Cythera Chronicles: The Shadow Warriors: Chapter seven

Ambush

"Everybody stay calm!" Victor yelled, trying to concentrate.
"We're gonna die!" Gheed cried, almost weeping.
Rogan grabbed him by the shoulder and looked at him. "No. We are not. Not as long as we can put up a fight," he said, "now we need a plan."
"We have to wait," Talos suggested, "let them think we are dead. Eventually, they show up to confirm the kill, and we ambush them... giving them a taste of their own medicine." His scimitar was drawn and he crawled towards the door, sitting down next to it.
"We can't rely on that!" Victor objected. "These guys seem to know what they're doing, they would never give us the chance of an ambush!" He looked around at the old wooden walls and continued, "they'll probably burn this whole place to the ground, and us with it. This cabin is a death trap if ignited."

"I agree with Victor," Eyolf said, "let's take them on, a direct assault." He was breathing heavily and trying to stop the bleeding from his chest. "That's our only chance."
Victor looked at him with wide-opened eyes. "Are you mad? That's not what I said! And besides, you can't handle that axe of yours with that wound!" he gestured at the bleeding wound.
"I agree with Talos," Rogan said, "let's wait and see what happens. If they want to smoke us out, let them try. Then we'll reconsider Eyolf's suggestion."
Gheed nodded, "yeah, we won't stand a chance out there! They'll skewer us like animals if we try to run!"
He moved closer to Rogan, hiding behind him.
"But they are fools if they believe we're dead," Eyolf said, "they came here to kill us, and will most certainly come by to finish the job rather than having us pinned down for all eternity."
"That's exactly what I said!" Victor snarled at Eyolf as he got up from the floor.

"Victor!"
Eyolf's yell made Victor pull himself together, remembering the archers outside. He quickly sat down again with a confused expression on his face. "Sorry... about that," he said, "I... I don't know what came over me."

"If we could only get a look at them... know their position," Rogan said, his hands itching for the throwing daggers, patiently waiting in the belt strapped to his chest.
Eyolf put down the hunter's crossbow and a quiver he carried. "Ten arrows," he said, after counting them.
"All of them with those dogs' names on them." He took an arrow and readied the crossbow.
Then he peaked through the window, ready to duck if an arrow should come for a quick but deadly visit.
Nothing happened. Eyolf narrowed his eyes, examining the forest ahead. There was practically no movement; only a small breeze tickling the leaves. Other than that, nothing.
Suddenly, an arrow pierced the air again. Eyolf ducked spontaneously. When he heard the sound of the arrow hitting wood, he jumped up again and launched the arrow from his crossbow.
"They are probably scattered around," Eyolf said, still focusing on the forest, "but I think I startled one of them." He reloaded the crossbow with another arrow. "Nine arrows to go."

Rogan, however, was worrying about other things than the attackers. "Judging by our supply of food and drink," he said, "we can probably hold them off for a couple days."
Victor sat down next to him. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that."

Listening to Rogan and Victor, Talos suddenly yelled; "food?"
"We're stuck in the middle of nowhere about to be impaled by a enemy we cannot see, and you're worrying about food?"
His eyes gleamed with fury.
Rogan looked with surprise at him. "What's your problem, Talos?"
Talos shook his head and was silent for a moment. "I... just the tension, I guess... my apologies" he muttered.

Suddenly, Victor's face lit up. "What if we got through the wall? We could use Eyolf's axe and make a hole large enough for us to escape through in the wall behind us, and ambush those bastards!"
He grinned, obviously thrilled by the thought of impaling the snipers with his sword and carefully wiping the blood off the blade afterwards.
"What?" Rogan answered promptly, "what simple-minded excuse of an idea is that?" He spoke so fast that no one had the chance to interrupt him, "we can't get up without getting our heads nailed to the wall, let alone wield a damn axe! Idiot!"

"Rogan!" Victor yelled, "now you're doing it!"

"Oh, shut up both of you, I'm tired of listening to this crap!" Gheed snarled.
Victor turned to Gheed and answered, "you have nothing to do with this, little man! So shut up, or I'll shut you up!"

Silence came. Everyone just sat there, looking at each other. Victor's heavy breathing was all that could be heard.
A few moments later, Talos spoke; "what the devil was that?" his voice was calm, but frightened.
"I... er..." Rogan opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again as he forgot the words.
"Like Talos said, just tension... stress," Victor said in a calm tone, "the sooner we get out of this blasted cabin, the better!"

"Agreed," Rogan said, "and since there's no alternative exit, we would have to use the door or climb out through the windows."
"Let's just open the door," Eyolf said, "and once we're outside, we scatter - making it harder for them to track us down."
"Preposterous!" Victor yelled, "we won't stand a chance! We don't even know how many they are!"
"Calm down, Victor," Rogan said. The answer from Victor came almost instantly; "Why the hell should I calm down?"
"Guys, pipe down already!" Gheed shouted.
"He started it!" Rogan yelled and gave Gheed a nudge, pushing him in front of one of the windows. Gheed ducked and shouted back, "you trying to kill me now?"

Without warning he jumped forward and punched Rogan in the face. The surprised Rogan fell down, but got up quickly and took his vengeance out on Gheed in form of a well-aimed punch landing on Gheed's nose. Gheed fell to the floor, groaning. When Victor tried to hold Rogan, he turned around and threw a punch at him as well. He missed. Victor threw himself at Rogan, forcing him to the floor. Talos kicked Victor in an attempt to get him off Rogan. Rogan punched the slightly distracted Victor. Geed got up from the floor and kicked Rogan, while Victor punched Talos in the stomach.
"What are you doing?" Eyolf yelled, "watch out or you'll get shot!"
No one seemed to pay attention to Eyolf, but concentrated on hurting each other instead.
Eyolf grabbed Gheed, now sitting on top of Rogan, and threw him to a corner. He then grabbed hold of Victor and threw him to another corner, yelling, "stop! This isn't us! Stop!" ignoring the stabbing pain from his wounded chest.
Rogan got up from the floor and was about to punch Gheed as Eyolf grabbed him and threw him to the ground again.
"CEASE THIS NONSENSE IMMEDIATELY!" he hollered. With that, he successfully managed to get everyone's attention.
"Eyolf is right, we are acing like drunken fools!" Gheed said as he got up from the floor, blood running from his nose. "This is not us!"

He felt a searing pain as he turned around, trying to avoid the attack. Alas, it was unsuccessful; the pain spread like hot coffee on naked skin. He fell to the ground. He had seen the two arrows way too late.
"GHEED!" he could barely hear his companions shouting, he could barely see the figures approaching him. His head dropped to the ground, and all was black.
Black... until a loud bang followed by extremely bright light forced his eyes open. He could barely make out the silhouette of a wooden object hitting a man over the head.

"ROGAN!"
He felt like someone punched him in the head with an iron pipe. His feet failed to comply, he felt his knees giving in, the unbelievable effort to mobilize his legs; in vain as he hit the floor.

Then came the heat; smoke and fire rose from the wall, where the Molotov cocktail had landed.

"LET'S GOOOO!"
"We can't leave them!"
"He's gone!"
"But he's not, he still has a chance! We're not leaving our friends behind!"

Hands grabbing his legs. Wooden planks against his skin. Sharp pain as his chin hit the doorstep. The sound of arrows hitting flesh, agony, the pain - another body landing on top of him. More screaming, this time unable to make it out. Pain? Battle cries? Both?
Human? Ogre? Orc? Perhaps. Perhaps not.
Darkness - then light.
More screaming, heavy objects hitting the ground in close proximity. Bodies? Perhaps. Even more screaming.

Always, the smell of burnt wood.

Coughing from the body on top of him. Movement, searing pain. Relief as the body vanished, voices calling his name; "Rogan? Rogan?"

"He's going to make it, this one's a fighter," said a familiar voice, "What about Talos?"
"The guy that was lying on top of him? This guy?" unfamiliar voice.
"Yeah!"
"He's conscious, at least... I'd say he had a better chance than this poor fellow here."
"I'll hear nothing about it! We will save each and every one of them, I owe them that!"

He opened his eyes. One thousand poets couldn't describe the pain he felt in his head, nor what he had just been through. Blinking a few times, regaining normal eyesight - gradually.
Stuttering. "Lukyan?"

"Rogan! Bless you, you're alive!" Lukyan's face lit up as he heard Rogan's voice. "That was a close call, we almost lost you there!"

Fighting to regain control of his own thoughts, pulling himself together. "Everyone..."

"They made it, all of them," Lukyan said, assuring him. "We even managed to pull Gheed out of the cabin, but he was extremely lucky. You all were."

He looked around, the pain stabbing through his head and upper body. Numerous dead bodies scattered around, all clad in Legion armor. Happy soldiers congratulating each other, wearing the very same armor, with a slight distinction; the flaming maul replaced by a sword bearing the sign of Alaric.

Two soldiers helped him get up. Lukyan gave him a restoring potion. Victor went over to Talos, helping him up. Eyolf tried to wake the unconscious Gheed.

Victor went over to Lukyan, giving him a big hug. "I knew you wouldn't abandon us, friend!" he shouted, happier than ever before - though he looked like something the rat lizards had dragged in. The others didn't look very good as well, only Eyolf and Victor emerged relatively unscathed.

"I'm alive!" Gheed suddenly shouted, but closed his eyes again swiftly.
Eyolf laughed, "this Gheed... he has no head for excitement!"

Victor took a walk around to take a look at their attacker's bodies as Lukyan explained:
"When we reached LandKing Hall, a Legion soldier informed me of the recent attacks on our forces in this area... when I learnt that Maul squad - in charge of patrolling the forest here - didn't return last night, I feared the worst. So I gathered every soldier from the castle and went up here as fast as we could. Luckily, we saw the smoke and got here just in time."

Victor suddenly noticed Gormadoc among the slain, and remembered the Mauls. "Yes... we ran into these guys when we first arrived here," he said, "I had my suspicions, but gave them the benefit of the doubt... almost killed us all."
Searching the corpse further, Victor found an amulet, hanging around Gormadoc's neck. He studied it for a moment; A golden amulet with a strange symbol - an eye in the middle of a hexagram. He had never seen the symbol before.
He put it in his sack and searched the rest of the bodies, recovering a handful of oboloi and some arrows.

After half an hour of rest and recreation, they started to discuss what to do.
"We were extremely lucky today," Victor said.
"Yes, I guess that goes without saying," Rogan said, gesturing at the smoking remnants of Ragnar's cabin.
"We must go after my brother and see what he's up to," Eyolf was clearly worried about Ragnar and couldn't sit still any longer. "Yes, we have to travel to the west, after Ragnar." Rogan agreed.
Talos noticed his weapon was missing. "I'll be happy to accompany you in the search for Ragnar," he answered, "as long as I recover my scimitar!" He looked around, suddenly eyeing it close to what was left of the cabin; the place where the arrow had hit him. When he landed on top of Rogan. The arrow had hit his left shoulder, but the wound wasn't bad... it could have been a lot worse.
"I'm always there for my friends!" Victor announced.
"That applies to me as well!" Lukyan said with a smile, "my men will secure the area." he gestured at the soldiers, who immediately spread out.
"Well... I'm going to regret this..." Gheed frowned, "but..." he grinned, "I'm starting to like you guys! The sooner we depart, the better! Probably not the most lucrative thing to do on your spare time, but nevertheless..." he opened his robes to confirm that his scepter was still in place.
"Glad to have you aboard, Gheed," Rogan smiled. "The six who set out from Cademia are gathered once again."

"One thing though..." Talos said, "what was it that made us go completely mental back in the cabin?"
"I have absolutely no idea, but I must apologize," Rogan answered. Like the others, Rogan was not the type to throw punches at his friends for virtually no good reason.
"That goes for me as well," Victor said, "though I have no idea what made us do it... strange... it seemed like the ogres knew exactly when to attack as well."
"Thanks to Eyolf, who managed to pull himself together and save us," Gheed said. Eyolf smiled and nodded modestly.
"You kept saying 'this is not us'," he said, "luckily, the little part that was us managed to save our hides."

He got up. "I'm tired of sitting around here, my brother needs us!" he said.
Rogan finished a bottle of water and got up as well, beholding the forest they had to cross.
"Off we go, the sooner the better!"

To be continued...

[This message has been edited by moderator (edited 02-24-2003).]

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