Chapter 2 Ambush!?

The group of horse riders dashed past the forest and keep accelerating forward. They move forward with their body leaned close to the horses back. Even with injury on their bodies they didn't dare to be relaxed and let loose of their grip on the horses rein. They have been escaped from the Capital city night and day straight to the north. Their fatigue can be seen but their determination forced their eyes open.

On the lead riders, a woman knight glanced at the frail girl in her embrace and noticed that the girl tear already dried on her cheeks. The girl turned her head toward her protector.

"Natasha, are you all right?" the girl worriedly looking at the wounded shoulder of the woman knight.

The latter smiled and reassured her, "Princess Karin, it's nothing to worry about. I promised to protect you. A wound like this would recover in no time after we arrived at the safe place."

The girl, Princess Karin nodded and closed her mouth as she understood the best moment, for now, are to escape as far as they can. Then, one rider moved toward them.

"Leader, our horse cannot last much longer. We need to rest for now. I remember that we should arrive at the river that way" The soldier said politely while pointing toward a direction.

Natasha glanced at him for a second and turned her head to see her horse started to breathing hard before nodded and slowly reduced her speed while yelling at her troops to slow down. She leads them toward the inside of the forest and before long, they appear on the river. She commanded her troops to dismount and prepare the camp, she emphasized that they should not create fire recklessly and need to dig a hole before starting a fire.

The group nodded silently and started to move the camp material while Natasha helped Karin to go down. Karin thanked her as she sits on one of the big rock as she let Natasha commands the troops.

Natasha observed her troops and remembered the soldier who recommended her to take rest, she approached her knight subordinate and asked. "Paul, do you know the soldier that recommend us to rest? I cannot see his face, so I don't know who he is."

The man with big body turned his head and frowned. "I'm sorry mam, I also don't know him. I thought he was your scout?"

Natasha frowned and thought 'This muscle brain b***ard!' She then said "But you're the one responsible for gathering our force before retreating. How could you-"

"Kyaaa!!!" A sudden shout interrupted Natasha as her eyes opened wide. "Princess Karin!" She shouted and rushed followed by Paul who late to react. Natasha's heart tightened as she runs as fast as she can. With a weapon on her hand.

In the edge of the river, she can see Princess Karin was pushed down by one soldier with a knife stabbed her heart. Before Natasha can shout, a sudden force blasted away the soldier. As the soldier struggled to stand up and escape, a sword was thrown and pierced his neck, killing him.

"All soldiers, , I order you to put down your helmet or I will kill you!" Natasha shouted at the group of the soldiers who approached and stopped them on their track. Some of the soldiers are a few of the one who joined in the middle of escaping, so Natasha has a suspicious. Hearing Natasha command, almost immediately the soldiers literary thrown away their helmet with their eyes turned fierce. How dare someone attacking our Princess on our watch!!

Before long Natasha fierce eyes landed on 3 soldiers in the mid of her soldier's formation where they dashed while pushing away the soldiers beside them to attempt for escaping.

"Paul kill them all! Don't let one escape!" Just as Natasha shout ended, a huge shadow dashed from the side and with powerful momentum split them all at once. Paul's eyes were burning with hatred as he pulled away from the dead body helmet and found that all of them are stranger. He paled and kneeled on the spot.

Natasha ignored him and rushed toward Princess Karin and found her still alive, except her dress was ruined. Below her torn dress she can see a glistening diamond necklace and sigh in relieve to find her mistress are safe.

"I'm sorry Princess Karin to make you in danger… This is my blunder to not notice the enemy before it's too late, again…" Natasha kneeled beside Princess Karin and deeply bowed.

Princess Karina flustered and pushed up Natasha. "No no, it's fine Natasha. I was fine, I still have 4 protection left." The princess smiled to reassure her knight.

Natasha nodded bitterly as her gaze landed at Princess Karina necklace. This magical item said to be able to block anything that could danger the wearer life. However, it could only block 5 critical attacks before the light inside the diamond fades away. This item was actually mean to be worn by the King. But he sacrifices his life to ensure his daughter alive by giving this precious item.

Unfortunately, one of the power is used to protect her from a small incident of a stabbing. And it's happening even in the surrounding of the camp! Natasha is really ashamed that she looked down on the enemy when they are already far from the border of the Capital city. They aren't even safe here.

Natasha let Princess Karin sit then turned toward Paul and said with a cold voice. "Paul, did you know what your fault is?"

Paul's face turned pale and he lowered his head. "I'm really sorry Commander… I never thought that the enemy would send a spy to blend with us-"

"I don't want to hear your excuse! Your choice almost killed our Princess! The last bloodline of the Ashford Royal Family! We may lose our Capital but if we lost our supreme leader, we are nothing more than ownerless soldiers!" Natasha shout shut Paul and scare the surrounding soldiers.

Despite she just escaped from dying with her body still trembling, Princess Karin pushed herself up and hugged Natasha. "I'm fine, Natasha. This is not entirely his fault. We are attacked unprepared when the times come to retreat he could only gather as many soldiers with us. There is no time for us to inspect our people when we are being chased."

Natasha and the other turned silent, she was right. The rebellion caught them all by surprise and too many soldiers have sacrificed their lives to let them bring the princess away. Natasha knows that the fault wasn't totally Paul fault but she was scared to death seeing Princess Karin was stabbed. She is angry and sad because she was late for acts.

The silence continued for a minute before Princess Karin released her hug on Natasha and smiled. "And you guys already doing your best. We should rest and prepare for dinner before we take a rest. Aren't our fort that not far right? We should prepare our energy, right everyone?"

Hearing their Princess encouraged them despite her leg still trembling, all the soldiers including Natasha smiled. Without waiting much longer, she ordered her troops to divide into two group. One group lead by Paul to clean the dead body and arranged for guard duty, and the last group to prepare dinner lead by Natasha herself.

However, before they dispersed a cold voice appeared out of nowhere. Startled everyone.

"Oh, what is this? The remnant of the Royal Family we chased? To think that they would really rest on our ambush site easily."

The voice then followed by the laughter of many people. They are surrounded! Natasha and others hastily made a circle formation while covering the Princess in the middle of their formation. All of them warily looked around but found nothing but darkness beyond the forest. They don't know the number of the enemy and afraid if the enemy has archers, they raised their shield above their head.

Suddenly out of nowhere, "You people have a good battle reflex and managed to gather with the formation so fast. However, you are not good enough to stop me."