Where'd you know this?"
"They're literally downstairs!" Hardy said, "I heard them here!"
"Yeah," Ishnaia grinned, "He literally put his ear on the floor! And alas, we're here on his shitty situation and he literally said to save you, a coward furry man!"
"…What you said to me bitch?" Kes glared at Ishnaia furiously.
"Woah! Woah! Oh for the love of," Hardy put himself in between Ishnaia and Kes and shook his head sideways in disappointment, "Hey Kes! It doesn't matter what she says alright! We gotta go! Arthuria and Lancelot's safe, right?"
"Who?"
"Our rides! Arthuria's the Mare and Lancelot's the gelding!"
"Ah, I don't care about their names, but they're there, in the stables. Safe and sound."
"Well, you should care about their names, Sir Kes! They'll be happier when you know 'em more!"
"Hah!" Kes grinned, but slowly faded into sniffing as his tail raises high up. "Smell that?"
"Smell what?"
Then smoke began to seep through the wooden floor. When they saw this, Ishnaia then had a deep sigh.
"What is this? Can't we even just have a rest for a while?"
"True lassie," Hardy also sighed deeply "Now this guy's pals gonna try to cook us with dirt as spices."
"Shiiiiiiiiiiiiit…"
Alister glances out of the window, "Friends, Hardy's right! They're Kes's! Some of which I had seen earlier and some are not! and we are surrounded outside by these men! Jumping out here is a sure way to be stabbed by their blades!"
All of them then glances outside, and true to Alister's words, they all saw maybe around 30 Beastkins staring up from where they are. Hardy replied, "It's like they're kids waiting their food to be served huh."
"You don't sa-" Ishnaia's speech was abruptly stopped when she saw one black furred beastkin, readying their bow, aiming the window. Abruptly, she shouted, "GET DOWN!"
Just in time, their heads went away from the window as soon as it was smashed to pieces by the piercing arrow.
"MOTHERFUCKER!!" Ishnaia Bellowed.
"Great, just great Kes!" Hardy shouted, "Thought you're them leader! Do something!"
Kes gritted his teeth and quickly stood up onto the side of the window, still in a hiding manner. There, he speaks out loud and said,
"Fellows!! Why do you burn the Tavern with us!!??"
From below, they all laughed and then, someone answered,
"Guess!"
That someone was of a same built as Kes, but with a white fur, quite young, but with an eye patch on its right eye and a broadsword sheathed to his back. After that beastkin utter that word, Kes then grew furious. And when he is about to speak, barrage of arrows went inside with its tip covered in a cloth of flames. Alister then roared,
"No good! We must leave here at once, now!"
"No shit!" Ishnaia agrees, "Good grief dwarf! For making the furryman suggest wasting time!"
"Haha, very wise lassie!" Hardy replied, "I hope you use your wisdom for helping!"
At the same time, Alister hurriedly opened the door and found that the flames consumed the stairs. Moreover, burning arrows also flew over that one window side on the hallway. Alister then gritted his teeth,
"Damn, we're trapped!"
Seeing the burning hallway, Ishnaia saw the flames from her memories, from there, she heard the crying agony of people, warring at each other. Scream of help and despair flew on her mind.
"Ploughing Hel! If only we could return these pesky arrows to 'em!"
"You don't say Hardy, I could, but I had to string this bow first!"
At the moment, when another burning arrow flew from the window, Ishnaia quickly stood up and grab its stem as fast as she can, did a pirouette and threw it outside like a spear, then another, and again, she did it.
"What the!?"
And again, she grabbed another burning arrow, but this time, she ran and leapt through the window.
"Hey Lassie What the fuck!"
"Lady Ishnaia!"
The boys ran through the window on where she leapt. There, they saw a very brutal sight.
With the momentum she built, Ishnaia flew towards one of the beastkin with a bow that looked like a humanoid bulldog, then she stepped on its shoulder, grabbed its ear, and stabbed him with the burning arrows tip with enough brute force to pierce its neck.
"Holy ploughing sod!" Hardy exclaimed.
Then, Ishnaia grabbed one of the arrows from the back, turned and leap towards that white beastkin with an eye patch. In state of shock, he was paralyzed and Ishnaia pierced his remaining eye. The white beastkin shrieks in pain. "My EYE!!" he said. Holding his freshly blinded eye. Then at the same time, Ishnaia also steals his broadsword that is sheathed on his back, leapt to another beastkin, and used it to decimate another beastkin, then another.
"We must help her!" Alister bellowed.
"Then I shall," Kes stepped onto the window frame, ignoring the small pieces of broken glass, "I don't like it when a ploughing wench kills my own enemies."
Then he leapt, and rolled after he landed. As the beastkins were in disarray by Ishnaia's onslaught, they never noticed that the leader who they have turned their back on was helping the wench who was killing with bloodshot eyes. It was easy. Kes clawed one unlucky and unaware beastkin on his doggy face, making him fall to eat dirt, then stole his axe weapon and finished him off with it.
"Damn, I must go too!' Alister then prepares to follow the example of Kes by readying himself to jump from the window; however,
"Wait, lad!" Hardy stops him for a moment, "Remember! As soon as you land, rollover! Alright!?"
Alister turns his head back to him and nodded, "yes, like you taught me before."
"That's right!"
"Alright then." then Alister returned his sight unto the butchery from below, jumped and did as he was told. As soon as he rolled, he unsheathed his rapier and stabbed one of the beastkins at his back.
Hardy glanced below the window. It was about 20 feet below, or so he thinks. Hardy took a deep breath and cursed, "Ploughing sod!" and looked behind him. The entire floor was almost consumed and the floor starts to creak. "Damn it!" and he then took off and rolled as he landed and accidentally ate dirt in a process.
"Ack! Phoo! Crap!"
But instead of rushing to the free-for-all fight with beastkins, Hardy rushed into the location where their things landed that which he threw from the upper floor earlier. He then searches it and remembered,
"Ah! Sod! I forgot! I had no axe!"
And thus, he rushes on to the location of the stables while carrying their inventory. He ran quickly, and thankfully found that the stables are still intact. But the embers of the flames are now about to consume the place. Hardy quickly slammed open the stable doors,
"Arthuria! Lancelot!"
The two horse's neighs loudly. Hardy interprets it that they're glad that he was already there to rescue them.
"Don't worry, daddy's gonna help you!"
There, he unlocked the door by the hook and opened it. As soon as the horses noticed that the doorway to freedom was clear, two horses flew out of their wooden fences and ran freely.
"He-Hey!"
Powerless to stop them, Hardy Stood there helplessly. Then, some wood behind him collapsed and he shook in surprise.
"Goodness!" He bellowed, "I'ma out of here!"
As he ran to safety, Hardy drew the knife in his waist. "I guess I could help 'em all kill those bastards!"
But as soon as he came out from the stables, he found out that the battle was over. The ground was bloodied with corpses, all of which are beastkins, slain by numerous possiblities. but there's only a handful. Some of them mayhap ran from battle. But there are two who was left breathing in this moment of place. Kes, and the beastkin with an eyepatch, who may very well dispatch it and replace it with a blindfold. Kes was currently pinning down the blinded beastkin with an eyepatch by his foot. Ducking and Yelling on its face, he said,
"Ungar! Why'd you do this!"
"Just kill me!" Ungar replied, "I'm blind! I don't want to live with darkness!"
"Then tell me!" Then Kes made Ungar to feel the sharpness of his axe to his neck, "I'll end your life if you tell me why! Why kill me with them!"
"…They'll come."
Then with a jolt of his head, Ungar slit his own throat with the blade sticking on it. Kes pull his blade too late and realized his own foolishness.
"Mother of sod…"
On the other side, Alister was carry Ishnaia, who was unconscious on his arms. Hardy was baffled at this sight that he rushes unto them, saying,
"Hey lad! What in the ploughing sod happened!?"
"She… She's fine." Alister then turns to face Kes, "What do we do now Kes?"