Bleeding Heart 72 Never Stood A Chance

The day pa.s.sed swiftly and soon it was early evening. Dawn felt that they were making good time today, and it made her spirits grow higher.

It would not be long now before she would be able to avenge her dear Arrion. Her lips turned just a little bit up at the thought. The Grimshades – she wanted them to pay for the crime they had done.

Their scouts found them a resting place for the night. It was near a stream of water and in a wooded area.

As they dismounted though, an arrow whizzed past Dawn's head. Startled she looked up.

Due to the lengthening shadows, she could not make out anything. But she heard the snap as more arrows were released and called out to her companions that they were under attack.

Everyone reacted instantly. Drawing weapons, preparing spells, and trying their best to find their attackers.

The attackers made it easier by rus.h.i.+ng out of the shadows and engaging them in close combat instead of attempting to shoot them.

It was not dark enough that Dawn could not get a good look at these people. A ragtag bunch. The word bandit could be used for them, but they were really typical of Nix'Rylians. Probably were trying to get their hands on what the group was carrying in order to see about putting food in their bellies.

Unfortunately for them they had attacked a group of people more than prepared to hold them off.

Dawn did not really put her all into the fight as she really thought that this was mostly just a waste of energy. Besides she felt just a little sorry for their opponents.

But this led to her almost getting wounded as she did not see one of them sneaking up on her. His sword came very close to her neck.

If it was not for Raven she would have gotten quite badly hurt. But the sword stopped an inch away from her as the man's eyes widened in shock and he glanced down.

Raven had stepped in close to the guy and stabbed him in the stomach with his dagger. He yanked the dagger out as the man fell dead to the ground and stabbed another one who was attempting to sneak up on him.

As he did this, he gave Dawn a smile, and said softly, "Do be more careful, Queenie."

Dawn did not get a chance to respond as Raven ran off in a swift killing spree that was actually strangely beautiful to watch. She shook her head and pulled her eyes away from her friend's deadly dance.

She put her full attention into it. Even though right now she really had little to look forward to in life she was not yet ready to die, especially to a bunch of amateur bandits. She needed to at least avenge Arrion first.

And…. Arrion would not be happy with her if she just gave up on life. He would tell her to live until her time was up. For that reason she would do her best to survive.

It was strange. There had been a time when she would have been entirely focused on just surviving. But Arrion had given her a reason to actually want to live. And so, without him she felt a little lost. But she could not just give up on life either because she knew he would not have approved.

She did her best to ignore the smell of burning flesh. It was not hard to guess what that was from, or who was causing it. But at least the fire seemed more contained this time.

The battlefield was chaos for several minutes and she could hardly even see anyone and what they were doing.

But it was soon over and Dawn glanced to make sure they were all okay. A few cuts and bruises but nothing the clerics could not fix.

They would need a new place to rest for the night though. She doubted anyone wanted to sleep near where dead or unconscious, somewhat burned, bodies were.

Before she could say anything of the sort though, she heard a slow clapping noise behind of her. "Marvelous! That was truly somethin' exciting to watch!"