Four Horsemen: Chapter 17 FINAL

Chapter 17:

Desari lowered herself on blueberry, an arrow hitting a nearby tree.

“I think it is about time we found that crossing.” She hissed as another arrow found a tree, glancing back, she could make out the outlines of the hunting band, they rode bears, wolves and other creatures from the forest, armed with short bows and axes.

Another group moved up along their flank, trees obscuring their aim for now.

“There should be a way to cross ahead!” Mya altered her direction.

“The horses will be able to get across but the forest band won’t be able to,” Petor added.

Desari didn’t know how the two knew what they did, but they’d led them unerringly through the forest, Petor reading the terrain before it appeared as Mya led them towards the river, listening to it and studying the ground.

An arrow bit into the dirt as Desari followed them. She pulled out her bow and an arrow, stringing it, another two arrows hitting around her. Rising and drawing in one motion, studying the terrain and trees ahead.

She held her arrow, and released, it slipped through trees, hitting one of the leading mounted archers that had been all too good with his shots.

The wind whipped at her hair as Valter’s crossbow bolt missed the warband and hit a tree with enough force to blow out half of its trunk, turning into shrapnel that cut down the rider he’d been aiming for, and peppering two others.

Desari lowered herself and drew another arrow.

“Nice shot.”

“Missed it, don’t have the strength to charge another,” Valter grunted.

Desari glanced back, the war band slowing.

“Well it did what it needed to.”

She rose up, drawing, sighting ahead and fired at the flanking warband. Her arrow skitted a tree, only winging her target instead of killing them.

“Fucking trees,” Desari hissed, drawing another as the sounds of the river increased.

“Slow,” Mya said.

Two arrows hit trees, another disappearing into the forest.

“Why are we slowing?” Desari yelled.

“For the hor-fuck a goodamn troll with a hot poker on a frosted tit mountain!” Mya growled.

Desari loosed another arrow, hitting a tree and looking at Mya, an arrow through her back and out her stomach.

“Do you know how much Carsyln cloth costs!” She snapped the arrow, drawing it out and throwing it. “Fuck, got my blood on it.”

“Are you okay?” Petor asked.

“No! This was one of my favorite shirts! Those fucking assholes!” Mya rose up on her stirrups, drawing her pistol and firing off six shots, dropping five of the war band.

“Fucking forest fairy fuckers! Urggh,” Mya grumbled as her mount stepped into the water.

Arrows hit around the group as they descended, covered by the terrain. Desari studied the water, the river widened at the point, eddies and the froth of a rise under the water’s surface creating a broken line across, the rest black velvet, unforgiving under the moon’s light.

Mya was still grumbling as she ejected her smoking cylinder and loaded a fresh one. Her aim is good. She wasn’t trying to compare how effective they were, nope, not at all. Or the fact her arms were burning from a few shots and she hadn’t been able to draw the bow back fully.

Petor’s sling whispered quietly as he spun it lazily in his hand, looking at the forest, patting his mount with the other hand as she stepped into the water. His breath was a hiss as the water rose up over his boots.

Blueberry stepped into the river, following.

“I have the right,” Petor said.

“Left,” Desari scanned the forest behind.

Petor’s sling’s lazy whisper turned into a rapid howl in a half second and stopped.

Two arrows pierced the water.

“Are you fucking kidding me! I’m the smallest fucking target!” Mya yelled. “I was just getting the blood out you fucknuts!”

Light, like the rising sun burned into Desari’s left eye, she snapped it closed against the afterimage of backlit trees.

Movement among the trees drew her remaining eye as she grimaced, drew and fired.

Her arrow missed. One of the archers flinched from the light, shooting their ally. The  second missed totally and the third.

“Ow,” Valter muttered.

“Call us the fucking pincushion brigade!” Mya yelled.

“A bit of warning next time Petor,” Desari said.

“I don’t know what kind they are! They all look the same!” Petor yelled back, his sling whizzing as he loosed another, hitting a tree, creating a cloud of white goop nearly a hundred meters wide that rained down ten meters on the poor bastards below.

The innocuous goop smashed into those below, cracking trees hitting with such force as to crush pursuers flat.

Desari blinked her blinded eye back into function, only four of the remaining war band were left alive, the goop mixing with blood as it dripped into the river.

“Is that vanilla?” Mya asked.

“Pretty sure that was vanilla pudding, yeah,” Petor said.

“huh.”

Mya fired.

“Will! You! Stay!” The fourth shot hit one of the warband trying to run.

“Still!” Another warband member dropped and a third. “Thank you,” Mya set about reloading.

Desari took aim at the last warband member Blueberry misplacing his step as her arrow struck a tree.

“One going out!” Petor yelled.

The shot hit the running war band member, nearly launching them off of their mount as the shot cracked and lightning exploded outwards, through the last tracker and the pudding.

Desari looked at the destruction dropped on the forest.

“What the fuck.” She shook her head the water rising up to her hips.

Valter checked the arrow in his leg.

“Mya, Valter how are you?” Petor asked.

“Flesh wound,” Mya mumbled through the bandage in her teeth, wrapping it around her upper arm.

“I will need to push the arrow out once we’re on the other side,” Valter said, as if he was dealing with an annoying splinter, and not an arrow to the thigh. “We’re starting to go back up,” Mya said, passing the mid point of the river and gradually rising out of the water.

They climbed out of the river and up the bank on the other side. Valter holding a rag against the arrow sticking out of his thigh.

“Lets get into the treeline before we take a look,” Desari waved her hands, drawing the freezing water from the clothes and blueberry. She cast an eye back on the other side of the riverbank, nothing moved there.

The trees cut them off from the river as she, drew the water off of Petor and his mount, then Mya and Valter.

“Thank you,” Petor said, swinging down from his mount.

“Much appreciated,” Valter’s voice tight.

“Our own walking drying service,” Mya said. “I’ll keep watch.” She remained mounted, scanning their surroundings, her hand on a rifle over her legs, the other drawing out a map.

“There were are big guy,” Petor helped Valter down, moving the leg as little as possible. His muscles straining with the other man’s mass and the odd angle.

He pulled him to the base of a tree, Valter giving bare grunts.

Desari studied the arrow sticking in the meat of his thigh. A steady trickle of blood seeping from where it met flesh.

“Didn’t hit an artery, steady bleed over a pumping one.” She traced his thigh, and the veins inside.

Petor grabbed a branch, wiping it and offered it to Valter.

“In one side and out the other,” Valter grinned and took the branch. “Make it quick.”

Petor gave him a nod as he put the branch between his teeth.

Petor snapped the fletching off of the arrow and grabbed the shaft.

“Angle it this way,” Desari tilted her finger along the arrow.

Petor glanced at her and adjusted his hand.

“On three,”

Valter grunted.

“One.”Petor drove the arrow through Valter’s leg, out the other side, grabbing the bloodied shaft of the arrow and pulling it out fully.

Valter’s eyes smoldered and his tattoos embered, swearing silently as Petor pulled out a water flask, rinsing the wound, followed with a pungent ointment he wiped liberally over the site of the wound.

“Could you wrap his leg, I’ll hold it up?” Petor asked as he worked.

“Yeah,” Desari drew gauze and bandages, laying them over the site of the wound. She unstoppered a healing potion.

“No need to waste that,” Valter said.

“We’re being tracked by gods I think it best to be in good health than not.” She held gauze to the mouth of the bottle, letting it soak in and repeating it to a second piece.

Valter sighed, but there was a smile on his face.

“Well at least we’re lucky we lost our memories together.”

Desari felt a warmth in her stomach and heart, giving him a small smile.

“Ready?” Petor had Valter’s leg in his arms.

“Ready.”

He lifted the leg Desari applied the gauze to the entry and exit holes, using the bandage to hold them in place, without being too tight to turn into a half tourniquet.

She tied the bandage off.

“Good.”

Petor lowered Valter’s leg.

“Thank you,” Valter said.

“Can’t have the big man going down,” Petor clapped him on the shoulder. “Get some food and drink into you.”

Valter pulled out a canteen and started drinking.

“Mya did you figure out where we are?” Desari walked over to her, Petor followed, scanning the forest.

“Yeah,” She handed them the map with a new mark on it.

“Glihem is the closest to us,” Desari said.

“Do we want to head into a city, there are sure to be more believers there this close to a cathedral,” Petor said.

“Inside a city it is harder to track someone. With the churches, those that have blessings or use magic or other powers it creates a smoke screen for us to hide underneath. Also there are trade groups leaving all the time, we get ourselves in one of the those groups once we lose this divine scent and we can escape.”

“That keeps us trapped inside a city, if we’re in a forest we can get away from them. Look there’s the forest of Igroth, supposed to be filled with monsters, they’ll help mask us and if other groups come looking for us, they need to go through the beasts to reach us,” Petor pointed to the marked area of forest.

“We would be on the run night and day, we have to figure out who the hell we are, how our powers work,” Desari growled.

Petor winced. “We’re not weak, we know that much. We took on nearly forty trackers and survived.”

“Mostly out of luck instead of skill. What if a champion comes along?”

“Do you want to try fighting them in the forest or in a city where innocents could get caught up in the fighting. And to test out our abilities we can’t do that in a city, in the forest there’s no one but the beasts to watch us.”

“Mya what do you think?”

“If we go through the forest then we can get to the ocean and on a boat, let them try and follow us then. The cities there believe in different gods so we should be clear of most of the trackers.”