by Helen Gosney
A few pockets of resistance had remained, some more troublesome and determined than others, but after some truly dreadful retribution by the invaders, Auria seemed to have been ‘pacified’ and absorbed into the Indari Empire. Unfortunately for the Indari, the dwarven miners had somehow managed to seal the gold and silver mines and so the main wealth of the former duchy was lost to them.
Still, they didn’t pack up and go home. No, they brought in more Indari to run the city’s abandoned businesses and live in the vacant homes there, as well as take over the fine rural properties of the deceased nobility. The Aurians were reduced to little more than serfs in their own country, and every now and then the slavers would come through and take young men and women for their ghastly trade.
The Aurians were a peaceful people, by and large. But even the most peaceful of folk would feel resentment at this state of affairs and inevitably the pockets of rebellion, rather than disappearing, began to emerge again, more widespread and better organised despite the dreadful cost of being captured. The late Duke hadn’t maintained a large standing army, and unfortunately the Indari invasion had been so swift and so devastating that the reserve of those who’d done their compulsory military training had simply had no time to mobilise; thus the rebels weren’t an inexperienced and untrained rabble, merely a poorly equipped one with often poor leaders who were more concerned with honour and glory than anything else.
***
And then, of course, a few months back the Honourable Harlan had decided the Indari would simply have to go and he’d started this particular rebel group. Liam cursed himself for woolgathering and bit back another sigh.
“Bugger it. Well, not too many options then, Tam, old friend. We could charge at them like bloody lunatics and kill as many of them as we can before they kill us… or we could wait right here and do the same thing. At least we’d save a bit of energy that way…” he looked around again and frowned at the waterfall and its feisty river. He turned back to his men.
“Can all of you swim? Swim well, I mean?”
“Swim…?” somebody said dubiously, obviously thinking that he’d gone mad at last. And maybe he had.
“Mmm… swim. You know, flap your arms about, kick your feet like buggery, more or less stay afloat and not drown?”
The men looked at each other, the distant line of the approaching Indari, and then finally back at him.
“Aye, we can all swim, Liam.”
“Good lads. Give me all of your arrows and then get down onto that little ledge thingy, go for as far as you can on it and then into the water with you.”
“Into the bloody water? But… but…” somebody protested.
“Go, lads! It’s not a big chance, but it’s the only one you’ve got. Now, give me your fraggin arrows and get going before those bastards come into range!” Liam said fiercely.
Tam looked up at him as somebody else began to protest. They’d been friends forever, long before Liam had become interested in his sister, and he knew what was going on.
“But, Liam, it’s bloody madness!” another man said.
“Just shut up and go! I’ll follow you when I run out of arrows, but just fraggin GO! NOW!” Liam took a firm grasp of his temper and said quietly and calmly, “Cobble together any rope you might have, and your belts, then go down that as far as you can, and jump. With a bit of luck you’ll land on Tam’s ledge,” I hope you will, anyway, he thought, “Stay on that for as far as you can, then into the water. Go downstream until you find a place to get out – on the other bloody side, mind – then run like hell. Don’t wait for me, just bloody go and keep going. I’ll catch up to you if I can. Now, you’ve got, umm… seven or eight minutes if you’re lucky. Go now and be safe, lads.”
The men drew themselves up and saluted him, just as they’d been taught when they’d done their compulsory service.
“Aye, Liam! Be safe, lad,” they said, then handed over their few remaining arrows and turned to the raging cataract. It looked extremely uninspiring, but they did what they had to do.
Tam quickly ripped strips from his shirt, wrapped them around his arrows and sprinkled them with a thick dark oily liquid. He swore fluently when it ran out, threw the little bottle away in disgust, then shrugged and turned to his friend.
“You might find these useful, laddie, and don’t worry, I’ll keep the buggers moving. There’ll be no fraggin heroes coming back for you, so be bloody careful and be safe, now. Jenna and your Ma will never let me hear the end of it if you don’t come home too.” He gave Liam a quick hug and was gone.
“Good man. I never did like fraggin heroes,” Liam said softly as the men disappeared over the edge of the ravine.
***
He didn’t hear any screams, so he had hopes that none of them were in the river yet. He turned his attention back to his own situation. There wasn’t much cover here at all, bar a few miserable boulders, but they’d be better than nothing at all. He slipped behind the biggest of them and stuck the arrows into the ground beside him, smiling as he saw what that mad bugger Tam had given him. He thought they’d run out of that long ago, but Tam had always been one to save something for emergencies. And this was certainly a cursed emergency, if anything was.
He was pleased to see that the Indari still hadn’t twigged to what his men were doing. Of course the light was starting to go… he wondered again why the Indari didn’t simply get on with it before they found themselves crashing about in the damned dark. Idiots, or led by one at least. For a moment he was tempted to follow Tam and the others down the makeshift line and take his chances in the river too, but no. He had to try and buy them a bit more time if he could.
He drew his great bow to its fullest extent, nocked an arrow, and sighted on the Indari leader. A fine target he made too, with his plumed helmet and scarlet cloak, but not yet, Liam. Not yet. Just a few more paces… four… three… two… now.
The arrow flew straight and true, punching through the Indari’s very ornate breastplate and his chest with no trouble at all. There was immediate bedlam as Liam loosed arrow after arrow as quickly as he could. He had the advantage for the moment, as his bow was more powerful than those of the Indari and he was well out of their range. That advantage wouldn’t last long though, he knew. Nope. Here they came, the bastards.
Arrows fell short of his sheltering boulder as the Indari fired too early. Good, he thought as he kept firing, you keep right on wasting your arrows, you stupid buggers. He was pleased to see that the mist and swirling breezes around the waterfall did wonderful things to the incoming arrows too, without affecting him at all in his protected little spot. That was certainly an unexpected and welcome bonus.
Even a terrible marksman wouldn’t have too much trouble hitting his enemies when they’re all bunched up like that, he thought. Bloody idiots. And he wasn’t a terrible marksman – far from it. No, they’d be dead bloody idiots very quickly. He was pleased to see that he’d slowed their too-hasty advance down a lot, but less pleased to see them start to spread out more. Dammit, he thought, there’s always some clever bugger who comes out of the woodwork at times like this. He glanced at his few remaining arrows and cursed more vigorously.
Some of the Indari arrows began to rattle against his boulder. Time to go, Liam lad. Just give them a last little surprise, and thank you, Tam.
He pulled out flint and steel and ignited Tam’s last gift to him. The Hellsfire on the rags wound around the tips flared up nicely. It was terrible stuff, Hellsfire: oily, sticky goo that was all but impossible to put out once ignited and it’d burn a man to the bone. He knew by the oddly sweet smell of it that this was Tam’s own version of it, knew too that it was just as diabolical as the original.
He shot the fire arrows in quick succession, grinning fiercely at the screams of the Indari, then turned and sprinted to the waterfall and its racing river. He didn’t have far to go, but there was no time to shimmy down the makeshift line, so he did the only thing he could: he took a deep breath and j
umped.
A sudden thump and searing pain in his chest made him wish that he’d been a bit faster, but there was nothing to be done about it now. He hit the water feet first, hoping desperately that the pool truly was as deep as it’d appeared to be from above.
It was, as it happened. The current was just as fierce too and he felt his forearm and a couple of fingers snap as he was thrown against a rock. He cursed again, hoping none of his men had ended up in this bit, although the river itself was probably not much better. Maybe it’d be a bit kinder downstream.
Bloody Hells, it was hard to swim with a fraggin broken arm, even harder to breathe with a… with a… He fought clear of the current somehow, surfaced behind the waterfall and saw that Tam had been right… there really wasn’t anything behind the cataract but sheer, water-smoothed rock. He cursed a bit more and grabbed at a good-sized mass of mosses and ferns. If they could hold on here, so could he. He found that he could reach the bottom of the pool here too, and he wedged himself in among some underwater boulders as best he could.
He finally looked down at his chest. That can’t be good, he thought wearily, seeing the narrow head of an arrow just piercing the skin below his collarbone. Now, if they’d had the sense to use a nice barbed broadhead… Still, they’d done well to hit him at all and really, he shouldn’t be complaining that they hadn’t killed him…
He roused himself quite a bit later. It was dark and cold. Very damned cold. Liam found that he was shivering so much that he didn’t know how the hell he’d managed to keep a hold on his trusty bit of fern, but he had. Ah, that was it. His fingers were so cramped with cold that they looked like bone-white claws and he could barely move them at all. He couldn’t undo them with his other hand because that was the one that’d come off second-best against a cursed rock, wasn’t it? He breathed on his cramped hand to try and warm it up enough for him to let go of the plant, unsurprised at the spray of blood. He swore again, but he simply couldn’t do anything else about it right now. He had to concentrate on getting out of this damned freezing cold water. Perhaps this hadn’t been one of his better ideas.
He couldn’t see anything on the tiny ledge that was the riverbank down here, nor on top of the ravine; with the roaring of the waterfall he certainly wasn’t going to hear anything either, but he simply couldn’t stay where he was. He tried to stamp some feeling back into his numb feet and legs, with only partial success, and then he set off for the edge. Somehow he managed to get there without too many slips, but how in the Nether Hells was he going to get out…?
He slipped again and the strong current obligingly took him in its grip again and carried him downstream.
***
The sun was bright in his eyes when he finally opened them again. He squinted and swore feebly, then tried to sit up. He found himself firmly pushed back.
“Lie down, you bloody fool. You’ll start bleeding again.”
Liam’s heart sank at the Indari accent. He’d rather have drowned than be caught by those bastards. He hoped desperately that Tam and the others had got away safely.
***