Anaya turned to look behind her, and almost jumped out of her skin upon seeing Rue standing right behind her. Her expression was more sombre as she looked at Anaya.

 “Are you okay?” Anaya asked.

 “I… might have overdone it a little bit.” Having said that, Rue started falling forward. Anaya reflexively caught her, almost stabbing her by accident with her sword’s cross-guard while doing so.

 “What… oh, for Kiraya’s sake,” she cursed, invoking the name of the mythical goddess of creation. She quickly glanced at the two guards and saw them writhing on the ground. She figured they’d had the wind knocked out of them. Good. Sheathing her sword with one arm while supporting the witch with the other, she then hoisted the witch up on her shoulders. Luckily, she was quite light, though given the armour she was wearing she figured the witch wasn’t exactly going to be comfortable. But it couldn’t be helped. Wasting no more time, Anaya sprinted down the ramp and into a nearby alley. There were no townsfolk there right now, most of them having escaped the other way.

 However, Anaya wasn’t sure where to go from there. Other guards would arrive at the stage sooner or later and found find out what happened from the others, of which many or most would also recover too soon for her comfort. She hadn’t really had time to think this far ahead.

 “Any ideas?” she growled under the strain, staying on the move. Light or not, carrying another person while also wearing a full set of armour wasn’t exactly child’s play. Despite her condition, the witch’s amusement clearly hadn’t entirely dissipated considering the chuckle she produced in response to the question.

 “I thought this was your plan,” she commented dryly, oddly calm given the circumstances.

 “And I thought you said I didn’t need to worry about you. Excuse me for not having it all figured out. I just thought it would’ve been a shame if you’d lost that pretty little head of yours.” Her cheeks burned as she realized what she’d just said.

 She decided to take a risk. Running through the alley lined with various commercial buildings, she took a left and embarked on a roundabout route toward the barracks. Or, more specifically, the attached stable. Her hope was that any reinforcements would take the most direct route to the town square, and she’d be able to circumvent them.

 Her luck did hold out all the way to the barracks, but unfortunately the stable itself wasn’t unmanned. One guard was just getting a horse ready, and turned their way when they entered the stables after crossing through the courtyard that the stable was part of.

 “Hey, what… Anaya? What are you…” Anaya realized it was Uldon, who had been inducted into the guard at the same as her. He wasn’t one of the bad ones, but it was still a problem. Before she could say or do anything about it, however, it was as if some of the straws that were spread on the ground came alive, and suddenly crept up Uldon’s legs and bound them together. Anaya could hear Rue groan slightly. She approached Uldon as fast as she could manage given her loan, and with a push he fell over.

 “Sorry,” she muttered.

 “What are you doing?” Uldon demanded again, trying to tear off the straws with his hands. His sword was in its sheath, which in turn was leaning against one of the stalls for some reason.

 “Leaving this cursed place,” Anaya replied. With some effort, she managed to hoist Rue across the horse’s back, not unlike a rolled carpet. Rue’s hair was hanging down around her head, so she was probably unable to see much.

 There were other horses still in the stables, but none of them were prepared for riding. In that sense they’d been quite lucky with their timing. Placing her foot on the stirrup and climbed up on the horse. The horse had remained calm through the commotion. It was well trained, and of course familiar with Anaya.

 With a parting glance at Uldon, Anaya expertly guided the horse out of the stables, across the courtyard and out onto the cobblestone street she’d come from just moments ago. There were some people around now, and they gave her a few weird looks thanks to Rue. But even if they had known or cared what was happening, they wouldn’t have been able to stop her as she made for the outskirts of the town.

 Fortunately for them, the town of Illion wasn’t big enough to have walls. As such, there were no guarded gates and the like to worry about. While under normal circumstances she would’ve been able to leave even if there was, given the word about her ‘treachery’ likely wouldn’t have reached the gates yet at this point, but Rue’s limp form would’ve been quite the complicating factor.

 Anaya knew there was a pair of guards posted at what was technically the eastern main entrance into the town, seeing as it was the main road that went through the whole town and continued on the other side where another pair guards would also be, but she simply circumvented the checkpoint by passing between two straw-roofed one-story houses and onto the small grassy plain that surrounded the town except where there were fields for the farmers instead. Of course, she could’ve just ridden through checkpoint seeing as the guards there didn’t have horses. She thought it better to play it safe, however, given she was sure she’d probably used up more than her share of luck for the day already.