Death Flag

Madison rolled his eyes. He could already tell that this was going to go about as well as he had expected. Taking over the camp and killing them was probably going to be easier than getting information out of the man, and even if he managed it, there was no telling how reliable it was going to be anyway. Still, he had known what he was getting himself into, and he was prepared for it.

  “Just because I haven’t killed you yet, it doesn’t mean that I’m not going to,” he growled threateningly. “I don’t like the idea of killing a man in cold blood, but I’m willing to bet that you have enough blood on your hands to justify it, don’t you?” The man remained silent and stared at the ground, so Madison continued. “We’re going to play a game. I’m going to ask you a question, and you’re going to answer it. Do you understand me?” Again, the man remained silent. “What are you—”

  Madison was cut off as something flew by in front of his face, narrowly missing him. “Down!” he shouted, instantly falling into a crouch. “What the hell was that?” He peered off into the gloom all around them, quickly turning his head back and forth, but he couldn’t make out anything beyond the line of trees that marked where the slavers had made camp.

  “I can’t see anything!” Warren said in a hushed tone. “I haven’t heard anyone approaching either.”

  “Who’s out there?” Madison asked, reaching forward and grabbing ahold of the man’s shirt. “How many others are with you?” A second object whizzed by overhead, and Madison heard the sound of an arrow as it thunked into the wooden cart a dozen feet away.

  “We need to find cover,” Alyanna said urgently. “We can’t stay out in the open like this.”

  “Damn it,” he muttered. “Go, get under the cart. He turned and gave Erin a small shove in that direction since she was the closest. Hunker down while Warren and I—”

  Madison was cut off for the second time as a ball of fire lit up the night sky. It blazed a path out of the trees and headed straight for the small cart, blinding them with its glare as it flew by. The fiery spell erupted as it collided with the wooden wagon, and within seconds, it was completely engulfed in flames. He grabbed ahold of Erin’s shirt and jerked her back in the opposite direction from where he had just pushed her in an effort to save her. He felt the wave of heat wash over him as the spell exploded, and he instantly started moving back in the opposite direction.

  “Get to the trees!” he yelled, pushing himself to his feet as quickly as he could. Not only were they out in the open without any cover, they were also lit up by the flames behind them. That single spell had taken away their only advantage and left them completely exposed.

  Madison wavered as he watched the four others make a break for the trees. It would push them back in the direction the attacks had come from, but it was their best hope of staying alive. There was no telling exactly how many people were out there hiding in the woods, and it made him sick to think about what would happen to any one of them if they were caught. They would have been sold as slaves before, but now that Madison had openly attacked them, they were likely to do much worse. Madison made a split-second decision and turned away from the others, scurrying back in an awkward bent-over run to where he had left his sword. It had been a moment of hubris for him to leave it there, and now it might cost him.

  He grabbed ahold of the sword’s hilt and jerked it free without ever slowing his shambling run. The blade pulled free without any trouble, but he heard an arrow sink into the ground next to him at almost the same instant. Surprised, he stumbled and almost lost his footing. He quickly worked his legs as he scrambled to remain upright, and he was lucky in a way that he did. A ball of flame exploded directly in front of him. It wouldn’t have been a direct hit even if he hadn’t slowed down, but it would have been much closer than it was. Madison jerked away from the blast, throwing an arm up to shield his vision from the explosive light, and slammed into the ground on his back. He was rolling over a second later, afraid for any other arrows that might be shot his way. True to his fear, two arrows sank into the ground one after another in his wake. He ended up behind the entwined bodies of the guard and the captive, and he dove behind them just in time for a third and fourth arrow to sink into the corpses. Madison heaved his weight against them and shoved his shoulder into them with as much strength as he could muster, doing his best to push them up into a sort of barrier that he hoped would offer some modicum of protection. He felt the dulled impact as a few more arrows sank into the bodies on top of him but then stopped when whoever was shooting them realized that the projectiles weren’t going to reach him.

  Madison waited and listened, straining his hearing against the sounds of his own heart pounding in his ears and the gasping of his breath. He knew that he was more or less a sitting duck and that he was going to have to figure something out eventually. He had no idea if the others made it to cover, and he had no idea what they would do once they did. If it were him, he would try to find out where the attacks were coming from and make a decision on whether or not he could risk a counterattack. As long as they had a mage, it was too risky without knowing their numbers or disposition. The logical thing would be to run away until he learned that critical information. But he couldn’t count on the others to think like he did.

  In the end, he didn’t have to wait very long. He heard a shrill scream from one of the girls, and his body reacted before his brain caught up with what was going on. He rolled out away from the bodies and scrambled to his feet as he took off sprinting for the trees, dragging his sword along behind him. He had enough wherewithal to run in a zigzag pattern, erratically lunging back and forth as he ran, and he heard several arrows zing past him. He was confident of the fact that there were at least two archers now and probably a third. It was possible for two shooters to notch an arrow that quickly and fire, but they would have been hard-pressed to do it. He ducked behind a tree just in time to hear another scream from off to his right, and he instantly beelined in that direction.

  He came around the trunk of a tree just in time to see Shayna drive her daggers into a man’s back. She was pinned to the ground with him completely on top of her, but she had managed to somehow wrestle her arms free just as Madison arrived. She stabbed both of her blades into the man’s back simultaneously, eliciting a howl of rage and pain and causing him to involuntarily jerk back and up as he tried to pull away from her. Madison met him a moment later, smashing his boot into the man’s face. He felt the man’s nose give way as it broke, and he glanced down at Shayna just long enough to see that she was already completely covered in the man’s blood.

  Madison grabbed the man around the waist and heaved him to the side, pulling him up and off of her. Her hand flashed out as soon as she was free, slitting the man’s throat and producing a second fountain of blood.

  “Where are the others?” he asked, practically picking her up and putting her back on her feet.

  Shayna coughed once and sent a spatter of blood flying as she cleared it from her throat. “That way,” she said, spitting out another mouthful and pointing deeper into the woods.

  Madison took off in a sprint, pushing every bit of energy he could find into his legs. Horrible visions flashed through his head as he imagined what might have happened to them just because he was foolish enough to leave his weapon behind in a moment of hubris, and the images spurred him on. He darted in between several smaller trees, something of an oddity in the forest because they were clustered so closely together, and leapt over a decaying log. He had just enough time to realize that there was a shallow ravine on the other side with a cluster of people at the bottom as he soared through the air but no way to stop himself as he hurdled over the fallen tree. He brought his sword around in front of him as best he could defensively while midair before slamming down onto someone’s back. He lost sight of everything as the small cluster of people collapsed into a heap, and he was wrapped up in a tangled mass of limbs and dark clothing.

  He knew that there was no way he was ever going to get his sword free from
the pile or be able to bring it around, so he just let it go completely after that and started throwing elbows. He thrashed about wildly, doing anything and everything he could to inflict damage on the mass of bodies. He didn’t know who they were, and he wasn’t even sure how many were jumbled up with him, and he didn’t care. His left elbow caught one in what felt like the chest, and he violently twisted his body around to throw a punch with his right hand aimed slightly higher. His fist connected with someone’s jaw, which gave way with a loud crack, and was followed by a warbled scream. Someone near his feet screamed out in pain as well, though Madison had no idea why. He kicked out as hard as he could, bashing against some unknown body part now that he knew they were there, and hoped that he was doing some bit of good to spur on the pain the other man felt.

  Someone punched him in his lower back near his kidneys, and Madison instantly rolled over on his right side in that direction, and he came face to face with a slightly pale, wide-eyed, young man. Someone else behind him grabbed his left arm and yanked him back around, but Madison reached out with his right hand and grabbed a handful of the man’s greasy brown hair. He jerked away as hard as he could, and Madison violently ripped a fistful of hair out of the man’s head, eliciting another howl of rage. He felt the young man start throwing jabs into his shoulders, but Madison couldn’t deal with him at the moment. He stared into the face of another young man, this time with short, black hair, who was wrestling for control of Madison’s left wrist and trying to pin him down so that he couldn’t attack. Madison reached around and punched the man across the jaw for a second time just as the fellow behind him landed a solid punch into the back of his skull. Madison’s head snapped forward under the force of the blow, and he became momentarily disoriented as his brain bounced around inside his skull. He reflexively wrapped both of his arms around his head and tried to sit up in order to get away from the two men who were working on him.

  As soon as he was halfway up, however, someone else punched him in the ribs. He tensed up, expecting a follow-up, and he wasn’t disappointed. He felt several more shots rain into his left side in rapid succession. There wasn’t much force behind the blows, but they were quick and well-aimed. A new weight pressed down on his lower half, and he peered out from the shelter of his arms and saw that a second man had joined the first in lying on top of him. The one on the bottom was still and unmoving, crushed under the weight of the newcomer, but the other was trying to claw his way up to where he could reach Madison. Madison tried to kick back and forth and free his legs, but the combined weight of both men was too much. He was stuck.

  Just when as he was about to turn around and resume efforts on the two near his head, Madison saw a slender black object go flying through the air. He heard a shout of pain behind him and turned around just in time to see an arrow sprout from the man’s eye socket. His head snapped back, and he fell over, dead. A second arrow flashed out behind it, and then a third, and there was a brief scream as the other man was killed in a similar fashion. Madison twisted to the side and glanced up as he frantically started pulling at the man’s clothing, searching for anything he could use a weapon. There was a dark figure standing at the top of the shallow ravine, and he had to assume that it was Warren since there was no other archer who would help him. A moment later, he saw something else collide with that figure from behind, and the two both came tumbling down the steep slope about ten feet away from where he was.

  Madison felt his hand wrap around something round and hard, and he ripped it away from the man’s belt. He looked back up and aimed a backhanded slash at the man’s face who had just managed to make it over his fallen comrade and get into a position where he could reach Madison. The small cudgel he had grabbed ahold of cracked across the man’s cheekbone, and the side of his face caved in under the impact of the blow. Seizing the opportunity, Madison grabbed ahold of the man’s shirt with his free hand and then repeatedly slammed the cudgel into the man’s face as hard as he could. It surprisingly took several blows before the man was rendered unconscious, and by the time he stopped trying to pull away, Madison had completely demolished the man’s face. He dropped the cudgel once the man went limp, grabbed him by the shoulders, and leaned back, heaving the man off of him. The man’s prone body slid free, and Madison was finally able to drag himself out from under the other at last.

  He quickly scrambled toward where Warren had fallen, climbing over the fallen bodies on his hands and knees. They were completely slick with blood from their various wounds, and their bodies shifted from side to side as Madison leveraged his weight onto them. He collapsed onto his hands and knees several times in his haste but was finally able to extricate himself from the pile just in time to catch sight of the two fighters as they fought with one another, each jockeying for position on top of the other. Madison had his doubts as to whether or not Warren would be able to hold his own in a fistfight. Nothing about the younger man said he had any experience in combat at all, though he had already proven himself proficient with the bow tonight on several occasions. There was also the fact that he had probably been at K’yer Utane for most of his life, and it seemed unlikely that he would get off without ever learning even the most basic grappling. Whatever the reason may have been, he seemed to be holding his own fairly well now.

  Madison had just regained his footing and surged forward when another dark shape dropped off the lip of the shallow gulch and landed in front of him. Not bothering to slow himself at all, Madison plowed directly into the figure and bowled him over before he could catch himself. The two went down in a heap with Madison on top, and the man instantly went for Madison’s throat, raking his fingernails into Madison’s neck and digging them into the flesh on the back of his neck as he fought to wrap his fingers around Madison’s throat and get a stranglehold on him. Gasping for air, Madison planted a punch in the man’s ribs, and when that didn’t work, he punched him again. Madison felt the pressure build around his throat along with a growing sense of panic, and it felt like the veins were going to pop out of his neck as he fought to resist the man’s grasp. Finally, in a desperate effort, Madison got his feet underneath him and shoved off, pushing himself up off the ground and transferring all his weight onto his hands. He slammed his knee down with every bit of force he could muster, driving it into the bottom of the man’s ribs. The first blow wasn’t effective, but it jarred the man enough to loosen his grip. Spurred on by his success, Madison repeated the maneuver and drove his knee into the man’s midsection for a second time.

  The man let go of Madison’s throat then, and he automatically gasped in a ragged breath of air as the pressure was released. It was sharp and burned, and he felt like he was going to choke as he sucked the precious wind down to his lungs, but he resisted the urge to give in and fall into a coughing fit. He brought his fist down in a half-hearted punch across the man’s face as quickly as he could, eager to finish him off and move on, but he was still slightly disoriented from the fall and from being strangled, so he couldn’t get a ton of force behind it. He punched him again a second time, but it did little more than the first. The man had grabbed ahold of Madison’s left arm and twisted to the side while simultaneously thrusting up hard with his hips, bucking Madison off.

  Unable to maintain his balance any longer, Madison reached out and wildly grabbed ahold of the man’s face with his free hand in a desperate attempt to inflict whatever damage he could as he was forcibly removed from sitting astride the man’s body. He hit the ground on his knees and quickly reached forward with his now-free left hand, grabbed the man’s head with both hands, jerked it off the ground, and then slammed it down as hard as he could. There was a loud, sickening crack as the back of man’s skull cracked open against a rock, and he went limp almost instantly.

  Madison collapsed onto his side, panting hard, and then twisted around to look at Warren. The other two were stilled locked into a contest of strength, so Madison pushed himself to his feet and staggered toward them. He made it two full steps befo
re a third, smaller figure landed on top of them both. Madison summoned up the energy and pushed himself forward, already expecting the worst. When he got there, however, he saw Shayna sprawled out on top of a dead man, her daggers buried in the man’s back in a position remarkably similar to where she had stabbed the last one. Warren was lying beside her, staring up into the dark sky and panting heavily.

  “Holy shit,” Madison gasped out when he saw them. He immediately turned about, trying to figure out where the next threat was going to come from, and when he didn’t find one, he turned back to the others. The three stood there catching their breath, staring at each other in disbelief over what had just happened. I looked like everything was over with for the moment. There wasn’t a single living soul in sight, Erin and Alaynna were missing, and he had no idea where to start from. From the looks on the other two’s faces, he could tell that they were having the exact same thoughts that he was. They would have to track their way back to the clearing with the dead slavers, to wherever they had lost sign of the other two girls and hope that Warren could follow their tracks.

  If we’re lucky, the group just separated, and each had run off in different directions. If not . . .

  Madison shook his head, refusing to follow that train of thought through to its end. “Hang on a minute,” he panted, turning back and walking to the collection of bodies he had tangled with moments earlier. He hastily dug through them, looking for anything that might be usable and searching for his missing weapon. He found the sword easily enough, buried under two different corpses, and he managed to find a decently-sized boot knife on one of the bodies, but everything else was basically worthless. The poor guy had likely been crushed by Madison’s initial fall and never had a chance to use the weapon since he was crushed beneath everyone else on the bottom of the stack. He stripped the fellow of the sheath, fastened it to his ankle, and, having just slipped his own boot back on, stood up from the task when Shayna shouted at him.