17 Broken Arrow (2/2)
I dived to the ground to avoid the fourth arrow and glanced over to where Aura was. She was crouching behind Edo who was using his own massive body as a meat shield.
Someone bumped into my shoulder as I got up to my feet, and immediately afterward, I felt a blade slice through my pants and cut into my leg. With a grinding of teeth, I worked through the pain and slashed at my attacker but she'd pushed past me too quickly and bolted toward her other two companions who'd escaped in the same direction the arrow fire originated from. That's when I saw him.
At a distance of about forty meters, half-hidden inside a covered wagon was a fifth hooded figure who carried a bow in its hand.
I quickly activated Fool's Insight while this archer finished notching another arrow to its bow, and in the same moment as the warm sensation of power filled my eyes the archer fired another shot.
My eyes collated the information gleaned from several factors, the angle of the archer's bow to the distance of the shot as well as the wind factor, and turned all this into insight that told me the target was—
With my falchion in hand, and despite the pained protest of my bleeding leg, I pushed off sideways like a goalie in a soccer match and sliced through the arrow as it came speeding for Luca's back.
After my spectacular save that no one noticed, I spared a second's glance at the broken arrow before I pulled myself back up and readied my falchion for the second shot that never came.
While I was saving his life, Luca cut down his opponent with a massive swing toward the gut. Blood sprayed out of the hooded thief's stomach. Then he crumpled to his knees and breathed his last before falling on the hard ground.
Seeing this abrupt and bloody conclusion to its comrade, the archer vanished inside the wagon. He didn't come out again.
the female thief I fought spared one last glance at her dead companion by Luca's feet before she too disappeared inside the wagon.
Once the arrows stopped coming, the city guard who had lost four of their number in that short round of sniper fire finally shifted gears and reformed their formation into a line with their shields in front, ready to receive incoming projectiles.
I got behind their line and waited vigilantly with Fool's Insight still active but the arrows never came. We received the answer to this silence a short time later.
Something from the inside it ripped apart the top cover of the wagon the thieves were hiding in, and in a gust of magical wind four giant wing shapes made of similar black cloth to the cloaks worn by the thieves shot out of the wagon like bats out of hell.
They soared up to the brightly lit night sky, and once they were in higher altitude, glided toward the western horizon.
”Are those…” Luca had walked over to me. He was nursing a cut on his cheek. ”wings?”
”Magical gliders…” I shut my eyes and deactivated Fool's Insight. When I opened them again, I turned to my brother. ”Luca…”
”I know, Dean. I'm…” Luca was at a loss for words. He understood how much trouble he'd gotten us into and how things could have gone horribly wrong. ”I'm sorry…”
I winced at the slight pain from my latest scar. ”No one died…” I said, sympathetically. Then I remembered the many dead bodies currently on the ground. ”Well, at least none of our guys died.”
I decided not to tell Luca about the two freed child slaves I briefly encountered. I didn't want the possibility of us being the bad guys in this encounter to make him feel worse.
”Come with me,” I led Luca back to his fallen opponent. ”pull down his hood, Luca. I want to see his face.”
Luca knelt on the ground, and after only a moment's hesitation, he removed the cover that had been hiding the face of the dead fairy thief.
There were similar features on the bloodied face to the two fairy children I let escape. They shared the same ebony skin and the same silver hair—and I finally recognized the dead fairy staring lifelessly into nothing. Seeing this creature sent my thoughts immediately to Aura and my eyes darted through the crowd until I founder her.
They were closer to the iron gates now, standing by a crowd of stubborn onlookers who remained behind during the fight to watch. Edo was restraining her from running over to us. I thought it was a wise decision as the city guard, no longer under threat of sniper fire, turned their attention on the remaining trouble makers, the two armed humans.
I mouthed the word ”Drow” to Aura and hoped she got the message. She must have because she nodded her head. Then I watched her whisper my warning to Edo, who, after hearing that drows were close by, took Aura by the arm and dragged her deeper into the crowd of nosy fairies. As going incognito went, Edo's was a poor attempt. After all, he towered over everyone, and anyone with a good eye would have spotted him and Aura as well as the agitation clearly showing on their faces.
But that was none of my concern anymore because dwarven guards who were a little too high on adrenaline surrounded me and Luca.
There was a lot of shouting and demands for surrender which Luca and I did our best to comply with. We even threw down our weapons and put up our arms in a gesture of surrender.
Unfortunately, our attempts to placate the guards went in vain as soon as everyone noticed the two stone golems jogging in our direction from the road leading to the city gates. There was an out-of-breath female dwarf in a brown cloak similar to mine running between them, and she was calling my name at the top of her lungs.