The Dragon's Prize (15 page)

She stepped sideways away from the next attack, then backed up another step.  Mira was doing quite well paying attention and managed not to be in the way as Sandra went back.

Sandra fell into the cadence of battle, a dance that lead them ever farther down the alley and toward the dubious safety of a building.

Block, block.  Stab.  Dodge, back-step.  Arrow.

Parry, parry.  Riposte.  Away, back.  Crossbow.

It made haunting music.

Clang, clang.  Scream!  Rustle, shuffle scream!

Sandra wondered where they all came from.  Clang.  For every one she and Mira killed there was another.  Clang.  Each guard that fell was replaced by another, angry and ready for a fight.  Scream.  They were doing well.  Rustle.  She didn’t know how long she could maintain it.  Shuffle.  The house seemed so far away.  Scream!

About halfway down the alley, the two fresh guards facing Sandra backed off before she could block their attacks.  Sandra huffed and puffed, blowing clouds of white-cold steam into the chill night air.  She didn’t particularly want to press the attack and the break was welcome.

“I think they’re out of archers.”  Mira sounded hopeful.  Half of her arrows found targets in the rooftops while the other half hit ground troops.  If she could focus entirely on the ones on the ground it would help.

“Good thing I’ve still got mine.”

“Flirt.”

“Raaaaaah!”  Charging down the alley came a merc with a flail.  The others got out of his way until there were only cobbles between he and Sandra.

Blocking was no longer an option.

Sandra dodged out of the way of his first swing.  He got too close for her to stab so she punched him in the face.  He humphed and rolled with it, bringing the flail up so that the heavy metal ball at the end  would strike Sandra in the face.

She backed up, narrowly avoiding having her bones cracked by the blow.

Sandra thrust forward with the short sword, but he was wearing a breastplate.  The solid metal deflected her blow without any effort on his part, and she gave ground again to the flail as it came back down.

The ground shook with the flail’s impact, and Sandra feared what would happen if it hit her.

His kick was unexpected.  She grunted and fell back into Mira, who wasn’t expecting it either.  She got tangled up in the ridiculous dress Mira was wearing, and the next swingfrom the flail hit Sandra’s chest.  The breastplate absorbed most of the blow, but the force of it threw her to the side into a building.  Heavy bricks cushioned her fall, then a fist hit her in the face.  She heard the flail whirling through the air toward her head and knew that staying where she was would be a bad idea.

She surged forward, throwing the merc off balance and causing the flail to narrowly miss her head.  Sandra kept moving until she forced him into the building on the other side, driving her knee between his legs for good measure.

He grunted.

“Sandra!” 

Sandra ducked.  A sword whistled over her head and stabbed the flail-wielding mercenary in the eye.

“Oh!  Jake!”  The merc who did the stabbing looked shocked.  Sandra slashed him across the middle of the back with her blade and backed up again.

“We’re there.”  Mira’s voice cut through the sounds of battle and gave Sandra something to cling to.  They were there!  If they could just get into the building, they might be safe.

“Open the door.”  Sandra just had to hold out a little longer…

Two more mercs were coming down the alley, swords drawn.  Behind them was an endless sea of more.  Would they ever stop coming?

Sandra blocked, dodged, blocked, swung!  The guard backed out of the way.  Were they getting better, or was she getting more tired?  Maybe both…

Click.

Despite the raucous shouts of the guards further down the alley and the sounds of battle, Sandra heard the lock in the door click.

Mira jumped inside the building and Sandra was just behind her, slamming the door and throwing her shoulder against it before the guards could come through.  They tried.  The door shuddered with the impact of two people running into it from the other side, but it held.

“Mira!”  Sandra turned around and braced her back against the door, with her legs out at an angle so they could help reinforce her.  Each renewed blow of guards against the door sent a shock through her body.  At least they weren’t coming through!

“Sandra!”  Mira was breathless, holding the crossbow with one hand and her last bolt in the other.  “Nice rescue.”

“I thought so.

“Definitely style points.”  Mira leaned against a nearby weapons rack, sucking in deep gulps of air.  “The rescuing part could use some work…”

“Don’t I know it.”

Wait.

Weapon rack?

Sandra looked hard at the thing Mira was leaning against.  It was filled with crossbows!  And bolts!  Sandra couldn’t believe their luck…

“Hey, start… oof.”  That was a heavy one.  “Start loading those.”

“Hmm?”

“Load a bunch of crossbows, then instead of winching it every time you can just shoot, drop, shoot, etc.”

“Oh!”  Mira loaded her cross bow, then set it on the ground and started doing the same with the others.

“Are you hurt?” Sandra gave Mira a visual once over.  She didn’t look hurt, but her white dress was stained with so much blood that it was hard to tell.

“I’m okay… are you?”

Sandra thought about it.  She had a cut from the punch and some minor scrapes and bruises from the fighting so far.  Nothing big.

“I think I’m okay… here.”  Sandra rummaged in her pack, being careful to keep her weight against the door as the mercs kept trying to get through.  “Come here and drink this.”

Mira stepped forward, still loading a crossbow with her hands, and opened her mouth.  Sandra smiled and poured a cure minor wounds potion in.  Immediately Mira’s eyes went wide and she coughed in surprise.

“Woah!”  Mira blinked a few times to clear her vision, then felt around her forehead.  A small cut she got who-knows-where was gone.  “What was that?”

“Good, huh?”  Sandra chugged one herself.  Immediately she felt better.  Her breathing slowed, her heart stopped racing, and strength returned to her muscles.  She felt like she’d barely been warmed up, rather than fighting down a stinking alley for half an hour.  “The paladin had it.”

“Paladin?”  Mira had ten crossbows loaded now, and there were no more in the rack.

“Nevermind.  What are you wearing, by the way?”

“Like it?”

“Not very practical.”

“It’s the very latest in troll-sacrifice fashion.”  Mira spun in a flouncy circle.

“I see.”  Sandra couldn’t help but laugh, especially given the bright splashes of gore across the dress.  “I don’t think they’re going to give up…”  The door was still being banged upon.

“Yeah…”

“Okay.”  Bang.  “Here’s the plan: I’m going to charge through the door and kill them until I run out.”

“I’m listening…”

Bang.

“You just keep shooting them.”

Bang.

“That’s what we were just doing, right?”

“Right.”

“We’re screwed…”

“Hey now.”  Sandra thought about it.  “Yeah, we’re screwed.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Let’s do it.”  Mira screwed her face up in a grimace and nodded.  She looked confident.  Ready.

“Alright!”  Sandra hoped she looked just as confident.

Bang.

Sandra tensed her muscles, waiting for the next hit.  When the guards backed up to get some momentum, she would strike.

Bang.

Sandra burst through the door with a vengeance.  She came swords-first, slashing, thrusting and jabbing with abandon.  She cut through the first two guards like butter.  The next two were still shocked by the death of their friends when she cut one’s head off and stabbed the other in the gut.

Arrows whizzed by her head and the next two were dead.  Sandra looked back and saw Mira standing in the doorway, dropping two crossbows and going for two more.

Good girl.

The rest of the guards were more prepared, but Sandra was consumed with violence.  She was a flurry of death, marching into their ranks with single-minded purpose.  There were too many.  They would cut her down eventually, so she aimed to take as many with her as she could.  She gave up defense to advance.  Cuts came through, slashing her cheeks or finding their way past her breastplate into the leather guarding her sides.  She ignored them and pressed on, spinning away from the damage to bring her sword in a vicious arc.

The paladin’s magic helped, cutting through chainmail like skin.  She couldn’t break swords, but if the mercs weren’t wearing plate they might as well not be wearing anything.  She was careful with the short sword, aiming it for chinks, gaps and joints, but with the long sword she just kept hammering at them.

It was their turn to fall back.  Blood filled the alley, running between the cobbles and splattering across Sandra until she imagined there wasn’t a clean spot on her.  It coated her swords and made the air taste like copper and death.

The mercs started to get less and less enthusiastic about fighting her as the bodies piled up.  They had trouble finding footing amongst the dead from their previous advance, and now the alley was littered with bodies.  At least half weren’t dead, but they didn’t pose a threat either.  They lay on the ground groaning, holding entrails in or applying pressure to nearly-fatal wounds and hoping that someone would get to them soon with medical attention.

The living mercs slipped and slid on the blood of the fallen, and Sandra used that to her advantage.  She had no qualms about standing on the corpses, and they actually provided better footing than the slick cobbles.

Arrows sang mercilessly through the air.  Some came towards Sandra, most of those missed their mark, but most sought the lives of the mercs with hungry intensity.  Mira was out of preloaded crossbows, but had enough bolts from the supply in the house that she could just shoot without worrying about running out.

Finally Sandra found herself at the mouth of the alley, standing amongst a pile of the dead, and facing another thirty guards who stood in the square with swords at the ready.  They looked apprehensive.  They knew that if she came into the square she’d be dead, but they also now knew that if they came into the alley they would be dead.

One brave one came forward, testing Sandra with a thrust to the gut.

Sandra was not in the mood to be tested.  She slapped his sword aside with the short sword, hammered him in the face with the hilt of the paladin’s blade, and then stabbed him in the throat.

“Alright.  Alright!”  Sandra kicked the body away from her and growled at the remaining guards.  “Is this worth it?”

“What?”  Only one spoke, but they all had the question on their lips.

“You think you can take me!?”  Sandra was breathing heavily, and threw back a bloody lock of hair from her face.  “You’re probably right!”

“What?”

“Do you want to die doing it?  You were promised easy pay and a life of luxury!”  She kicked one of the bodies so it rolled over, its lifeless eyes staring up at the living guards.  “Is this worth it?  How many more will die?  Ten?  Twenty?”  Sandra pointed her magical sword at the one who was speaking.  “You?  How about you?”  She pointed at the guard next to him.

“…”  Some were shaking their heads.  Others were muttering.

“Leave!  Leave now!”

“No!”  A guard dressed in fancier armor walked forward, head high, and shouted over Sandra.  “Get her!  Kill her!  She’s only one woman!”

“Two!”  Mira let a bolt fly from behind Sandra.  The captain barely ducked to the side and the bolt hit someone else in the face.  That guard went down screaming as it pierced his cheek.  He would probably live, but it looked very painful.

“Okay… okay!  You want to fight me?”  She pointed at the captain with a fist full of sword.  “If you ask them to throw away their lives on my blade, shouldn’t you do that same?”

“Yeah!”

“Get her captain!”

The general rumbling of the mercs seemed to agree with her sentiment.

“I…”

Sandra stepped forward, brandishing her swords.  She put effort into breathing heavily and looking tired.  She was tired, but she hammed it up a little to make herself appear weak.

“Come on.  I’m just one woman.”  She stopped to suck in an especially deep breath, then let it out.  Blood streamed off her in rivulets, steaming in the cold night air, and she wiped some from her eyes.

The captain rushed forward, and the guards fanned out into a makeshift semi-circle behind him.  Sandra could see that he knew what he was doing and didn’t fall for the bait of his false charge.  At the last moment he stopped and brought his sword around in a sneaky arc that would have caught her off guard if she assumed he would be like the others.

Sandra blocked and countered . He parried, countered, sidestepped.  She followed his path, knocking away blows and trading her own in when she could.  His style was basic, but tight and his footwork was clean.  They circled three times around the square with the sound of cheering guards in their ears, testing each other.  She scored a few minor victories with the short sword, making painful but shallow cuts on his arms and legs, but couldn’t get through with the long sword.  He’d seen the damage she could do with it and wisely focused his defense on keeping it away.