Death Flag

by Richard Haygood

  “Watch out!” she screamed in warning.

  Madison pushed himself forward and away from the stack of bodies, his body moving automatically. He was so wired up at this point that he was reacting without putting too much thought into what he was doing, and her instructions were simple enough for him to follow. He launched himself forward several feet before hitting the ground on his stomach and starting to scramble away. There was a sizzling sound and an explosion, and then the world was illuminated around him as a fireball struck the pile of bodies just behind him, exactly where he had been sitting seconds ago. Madison scurried forward on his hands and knees as he tried to escape the blast without ever sparing a glance behind him. He knew that the bodies were already consumed by the fire, and he knew that, just like before, he was lit up like a target.

  “Go!” he screamed back as soon as he found his voice, pushing himself up. “Run!”

  He watched them hesitate for a moment and then turn and run as soon as he was on his feet again.

  Madison had been pushed through a lot, and he had done more running in the last day than he had probably done in the last ten years of his life, but he didn’t feel any sort of fatigue. He had been running on adrenaline for as long as he could remember, and he was just praying that it didn’t run out before he somehow made it someplace safe to rest. He felt it spike as his body reacted to the danger around him every time he was attacked, but he knew that it wasn’t an infinite resource. He’d eventually collapse into a sluggish mess that couldn’t even hold a sword up properly if he pushed himself too far and wasn’t careful.

  He raced along behind Warren and Shayna, slowly gaining ground on the other two. They were all quick to escape away from the initial fire, but blasts continued to rain down behind them, burning their way along the ravine and pushing his small group forward as they raced to stay just beyond the edge of the flickering light. He wasn’t sure if the enemy still had archers with them or not, but he didn’t want to take the chance to find out. A single magician would likely be more than enough to finish off all three of them if they presented it with an easy target, and archers would just be superfluous overkill, but all it took was a single well-placed shot to be deadly.

  They raced along for several minutes, desperately trying to stay ahead of the fire, and Madison began to worry about what was waiting for them up ahead. It felt like they were being herded as much as attacked at the moment, and he couldn’t help but wonder if this was just to drive them away from Alyanna and Erin or if this ravine actually emptied out into a much larger chasm. If that were the case, it would only be a matter of time before they had to make a decision and then it wouldn’t matter whether or not the magic or fire ever reached them.

  Madison twisted his head around and tried and get a look behind him, and he was half-blinded by a streak of fire just before it struck the earth. Still, he had caught a glimpse of the fireball mid-flight, and it gave him an idea.

  “Warren!” he shouted, instantly aware of the toll that running and shouting at the same time took on his precious air supply “Warren! They have to be following us! Can you get a shot off if you have a target?!”

  “I think so! I just need a moment’s time!” he answered.

  “Wait for my signal!” Madison said.

  The small ravine had steep, sloping sides, and it was filled with debris along either side. Various trees, shrubbery, and boulders of all sizes that had washed down into it over time littered the sides, but the middle wash itself was fairly free of detritus, giving them an easy path to run along. They presented an easy target if they were in the center, but if he was willing to gamble that they could take a direct hit if they had something to hide behind. He had already come close to being struck by that magic two times now, and it hadn’t felt especially hot on either occasion. And, though he was certain she wasn’t trying, he had been scorched enough by Sherrie to know that he had an abnormal tolerance to both hot and cold. Thus, he was willing to risk taking a small gamble on his unnatural resistances, even if it meant taking a direct hit.

  “There!” Madison shouted, pointing to a large boulder on the side of the wall. “Take your shot from there! Watch for the point of origin!”

  “Madison!” Shayna shouted at him.

  “What are you . . .?” Warren began, but it was too late.

  Madison had already slowed to a walk and turned around. He waited until a fireball struck the path behind him and then charged back up until he was just at the edge of the light. He fell into a baseball-style slide initially, throwing his feet out in front of him and skidding to a halt, and then used the momentum he had built up to quickly pop back up onto his feet and take off running again. To anyone who barely saw him, it would appear as if he had tripped and had almost been caught by the blast. He was gambling on the fact that someone would see him and that they would adjust their next shot accordingly.

  He was right. The next blast was much more closely grouped to the last one than they had been previously, and Madison purposefully tripped and fell face-first into the gritty wash. He took his time, clutching his leg and crying out as if he were too tired and too injured to go on any longer. He stared down into the dirty leaves, hoping that they would take the bait he was so delicately stringing along for them and that Warren wouldn’t miss.

  He lifted his head up and screamed, “Warren! Go on!”

  It would sound like he was urging his friend to flee without him to anyone listening, but it was really just a signal. He heard the low thrum of a bowstring as it was let loose ahead of him and then the world really blew up around him. Warren had hit his mark, but his arrow had struck home just as the caster let go of his magic. The resulting fireball careened off target, lancing through the night sky and up into the thick canopy of trees. Madison pushed himself to his feet, ready to surge forward, but he couldn’t help but stop and stare in wonder as the ash and rapidly-burning leaves started to rain down around him. They had been transformed from lush, thriving vegetation to charred remains the instant the magic touched them, and it was like standing in a snowfall with small, fiery blips and black, ashy snowflakes.

  “Madison!” Shayna screamed.

  “We need to go! Now!” Warren shouted at the same time. There was a good bit of fear and shock in his voice, even for someone who had just killed a caster throwing fireballs at him.

  He jerked away from watching it rain down around him and realized what was going on. The canopy overhead had completely caught fire, and it was rapidly spreading in every direction as the fire raced through the treetops. The canopy throughout the forest was rather thick, and there were actually two and three layers to it in most places. The result was a perpetual sort of gloomy twilight on the forest floor that never seemed to go away, but that now also meant that there was a ton of foliage that would burn as well.

  Shaking his head at his bad luck, Madison pushed forward once again. The fire continued to spread as they raced along, illuminating their path with an eerie, hellish light as the treetops burned high above, and before long, it looked as if the entire world had been engulfed with fire and flames. The burning leaves that floated down started small patches of fire on the forest floor, which in turn started to spread, and before long, it looked and felt as if everything around them was going to burn up and be consumed by fire.

  Warren suddenly came to an abrupt halt in front of him, quickly drawing his bow and aiming it up toward the edge of the ditch. He let loose an arrow and took off running again almost instantly, and Madison watched a body tumble down the side of the steep wall and come to rest at an odd angle. Warren repeated the same maneuver about a hundred feet ahead, this time firing two separate shots up onto the opposite cliff, and another body fell over with a scream that abruptly choked off halfway down.

  Madison realized that one of his fears had been realized, but it was too late for any of them to spring the trap. Slavers or bandits or whomever they were must have been lying in wait, and the magician had only been there to push the
m down the ravine and into their waiting arms. As long as he was behind them with a wall of fire, Madison and his friends really had nowhere else to go except forward. If they hadn’t taken out the caster when they did, they would have fled right into an ambush without any way to stop it.

  Now, however, those same people were falling prey to the inadvertent trap that Warren had cast for them. As the forest around them caught fire, there was nowhere else for them to go except down into the ravine. It was currently acting as a sort of natural fire break, and it had grown deep enough as they traveled its length that it was sheltered from the heat of the flames, but that also meant that their would-be captors presented themselves as perfect targets as they approached the top that Warren could take advantage of. It was completely by accident, but the trap that had been so carefully laid out for Madison and his friends had been completely reversed.

  Warren stopped a few feet ahead, once again firing off a shot up and toward the lip of the ravine, but no body came with it this time. The young archer shook his head and muttered under his breath and started running again. No one had to ask to know that he was upset with himself for missing, but it was basically inevitable. The fact that he had hit so many shots in a row, so many fatal shots especially, was a feat that any marksmen would have been proud of.

  Warren slowed down again, but Madison quickly grabbed him by the arm and pulled him along instead of letting him line up and take another shot.

  “No time!” he said urgently. “There’s too many for us to stop!”

  “But—” Warren’s protest was choked off as Madison forcibly moved him along.

  He would have been willing to let Warren take his time and pick them off one by one under any other circumstances, but people were starting to come over the cliff en masse. Most of them looked uncertain, peering over the edge as if jumping over into the ravine was the last thing they wanted to do and the last place they wanted to go, but they eventually took the plunge anyway. Several of them actually came up with clever little tricks like hanging from the edge before dropping, aiming to land atop some of the large boulders for a shorter fall, and generally doing whatever they could to escape the quickly-growing inferno above, but most were unsuccessful. A few, however, actually made it to the bottom relatively unscathed, and those were the ones that Madison was worried about at the moment.

  He watched as a large cluster all came pouring over at the same time, and he knew that at least some would inevitably make it onto their feet again. His fall had been broken by the group of people he had landed on, and Shayna’s had been the same as well, so it only stood to reason that there would be others who were just as lucky as they had been. The group left the top lip in a cluster, trickling down in various fashions before pouring over in a mob. Several bounced down the side walls, and several others simply took the plunge, and men soon started pushing themselves to their feet. The agonized screams of those who had dropped down first rang out as their friends crushed them from behind and then again as they were trampled on by those same people taking chase as they tried to catch up to Madison and his companions.

  Shayna suddenly veered off to the right, launching herself on someone Madison hadn’t seen until she started toward him. Her daggers flashed out ahead of her, taking two clean slices out of his gut before he could even raise his hands defensively. He was already stained black from the smoke and likely half-delirious from oxygen deprivation and the fall, so he was sluggish and slow. Realizing what she was up against, Shayna quickly put him out of his misery by plunging her daggers into his chest and then quickly withdrawing them, sprinting away again before the man even collapsed to his knees.

  She bounced ahead down the righthand wall of the ravine, stabbing into two more men as they slowly pushed themselves to their feet. She dove toward the first man, driving one of her daggers into his back near his shoulders and then plunged her second into his lower back near his kidneys when she had both of her feet on the ground again. She ripped the daggers out in the same order they went in, spun around smoothly, and drove them both into the second man’s chest near his collarbone. It was a brutally effective series of attacks that allowed her to down both men before either could raise a hand against her, and she was able to quickly bounce away once again as she headed for her next target.

  It almost pained him to do so, but Madison had to stop her before she got caught up in killing the straggling leftovers. “Stop!” he yelled, veering off after her as he had Warren. “We don’t have time!” He turned and pointed behind him at the rapidly growing group coming after them. Most were still slow on their feet because of the fall, but several had kept enough of their wits and senses about them to be rather spry.

  “Damn it!” Madison cursed. He hefted his sword and turned to meet the closest man, a fast runner who had outpaced everyone else by a good margin. The man had a maniacal, half-crazed look in his eyes as he approached that set Madison on edge and made him uncomfortable. He had seen something like that before when he escaped from the slavers the first time, but he had written it off as furor over his killing of their friends. Now, he began to question it.

  The man raised a short, one-handed sword high above his shoulder as he ran in, leaving himself completely defenseless to Madison’s attack. It was like the man gave no actual thought to his own life or defenses, only paying heed to his need to strike down Madison. Madison hoisted his two-handed sword to around waist-height and stepped forward, bringing it around his body in a horizontal slash. The upper tip of the blade sliced through the man’s left side cleanly, cutting him open before he could ever bring his short sword down for an attack. The man’s body continued forward, propelled onward by momentum, before collapsing into a disemboweled mess. Madison turned and walked back toward Shayna, stabbing his sword downward into the man’s head to finish him off as he walked past.

  “There’s something wrong with these guys,” Madison muttered in passing. Then, glancing over his shoulder, he said, “We’ve got to go. Now.” He grabbed Shayna’s arm as he had Warren’s and pulled her forward, the two breaking into a sprint and quickly catching up to the archer.

  “Do we have any idea where this empties out?” Madison asked as they ran. His fear of being herded had been correct, and now he wanted to know what else might be waiting for them.

  “No,” Warren answered. “This isn’t part of my usual patrol, and I don’t remember seeing any maps of this area. There’s no telling where it leads.”

  The trio sprinted down the wash, dodging around obstacles that began to appear in their path as they went. Madison vaulted over small logs and piles of brush, and he twisted around large boulders, but they never seemed to gain any sort of ground over their pursuers. In fact, if anything, it seemed like the mob behind them was only grew in number the longer they ran. The blaze continued to rage above them unabated, and Madison knew that it would be a long time before it burned itself out.

  “Ah! Oof!”

  Madison vaulted over a particularly rocky patch of ground where several head-sized rocks had piled together, and he was well on his way to clearing the next when he heard Shayna cry out from behind him.

  He turned around and found her face-first in the dirt. She had apparently tried to clear the rocks in the same manner that he had but missed the jump by several feet, tripped over the large rocks, and faceplanted when she couldn’t get her balance. Madison quickly turned and grabbed her by the shoulders, practically pulling her upright in his haste to keep moving.

  “I’m fine!” Shayna protested, swatting his hands away. Yet, despite what she claimed, she collapsed the moment he let go and transferred weight onto her foot. He caught her again as she fell forward, holding her upright.

  Madison heard the thrum of Warren’s bow as he fired off several arrows that were designed to act as covering fire. The closest two men tripped and fell as they were struck by the archer’s projectiles, falling forward and then rolling head over heels until they came to a stop.

  “Sprained
or broken?” he asked. Then, without waiting for an answer, he swept her up into his arms and took off running again. She protested with a small yelp as he lifted her off of the ground, but he suspected that it was as much from surprise as it was any actual form of complaint. He had no doubt that she hated being treated in such a fashion, but there wasn’t really much choice at the moment, and he was certain that she understood that as well as he did.

  Madison’s mind raced as quickly as his body as he tried to figure out what to do. He had been looking for some sort of way to climb up out of the ravine they were trapped in, but it was fairly pointless as long as the fire was still burning up above. There might have been some hope if he thought that they could escape the inferno, but the men pouring over the sides told him that there was little chance of that. He had been hopeful of finding some type of cover to hide behind at first as well, but there was little that would do to protect them from a serious assault. The mob of people chasing them had grown to between fifteen and twenty in number as best he could tell by his last glance, and that was too many for them to fight head on. Even if he operated under the assumption that Warren could take out a few before they made contact, there was no way Madison could hold off that many people. To make things worse, they’d also have to fight while protecting Shayna at the same time. If she couldn’t even stand to put her weight on her ankle to walk, there was no hope of her being mobile enough to fight.

  In the end, the question was resolved for him. The trio came to a sudden, screeching halt as they reached the end of the ravine. The cliff walls on either side had grown craggy and were almost vertical, and the wash itself had turned to nothing but trash and soil, and now he understood why. The ravine simply stopped where it emptied out into a larger canon that bisected the gulley they had been following. There was a sharp drop off in front of them that plummeted straight down for about a hundred feet before hitting what looked like a deep, swiftly-moving river. The second ran perpendicular to the one they were in, and it had smooth, narrow walls that offered even less to cling to than the ravine they were in now, making scaling it nearly impossible.