88 The Chase - Part 3

"Mercenaries!"

All of the girls shouted this when Teagan explained what he had heard.

Having left behind the wonderous market that they would be going to at some point in their lives, they headed after the chief.

He took them back to his house and brought them into his communication room, which ended up causing Ameril's jaw to drop when she saw all the Orbs.

"Yes, a group of Mercenaries are after you Olivia. Well in actual fact, it sounds like they are after a group of Orcs that kidnapped a noble lady." Teagan said as he slowly looked over at Ameril, who now had a worried look on her face.

None of the girls spoke once he said that. It had occurred to Olivia that she did mention what she was going to do to Teagan, but she may have left out the fact that it was a noble they were going to kidnap. She thought he may have figured it out himself, but it's likely he glossed over that fact.

"I take it from the silence and that we haven't met before, that you are the noble lady that was kidnapped," Teagan said looking over at Ameril.

"Yes. I am Ameril, Chief Teagan. It's a pleasure to meet you." She responded in kind.

"Yes, well, you having kidnapped a noble lady will bring a lot of problems." He continued with a slight glare Olivia's way.

Ameril decided to jump in and give a brief explanation about her situation and that she was sure it wouldn't be as bad as he thought.

"Be that as it may. You have a group of Mercenaries looking for you. That is a pretty bad problem to have."

"How did they find out about that so quickly? How did you learn about this?" Olivia quickly said to Teagan, trying to make sense of what was happening.

Placing his hand up to try and calm her down, Teagan then began to speak.

"When you arrived and told me what happened to Yoban's village, I sent someone there to replace the Orb to our village that must have been destroyed. When you returned, Yoban sent a message which stated that a group of Mercenaries had arrived at his village and asked about a group of Orcs and the kidnapping that had occurred."

"It doesn't make sense. They could not have been hired by my parents. They would not care enough to do so, and this is way too soon for them to have done so." Ameril replied.

Olivia wracked her brain to figure out how this could have happened…and then it hit her.

"The carriage. The one that was turning up as we left. It's possible these Mercenaries were on it. They could have learnt from the guards what happened and decided to go after you."

"Possible. Saving a noble is bound to give them more recognition and likely a reward. As does slaying an Orc." Philly brought up.

"Why would they go to Yoban's village though?" Lyrika said raising a question that ended up on everyone's minds.

"Well, Yoban said that they spoke about how Orcs may have travelled through his village or could have been spotted by someone, probably because of how close they are to where the kidnapping took place. Not in a position to say no, he allowed them to do so. Thankfully, given all you did to help them and that the Mercenaries were asking about a group of Orcs, he said that no one told them anything about you."

Olivia let out a sigh of relief, knowing that they still knew nothing specific about her. If they were after a group of Orcs, it may make it easier for them to evade the group.

This relief however was short-lived when Teagan continued telling them what happened.

"But, Yoban said that after a while, some of their members got into a fight with each other. Once it was over, they all left very quickly. It was only after Yoban went to intervene that he saw the guards posted at the jail following the group in order to keep them from any further fighting. Given this, it's possible that one of their group entered the jail…and spoke to one of the prisoners."

"Prisoners? What would that matt…" Olivia trailed off as a vague memory popped into her head. A memory of a man that had accosted them in the room they stayed at in Yoban's village.

"This will not end here. I will get out of this village and be free. Then I shall go after that monster for what she has done."

'Well, looks like Jonah didn't manage to free himself, but he did manage to send someone after me instead.'

She recalled how adamant the man was that Olivia was a monster that had enslaved Lyrika, no matter how much both of them denied it.

He was captured like the bandits. The only difference being that while the bandits could be sold off a slave labour to either another village or town, Jonah was one of their members. She couldn't imagine them easily doing the same thing to him.

So, if he was there and one of the Mercenaries spoke to him, he would have sung like a bird about herself and Lyrika.

What was worse though, was that he knew about their mission. He had been in the church when they arrived and spoke about looking into the new chief. If he was doing his job for the bandits right, he may have even overheard what she spoke to Yoban about and his suggestion of coming to Tegan's village.

It was a lot of ifs. But, if true, then they were in a lot of danger if this village was their next stop.

Relaying this to the group, everyone ended up with a mix of emotions from either looking down depressed or looking up in thought trying to figure out a way out of this.

Ameril was very much in the depressed group, upset that this was all her fault. If she had just gone along with the marriage and not asked Olivia to be kidnapped, then these Mercenaries would not be after them. Sure, she would be in a loveless marriage with someone that may or may not have killed his last wife but…you know what they say, you can't have it all.

Tegan was very much worried for his people. He wanted to help these girls, in order to help even more people if they took down the new chief. But them being here brought danger to his village. He wasn't expecting the Mercenaries to lay siege to them, no. And it wasn't likely one of the human towns would do the same if the Mercenaries told them what they heard. They would probably be laughed out of the town, going on about a lone Orc working with Beast-kin. Even the humans were not that stupid to believe that could happen. But that wasn't to say they wouldn't try to force people to tell them what they knew.

Olivia was in the sweet spot of both depressed by the situation, but still looking to figure out how to get out of it. The rest of the girls were also in the same position as her.

The only option any of them could come up with was to flee. But that was probably only a temporary solution.

Olivia had toyed with the idea of fighting back against them, but she very quickly realised how stupid of a plan that was. She didn't know much about them, but she couldn't imagine a group of mercenaries being easy to deal with.

"All we can do is run."

Everyone was thinking it, but Philly was the one to drop the hard truth on them.

"They will just keep coming after me though," Olivia said with a deflated sigh as she realised that her being here just put every in danger.

But thankfully, Teagan had a way to save the day.

"That may be, but…we might be able to make them lose your trail."

Everyone looked up to him, with Olivia having to look just straight ahead, in order to see what he was going to say.

"If you leave, then when the Mercenaries arrive here, I can lead them astray. They likely know that you are not the mindless monster that most Orcs are, so I will have to tell them some truth about our interaction. But I can end it by saying you moved on heading for some other village. You get away to continue your mission and they head in a completely different direction."

It was simple but should be effective. While Yoban and his village had not said anything, that could be chalked up to their recent experiences with humans, something she was sure the Mercenaries would have learnt about. But when arriving here, there was nothing to say that Teagan would be as cagey as Yoban. All he had to do was say something about a group of Orcs arriving and scaring everyone, which partially happened. Then say they were there to trade or something similar. Then when the Mercenaries tell them of the kidnapping of a noble, he just had to act shocked and outraged, then 'help' them.

There was only one problem.

"Eventually they will realise you sent them on a wild goose hunt and come back. What then?"

"I don't know what a goose is, but you are right. All this will do is give us time. Time to figure out how to deal with the problem."

That was something they needed. However many days it took for the Mercenaries to realise they were misled and come back would hopefully be enough to figure out how they could deal with them. There was always the hope that they don't realise they were given false information and just keep travelling to try and find her. They may even give up on the search by then.

By all accounts it was a good plan to earn some time.

"I also know when you could head to in order to flee."

Now that got their attention.

"I received a good number of responses from the other villages. As we expected, a good number still had not spoken to the new chief, so we have time. Many however had agreed to join him. There were a few that did not respond. Two of them I know have other reasons for not doing so. One is very ill and is unlikely to have been worrying about the communication orbs. The other is busy looking after her daughter, teaching her how to hunt and the like. Then there are a couple that likely just have not gotten back to me yet. There is however one that I have no information on."

His statement ended up being received by a group of confused faces.

"What I mean is, as I look back through my records, I have had this Orb for a long time, but I have not received anything from the village chief it is connected to for some time. Looking more into it, we have also not had any traders come from the village either. Things are so busy in the village that I have been focusing on our own problems and had not seen that this was the case. What makes it even more odd, is that the village is quite far north…which is about where the new chief started his journey."

"So, he could have come from there?" Lyrika asked.

"Possibly, but that doesn't explain why the village has gone quiet. It could also be that this was the first village he visited. With the lack of communication, in either scenario, it doesn't look like things are going well there. It may help give you a lead on what the new chief is doing or at the very least where he came from."

Olivia looked at the girls and with a resounding set of nods, they all agreed.

"Sounds like a plan."