52. Chaos of Combat
52 – Chaos of Combat
Andy slipped away from the chaos of the group—raiding party or whatever they were—and hugged the shadows of a nearby mesquite’s trunk. He heard a woman screaming about how she couldn’t stop the bleeding, and the leader barking orders as one kerosene-soaked torch after another flared to life.
The scene out there was madness. The loose horse was bucking and thrashing, rolling its eyes, and the leader was driving forward, trying to capture the animal while people scattered, trying to follow his demands to “find the asshole.” Andy wasn’t sure what his goal was other than to disrupt their efforts long enough for Lucy and the others to get back to the settlement. Unfortunately, it seemed like the leader of the Hardhead party had another plan.
“Bree! You and Heath need to track down that slippery bastard. Paul, Rosas, Arnie, Jimmy, and Brazos—you’re with her. Everyone else follow my horse! We gotta catch those fuckers!” With that, he gave up on the loose horse, letting it trot away into the darkness. He hefted a brightly flaring torch, kicked his horse in the ribs, and launched himself across the clearing.
The sound of hooves thudding was quickly drowned out by the majority of the party yelling and running after him. Andy wanted to give chase—to somehow slow the leader’s horse, but he knew, even with his Twilight Steps, he wouldn’t catch him. Besides, there were still six raiders in the clearing, standing near a man wearing a gray hoodie with glowing red eyes.
Andy watched the guy lean over and touch the now-still body of the horse rider Andy had stabbed. He muttered something hard to discern even for Andy’s ears over the shuffling movement and voices of the other people. Was he casting a spell? Even as Andy contemplated sneaking out there to attack one of them, meaning to distract them from whatever they were doing, the red-eyed guy—Heath?—looked up and stared right at him.
“He’s there, near the mesquite!”
Andy felt like he’d just woken up on stage in his underwear. The whole group turned to stare in his direction, but he wasn’t sure anyone other than the wizard could actually see him. Whatever the case, with a burst of adrenaline, he bolted down the slope of the wash, crashing through the dried grass and breaking through some brittle mesquite branches, until he was pounding over the sandy bottom, trying to put some distance between himself and the group.
They were pursuing; he could hear their crashing progress through the foliage on the bank of the wide, dry riverbed. He heard a projectile whistle through the air, but it wasn’t close, and that fact helped Andy to get a grip on his impulse to sprint away. They didn’t know exactly where he was. Maybe the spell-casting guy did, but maybe not; maybe his spell didn’t last all that long. All Andy knew was that he was already blending back into the shadows, and he had a chance to thin the enemy’s numbers.
He chose a mostly clear spot on the bank and charged up it, moving out of the wash to hunker amid the tall, dry grass, peering down at his pursuers. An idle thought wandered through his mind: why hadn’t the System awarded him for killing the guy on the horse? Was it waiting until the fighting was done? He supposed that was kind of how it had worked when he’d run into the Whistler and his crew.
His pursuers had three torches, bright enough to light up one bank of the wash all the way to the other. Of course, Andy’s eyes did a lot with the light they threw, and things probably looked different to normal human vision. Gripping his spear, he crept forward along the top of the bank. He could see all seven, even the spell caster, were down in the sand. He took advantage of the firm ground up top and hurried back to the area where he’d first ducked down the slope, planning to circle behind them.
“Saw something over here!” one of the men shouted, waving his torch from the far side of the wash. Andy slid down the embankment, padding up behind another man, this one wielding a massive two-handed, sword-looking thing. The weapon looked like it had been crafted in a machine shop, and its heavy, bright edge seemed perfectly capable of parting the limbs from a person’s body.
He was a large man wearing the kind of tan boots favored by construction workers, and his plodding progress through the sand exuded anger with each step. The woman who was in charge of them, Bree, was a few steps ahead of him, so Andy hurried his steps, moving close to the man and aiming a thrust in the same area he often did: toward the soft, meaty area just beneath his ribs where things like kidneys or a liver might be found.
The man wore a well-faded jean jacket that sported a big embroidered skull surrounded by roses on the back. When Andy’s shadow-clad spearhead slipped through the material, it encountered something else much more rigid. With a grunt, Andy pushed, and his magically enhanced weapon cut through, but not before sliding to the left and ruining his perfect critical strike. Still, he cut the guy badly, and when he ripped the spear out, backpedaling to avoid the man’s reflexive hack with his sword, dark blood trailed after his weapon, falling wetly onto the dry sand.
“You piece of shit!” the big man wheezed. Now that Andy could see his face, he reckoned he was pushing forty. He had a thick yellow-brown beard, and his face was reddish-brown from years of working in the sun. He stumbled, his sword falling forward into the sand, and he took a minute to reach behind himself, trying to probe the wound Andy had given him.
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Andy continued to backpedal, scanning the other hostiles in the area. Only the woman, Bree, had noticed anything amiss, and she’d just barely laid eyes on Andy. “Here!” she screamed. “He’s here!”
Andy bolted. He heard the man’s lumbering steps behind him, he heard Bree yelling directions, and then he felt a shock of pain as something slammed into his shoulder.
At first, he thought he’d been shot. He could almost picture the arrow standing proudly from his blood-soaked hoodie, but then something buffeted his head, and a harsh, piercing screech sounded by his ear. The pressure on his shoulder lifted as a big bird continued to pound its wings and then took flight, leaving him behind with several deep talon punctures as a parting gift. “What the fuck?” Andy gasped, charging toward the embankment and the thicker shadows of a palo verde.
Had that been Bree’s pet? The bird she’d used to spy on them coming down from the plateau? Could it see him while he was hiding? All Andy knew was that there were too many unknowns when you threw magic and classes into the mix. These weren’t six or seven random people he was messing with, but six or seven people who’d had a chance to get some levels and who were ready for a fight. However tough he was, however inflated his ego might have grown with his recent victories, he wasn’t delusional enough to think he stood a good chance against them all.
Andy focused on the shadows ahead and cast Twilight Steps, trying to put some distance between himself and his pursuers. He was running the wrong way if he wanted to get back to the settlement, but he took a little comfort in knowing he was, at least, keeping a good portion of the Hardhead people busy—hopefully enough to give Lucy and the others a chance.
He could hear the shouts of his pursuers, and it seemed they’d fallen back a good bit, so he angled further up the slope, out of the big wash. When he burst through the dry foliage at the top of the berm, ready to make a long, wide loop, to work his way back toward the plateau, he came face-to-face with four more people—one with a bow drawn and ready to shoot.
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Lucy ran. She stretched her legs and pumped her arms, careful not to swing her bow too wildly, lest she lose her grip. She was moving so fast! It was the first time she’d really gone all-out since the System had come, and her improved attributes were really on display. Twice, she had to slow down because she’d passed Omar, and they were leaving Tucker and Bella behind. Still, when they hit the gravel road, everyone just ran for it, and Lucy let herself go—they knew where to go from there.
When they’d first bolted, she’d heard the commotion behind them and stolen a few glances over her shoulder, but she hadn’t been able to see what was going on. People yelling, and a faint orange glow were her only clues, and all she could do was hope that Andy was all right. She hated feeling like they’d abandoned him, but he’d insisted, and, as irritating as it was, she didn’t think there was any way she could help—not without getting herself killed.
That didn’t mean the idea hadn’t crossed her mind. She’d almost stopped behind a big, sprawling prickly pear, intending to crouch there with an arrow nocked. She figured she could stand up and shoot people to give Andy cover while he retreated. Of course, she’d instantly dismissed the idea. What if he retreated another way? What if he was getting away, but she exposed herself and gave the hunters another target? No, Andy had said to get to the trail leading to the plateau, and that was what she’d do.
She could see it—the plateau—a great, looming shadow with a faintly flickering yellow light up near the top. That had to be someone standing watch, right? Another half mile, and she’d be there. She looked over her shoulder again, trying to get a gauge on how far back everyone else was. Omar was running hard about twenty yards back, just a little ahead of Brian, and a good thirty yards behind them were two distant figures, just shadows in the moonlight—Tucker and Bella.
Lucy turned and ran, not because she was determined to win some unspoken race, or because she was scared, but because she wanted to get on the trail and cover the others with her bow. She felt her breath growing short about a quarter mile from the trail, and she figured she might have to slow down a little. That was when she heard the unmistakable thud of horse hooves on the gravel road. Heaving for breath, she paused, sliding to a halt in the gravel, and turned, squinting through the dark.
While she stood there, staring, Brian and Omar caught up, sliding to a stop beside her. “What?” Brian gasped.
“Horse,” Lucy hissed, pointing. Sure enough, behind the still-running forms of Bella and Tucker, a bigger shadow was thundering down the road. “Damn it!”
“Shit. He’s gonna catch ’em,” Omar said, leaning on his spear as he heaved for air.
Lucy drew an arrow from her quiver, one of her heavier, wind-resistant ones. It had low-profile vanes and a carbon composite shaft—ideal for long-distance shots. It was built for competition, so it had a field point, not a broadhead, but that suited her just fine; this was going to be a hell of a shot. “Keep running,” she said, nocking the arrow and drawing the string back to her jawline.
“Fuck that,” Brian said, taking up a position beside her with his spear. Omar grunted agreement, and Lucy didn’t argue. Her bow had a sixty-pound draw, but it felt like nothing as she rolled her shoulders back and let the weight settle into the pulleys. She sighted along the shaft, lifting it over Bella’s head, then zeroed it in on the incoming horseback rider.
When it was centered, she lifted it a few inches, compensating for what she imagined the wind drag and distance drop would be. The thing was, it felt like more than a guess; she had a lot of experience prior to the System coming, sure, but since she’d started gaining levels as a Hunter and putting more points into Bow, she’d begun to have an almost unnatural sense about these things. She knew she was on target. She just had to hope a stray gust or a twitch of her muscles didn’t mess up the shot.
That in mind, she took a deep breath, held it, checked her lines one last time, and then let go of the string, watching as her arrow, glinting in the moonlight, arced through the darkness, splitting the air as it hurtled toward that distant rider.