by Keith Ahrens
I catch Olivia's eye and point behind her. Raising five fingers, I point again; she nods in understanding and veers her cart more toward the edge of the road. Thirax roars a challenge at the pursuing elves.
I raise my bow and sight along the arrow. This is more difficult than it looks, bouncing along in a speeding wagon on a rutted, muddy road while adding to the fact that I haven't shot a bow since I was in the Boy Scouts.
I try to time the bounces as I let loose the arrow. It sails harmlessly over the heads of the five horsemen and disappears in the distance. Crap. That’s kind of disappointing. I pull another and try again. Closer this time, it hits the roadway in front of the lead mount and gets crushed under a metal shod hoof. I never had a chance to train here with a bow, since none of us were allowed to have ranged weapons. I guess my childhood lessons weren’t enough to be remotely proficient.
At least it got their attention this time. The lead rider raises his left hand and makes an odd series of gestures, then clenches his fist and pulls. The bow in my hand suddenly jerks away. I just manage to keep my grip on it, but I end up getting pulled halfway out the door. The arrow in my hand falls to the ground as I grab onto the doorway. It’s a close call, but I manage not to get yanked from the wagon with the bow by the time the spell comes to an end.
Now I'm pissed off. I rip another arrow from the quiver and take a rushed shot. Why not? Aiming doesn't seem to help. The arrow glances off its intended's breastplate with a small spark but otherwise inflicts no harm.
I see the lead rider's head turn to the side, and the four other riders face toward him as if they are listening. Of course, I can't hear them at this distance, and he's probably speaking in Elvish or some shit anyway. The other riders seem to understand him just fine, however.
The two on the ends raise their arms parallel to the ground; a moment later, they lift off their saddles and hover a few feet over the horses. They both draw swords, gaining altitude as they fly toward us. Now that’s just not fair; since when do they get to fly?
I take another shot and miss by a mile. Just then, I feel a hand on my shoulder pulling me back a bit. Vince reaches over and grabs the bow from me. “Gimme that! You've obviously never been bowhunting.”
Stepping back, I take the quiver off my shoulder and hand it to him with no argument. Maybe he'll have better luck. He nocks an arrow and pulls the string back until it touches his cheek. He breathes out and lets it fly.
The arrow arcs as it whistles through the air. As if drawn by a magnet, it punches through the center of one of the elves' breastplates and knocks him backward off his horse. Yup. Much luckier... and better than I was.
“Nice shot!” I slap Vince on the shoulder with enthusiasm, but our smiles fade as we see the reaction.
The lead rider sees his companion tumble and hit the ground. He shouts something to his remaining knight, and they both begin to wave their hands about in deliberate patterns. Burning runes form in the air around their glowing fists. The wind leaves flames streaming behind them, and the rain adds a thick gray fog of steam to their trail. The lead rider thrusts his hand forward, palm out, and a ball of red and white fire streaks from the center of it.
It falls just short of the back of our wagon but explodes with enough force to knock us both on our asses and makes the end of the wagon jump a couple of feet in the air. The heatwave sears our skin and raises the temperature inside the wagon at least thirty degrees. The rear of our wagon trails with a thick, black smoke.
The aim of the second fireball is better. It hits the back of Olivia's wagon like a rocket. We can't see how it blasts the door off its hinges, but we can see the effect. Thirax's arms flail about, trying to catch his balance as the wagon rocks violently. Then, the fireball detonates within the wagon. The thick wood is enough to contain the blast for a moment, amplifying its effect on those inside.
A split second later, the wagon explodes into ash and splinters as the white-hot flames erupt like a miniature sun. Thirax launches himself in the air, trying to get away from the blast. The shockwave catches him and propels him even further. The last I see of him, his body is crashing through some trees on the side of the road.
I shield my eyes from the heat, but not before I see body parts burning and cascading through the air. Olivia screams as she's thrown from the driver's seat, her back blazing and smoking. I see her land somewhere amid the horses, tangled in their harnesses as the panicked beasts react in a frenzy from the explosion and resulting fire.
All four wheels remain intact, and the burning pile of lumber continues to roll at an impressive speed down the road. Of course, the horses are most likely running faster than their magical imbibements, desperate to escape the flames. It passes us, leaving us in a pall of black smoke, thick with the stench of burned hair and skin. My stomach drops as I see the damage with no sign of Olivia.
I pull out my .38 revolver and fire off two shots. The noise is deafening, and I singe my hand, steadying myself on the charred wood of the door frame. Both shots miss, and I curse out loud.
A reverberating thud hits the roof above us. It takes me a second to realize that one of the flying elves have landed on our wagon.
“Miles! Give me a boost!” I yell as I put one foot on the bench and find a toehold on the rough beams of the open door. Miles crouches down and braces himself in the doorway. I twist at the hips and get one boot on his armored shoulder. Miles grabs my leg and places one hand under my thigh, and heaves.
I find myself launched up onto the top of the wagon and rolling over my hip…. Damn that guy is strong. The cart bounces as we run off the road and onto the rough grass. I'm almost thrown off before I can even stop myself from tumbling.
So, there I am, flat on my back, atop a careening wagon, looking up at the back of an armored elven knight. He glances down when he notices me sliding to a stop against his legs. He breaks off his attack on Colt and with impressive dexterity, reverses the grip on his sword and drives it down at my guts.
In an almost hopeless, do-or-die move, I try to heave onto my side and curl my body around the sword's intended path. I'm very surprised that it almost works.
A bright line of pain tears across my stomach as the blade punctures my steel armor like wet tissue paper. I hold my breath, still sucking in the ol’ gut, knowing that if I exhale and loosen my stomach muscles, this blade will spill my intestines all over the wagon roof. The sword keeps me pinned to the rough wood like a moth stuck in a collector's showcase.
Salvation comes in the form of Colt and his crescent-bladed ax as he turns in the driver’s bench and swings his blade horizontally from a kneeling position. The elf, despite his heavy armor, is nimble enough to jump over the sharpened steel. He does not, however, manage to pull his sword up with him. The stout head of the ax smashes into the flat of the silver sword and shatters it into large metal shards. I'm able to roll over the stub still stuck in the roof without cutting myself any deeper.
Getting to my feet and coming dangerously close to the edge of the roof, I pull my mace. My feet slide a bit on the rain-slicked wood. I’ve got to end this quickly before I fall off, so I take advantage of what I know of these elves. I swing the mace in a very obvious, very easy to dodge, overhead swing. The arrogant elf takes the bait and leans out of the way. I check my swing and change direction with a grunt of effort, sweeping it in front of me.
The elf gets his arm up to try and block my attack, but he's just a fraction of a second too slow. The stolid mace glances off his elbow, smashing the bone, and continues right into the full-faced visor of his helmet. The metal deforms, and his head snaps back, blood spraying from the sides and bottom of the mask.
His body topples from the wagon roof and leaves a deep furrow in the muddy road.
A shot rings out, followed by two more in rapid succession. I look up and see Jesse standing atop his own wagon, one foot on the roof, the other on the driver's bench. He's holding his smoking pistol in a two-handed grip, still tracking his target.
Colt regains control of our wagon in time to swerve out of the way of Haynes and Grayson. Both men have turned their horses and drawn their weapons. They charge full speed at the two remaining elven knights, Haynes with his falchion held high and Grayson with his double-bladed ax grasped in a strong one-handed grip.
The knights respond in kind, drawing their swords and bellowing war cries as rainwater runs off their silver blades. The four horses throw large clumps of thick mud high in the air as they charge headlong at each other through the driving downpour.
Haynes has a good twenty-yard lead on Grayson and closes on his adversary with heightening speed. Both mounts are traveling at least sixty miles an hour as man and elf attack with deadly intensity. The blades shatter upon impact from their tremendous speed and momentum. Haynes and his quarry rock back in their saddles, but neither are unseated. The Sergeant pulls on the reins to slow his horse and turn it around as fast as he can. The elf has the same plan, but his horse balks a bit at the abuse.
Grayson goes for a different tactic. He raises his ax high and then drops it in a low sweeping arc. Intellectually, I understand his tactic, but I cringe a little in disgust and empathy. In his situation, I hope I would act differently, but I know that this is a tried and true method of fighting mounted opponents. Take out the mount, and the rider falls.
The elven knight realizes this at about the same time I do, and he savagely yanks the reins aside, pulling the horse's head as far as it can go. He doesn't see the move as a feint, and neither do I. The knight’s horse has turned almost at a right angle to meet Grayson's charge, putting its rider right into the mouth of Grayson’s trap; all the Berserker needs to do now is change the angle of his sweeping ax.
The crescent blade rises and catches the elven knight just below the edge of his helmet, missing the horse by design. I breathe a grateful sigh of relief. It’s not a clean decapitation as the ax angles up and gets stuck in the helmet from the inside. The body cartwheels through the air, taking the ax with it. For a moment, the corpse flies alongside Grayson's steed before crashing to the muddy ground.
By this point, we've gained a lot of ground from Haynes and Grayson's battle with the two remaining elves, and I can see Jesse slowing and turning his wagon around. I go to tell Colt to follow suit when I notice the remains of Olivia's wagon, still burning and running off the road into a meadow. I realize that I never saw her body fall below the harnessed four horses careening through tall grass. This rain may be a bit of a hidden blessing after all.
“Go after it! Olivia might still be alive!” I shout to Colt over the wind, redirecting him as I point over his shoulder at the burning wagon. He nods and tugs the reins off to the side. I hop down to the driver's bench just as we leave the road.
Our speed bleeds off, fast but smooth. Any other way and the horses would have stumbled from the momentum and been crushed by the wagon. This is some impressive enchantment upon the road.
“Pull up next to it, and I'll try to grab the reins,” I shout over the clatter of the wheels. Replacing the mace on my belt, I get close to the edge and secure my footing. It takes us about a minute and a half of chasing through thick black smoke to catch up. The fire still burns bright and hot, despite the deluge. We soon get a little lucky as the fire eats through the rear axle. The back end drops down and drags on the uneven ground. Right about then, I catch a lungful of the smoke and have a brief coughing fit as my eyes water up.
By the time I have control of my hacking and can see again, we're even with the lead pair of horses. After a brief visual scan, Colt and I agree that the reins are gone and not an option. The wagons are still going at about fifteen miles an hour. While this doesn't sound that fast, falling from one would be the rough equivalent to diving out of a second-floor window. Physics is a real bitch.
Time to do this the cowboy way.
I've seen this in plenty of Westerns and always wanted to try it. I crouch down on the floorboards in front of the driver's bench and judge the distance and the timing. I take a deep breath and leap with a shout, landing on the lead horse's back with a dull thud. I immediately bounce and slide over its back until I grab a handful of its long mane and catch myself.
The frenzied horse is even more unhappy about this new weight and tries once or twice to buck me off. Lucky for me, the harness restricts how much he can leap and kick. I tighten my grip on his mane and dig in with my boot heels and just ride it out until he calms.
I look over to my right, down between the horses, and see snapped leather lines all tangled together with what looks like an arm and a leg. She's still here! But I don't know yet if she's alive, or dead and just tangled up, her lifeless body dragging along.
Swinging my leg over the horse's slick back, I ease down to the thin wooden beam that separates the horses and attaches them to the wagon. I crouch low, bouncing with the horses' movements, and again steady myself with one hand on each horse next to me. Next, I reach out with my left hand to grab the horse’s bridle and the short reins hanging from it. That was kind of easy. Keeping my balance at three points, I reach out with my right hand to do the same. The horse has other plans and turns and bites me. His strong jaws and chisel-like teeth aren't strong enough to go break through the metal plates, but it crushes my fingers just fine. I hold back a curse and backhand the horse across its snout. I doubt it really felt it, and all that did was hurt my fingers more.
Second attempt, I dart my hand in quicker and grab the short leather reins and pull them both back together. The horses slow as one but are still agitated with the inferno strapped to their harness.
Colt stops his wagon and jumps down with his ax in hand. With a clean swing, he separates the wood beam from the carriage, and I allow the horses to continue trotting away for a few more yards. Bringing the team of horses to a complete stop, I jump down in front of them, keeping a tight hold on the reins.
I wait a moment for the dusk to settle when I hear, “'Bout fuckin' time someone stopped this ride; I was getting damn sick of it,” in an angry and weary voice. Olivia drops to the ground with a small thud.
I keep the team steady while Colt moves in to help Olivia up and out of the tangled harnesses. Her cloak still smolders a bit in a few places, the rest of it torn and muddy, and she lost a boot somewhere along the way. I pull off her smoking cloak, and Colt moves to help her walk to our wagon, but she stops and sits on the ground, breathing heavy and spitting some muddy phlegm into the grass.
She takes off her helmet and tosses it wearily aside. Her blonde hair is matted with sweat, blood, and muck, but she smiles up at us. “That was one hell of a ride. Had to drag myself under the traces and harness to put the fire out, then I couldn't get back up. I was just hoping these beasts would run out of steam before we went off a cliff,” she finishes with a tired laugh. She sees the remains of her wagon, still burning in the meadow, and her smile fades. “Shit. We just lost another five good people.”
There's nothing I can say to make that any better, so I say nothing. We sit down in the mud near her. Miles hops down from the back of Colt's wagon and joins us. He passes her a waterskin he found from under the driver’s seat. She accepts it with a grateful nod and takes a deep drink. Then she passes it to me with a weary smile. We all decide to take a break and wait for the others to catch up with us. After a while, I finally realize that it's stopped raining.
“So, what happened with that last guy?” I ask as I stand to greet Haynes and Grayson walking their horses over to our impromptu camp as we begin breaking out our meager rations.
“He got away,” Haynes says simply.
“Ha! The elven bastard start
ed to cast something, and the Sarge shot him like a gunslinger! But then he just teleported away after throwing some kind of crystal on the ground. Effing coward,” says Grayson in his loud, booming voice.
“All right, folks. Five-minute break, then we gotta get moving,” says Haynes, still scanning the road.
Jesse's wagon pulls up a few minutes later. “Got another wounded for the physicians!” I run over to the wagon and see Thirax curled up in a ball, lying in between the benches. There is also a pile of dead elves stacked behind him, but that doesn't seem as important right now. Thirax opens one bright yellow eye and stares at me.
“I hurt, human. Go and fetch our healer.”
“Can't. Thorn is busy keeping Nian alive. I'm all you got.”
Now, I don't speak Gnoll, but the obvious translation here is, “Shit.”
It’s tough to tell with all the fur, but he seems to have amassed an impressive collection of bruises, lacerations, and abrasions. And what appears to be a broken spine. He can't move his right leg, and his left leg is weak. His right arm is broken clean in half at the upper arm, but like the bruises and small cuts, it's not the big worry.
I carefully help him to roll over onto his stomach. I explain to him what’s going on, and he seems to accept it, his demeanor stoic and hard. I take a small knife from his belt and cut away some of the leather padding above his spine. The metal plates must have been knocked off during the impact. They probably saved his life, absorbing a lot of the impact before being torn away.
I run my hand down his spine until I feel his muscles tense in pain, and a small growl escapes his lips. Gentle palpation allows me to feel jagged bits of bone, like a small bag of broken glass under his skin. This is bad.
I lean back to retrieve the healing stones when Thirax grabs my wrist.
“Human, promise me that if this does not work, you will not let me endanger the Pack. You will leave me with a weapon, and the Pack will go on to the gate!”