'Just a little bit longer,' I thought while nervously wiggling in my saddle.
It's been several hours since I sent the rented riders south, to make it seem as if we only pretended to venture east.
That was the entire point of the charade. And judging from how our pursuers have yet to catch up… It most likely worked.
That, or their horses were too tired after a forced night march to give chase for yet another, whole day.
'Well, regardless of the reason, it's a good thing,' I thought while I leaned over my shoulder and looked at the plains behind my back.
The imperial highway cut away from the long chain of the mountains that guarded our flank on the last stretch of our journey yesterday. After a period of moving straight east through a wide yet narrow stretch of open plains stuck between more hilly areas, the path took a sudden turn south.
Those responsible for setting this road clearly knew what they were doing, as this turn made the road skip by the border of the hilly highlands, opening up a huge plain to our south and west as we continued to rush down the road.
"We should approach the city sometime within the next few hours," I muttered to myself.
And I couldn't help but be stumped by such a random thought.
Back in the modern world, I could travel to nearly every corner of the planet within a mere few hours. Yet in this place, deprived of the technological wonders, I had to spend entire days just to cross what a car could conquer in two, maybe three hours of leisure ride!
'And to think that I'm already used to this kind of travel…'
I shook my head.
While this deep dive came with a lot of cons that limited what a player in any other virtual simulation would be able to do… It also allowed me to better merge with my host.
In exchange for the godly powers of someone with the power to shape reality like a player, I gained all the benefits of being a seasoned and thoroughly trained mercenary.
'All should be well, as long as we reach the town before whoever is after us,' I thought, taking yet another, leisurely look behind my back.
A strange, dark spot lingered out in the furthest reaches of my vision. And it was growing fast.
It was a detail I could never hope to see in the real world. I only had the eyes of my host to thank for such a quality of eyesight.
'Rather than feeling good about how powerful my body is, shouldn't I focus on figuring out what the heck this dark spot is?'
The dark spot grew… and soon, right at the edge of the horizon, its true form appeared.
It was still but a cloud of dust, blocking the rays of the sun reflected from the moisture on the plain and creating a sort of elusive shadow that lingered at the bottom of the clouds.
An effect only possible thanks to how powerful the sun was in the middling hours of the day, to allow the reflection of its light to shine up at the bottoms of the clouds.
And in this particular case, it was a warning a few moments in the making when I realized that things weren't as good as I hoped they were.
There were only a few things that could create a cloud of dust out in the open of the imperial highway. And the most likely cause was anything but a good thing.
"They are gaining on us fast," I muttered.
In no way could my voice reach anyone. Maybe it was the expression or my face? The shift to the position of my body?
Regardless of what it was, both Nay and the kid noticed that something was wrong.
Our group all tensed up.
The cloud that only peeked above the horizon before was now coming to full view. And little by little… I could see the tiny figures appearing too.
"Five…" I squinted my eyes while pulling the reins back to slow down and steady up. "No, six riders," I commented under my nose, not expecting anyone to hear me.
My face darkened.
While by a narrow stretch, this number was well within the means of a well-organized pursuing party. Yet, as the figures in the distance steadily grew bigger, the picture changed.
There were only around six riders. But there were three times as many horses in their party.
"Shit…" I cursed, strangely struggling to put the word out through my lips as if my flesh instinctively resisted spelling it out.
I shook my head to rid my mind of this momentary distraction.
"Stop shitting, it's not the time to be sherlocking," I muttered under my nose before turning my eyes back and scanning my own group.
Each of us had three horses to use in total. We were still roughly three hours of hurried trot away from the city if the map in my head was relatively accurate.
But with a single glance of an eye, I could tell that within three hours, my pursuers would catch up to us many times over.
'Should we step into canter?' I thought, flicking my eyes to look at our horses.
Heavily relying on my tricks to lead our tail astray, I didn't really put a pressured pace on our group. And while our horses were no longer fresh, they were still in good condition.
'They had to travel through the night to catch up with us. They had no way to swap so many horses…' I thought, rationalizing the situation. And the more I thought about it… the more I could tell that a simple canter would suffice.
But something at the depth of my soul disagreed.
A set of different variables that I consciously failed to notice, yet variables that I instinctively gauged and calculated…
This weird feeling at the bottom of my soul made me hesitate. And shortly after, close my eyes and take a deep breath.
"We are jumping into a gallop!" I shouted from the bottom of my lungs before pulling the reins of my horse and then striking them down.
Contrary to the order, my horse didn't read on its hind legs before kicking the air and dashing into a breakneck speed.
No.
At first, it simply sped up to its fastest trotting step. Yet, when I continued to signal the order through my reins and heels, my horse sped up, changing over to a three-paced step, commonly known as a canter.
But I kept on striking the reins and tickling the horse's side with my heels.
In the end, it took me nearly a minute to speed our group up to the breakneck pace my instincts urged me to employ.
There was no way I could ride all the remaining distance to the city at such a speed. My horse would collapse after covering about ten miles of distance, no longer able to even walk as usual.
'I guess I won't get the security fee for returning the horses,' I thought, taking a moment to weep over the steep prize this strategy would cost.
And so we rode.
After what felt like mere minutes, I sensed that my trusty mount was reaching its limits.
A single look behind my back confirmed that such was the case for the mounts of both of my companions as well. So, with a heavy heart, I brought our group to a complete stop… Only to free my tired mount from its reins, scatter all the remaining fodder it was carrying for it to snack on… Before releasing the single string that kept it coupled with my two spares.
"You served me well," I whispered right into the horse's face, gently caressing the sides of its long snout while feeling its heavy, hot breath strike against my chest. "Now, you can rest."
It felt wrong.
It felt extremely wrong, feeling the horse's heavy stare as I walked away and seated myself in the spare that didn't carry any of the luggage.
'Let's hope they will take the horses as a consolidation price and return,' I wished in my heart before glancing over to scan the situation again.
Without a single word, both the kid and Nay followed my example, freeing their exhausted horse before mounting another.
I cast a long glance out in the distance.
Even after rushing at a breakneck pace, the other party somehow managed to shrink the distance.
'How are they rushing their horses so much?!' I inwardly screamed, refusing to accept the broken logic of what I was seeing with my own two eyes.
Their horses had to be more exhausted than the ones my group was using.
So how come, even after several long minutes of running with the wind, the distance between us… decreased?!
Thankfully, the change was small enough not to irritate my sense of security. As long as we kept it up…
And keep it up we did.
After what felt like mere moments later, another farewell struck my soul like a hammer when we left our exhausted spares behind, now burdening our last horse with carrying not only us but also all of our essential luggage.
All the food, water, and fodder were now gone, discarded somewhere on this damn steppe.
We pushed our last horses to their limits… But even with all of the unnecessary luggage gone, even with how our horses were supposed to be fresher… the distance kept on increasing.
I felt the breathing of my horse grow heavier and heavier. It was quickly reaching its limits. After all, it was carrying the burden of running along all this way before even picking up the task of carrying me!
'Did I make a bad call?' I started to think, forced to face the uncomfortable reality.
Our horses were reaching their limits. Our pursuers slowly but steadily continued to gain on us. And at this rate…
"Haaa…" I heaved a long sigh before grinding my horse to a stop and turning my head around to locate Nay.
Before long, the beautiful slave entered my field of vision, with her long hair dancing on the wind while she pulled the reins of her horse back.
"What can I expect from you if the worst comes to play?" I asked while resting my hand on the handle of my sword. It wasn't a threat but an indication of what I had in mind.
The girl stared me down in her usual silence.
I could see the fight that went on at the back of the girl's beautiful, dark eyes. I could see how much she was fighting with herself over how she should reply right now.
"You are in this as unwillingly as we are," I continued, dropping the hard, cold truth on the poor girl. "I've never wanted to join the tournament, but it wasn't my call to make. I bet you didn't want to become a slave, but just like with us, someone made that call for you. So I'm asking you right now, are you…"
"City!"
The kid's scream suddenly forced me to pause and turn my head to look at him.
"What?"
The kid shook his youthful yet handsome face before stretching out his arm and pointing at something to the east, appearing from the last set of the large hills that formerly blocked our view.
For now, all we could see was just a distant outline…
But without a doubt, we were just a short distance away from the much-deserved safety, rest, and hideout!
I took a deep breath and leaned over the neck of my mount. For a moment, I simply hugged myself into the back of the head of this big, obedient beast.
"Will you run for me just a little bit longer?" I asked in a soft voice while caressing the sides of the horse's neck.
Its body was hot, glistering with sweat. The tool of this rapid journey was visible even in the way this poor animal breathed.
Yet somehow, what I did… just felt right.
And as if to prove the supremacy of my gut over logic, my horse shrugged… before raising its long snout and pointing it towards the outline of the city in the distance.
"Just one last stretch, then," I whispered… but now that we stood, there was nothing to create the noise that normally covered my voice. I lowered my eyes and patted my horse's neck for one last time before gently rubbing its sides with my heels.
We still had some advantage over our pursuers. I could still only vaguely make out their frames in the distance.
Now was the time for the weirdest race to begin, a chase of a rabbit after a tortoise.
Who would reach their destination first? The slow and exhausted tortoise, or… a bloodthirsty rabbit who had to be on drugs to keep running at its top speed for half the night and then nearly two-thirds of a day?
Normally, I would laugh at that question. But given how my very life was on the line of this race… I somehow didn't feel like laughing at all.