He had just swung his legs over the trunk and was preparing to slide down the other side when he looked back the way he had come from. The murky light filtered down from the canopy of leaves high above, keeping the forest floor in what seemed like a perpetual twilight, yet he was able to catch a glimpse of at least three figures rushing directly toward him. They had been thrown off slightly by his maneuver behind the first tree, clearly unsure of which way he had run off in, but one began shouting to the other two the moment he caught sight of Madison.
“Over there!” the man’s gruff voice called, and Madison could just make out the silhouette of the black-clad man pointing at him as he ran. “He just went over that fallen log!”
Damn it, Madison swore. He jerked his vision back and forth between the other two men and realized that they had seen him now as well. He knew that he wasn’t going to hold out for long. He was going to have to find some way to escape, or he would soon be forced into a fight that he wasn’t likely to win. He had managed to outwit his captors and take them by surprise so far, but he very much doubted that he stood of a chance against any one of them in a straight-up fight—and especially not with three-to-one odds against him.
He hit the ground hard and took off running as soon as his feet touched the ground. The only thought flitting through his brain was that he had to get away. He wasn’t even about to begin imaging what they would do to him if they caught up with him. His tired muscles continued their protests under his demanding pace, and it quickly became everything he could do just to put one foot in front of the other. He ducked around first one tree, then another, and then another, constantly zigzagging through the ancient forest in the hopes of throwing off his pursuers. He came to a shallow ravine that was truthfully nothing more than a place for runoff during the rainy seasons stuffed with leaves and fallen limbs, and rather than try and find a way around, he just took a running dive and slid down the embankment feet-first.
He sprang upright when he reached the bottom and risked a second glance behind him. He was hidden away from any searching eyes because of the depression, but that also meant he wasn’t likely to spot anyone before they caught up with him either. Yet, even over the sound of the blood pounding in his ears and the ragged sound it made every time he drew a breath, he was able to hear them as they pushed through the forest. Since they didn’t care how much noise they made, they were able to simply trample along and force their way through as quickly as possible. They were approaching from three distinct angles, likely having fanned out to cover as much ground as possible while searching for him, and they were coming straight for him.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything he could do to mask the sound of his own frantic footsteps as he turned and pushed his way through the underbrush and leaves. The best he could hope for was that he would be able to get a large enough lead over the slavers that they wouldn’t be able to catch up with him. If he was lucky, he would be able to find somewhere to hide and wait it out until they left the area. Despite everything he had done and the seemingly unwarranted interest Pudgy showed in him, he was almost certain that they wouldn’t waste too much time looking for him. After all, the longer they spent out here on the road, the more likely it was that something would happen, and then they wouldn’t be able to reach town with the rest of their captured bounty.
He was halfway up the other side when something suddenly slammed into his shoulders from above. Madison was thrown forward by the unexpected weight, and he had just enough wherewithal to turn and catch himself on his right side as he was carried to the ground by the foreign mass. All he could see as he hit the ground was a combination of rotten leaves, loamy black dirt, and ragged black leather; yet, despite his surprise and the new pain shooting through his side from his already-agonized midsection, he didn’t waste any time trying to figure out how one of the men had caught up with him so quickly.
Out of instinct rather than with any actual plan, Madison twisted around underneath the man and threw an elbow into the slaver’s side. He could truthfully do little more than wiggle around with the larger man pressing down on top of him, but he fought against the other man’s weight with all of his might. The elbow landed, though weakly, and the slaver immediately responded by striking him in the side of the face with a punch.
“Argh!” Madison cried out as the man hit him, but there was no way for him to shirk away from the pain. His right arm was pinned uselessly underneath him, so by default, he repeated the elbow jab several more times. Unfortunately, there just wasn’t enough strength behind the motion to do any real damage so long as the man’s leather armor was absorbing most of the blow. The slaver caught his one free arm and pressed it down against his body, cranking it back in an awkward and unusual angle. Once he was sure he had control of the situation, the man hammered several quick jabs into the small of Madison’s back, clearly trying to subdue him without doing any major damage or leaving him incapacitated.
“Screw you,” Madison gasped out when he realized what the man was doing. “Can’t afford to damage the goods?” he asked sarcastically. “Am I worth less at market then? Or are you just too lazy to carry my prone body back?”
The man twisted his head around and called out, “Hey! Over here! I’ve caught the bastard down in the gulley!”
Madison refused to go quietly. He jerked and spasmed, fighting against the sharp pain that every sudden motion caused in his pinned arm.
“Hold still, I said, damn it! Stop squirming and shut up, you rat!” The man spat out the words as he turned back to Madison, clearly agitated by the fact that Madison refused to give up and be complacent. “Just wait till I get you back to the wagon,” he threatened.
The man reached forward and pressed down against Madison’s head, trying to restrain him and keep him from flailing about. At the last second, Madison jerked his head to the side and then sank his teeth into the man’s filthy hand. He felt his teeth tear into calloused flesh and then into tendons and sinew, and he could faintly taste blood as it welled up in his mouth. The slaver immediately let go of Madison’s arm and slammed a second punch down into the side of his head. It felt like his ear had been destroyed by the savage hit, and Madison howled as pain and pressure built up in his eardrum.
“I don’t care if it takes a full gold coin off your price, I’m gonna mess up that pretty face of yours good!”
Madison reached out instinctively, flailing about with his one free hand as he tried to grab ahold of anything he could that might save him. At last, his fingers found a hold on some part of the man’s leather armor. He jerked back against on the man’s armor with all of the strength he could muster and simultaneously twisted his hips to the side at the same time. It was only a small movement, but it was just enough. Madison wretched his right arm free from underneath him, and he practically sighed in relief as the combined pressure of two fully grown men was removed from it. Reaching up, he shoved the man’s grasping hands out of the way with his newly-freed hand and then grabbed ahold of the man’s chest armor. He slid a foot underneath him and repeated the maneuver for the second time, now with added strength and extra leverage. The man had locked himself into position by wrapping his legs around Madison’s waist, but it wasn’t enough to stop him from being flipped over entirely.
Adrenaline kicked in for the second time, and a sliver of hope wormed its way into Madison’s heart as he rolled over on top of the man.
“Screw you,” he growled and slammed his forehead down into the other man’s face. Blood erupted from the man’s shattered nose and spilled out across his mouth and cheeks.
Madison reached back and landed a heavy punch into the man’s gut, and the layer of leather protection there did little to cushion the blow. Unlike the other man who had been trying to capture him without doing any real harm, Madison didn’t care if his opponent lived or died at that moment. It didn’t matter how much damage he did, or what condition he left the other man in, just so long as he was able to get away. That was all that matte
red.
“Screw you,” he said again and rained another heavy punch into the man’s gut. The slaver tried to double up in pain from the force of the blow, but Madison shifted his weight and kept him pinned in place. He reached down and braced himself with his free hand as he reached back for the third punch, and his hand pressed up against something that his mind immediately recognized. As soon as his hand wrapped around the knife’s hilt, the man’s eyes went wide with terror. It was as if he knew what was coming and couldn’t come to terms with the fact that he was about to die. He knew it, yet some part of him still clearly refused to accept it.
Madison jerked the knife free from its sheath on the man’s belt and instantly slammed it down into the man’s chest. The slaver’s body jerked violently as the blade pierced through his ribcage and into his vital organs. He jerked the large knife free and immediately plunged it in a second time, then a third, then a fourth. The slaver stopped struggling after the third blow, his body only jerking rhythmically, but it didn’t matter. Madison plunged the knife into the dead man time and again until he heard the sound of footsteps rushing toward him. Gasping and out of breath, he turned toward the source of the noise and held up the blood-soaked blade threateningly.
The two swordsmen drew their weapons and charged over the short distance that separated them from Madison without ever slowing down, howling vicious cries the entire way. Their eyes shone with the light of a feverish madness that wasn’t quite human, and he knew just from looking at them that these men wouldn’t stop until either they or he was dead. There might have been some hope for him before, some sliver of possibility that they would simply recapture him, but that was entirely gone now. He had pushed beyond the boundaries of anything they could possibly imagine by killing their friends, and they would seemingly rather see him dead to the world and left to rot rather than trying to profit off of him again while he was alive.
There was a good chance that he was going to die if he had to face both of these warriors at the same time, and he knew that he had to do something to even the odds. Before the men could reach him, he raised the pilfered dagger, spinning it around in the palm of his hand, and sent it flying through the air toward the closest one with a mighty hurl. The dagger spun end over end as it traveled toward the warrior and somehow found a gap in his armor. The dagger struck into his shoulder with a dull thud, causing the man to stumble as the small blade pierced into his flesh. He lost his balance a moment later and collapsed to a knee for a brief moment, clutching his shoulder in pain.
Desperate for something to defend himself with now that he had cast away his only weapon, Madison turned his eyes down at the dead man at his feet. He spied exactly what he wanted, and a moment later, he had a previously-undrawn short sword in his hands. Then the other warrior reached him. Madison parried the man’s first attack, a vicious overhanded blow that would have split his skull open if it had landed, and responded by lashing out with a kick aimed at the man’s midsection. The warrior danced to the side, evading the blow, and made a horizontal slash at Madison’s chest. Madison jumped back out of the blade’s reach before it could connect with him and caught sight of the second fanatic in the corner of his eye as he did so. The man was almost directly on top of him and barreling down like a freight train.
Whether it was some undeveloped-yet-prescient battle reflex or the natural instinct to survive, Madison fell into a defensive, semi-crouched state and turned his shoulder toward the charge, holding his blade just above him. The leather-clad swordsman couldn’t stop his momentum in time, and rather than crashing into him, he tried to leap over Madison instead. Sensing that the man was in the air above him, Madison lashed out wildly with his sword in an upward attack. There was no real force behind it, but he felt the blade of his sword drag along the man’s body, catching and tugging along his leather armor in an awkward fashion, as he flew through the air.
He had lost sight of the other warrior as the man hurdled him, but he still had a vague sense of what general direction the man had been in. Madison knew he couldn’t remain crouched down as he was and that he was at a serious disadvantage if his opponent chose this moment to press the attack. As soon as the man cleared him, he struck out blindly with several blows in the general direction of the second man’s ankles, hoping to keep some space between them. His blade slashed through the empty air without finding a target on the first two jabs, but he felt his blade nick the man’s leg on the third.
Madison pushed himself back to his feet and brought his sword upright in front of him as he turned to face his assailant. He could see the other man face-down in the dirt beside him, but he wasn’t moving quickly, so he focused his attention on the more pressing threat before him. The man snarled at him, his lips curling back in an animal-like gesture to expose rotten, yellow teeth, and lunged forward.
Madison jerked his sword to the side and narrowly blocked an attack that had been aimed at his hips, stepped to the side away from the blow, and reversed his sword, aiming a cut of his own at the man’s chest. The warrior was carried forward by his momentum, and the edge of Madison’s sword scrapped along the man’s chest plate without doing any real damage.
The two men turned back to face one another, swords held up defensively before them, and slowly began to circle one another as they looked for an opening. The man aggressively jerked forward a half step, faking an attack, and Madison automatically leapt backward from the man’s range.
“And here I thought you had a pair on you,” the man taunted derisively.
Madison didn’t take the bait. He kept his mouth shut and focused on the man’s movements. He watched the man’s hips and gait as the two began circling one another again, hoping to predict which direction the next attack would come from. His opponent’s attacks thus far had all come from straight on, but that didn’t mean that the man was going to continue the same pattern.
The man suddenly sprang forward again, first leaning to the right and then immediately shifting his weight back to the left. Madison parried the man’s sword as it came around in a weak off-handed attack, but he was caught off balance. The man’s simple feint had succeeded in forcing him to lose his footing, and he was too slow to step away. The warrior crashed into him with his shoulder, and Madison went flying back several steps before tumbling to the ground.
The warrior was immediately on him. A massive, muddy black boot filled his vision for a brief instant before crashing down into his mouth. Pain exploded through his face, and he could taste the metallic tang of blood as it filled his mouth. Unrelenting, the man stomped several more kicks into his stomach and ribs. The only thing Madison could do was curl up into a fetal ball and try to cover himself with his arms to stop the blows as they rained down on him. In truth, it wasn’t a very effective defense. No matter which way he twisted or turned, the slaver always seemed to find an open spot to land a kick. Despite the fact that he had managed to hold onto his sword, the last thing on his mind at the moment was lashing out with it or using it for an attack.
“This will teach you to try and escape again,” the man growled, landing several more blows into Madison’s ribcage.
Madison grunted a response through clenched teeth, and it only served to invigorate the man’s seemingly relentless attacks and taunts even more.
“I’ll make an example of this poor sot so the rest of those wretches learn as well!” he barked. “Wouldn’t want one of them having any funny ideas of being a hero!”
The man struck down with the flat of his blade, and it bounced off of Madison’s head with a loud, heavy thump. Madison’s vision swam, and he saw stars for a moment as blurry patches of light filled his vision and the world swirled in front of him. He felt the bile rising in the back of his throat from the pain, and he had to choke it back down to stop from vomiting all over himself. He coughed violently, clearing his throat, and the swung out blindly with the short sword still clutched in his fist. The feeble, ankle-high swing didn’t connect, but it was enough to remind the sla
ver that Madison was armed and still dangerous despite the beating he had taken. The man stopped his kick mid-swing and bounced back a step, allowing Madison a much-needed moment to collect himself.
His vision filled with rich black dirt and discolored, dead leaves, Madison forced himself back up onto his knees despite the nauseous feeling in his stomach. He caught sight of the slaver as he stepped forward for another attack, and without thinking, Madison reached out and shoved the man’s foot away from him before it could reach his body. The slaver’s momentum carried him forward and to the side as his kick went awry and his body twisted around. Unable to catch his balance, he fell crashed to the ground beside Madison.
That was the only break he needed. Madison’s sword stabbed forward and pierced through into the man’s lower back. His leather armor had ridden up as he fell, leaving the tanned skin underneath exposed and giving Madison a perfect shot at the man’s kidneys. He felt his blade tear into the man’s body, and Madison shoved forward with all of his weight, driving it in as deeply as he could. The slaver screamed out in pain, arching his back as the blade drove home, but Madison wasn’t done yet. Desperate for more leverage, he clambered on top of the downed man and used his body weight and the half-buried sword to roll the man over and then leaned forward onto his blade. The sword sank through the man’s body and lurched downward as it broke free from his stomach and buried on the ground.
Death Flag Page 9