The Surprise - Part 2

While it was late, there was still time for a bath, but given the day she had, she couldn't find the energy for it. All she really wanted to do was just curl up on the bed and sleep.

Which is what she did.

Clothes off, and her night clothes on, she headed for the covers.

Then closed her eyes.

…

*thud*

"H-huh."

Octavia woke to the odd sound in the night. It wasn't a very loud thud, but it sounded similar to something hitting a carpet.

Given that it wasn't loud, meant it had to have been nearby for her to even have heard it.

Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she saw that it was still pitch-black outside. Looking around the room was the same story, as all she saw was total darkness.

In her groggy state, it took her a while to figure out what she could do, but eventually, she realised her thermal vision was her best bet to actually see what was going on around her.

With it now on, things were still dark, but more a dark blue than black, and she was actually able to make out the outlines of some objects.

As she looked around, what she saw caused all of the grogginess she had been feeling to disappear in an instant.

By the door to her room, through the wall, she saw the fuzzy outlines of two bodies laying on the floor, with three men nearby.

She shook her head and blinked a few times to make sure she was seeing everything alright, but the image was the same as before.

There were two conclusions she could make of this. Either the guards had taken down two men that had broken in, or two men had taken down the guards.

While she hoped it was the former, it very well may be that the case was that of the latter. As she looked around her room to see if there was anything else going on, she saw two more bodies by Sylvia's door, but thankfully, she saw that Sylvia was still laying down in her bed, which caused her a good deal of relief.

As she continued to look around, she saw something even odder by her window. Looking down, she found two more heat signatures of men, slowly climbing up the wall of the castle.

She thought about running to ring the bell, but she could only imagine one of the nice servant girls coming to her room only to end up being killed by these intruders if that was the case. If they could deal with the guards easily, a maid would be nothing.

Yelling was another option, but she wasn't sure how effective that would be. The only people she knew that were nearby were Sylvia, and the four guards. It was possible that yelling would wake someone up, only for them to walk to their death, or do nothing and just spurn these men to move faster.

But she had to do something and fast, otherwise she would have five men storming into her room, and she had no idea what their motives were. But she knew they couldn't be good.

"Five men. Maybe I can drop it down to three." She thought to herself.

Quickly but quietly moving around the room she took up her poleaxe and reached the window. As she looked out, she could see the rope and hooks the men were using to climb. The hooks were too high for her to reach, but the ropes on the other hand were nearby. They were easy to see but not so easy to reach.

By hand that is.

Leaning out with her poleaxe, she pulled back and swung with the axe head out, managing to slice very easily through one of the ropes.

The wails and cries of the man as he fell startled his comrade who had also been climbing, focused on making his way up. He watched his fellow climbing buddy fall, and then turned his attention upwards, finding half a body poked out of the window holding their weapon out.

He knew he was in trouble.

She pulled back, dislodging her pole axe from the wall, and prepared to take out the other. Thankfully, it would appear that the rest of the group by the door had not entered yet. The man that fell was quite far down, and so it was unlikely that they had heard his cries, and if they did, they were most likely quite muted.

All Octavia knew was that she still had more time to deal with the remaining man.

Holding her pole axe aloft, she swung it back down, aiming for the other rope. But the element of surprise had gone.

The man climbing up stepped across the stone wall moving his rope out of the path of the incoming axe, causing Octavia to just hit stone.

This did not deter her though. The rope now being between herself and the axe head, she moved her body and hands up the pole and pulled as hard as she could.

The axe scraped along the stone, causing sparks to fly as it did until it hit the rope. Not that she stopped there. Her continued motion of pulling the poleaxe caused it to nick the rope and cut into it, where she kept going until the rope was in reach.

She was able to take hold of the rope in one hand and supporting her pole axe with the other, that she had dragged back into the room, she started to scrape the rope against it. It wasn't long before the man started to try and scramble up the rope as fast as he could, but Octavia achieved her goal first, and the man plummeted to the ground.

Thankfully for the man, the castle wasn't that tall and the man wasn't that far up that his fall would end in death. It was likely that a few broken bones were all the men would walk away with. Assuming it wasn't the legs that ended up broken.

With two men down, Octavia turned back to the door. A quick check with her vision and she could see them finish fiddling with the lock of the door. It would seem that they managed to break through.

Octavia didn't have long to think, as it would only be mere seconds before they entered, so she did the only thing she could think of. She dashed across the room, as silent as possible and stood behind where the door would open to.

And then she waited.

It wasn't long before she saw the slight glint of something metal enter the room in the leading man's hand and she knew it was time for more dividing and conquering.

Unsure of how far behind this leading man the other two were, she slammed her tail into the door once the man had entered. The massive wooden door ended up slamming into both of the remaining men. One was knocked to the ground, and the other ended up staggering backwards.

As he fell back, his hand remained outstretched in front of him, and with the speed of the door closure, ended up trapped between the door and the wall.

"Arrrgh!" He cried from the pain but quickly stifled this by biting his other hand, not wanting to wake anyone up.

Now Octavia stood in front of the door, her tail keeping pressure on it to hold the two men at bay, holding her pole axe ready for the remaining man to attack. Which he started on quickly once he got over the shock of it all.

He swung down at Octavia's head, with what Octavia now saw was a metal bludgeon of some kind, but she was already in the position to defend it, which she did with relative ease. But that was the only part of the fight that was easy.

The man was fast, much faster than the men she fought at the bandit camp. He was able to withdraw from his blocked attack quickly and move into a sideways swing, which Octavia was unable to block in time.

The bludgeon slammed right into her side, creating a shockwave of pain through her body. It was a hit that was going to bruise for a long time.

The man pulled back and went for another attack in the same location, to add insult to injury, but Octavia was able to fend off this one.

As she did block, she tried to carry her momentum and go on the offensive, aiming her hammer head at the man's head, but he saw this coming a mile away and ducked in time. All of this left Octavia open to another swing of his bludgeon, slamming into the joint between her human half and her tail.

His speed allowed him to pull back fast, where he then aimed for her head. This was going south fast, and Octavia knew she needed to up her game against him. But there was only one way she knew how.

With her tail.

As he went for the head, Octavia spun as fast as she could, pulling her tail away from the door to slam into the man's arm.

The hit startled him, and the pain caused him to pull his arm away. What startled him even more though, was that he couldn't pull his arm away. As she hit his arm, she wrapped her tail's end around it, stopping him from being able to attack her.

While she had the one man partially immobilised, she had completely forgotten about the door she had been holding, where having moved her tail, allowed them to open it and try to squeeze their way inside.

Thankfully, Octavia saw this, and so used her new tool to good effect. She moved to the side and pulled her tail with all her might. The man resisted at first, but with the strength of her limb and the surprise of it all, the man slammed into the door.

Like before this had the added benefit of trapping the man currently trying to enter. But not only that, the man had been able to squeeze most of his head through the door, so the slam ended up rattling his brain.

This man in the door lost consciousness and fell limp, held in place by the tightness of the gap.

His fellow comrade in the hall saw him stop and lose all effort to enter and realised what had happened, where he then proceeded to try and pull the man free.

To the man in her room, Octavia kept a firm grasp with her tail. By this point, the man used his other hand to swing a punch at her face, smashing right into her cheek. He pulled back to go for another one, but Octavia reached out to grab hold of it. She also pushed her body right against the man restraining all moment in his legs.

"Hey, are you awake Octavia, I heard a loud ban-"

The voice startled both Octavia and the man who was being held against the door, who looked to the source. The source being, a still sleepy Sylvia who had been rubbing her eyes, but was now frozen at the sight before her.

No one really knew what to say, until Sylvia worked her way out of her stupor and spoke up.

"I-I'll get help."

"No, don't go outside your room. There's another man out there."

While the warning was necessary, it also alerted the man outside, where he saw an opportunity. It was clear that someone had entered, and it could only be from the adjacent room.

Leaving his comrade, he headed to the other room and started to bear down on the door, with the mace in his hand.

It would seem he had given up hope of doing this quietly, and given one door had a man against it, the other was the only real location he could break into.

Both of the girls heard this and knew they were in trouble.

"Ah, the bell. We can ring the bell."

"But he'll just attack the maid that comes."

"Your right, no, wait. There's a distress call you can do."

The man in her grasp struggled even harder after hearing that.

"Quickly, go!"

And go she did. Sylvia dashed back into her room and headed for the bell. As she reached it the smashing of the mace against the door caused her to jump, but she managed to stay calm enough to perform the distress call.

She grasped the bell and rung it three times in quick succession.

Back in Octavia's room, her grip on the man's hand was fading. She had been holding on for quite some time and her strength was waning. The slipperiness of the sweat didn't help either.

Not long after that, the man managed to pull his hand free. Octavia tried to grab it again but failed, and the man did the only thing he could in his position.

He reached out a took hold of her neck.

And squeezed.

The pain was horrible, but what was worse, was being unable to breathe properly. She grasped his arm with both her hands and tried to pull it away, but had no such luck. The same thing occurred when she tried to peel his fingers away, but the tight grip he had only grew tighter.

The man's face grew into a grin as he knew he was going to win. No one could hold out for much longer being unable to breathe.

This was something Octavia had realised as well once she saw the spots in her vision.

The only thing she had left was her tail. She was sure Sylvia had reached the bell, but with the castle being the maze it was, she didn't know how long it would take for them to get here.

The tail was the last line of defence she had, but as soon as she removed it, it would allow him to smash her head with the bludgeon. She would get a few seconds reprieve at most before she is taken down.

But it was now or never.

It was getting harder and harder to think.

She had to do it.

Things were starting to go dark.

This couldn't be the end.

"…"