A Girl and Her Monster by Landon Porter

Author:Landon Porter [Porter, Landon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Paradox-Omni Entertainment
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8 – Filling the Gap

Kaiel watched the first two victims of Ru's rampage fall. The line around him faltered as riders alternately attempted to flee, or charged forward to end it. The ones that chose the later charged into an increasingly creative meat grinder.

All the while, the snipers took shots as they found them. Here an archer clutched at a wounded limb, there one fell dead. Whoever was directing the bandit force managed to catch that in spite of Ru's distraction and ordered the charge before the archers were prepared to cover.

The chronicler saw what they were trying to do; screening the archers with the bodies and dust of the advance group. It worked, but only where the charge managed to get started.

Except for where Grandfather aimed. The aged halfling had grown up in Rizen, where the long rifle was born and popularized, and he was good enough that three archers could testify to it already; two dead and missing eyes, one whose middle and fourth fingers had been blown off. In spite of the charge, he carefully waited for a shot and removed the kneecap of the other torch runner.

“He's not even bothering with the archers.” Kaiel observed of Ru.

Taylin was fighting hard not to chew her lip or show any fear, lest she spook the villagers. “I think he's enjoying himself too much to think much about it.” She replied in a tight voice.

“Fire arrows coming.” They both looked down to find that Grandmother had sidled up between them without their noticing. She was dressed in full vestments as a servant of the nature goddess, Sylph: a mud-brown robe with a belt woven with living grass and a cord of the same, from which hung a live, perpetually ripe strawberry. At her side sat the urn. The halfling matriarch didn't allow either of them to waste time talking, simply pointing out on the field.

Out of some thirty archers, a bit less than half were able to both survive the snipers and manage to get an arrow lit. On a desperate order, they let fly. Thirteen blazing shafts leapt skyward, accompanied by half that many that weren't lit.

Warning came from the lookouts, who raised their leather shields. The villagers on the line and in the fire crews had no such cover and many of them broke for the houses.

Grandmother ignored it all and took the lid off her urn. Red, etched sigils flashed around the lip of the vessel and a geyser of mist issued forth from it to a height of thirty feet before spreading out like a parasol. It blocked out what little of the sun there was, but more importantly, when the flaming arrows met it, their deadly payload hissed out.

Unfortunately, it did nothing to actually stop the arrows, which pelted down behind the wagons and onto the nearest roofs. The snipers hastily rolled backward off the side of the wagons, crawling to their second position beneath them.

A wolf yelped and began to whine, an arrow just missing it's spine by the grace of its harness deflecting it.

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