Four Horsemen: Chapter 3 Part 1 of 2

Chapter 3:

They threaded through streets, people hurried from building to building. Some used buckets, pans and whatever they could to try and douse the fires tearing through their homes. Others called out and cried, rocking back and forth, having lost more than a home.

The broken remains of homes littered the streets.

“Incoming,” Valter raised his hand as rocks smashed through buildings around them, turning them into shrapnel.

Petor glanced at the sky, trying to read the incoming trajectories, following them back over the wall in the distance.

A section exploded outwards, spraying stone and fighters by their armor’s shine.

Mercenaries scarred from battle and hardened eyes that had seen too much moved through the streets at a jog, wearing necklaces made of plates of bronze, led by those wearing silver plates.

“Get out of the streets.” A woman leading a group growled, blue runes carved into her skin and iron studs running down one side of her nose.

A fire pot crashed over a home, spraying it with flammable liquid that turned into a river of fire over its wooden roof, the heat curling Petor’s hairs.

A family ran out screaming, animals that shared the home with them, squealing and screaming their way free, out onto the streets. The family ran in and out of the burning wreck, hauling out what they could, the mother grabbed mud from a side alley with some children and got them throwing mud on the house to try and stop the flames. The eldest ones were sent after the animals.

The father coughed, and kept running in and out, pulling his children with him, more hands to save as much as they could.

“Petor,” Mya grabbed his arm and hurried him on, Valter pushing him.

“We can help them.”

“Their lives their choices, we need to get the hell out of here.” Rocks smashed into the street behind them and another hit a burned out building, hurling the remains everywhere.

They moved from alleyways to streets, as alleyways became mud traps.

Desari acted as if a meek young woman with the world falling around her. Shaking at every impact.

“Come on.” Her words cut through her acting. Petor did his best to jump with every hit in the distance. It felt wrong to one used to such things, his eyes darting around for more guards. Mya and Valter followed.

“Move out the way!”  they barely had time to run out of the way as a group of guards thundered up the hill on their mounts.

Desari led them onwards without stopping, weaving through streets, the four of them watching others as they passed.

Occasional stone buildings gave way to all wood buildings, rough and crude in their design. Stone roads only ran down the main thoroughfares, the rest gravel and churned mud.

The wall stood in the distance, smoke filling the area behind it, buildings broken by stone and fire, leaving black skeletal fingers reaching skyward.

“Rain be coming,” Mya sniffed the air.

“All I smell is the smoke and dead,” Valter said.

“Shit,” Petor hissed as a section of the wall blew inwards, the top of the wall raining into the street behind it.

“Here,” Mya said.

Petor pulled his gaze away.

On the corner of the curving road that looped from one side of the mountain to the other and the straight roads that radiated out from the cathedral through the city, lay two story building of nailed wood. Moss and rot grew from the wood in places, the inns sign just rusted holes in the wood.

The roof started to patter, the first raindrops landing.

“Told you it was gonna rain,” Mya said.

Bells started ringing, Petor stilled and listened.

“That’s in the direction of the wa-“ Desari cut off her words as another bell rang out. “Attackers are inside the city.”

“How can you know?”

“Bells are only rung for major problems, and the fact bells are sounding all over the place and cutting off means that some are getting silenced,” Valter said. “Saboteurs probably behind the walls. Like the ones we met.”

A scream rose from the road around the inn, leading towards the wall.

A woman ran with her baby past them a man ran after her, stumbling to turn around, an arrow stabbed through his chest as he dropped with a choking cry and cruel laughter.

Petor drew a stone loaded as he whirled it and turned the corner.

An archer was almost lazily drawing back his bow, four others jeering.

“Hey!” Petor yelled as he released his sling. The archer’s head snapped back as he loaded another stone. Desari came around the corner with her bow.

The fighters, stunned by someone that could fight back started to turn as her arrow went through the eye of the man wearing the finest armor.

Valter’s arbalest sounded more like a ballista as it went through an armored man’s chest and threw him backwards, pinning him to a wall. Petor’s sling whirred mana flowed through the strap into the smooth stone as he released it.

It hit the fighter in the neck and detonated.

Petor lowered his arm as he looked at the scene, the last fighter had been caught up in the explosion, coughing and spluttering.

His eyes darted to the man on the ground, a grim finality overcoming him as he strode forward, drawing his hunting dagger.

The stone peppered fighter reached up to push him away, blood foaming at his lips.

“A life for a life,” Petor kneeled down, pushing the weak arm away as he stabbed his blade up under the man’s armor, right into his core.

It was solid red, two core levels below his own, its essence too weak to increase his own. But it was filled with mana.

He consumed the mana in his channels, in his very core.

It was like breathing lightning, invigorating as it was terrible. Polluted green veins covered the man as he actively drew, essence and mana flowed through him, filling his channels and then some.

The man coughed and writhed, then settled.

Petor’s veins itched and writhed as he cut the man’s purse free and moved up the street to the man on the ground with the arrow through his chest.

The man was coughing weakly, blinking against the pain and rain.

Valter turned him on his side, he whimpered as the woman with the babe let out a strangled cry. Petor looked up, she was in the doorway of the tavern, a large woman holding her back, trying to wrestle her into the place.

A man stepped out, scars on his cheeks, a broken nose, a well-worn sword in his hands.

Valter snapped the shaft of the arrow.

“Ready?” He looked up at Petor.

Petor kneeled next to the man, putting his hands around the wound, the rain mixing with blood washing over his fingers.

He locked eyes with Valter.

“Ready.”

Valter tore the arrow through and out in one clean smooth motion.

The man coughed and whimpered, Petor released the dead man’s mana into him.

The tightness dissipated as it flowed, the man’s wounds knit together and sealed, internal wounds closed without sign they’d ever happened.

The man’s breathing normalized and he slumped into unconsciousness.

“He’ll live,” Valter said and glanced over his shoulder. Petor could see the woman weeping, being pulled into the inn, the larger man with a sword glared at them.

“Make friends with the locals,” Petor muttered.

Valter turned back to him. “Ain’t that the way.” He settled the man so he wouldn’t roll face down into the mud or river of water draining down the street towards the wall.

Petor gritted his teeth against the mana headache and stood, holding up his hand. “He’s okay! Take him inside before he gets a cold!”

He moved away, Valter stood and followed.

Most must’ve been solid red or weaker, he barely got a tithe of essence for killing them.

Mya hummed as she looted, tossing slips of paper and tablets to Desari.

She kept some and threw others away, her brow furrowed.

“Time to get a move on, lest you want to get caught in a demi-god’s feud.”

“No thanks,” Mya grimaced, a coin purse disappearing. Petor wiped his blade clean on a dead man’s shirt.

“What are those weapons on your belts?”

“These here are called bandoliers and these are pistols. Lil bit of powder, paper and a metal ball, got yourself a weapon that can break even castles,” Mya gave a too-wide grin and winked.

“Impressive,” Petor nodded.

“Thanks,” She tilted her hat with a forefinger and thumb.

“Lets go,” Desari started jogging. Petor and the others followed.

He glanced back, the big man from the inn door picked up the man in one hand. They met one another’s eyes, the big man nodded before hurrying back to the inn.

The door shut as soon as he was through.

“What did you learn?” Valter asked.

“This lot follow Ithram, they’re here to cause chaos and distract. See the markings on the armor?”

“The clouds over the stream?” Valter asked.

“That’s his crest. The mountain one on the buildings, that must be Jorai’s. The other ones that had the bow and the tree are another gods.”

“Great, in the middle of another fight better the arrogant fuckers,” Mya said.

“Best we get out of here quickly.” Desari started to jog.

Signs and the sounds of fighting rang out in the city as they headed for the wall.

“Don’t use your mana, special gear or abilities unless you must. The less others know about us the better,” Desari warned as they moved.

“Prepare yourselves,” Mya drew her pistol and pulled up her reins as they turned a corner, facing the last of the houses and the gate out of the city.

A group of Twenty guards wearing the symbols of Jorai and random mercenaries fought against a larger group of some sixty fighters wearing the same symbols as those in the cathedral underground in the middle of the street.

“Support the defenders.” Desari gritted her teeth and drew her bow, searching for a shot.

Mya fired, knocking an attacker flat. Valter fired his arbalest, slamming into another and throwing them backwards. He cranked on the built-in lever and pulley system to draw back the metal string.

Petor fumbled with his sling as Mya fired again, her shot took a man in the face and hit another in the chest that was hauling on the portcullis chains. The portcullis shuddered, half falling, those around the man, covered in his gore as they grimly continued on their task.

Desari’s arrow buried itself in a woman’s eye, tottering backwards before her body realized it was dead and falling over. Petor whirled his sling, and released, hitting an enemy fighter in the head, dazing them for a mercenary to stab them in the stomach with a spear.

Smoke billowed around Mya as she fired, Valter’s arbalest sounding like a wall’s crane in his hands. Desari’s movements were sure and deadly.

“Fuckers,” Desari hissed, drawing another arrow as the portcullis slammed shut against the stone again, those that had been hauling on it, turned to join their allies on the ground.

They were so close together getting a clear shot was near impossible.

“Close with them,” Valter called out.

No time for the shield.

Petor dodged a javelin as Mya fired at the thrower, opening a hole through their armor as they clutched at it, gawping like a fish on dry land.

Valter and Petor closed with the fighters, Valter stored his arbalest and pulled a sword and shield, wearing Petor’s clothes instead of his armor.

Petor jogged with him, building up speed

Desari drew out a sword as Mya pulled her cylinder free, replacing it with another, snapping the whole pistol closed as she drew her sabre.

Valter slammed into the enemy, throwing one backwards into a spin.