by Katie Vack
Of course, his silent partner detracted a lot from what might otherwise have been a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Still, he would have been lying to say he hated it. He had found long ago that there was no better time to order your thoughts than on a long walk, and with someone else doing the navigating this was exactly what he did.
Sora didn't seem to be emanating any kind of aggression today, so there was little threat from her at the moment; but then considering her volatile nature, that could probably change in an instant. What was bothering him today, though, was the opposite of the night before. He was starting to feel a sense of foreboding about the upcoming battle.
It was a terrible plan, and he had no idea how a veteran of Karolus' skill could have even come up with something as poor. It relied almost entirely on predictions which could quite easily vary by a long margin, and any one of them doing so would prove disastrous. And he knew from experience that a fight never went the way you planned it to.
There was going to be trouble; that was a certainty. All that was left was to weather it when it occurred. He wasn't overly worried about it, but then things he rarely was about that kind of thing. He couldn't afford to die- there was still at least one thing he had left to do- but anything beyond that was irrelevant. Pain could be endured. Injuries would heal. So long as he stayed alive, which he had every intention of doing, he shouldn't have anything to fear. He put the matter to rest for now, and they continued onwards to their destination.
A little over an hour later, they arrived at the road. The other four, with their respective means of transport, had already arrived and were in place. He and Sora handrailed the track for a few hundred metres before finding a suitable location to set up.
It was a gravel road, perhaps just wide enough to allow two vehicles to pass by each other. A pair of forested hills rose up on either side of it, steep enough to block sight around the two bends, and with enough cover to provide more than adequate concealment. Geographically, it was the perfect place to spring a trap, but then that might not be a good thing. People tended to be a lot warier around obvious ambush locations.
They stopped walking, and Grayson tucked himself behind a tree as Sora did the same. The convoy wasn't due for another couple of hours, but there was no harm in being cautious. As the pair with the shortest effective range in combat they had been given the role of stopping it when it arrived, the most dangerous of the three. Grayson glanced across at Sora, curiosity getting the better of him.
"So how does it work?"
"What?" Judging by the lack of even irritation in her voice, she really was in a better mood than yesterday.
"Your bow. You keep it strung and never carry arrows for it. Why?"
"Oh, that." She pulled it off her back. "I keep it strung because it was a gift from the earth."
"What does that mean?"
"It means Bratius grew it for me. It's stronger than any modern bow, and it would take a lot more than me keeping it strung to damage it. As for the arrows, watch and learn."
She stepped backwards with her right foot, grasping the bow in her left arm and holding it loosely in front of her. She lowered her right hand to her side, and began to whisper something. To Grayson's astonishment, from out of the ground a plant began to grow.
At first it was just a tiny sprout, emerging warily from the soil, but soon it began to grow taller, stronger, transforming into something else entirely. After about two feet it stopped rising, and the tip began to grow outwards. Miniature fernlike fronds sprouted from the top. After about ten seconds Sora reached down, plucked it from the ground, and nocked it smoothly to her bowstring. "That's why I don't carry arrows."
It was a wooden arrow, barbed and flighted with little pieces of shrubbery. Overcoming his amazement at what he had just seen, Grayson couldn't help but feel a little dubious about its actual effectiveness. "Isn't that pretty poor ammunition?"
Sora gave a little sigh of derision. "That was a Silvan Harvest. We're far closer spiritually to the worlds than any other species, and so they give us offerings as gifts for our protection. There are very few materials which can hope to match spiritwood. To answer your question, my arrows are sharper than razor blades but stronger than any metal. Add to that the fact that I can grow them anywhere with earth, a dozen of them in a couple of seconds, and you can't find any better ammunition."
She drew the bow and let the arrow loose, and it flew off impressively into the distance. She slung the longbow back over her shoulder, and in that instant her left sleeve slid down to her elbow. Grayson blinked. "What's that?"
"What's what?"
"Your arm." He moved closer to her and she turned away reflexively, flicking her sleeve back down, but he grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her back again. He slid her sleeve up again to reveal a deep wound on the inside of her forearm, an eight inch crevasse full of dried blood. At first glance he had thought it was still bleeding, but now he realised that had been a false impression created by the depth and colouring of the cut. "What happened to it?"
"Oh, that." She brushed the question aside as though it held no concern for her, but the muscles in her arm snapped taut as she tried to take it back. "I cut myself shaving. Get off me."
Grayson held her effortlessly in place, far stronger than anybody would have believed. "You... cut yourself shaving?"
"That's right." Suddenly she was angry, and this time he allowed her to pull away. She stormed away from him and leant back against a tree, arms crossed defiantly across her chest. "Not that it's any of your business."
She was right, he decided. Her casual nature had put him a little too much at ease, and he'd forgotten what a threat she was. He had no idea what had happened to her arm, but this was Sora- the likelihood was that he didn't want to know. He unconsciously echoed her actions, finding a tree to rest against. "Fine then. Forget I asked."
There was a lull in the conversation, loaded with tension. Eventually Grayson came to the conclusion that, with relations as poor as they already appeared to be, he really didn't have much to lose. "So what happened?"
"I told you-"
"No, not your arm. I was talking about your past."
She froze. "You know my story. We had that conversation yesterday."
"I know your story- the one you told to keep us quiet. I don't know your past."
"What do you mean?" She tried hiding it, but Grayson could tell that she was panicking. The fact that he could cause that kind of reaction by simply asking about her past was a very bad sign. It meant it was probably even worse than he had imagined.
"I mean that if you're going to lie about who you are, you can at least try to make it believable."
"Okay..." her voice was wavering with a mixture of terror and hatred, but he ignored it, "then... I'll make you a deal. You tell me yours and maybe I might tell you mine."
Grayson didn't flinch. He already knew that she'd seen through his tale. "Not happening."
"Then what makes you think I'm willing to talk to you?"
"Because I'm going to find out sooner or later, so I might as well do so now."
"But why should I tell you if you won't tell me first?"
"It's not that I don't want to talk to you; it's just not something I can do."
"And why is that?"
"It's complicated."
"And you think mine isn't?"
Grayson sighed unhappily. "It isn't a matter of whether I feel like talking to you. There are some things about me that I simply can't tell people."
"So you don't trust me."
"No, it's not that, I just-"
"You don't trust me. That's fine. It's to be expected. We know nothing about each other. I don't blame you for it, because I don't trust you either. But Grayson?" He glanced back up at her. "Don't try getting someone to put their trust in you if you aren't willing to put yours in them." The conversation stuttered to a dismal stop.
* * *
"Grayson?"
He opened his eyes from his
napping, still tired from being woken so early. "What?"
"They're here."
At that he was awake, springing casually up to his feet, eyes suddenly alert. "How far?" He didn't ask her how she knew; Silvans had the unusual ability to 'hear' the voices of plants and animals, so in a forest like this there probably wasn't much that could catch her off guard.
"We have about three minutes until they reach us."
"Then let's go."
The two of them slipped out of their cover, slinking down the hill and towards the road below. Grayson was used to this kind of terrain, extremely skilled at moving through it quickly and silently, but Sora was a ghost. Even pouring all his focus into tracking her down he still couldn't hear a thing- it was as though the leaves and twigs were actually moving out of her way, and Grayson wouldn't have been overly surprised if they were. Either way, he found it unnerving.
They reached the bottom of the road and stopped. Grayson turned to find Sora, disconcertingly, right behind him. "Stay or go?"
"Stay," she replied. She kneeled down in the roadside vegetation and it seemed to wrap itself around her, shielding her from view. Grayson walked across to the other side of the road and had to content himself with lying in a ditch behind a bush. He glanced to his left and found that, even knowing where she was, he couldn't see her at all. Impressive as that might be, and useful for avoiding notice, it did mean that they couldn't communicate with hand gestures to time their entrance.
He kept his voice low. "Lead is yours."
"Understood." Having her in charge of timing was the best solution, and he wasn't going to let his personal feelings get in the way of that. She had unobstructed vision of the target location, and she was definitely experienced enough for him to rely upon her judgement.
He kept his head down, chin resting in the dirt, controlling his breathing. Excitement began to bubble through him but he crushed it back down again- he was a professional, and he couldn't lose his head in a life and death situation like this. His heart began to slow as his lungs did the same, making sure that his body was fully under his control before he had to use it. This fight would be similar to the last one; he would be unable to use his powers. With luck they wouldn't be necessary anyway, but he had a bad feeling about this mission. A fly landed on his nose and he ignored it, unwilling to move. He sat there looking at it, and it at him, until he became aware of something new.
There was a slight noise coming from further down the road, a noise which he soon recognised as the sound of hooves on stone. This was it; the moment they had been waiting for. The fly flew off again as he turned to look at Sora, only to be reminded that he couldn't actually see her. That irritated him. Normally she would be able to count him in and they could time it to perfection, but they couldn't do that now. There would be a slight delay between her entrance and his, and while that wasn't the end of the world it was still annoying. He held his attention upon the last place he had seen her- the place she should still be.
The sound of hooves grew slowly louder, followed by the grinding of wheels crushing gravel. Grayson didn't bother trying to place the distance- he wasn't particularly good at that kind of thing, and Sora should be able to handle it anyway. What he could tell was that they were close; very close.
He began to breathe faster, deeper, no longer forcing himself to remain calm. This should be easy enough with some powerful ranged support and two more warriors held in reserve, especially catching their prey by surprise like this. He held his gaze on the other roadside. There was no movement yet, but the convoy was definitely getting closer. This was going to be a lot of fun. He began to feel slight vibrations through the ground where he was lying.
And then that was it. Sora was up and out of her hiding spot, and Grayson followed her a second later. The two of them strode confidently from their hiding places, taking up position in the centre of the road. About twenty-five metres away the first caravan came to a stop. It was, in retrospect, more like a wagon than anything else: fairly big and drawn by two workhorses, with a large domed sheet of canvas providing shelter and obscuring whatever lay inside. There was a driver, hunched over in his seat and wearing some kind of hooded black robe.
Grayson came to a stop, holding up his hand. He raised his voice so that there was no possibility of the man mishearing him. "That's far enough. This is a robbery, and…" his voice trailed off.
From hidden slits in the canvas a dozen firearm barrels suddenly sprouted, gleaming evilly in the morning sun. The driver rose to his feet, letting his robes fall to the floor to reveal crimson coloured leather armour, and drawing a pair of compact submachine guns from hip holsters.
The man smiled evilly, revealing a set of razor sharp fangs. "Hello, breakfast."
The Storm
Grayson took off to the right, throwing himself back down into the ditch as bullets rained down around him, stitching a speckled path across the road. He held himself as low as he could in the already poor cover, wishing he could simply melt into it. Little patches of dirt began to explode on either side of him as shots impacted against the earth.
Unless his ears were mistaken they were all fairly light weapons, firing pistol or carbine rounds, but that didn't really make a difference to him. He wasn't Seth or Karolus- wearing no functional armour at all, even .22 rifles would have been bad news.
He glanced across to his right to find Sora with her back to the biggest tree she could find, cradling her bow across her body and holding an arrow in her hand. "What now?" he asked her.
She turned scornfully to face him. "I deal with this. You cower there and pray to your gods."
He swore at that, but if she heard him she didn't give any sign of it. She broke cover, leaping across the road with three arrows in hand, firing as she ran. Grayson heard the noise of three metallic shrieks from up ahead, but with no clear line of sight he had no idea what they were. "What's going on?"
"They're armoured! The caravans are armoured!"
Things just kept getting worse by the second. If they had needed any further proof that this was a setup, that was it. All their plans had just been overturned in an instant, and now he had to figure out how to work around this.
If the convoy had known about the ambush then they would have prepared for it. Clearly they were heavily armed and armoured, but there would be more than that. They had a leech on their side, and Grayson had to figure out his role. From the way the man held himself he appeared to be a leader of some sort, and while he might not be the man they were after Grayson decided that they couldn't take the risk. If they'd had time to prepare for the ambush, it was possible the Darkfang had shifted the positioning of their commander.
"Sora?"
"What?" She sounded only a few metres ahead of him.
"I need you to cross again."
"Why?"
"Just do it!"
He didn't hear anything from her after that but the storm of lead intensified, and much of it was drawn away from his position, so he figured she'd done as he said and was once again on the opposite side of the road. Now it was his turn. Making the most of the opportunity she had provided, he rushed back onto his feet and out of the ditch, finding cover behind a tree just opposite her and about fifteen metres from the caravan.
He locked eyes with her across the road. "How fast can you run?"
The glint in her eyes told him she'd caught onto his borderline suicidal idea. "Think you can keep up?"
"In three, then?" She nodded. He waited for a few seconds, and then they took off together.
He was round the tree, legs pumping frantically to power him forwards, running straight towards the first caravan and using the tree line for the slight cover it provided. Bullets sprayed all around him, every one of them missing him by a hairs breadth. He felt a slight tug as one ripped through his cloak, infuriating him. He poured even more energy into his legs, increasing his speed even further. His legs were dying beneath him, and he couldn't breathe, but he continued anyway.
Nearly there, he glanced round to see where Sora was- that was a mistake. His foot caught on a half-buried root and he tripped. Time seemed to slow as he fell forward, and he imagined he could almost see the white-hot bullet as it sped towards him. The round hammered into his left shoulder, snapping his collarbone, and exploded out his back in a spray of gore and bone chips. His mind seemed to shut down as the shock set in, and he barely felt it as he crashed face first into the ground, brought to an abrupt halt.
He couldn't think. His mind was sluggish, clouded, and he couldn't bring it to bear on anything. There was the taste of blood and dirt in his mouth, and he had a splitting headache. He could barely feel his wounded shoulder; it simply seemed as if his entire arm was now boiling hot. He knew that he had to get up, get back to his feet, and get back into the fight. It was important- Crayton might still decide to fire on the first vehicle, and the risk of friendly fire was the only thing that could have reliably stopped him.
