Raderian, your time has come. Will you tell us something valuable, or will you die like this?”
Rain just looked at him with furious anger in his eyes.
“We should interrogate them properly before that,” said one of the knights.
“They’re unlikely to say anything. It’s better not to torture ourselves and finish with them right away, and then deal with this local troublemaker,” one of the knights said.
Meanwhile, Iziro simply sat on the ground with his hands folded, still in chains, and did nothing.
“And what about this one?” asked one of the knights.
The knight closest to Iziro delivered a strong blow to him. Iziro briefly opened one eye, then closed it again.
“Seems like some sick Raderian. Definitely a mountain monk!” the knight exclaimed.
People around began to gather and surround the knights, just as they did with Rain and Iziro.
“There’s something wrong with these people,” one of the knights whispered, observing the situation.
“Disperse and get back to work!” the main knight shouted loudly. “I command in the name of His Majesty!”
But the crowd continued to gather around the knights. At one point, there were so many of them that the knights had to stand closer to each other, feeling the danger in the disobedience and the workers’ behavior.
“Disperse, or serious punishment awaits you!” the main knight menacingly shouted.
The crowd pushed the knights away from the Raderians chained to the posts and, one could say, absorbed the Raderians into itself.
“Iziro, do you have any ideas on what to do?” Rain asked anxiously. “Izi! Izi! It’s not time to sleep, damn it.”
Rain began to desperately try to break free from the shackles, but the brute spoke the plain truth: “Everything here is done to perfection.”
Meanwhile, the knights drew their swords. One of them approached and killed one of the workers. However, the workers didn’t scatter. Instead, one of them exclaimed, “A-ah,” and everyone began to repeat it in rhythm, raising and lowering their fists. “A-ah, A-ah, A-ah,” the workers chanted, and suddenly spears emerged from the crowd, forcing the knight who had come close to step back. The knights were forced to group even tighter.
“Iziro!” Rain shouted.
Iziro finally opened his eyes, exhaled, and first took one hand, shifting one of the wrist bones to pull his hand out of the shackle. Then he did the same with the other hand.
“Could you have done this seriously all this time?” Rain asked. “What were you waiting for?”
“I thought sleeping under the watchful eyes of the locals would be safer.”
“We could already be halfway to Aeris.”
The workers didn’t care about what was happening with the Raderians. They were dealing with a more serious issue. Two knights attempted to break through the cordon by mounting their horses, but the horses were afraid of the spears, so they didn’t approach the crowd. The knights then began throwing knives at the workers and something resembling miniature versions of them. The deaths of close friends and companions started frightening the workers, and some began to step back. Some of the spearmen started throwing their spears. Despite everyone being extremely serious and martially inclined, some still distanced themselves from their fallen comrades, thus disrupting the powerful blockade. Nevertheless, the crowd still seemed like a genuinely formidable force against so few knights, even though they were highly trained warriors. Especially considering that almost every member of the crowd was armed, whether with a spear, pickaxe, or shovel.
“I can’t do it this way, Iziro,” said Rain. “You need to somehow break my shackles.”
“Too bad they took your Rainian sword,” replied Iziro. “It would have come in handy here.”
Iziro saw a worker running toward the crowd from the other side of the blockade, approached him, and snatched his pickaxe, saying, “Sorry, I’ll return it.”
“Raderians are escaping!” the worker started shouting, but almost no one paid attention to him.
“Tighten the chain as much as you can,” said Iziro. “If I hit a link in the chain accurately and with great force, it might come apart.”
“Yeah, just don’t hit me,” replied Rain.
“Don’t worry. I’ve been pretty accurate all my life, and I haven’t lost that talent yet. A-ah!”
Iziro struck with all his strength at one link in the chain.
“A-ah!”
Then he struck at the second, freeing Rain from the post with the shackles still on him, while the remnants of the chains dangled from his hands.
“We need to help them,” said Iziro.
“They chained us here and made us eat scraps, and now you want to help them?”
“They’re clearly not against us. They have some plan of their own.”
“But not for us either!” Rain replied.
Iziro threw the pickaxe he had taken from the worker back to him, surprising the worker greatly. After that, Iziro walked into the crowd.
Rain was so angry with Iziro that he even shouted something in his direction. Looking at the shovel stuck in the ground, Rain said, “Not a Rainian sword, but it’ll do.” Rain approached the shovel, took it, and followed Iziro.
By this time, many workers had already fallen in the skirmish, and the knights continued to kill them one by one. The crowd had dispersed considerably, and one of the knights managed to enter the crowd with a sword, starting to cut down the workers with tripled force. The other knights continued to kill the workers gradually, throwing knives at them, while the main knight observed, sitting on his horse. When the knight in the crowd swung again, his sword was sharply deflected aside by a palm, and then he was struck in the center of the torso with the base of the palm, causing the knight to fly back and slide a bit on the ground before falling on his back. It was an irate Iziro. Everyone who was present noticed, and even the crowd dispersed from the fallen knight. Everyone was curious about how it would end.
Iziro approached this knight and said, “You shouldn’t be killing anyone here.”
Seeing this, Rain remembered that he had a hard time fighting just one knight, and now there were many of them. However, Iziro simply walked into their midst, passing through the crowd without fear or hesitation. Rain realized that he had seriously underestimated Iziro, especially considering that he supposedly didn’t like fighting much.
The fallen knight, pushing himself up from the ground, quickly stood on his feet and began to swing his sword very fast and gracefully towards Iziro. However, Iziro dodged each knightly strike with the same speed and grace, as if he were smoke drifting in the wind, avoiding every obstacle. When the knight attempted to strike at his legs, Iziro jumped, and
