Heirs of the Blade_ Shadows of the Apt_ Book Seven - Adiran Tchaikovsky [246]
An arrow spiked Mordrec’s shoulder and he went down on one knee with a curse, the other arm flung out to sear its way across the bowman’s chest. Another archer loosed a shaft at Thalric, but hurriedly, the shot flying wide despite its close range, and then Dal Arche shot the man in the back, shouting, ‘Run for the woods! We have to move!’ In truth, by now only Tynisa, the two Wasps, Dal and Soul Je were still left.
Tynisa let her rapier twist about the sword of the scout attacking her, flicked it aside with a circular motion of her wrist and then jabbed into the opening she had created, pricking him through the throat. The cavalry had meanwhile regained their courage, and a couple were plucking lances from the holsters beside their saddles. She risked a glance behind her, gauging the distance to the treeline.
A bowman was there, the string drawn back to his ear and the arrowhead directed at her face. Even as she spotted him, he loosed.
She felt the impact like a hammer blow, but it had fallen on the guard of her blade, the weapon and her arm both finding their way by the age-old Weaponsmasters’ partnership. The impact drove her sword hand back to her chest, and the archer’s jaw dropped as the arrow sliced to one side of her, deflected from the curved quillons.
So it was me, and not him. She killed the bowman even while registering the thought, leaping into a lunge that drove her blade through the chitin of his armour, barely slowing. Then she was running, Dal Arche helping Mordrec along beside her; as Soul Je and Thalric sent arrows and stingshot at the oncoming riders.
Abruptly the trees were above and around them, the riders behind them slowing and turning aside, and then they were running uphill towards tumbled stone walls.
Within the trees, the bows were of less use, which was just as well, as the enemy were bringing up considerably more of them than the brigands could muster. The cavalry would be next to useless, too, unable to charge or manoeuvre between the trunks. There would be a moment when the front-runners of the attacking force hesitated, waited for their fellows, fearing some trap, perhaps brigand reinforcements. It was enough to give Dal Arche’s people a headstart on reaching the ruins.
The airborne scouts were ahead of them, though, and a half-dozen had the wit to try and claim the ruin before the brigands could get there. The tower itself had been a circular structure, its height undeterminable now, but the lowest storey remained almost intact, surrounded by a broken area of fallen stone coated with moss and entwined by creepers. The fleetest brigands arrived just in time for one of them, a lean Grasshopper, to take an arrow in the throat from a Dragonfly archer crouched in the doorway. The others then scattered, taking cover amongst the trees. More arrows sped from the pair of narrow slit windows flanking the door.
Tynisa took in the situation the moment she arrived. Dal and Soul Je were shooting from within the trees, but the doorway lent cover enough that they were getting nowhere. She grimaced – but somehow it turned to a grin.
A moment later she was running forward, her sword levelled before her. She saw the man in the doorway draw back his string, focusing on some other movement within the trees, before one of his fellows shouted a warning and he saw her. His expression was all she could ask for, fright and shock making him twitch away, the arrow flying harmlessly high. Another shaft from one of his comrades hissed past her like a breath of air, and then she was amongst them. Her sword lanced the closest man under the ribs, but she just carried on running, plunging into the gloom of the interior while dragging her victim round until her blade slid free. The men within were dropping