Chapter 79: The Ambush – Part After having fun with the Zentora, they placed it back in the basket once it started to get sleepy, ate some dinner and headed off to the tents to sleep, with Lyrika staying up for first watch.
Before Olivia did though, she pulled out the communication orb and sent a message back to Ameril.
“I’m in position. Let me know when you leave the town, tell me how many guards are with you and what the carriage looks like.”
It was short, but nothing else needed to be said.
Making her way inside the tent, she placed the orb right by her head, ensuring that if they didn’t wake at the crack of dawn and Ameril started on her journey, the bright light from the Orb would wake her up if she managed to get a message out.
…
The night passed by without incident. They had all taken turns keeping watch, just to be sure nothing happened. There were in a very impassable area though, so it was unlikely anyone or anything would find them. But still better to be safe.
When they woke up, they packed up the tents, had some breakfast and moved closer to the road.
The dirt looked even more churned up, some carriages and horses must have passed by when they were back at the camp preparing their gear. The question now though was how to use all of that gear to its fullest.
The road was quiet. Dawn having just broke meant carriages would only be starting on their journey now. With them being about midway between the two towns they had a few hours before they would see the first carriages from either direction.
As she looked at the road, things started to come together in her head. For one, no matter how many guards there were, surely, they would have an even amount on either side of the carriage. There may also be some upfront or behind, but either way, she couldn’t see them having uneven numbers on the side of the carriage. It just wouldn’t make sense in terms of protecting it.
The annoying thing was that their group was uneven. This meant someone would have to be on their own on one side of the road. But while this should be an important decision, she already knew the answer was that she would be on her own.
For one thing, if Lyrika or Philly were on the other side with her, when it came to fleeing, they would have to dash across the road, leaving them open to attack. Not something Olivia wanted to happen. If they remained here, they could just slip back into the trees and head back to the village.
Olivia herself was already going to be in the thick of it, and she would be the one to actually get Ameril out. It didn’t make sense to add to the number of people she needed to protect.
So that is how she would position them, as well as have Philly and Lyrika a short distance from each other in order to cover a wider area.
As she began to think about what they should do next, the communications orb started to flash.
Taking hold of it she listened to the message.
“I’m leaving now. There is one carriage that departed before us, much to my father’s chagrin. There are six guards, and the carriage is…well, it’s one of my families.”
Philly and Lyrika having heard that wondered what they were supposed to do with that lacking description. But, Olivia having been there when she watched Ameril off, knew that the statement was more than enough.
“Okay. Six guards and the carriage will be the most ostentatious one you have ever seen.”
“Wha-”
“I know. Just, trust me on that.”
They now knew the numbers protecting it, which if anything meant two on either side of the carriage and then one in front and one behind. Or it could mean three on either side. Either way, they had a better idea of what they were facing. The tricky thing was getting things set up so that they would only be affecting the second carriage.
And that brought her on how to block the path.
…
Moving over to one of the large trees by the road, she tried to figure out how to do this. Oh, she knew how to cut the tree right. Her father liked watching random shows on TV, one of which was about lumberjacks racing each other to cut trees down the quickest. The problem was that she didn’t think she would have enough time to cut it between carriages. Especially since she needed to cut a couple of trees.
Looking through her bag, she tried to see if she had something that would help.
“…”
‘What could I use, what could I use.”
“Ah,” she cried out as she spotted something in her bag.
‘Guess we won’t be tying anyone up today.”
She pulled out all the rope she had and came up with the solution. She just had to tie the tree to another and cut the tree just enough that cutting the rope would set it free. Granted this was risky. The rope could snap at any time as they waited for the carriage, so turning to Philly she asked if she had something to toughen it up.
“You want something to strengthen the rope so that it can hold a tree upright.” She replied followed by her looking upwards in thought. “My potions are all for human consumption really. I don’t think I have anything that would work on a rope.”
She went into her bag anyway pulling out bottles upon bottles, all of which she rejected. She also ended up pulling the jar of mucus which was a bit less than half full.
‘Could that work?’ she wondered.
As they had seen, it formed a hard shell around something when exposed to air. Sure, it wasn’t too hard to break by smashing the outside, but if it seeped in between the diners of the rope, could it help strengthen it?
She had to try it out.
Cutting two small lengths of it, she tied one of the ends of each to a small log as a test. The other end she tied to a thick and solid low-hanging branch. One of the ropes, she then coated in the mucus.
Waiting a while for it to do its thing, she then jumped up and wrapped her arms around the log attached to the normal rope. As she stayed there, she yanked it as best she could. She even asked the girls to pull her, which they did so with some funny looks.
It didn’t take long for her strength to cause the fibres in the rope to snap. So, she moved on to the other one.
Doing the same thing again, she had a much harder time breaking it. Sure cracks formed on the outside, but it seemed that the mucus did deep into the rope and ended up coating all the individual fibres. That was a massive amount of surface area now covered in the stuff. So much so that she had no luck pulling it apart.
While it would work great for holding the tree in place, the question was how to then let the tree go. She tried snapping and breaking the mucus-dried rope, but it would not budge. Even the sword could barely get through the stuff.
‘It must have a weakness.’
Looking around, she saw something that was generally the best at destroying things.
Fire.
Picking up a branch she held it towards the campfire. Pulling a flame from it, she headed back over and held it to the rope. And wouldn’t you know? It did just that.
*whoosh*
Almost instantly the fire zipped across the mucus. It travelled insanely fast along the rope, disintegrating all of the hardened layers, leaving just the rope which had now started to burn. A short while later the log dropped to the floor, and Olivia then made sure to put out any remaining flames.
At least they now knew one thing.
It would do nicely for the task at hand.
…
Putting the plan into action, there was likely only an hour or so till the first of the carriages arrived. So, taking hold of the axe, she got to chopping. The spectators just watched with rapt attention. Lyrika more so once Olivia ditched the shirt due to the sweat she was building up.
“You two want to help?” Olivia asked as she wiped the sweat from her brow.
“Huh.” Lyrika replied with her lowered gaze on a specific muscular part of Olivia’s body. “No… err. You’re much stronger than us. You’ll get it done well before we can. Just keep at it…and keep facing this way.”
“Yeah. I also need to catch up on what’s happened so far.” Philly said as she scribbled away. “Plus, it’s going to take a while to write all about your muscles.”
As Olivia looked at them, Philly actually sounded serious, but Lyrika on the other hand. Well, the bit of drool that dropped from her lip told the whole story.
Getting back to it, as she got closer to the point of no return, she wrapped the rope around the tree and coated it in the mucus, before she jumped back to cutting.
Before long, she made it to the point where it should just tip over now. She could tell it was as she heard the slight strain of the tree against the rope. But, it held, and the tree was completely still.
With that done, she then moved a little further back down the road and did the same thing with another one.
With this, the carriage would be trapped so it couldn’t flee with Ameril.
…
*clop* *clop*, *clop* *clop*
And that is when they heard the sound of hoofs hitting the ground in the distance. It was almost time for the show to start.