Fires of Prophecy_ Book Two of the Morcyth Saga - Brian Pratt [112]
James ignores him as he concentrates. Jiron watches as the center of the bridge begins to glow and then becomes dark again. James suddenly sags to the bridge, unconscious.
“Damn!” Jiron says as he dismounts. Coming to his side, he puts James back onto his horse and secures him to the saddle with rope. He gets back on his horse, grabs the reins to James’ horse and then leads him quickly over the bridge to where the others are waiting for them.
“What did you stop for?” Scar asks as they approach.
“I’m not sure,” he replies. “Let’s get going!”
As they gallop away, the first of the pursuing men gain the bridge.
Crumph!
The concussion wave washes over them and they turn to see the bridge exploding into the air. A twenty foot gap now separates the two sides of the river.
“Damn!” Scar says.
“Let’s move,” Jiron says. “We don’t know how long we’ll have before they manage to get around that.”
Potbelly groans and then begins to topple off his horse. Scar jumps down and hurries over to his friend’s side, catching him before he hits the ground.
Potbelly looks up to Scar as he lays him on the ground, “I guess this is my last fight.”
Scar sees Delia there and she bends down to examine the wound. “It’s hit nothing vital,” she tells him. “If we can get the blood to stop, he should be alright.”
Jiron looks back to the river and can see that they’ve already started moving some boats toward the broken bridge to begin ferrying men across. “We don’t have much time,” he tells her.
“Won’t need much,” she says as she tears a strip of cloth off her shirt.
Jiron looks again and sees ten men disembarking from the boats. They begin running to close with them. Two knives fly in quick succession as Shorty takes out two of the attackers.
“Hurry please!” Jiron says as he and the others move to engage with the oncoming men. Side by side, the pit fighters stand, giving Delia the time to administer to Potbelly. Scar is a terrible foe as his anger for what happened to his friend finds an outlet, his two swords weaving a pattern of death no soldier willingly enters.
As she starts to bind the wound, leaving the bolt in his side, Roland asks, “Aren’t you going to take it out?”
“No,” she replies. “If I do, it’ll leave a hole allowing more blood to escape. He’s already lost too much as it is.”
The attackers fall like stalks of grain before the scythe as they engage the waiting fighters. Keeping her mind on Potbelly and doing her best to ignore the fighting going on fifteen feet away, she finally finishes up with binding his wound. With Roland’s help, they manage to get him on a horse, securing him in the same manner as James. When he’s secured, she turns and yells, “Let’s go!”
She quickly mounts her horse as the pit fighters take out the few remaining soldiers and then run to where their horses are waiting. Glancing back to the river, she sees two more boats disembarking another twenty soldiers. “Hurry!” she yells to Scar and the others as they reach the horses and begin mounting. Crossbow bolts fly at them from the river, but from that distance they’re not much to worry about.
Back into the saddle, they turn and race down the road, leaving the enemy far behind. After putting several miles between them, they slow the horses, saving them in case of the need for speed.
“Where did the other horses come from?” Jiron asks Shorty.
“After you guys left, we figured that we might need to leave in a hurry so we traded all the wagons and the goods for the horses,” he says.
“What about the money chest?” Delia asks.
“It’s divided among the saddlebags,” he tells her. “Each horse is carrying roughly the same amount.”
Jiron nods his head, “Smart thinking.”
Shorty smiles back to him and replies, “We knew you guys wouldn’t be able to leave without disturbing a few people.”
“Yeah,” Yorn interjects. “So we positioned ourselves near the wall and just listened for where the commotion was the loudest and figured that would be where you were.”
“You figured right,” Scar says as he rides next to his friend