The Slavers - Part 14

Celebrating too early.

Things go your way and before you finally reach your goal, celebrating the success of it all just overwhelms some people.

Sometimes, there is no problem with this of course. But, for some, it can lead to your downfall.

Octavia had seen it happen a few times before. Minor things. The 100-meter dash at her school, where the person in front had slowed down and spread his arms to give a nice stylized performance as he hit the finish line. But what he didn't know was that second place was not as far behind him as he thought. In just those few moments when he focused on looking good and ended up slowing down, he was overtaken and ended up with silver.

It was quite common in silly sections of TV shows or anime, leading to scenes where the one who lost finds themselves all embarrassed at what they did.

The common denominator with these was that the celebration only led to them not coming first or losing completely. But for the situation Octavia found herself in now…the consequences of her foolishness were a little more dire.

*Slick*

She should have realised it sooner and stopped herself. The slavers were not that far behind them, and she should have realised that even if they got out of the village, it wasn't like they had to stay within it.

A part of her had also thought that with all the guards around they wouldn't do anything dumb.

But the thin blade that was poking her chest told a different story.

As they say, desperate animals are normally at their most dangerous.

*Splat*

It was eerily quiet after she had heard the slaver behind her and felt metal touching her skin. As if the whole world just went on mute. The only thing she could hear was the blade as it exited her, and then the sound of her blood falling to the floor.

She had been hurt many times before, but this was different. She had lost her tail, was battered around by that brute in the slaver's basement. But to feel a blade pass through you just felt…so much worse.

That was the last thought she had as she fell forward after a force pressed into her back.

As she fell, she tried her hardest to turn to the side. If she was dying here, there was no way she would also be the cause of the girl's death as well. Crushing and suffocating her was not the last memory she wanted in this world.

…

Hitting the floor, the world suddenly came into focus. The first thing she heard was the sounds of screaming and shouting. What else would you expect if you tried to kill someone in a massive crowd?

Octavia curled up, hoping to keep the girl safe from being trampled on as people fled from the attack, following that herd mentality. All it took was for the first person to scream their head off, and everyone else joined in. There were so many people running around, but she was sure that hardly anyone even knew what had happened. They were just running scared because other people were as well. Some were probably running towards the attackers without even realising it.

Octavia couldn't see much, keeping herself closed up to protect the girl. Which was prudent as several people had ended up kicking or stepping on her. A couple tripped over her, which unconsciously caused a smirk to appear on her face. It was wrong, but a part of her thought that it served them right for stepping on her in the first place.

It was as she received this pain, however, that things became clearer. She could see the blood pouring out from her wound, that was still very much the case. But as she kept herself together, the wound wasn't as debilitating as it had seemed.

The pain and shock at receiving a stab wound had made it feel much worse than it actually was. It was still pretty bad, the blade having passed through her human half, and she definitely needed medical attention. But as it stood, knowing she wasn't paralysed or on the verge of dying, she had very valuable time left with which she needed to do something.

And that something was to beat these slavers into submission before her blood loss caught up with her.

…

The footsteps around her lessoned, people having managed to get away from the area.

Not wasting any more time, she pushed herself up off the ground as best as she could, struggling to do so as her wound made itself known again.

Pain shot through her…but it was nothing compared to the initial shock of the attack. Plus, compared to the wounds she had received from the slaver from the basement it almost felt like a dull ache now. Has she possibly grown accustomed to such pain?

Getting up, the girl still in her arms, she turned to where the voice had come from before, finding a man on the floor. In his hand was his blade, the end of which was coated in blood.

Behind him in the distance, just pushing their way through the remains of the crowd that was pushing their way into the village, she saw two more men coming their way.

The crowd was forcing its way in and with such disarray, that it was likely the guards that had been there before, had all been pushed back into the village. She couldn't just rely on them coming to her aid.

So, bending down, she placed the girl behind her on the ground and looked up to see Sylvia heading towards her. She had been pushed back by the crowd as well, sending her further away from the village gates.

Placing the girl down, Octavia turned back towards the man and started to slither her way towards him as he managed to get himself up off the floor.

As she moved, she reached behind her back and pulled off her pole axe. It was the first weapon that her hands came across.

That or the annoyance of being stabbed caused her to instinctively reach for the more lethal blade. Who can tell?

The blood trail followed her, but she still had more than enough strength to hold her weapon in the stance she had been taught and headed to the first of her adversaries.

The man, seeing her, moved his blade to above his head, gripping it with both hands and then ran towards her.

The man shouted as he charged at her, his anger over losing all the slaves very much apparent. As he reached her, he continued his very sloppy and easily seen overhead swing.

Octavia quickly blocked this with ease, bringing up her poleaxe so that the blade was stopped by the shaft of the weapon. His blade bounced back, making him unsteady, allowing Octavia to whip out her tail to knock one of his feet.

This tripped him, sending him to the ground in a daze. But he was not out of the fight yet. The adrenaline pumping through him kept him going. As the dust settled from his fall, his eyes darted around looking for his opponent…

…Just in time to see a hammer come crashing down towards him.

His eyes widened in shock, and whether it was good reflexes or instinct, he rolled to the side, barely dodging it.

But before he feel relieved, Octavia followed this by using the man's position to her advantage. With her hammer and axe head being on the ground, just like the man was, she very quickly swung to the side, turning her body as she did, causing the axe head to carve a path through the dirt.

Before the man could do anything about it, the axe head had caught up with him, and sunk into his side, giving him a taste of his own medicine after what he had done to her. He cried out in the pain, getting even louder when Octavia pulled the blade out.

The man was almost out for the count, but before she could finish him off, the other two slavers that had been at the gate had managed to reach her.

One came right towards her, bearing his weapon to intimidate her. The other quickly grabbed the prone man's hands and started to pull him back, get him out of the way of the battle. He quickly let him go, leaving him just a short distance away, letting him cry out in pain from the wound and made his way back over to Octavia.

They stood there, weapons ready, waiting or perhaps figuring out, how they would take Octavia down. Octavia did the same as she looked at the two men in front of her, but she also had this short window to see what was happening around her.

As she had hoped, Sylvia had picked up the girl and was moving to the rest of the beast-kin. The problem was that the crowd that had fled, now knowing a battle was going on, had created something akin to an arena for them. Entertainment was probably quite sparse in this world, so a live battle was quite exciting, once they figured it wasn't just a man going around and killing people for no reason.

This meant though, that Sylvia had to struggle to get through to the Beast-kin, and they struggled to, trying to figure out what they would do, and how they should do it. It was a large disorganised group, probably divided between helping her, or fleeing, all of whom were malnourished and weak, with nary a weapon to use.

Octavia couldn't wait for their assistance either. And while she could easily see Sylvia coming to help, she hoped she would focus on keeping herself and the girl safe. So, she turned back to her opponents and readied herself to square off against them.

As the battle had only just begun.