[Moderate Violence]
Morning passed to afternoon as the party finally left the wind-carved river valley behind. The road curved until it stopped heading north and faced directly east, towards the bandit's hideout.
They left the randomly arched spruce trees behind. They came to a strange forest of thick-trunked trees with branches only on the upper half. Unlike the spruce trees turning randomly of their own accord, these all leaned heavily to the south as if in a windstorm.
Rhunal held up her hand to test the wind, but it was a calm day. The road passed between two small hills, and the party passed between them.
Behind her Lovell stopped. She heard his traveling pack hit the ground with a thunk.
“AMBUSH! Weapons out now!” he shouted.
Even as he said it, he strung an arrow to his bow. Hugh set his crossbow with the lever mechanism. Bron gripped his axe firmly and scanned the treeline above him. Rhunal didn’t bother with the dagger, channeling her firebolt spell and igniting the air around her hand with a rush of flame.
She heard the creak of a heavy bow in the wooded slope above her and the twang as the arrow released. Lovell heard it as well, as it went towards his head. He instinctively twisted to the side. The arrow passed just in front of his face and smashed into the road.
Lovell’s eyes were as wide as saucers, but despite the near miss, he kept his grip on his own shortbow. He drew it back while pivoting to face the direction the arrow had come from. A man in the woods with a longbow was trying to noch another arrow. Lovell loosed his arrow, and from behind, she heard the harsher thunk of Hugh’s crossbow launching its bolt as well.
The bowman caught both projectiles through the ribs within the same half second in a dull thwack. He dropped his longbow and clutched the bolt frantically. Both had gone deep and he quickly collapsed.
She heard someone sprinting down the hill on the opposite side of the road from the dead archer. She spun around, but with all the adrenaline pumping through her, the spell collapsed as her focus was lost. Another attacker, clad in thick leather armor, charged towards Lovell with a javelin in his hand.
“Lovell! Look out!” she yelled.
He started to turn around too late and the javelin flew. The attacker was much closer than the bowman had been and had a good arm. Lovell caught the projectile out of the corner of his eye. He evaded enough that the javelin carved across his thick leather vest and slashed deeply across his arm. Lovell’s bow went flying, and he fell to the ground a second after. The attacker who had thrown the javelin continued to charge towards him.
The man halted in place as her hastily hurled firebolt passed in front of him. She could hardly believe the speed of his movement. Unfortunately the heat and whoosh of the spell made it easy to see coming. But it was not so slow that stopping mid-run would have been easy.
In a moment, he had his sword in his hand and had changed his target, to her. She ignited another firebolt. The man was close, too close for more than one more blast. She waited until he was almost point blank range and launched!
He threw himself to the side catching himself on the ground with his open hand. The firebolt sailed past his head and impacted the ground behind him. Before he could fully rise, Rhunal was on him. She didn’t know when she had grabbed her dagger, but there it was in her hand.
She brought it down at the man, clutching it in both hands like a greatsword. The man barely managed to get his short-sword in the way in time. Her attack was unpracticed and clumsy, but she was still a six foot tall orc bringing all her strength down on a man who was perhaps five foot four. It was all he could do to not have her blast through his one-handed block. If she had wielded a more formidable weapon, then he wouldn’t have had a chance.
But as Rhunal pushed his sword back, she heard the nasty squeal of metal, a chunk of her dagger shear off from the rest, and the blade twist from her weight. Rhunal snapped her head back as her dagger snapped neatly in two. The man’s shortsword slashed up, severing a chunk of her bangs.
She had lunged back too far and fell to her butt. Fortunately, her initial swing had driven him to the ground as well. He was in no position to press his advantage.
“Piece of shit dagger!” She swore while clutching the now blade-less handle.
Both rose in the same moment. The man stepped towards her with his short-sword raised in reverse grip.
'I don't have time for a spell!' she thought in a panic.
She hurled the dagger handle at his face as he charged. It made hefty wooden thwock sound as it glanced off his helmet, but did not stop him. He stabbed down at her with his short sword. She leaned away with her hand up to try to catch his arm. The man was too swift. It wasn’t going to be that easy.
And then she heard the thwump of a crossbow. The bolt buried itself deep in the man’s armpit. It was an excellent shot that hit the weakest point in the armor. Blood sprayed from the wound.
The man fell forward towards her. She stepped out of the way and the man hit the ground beside her. He had been a very skilled opponent, and she breathed an audible sigh of relief.
Rhunal looked over at Hugh who nodded, setting his crossbow for another shot. But further down the path the sounds of combat broke out again. Brondulf was alone!
*
Bron had been ambushed as he heard the sounds of combat behind him on the path from the others. A man wielding a two-handed axe, similar to his own, came charging down the hill towards him. He heard a second off to his left. The man cursed as he watched Hugh and Lovell shoot down his comrade.
“I’ll block the line of fire to the crossbowman. You take him out.”
Bron doubted the man’s friend needed much encouragement, he barreled down the hill full of bravado. With a shout, the man swung at his head! Bron extended the haft of the greataxe, catching the other weapon under the axe-head. His bearded axe was reinforced with iron straps along the haft, but there was no reason to push his luck.
The hafts of both smashed with a loud ‘slam’! Both weapons became entangled, and it turned into a shoving match instead. The noble was seven feet tall. Perhaps his opponent had misjudged his height from the hill above. And now he realized his mistake too late.
The giant shoved the other so hard that his axe-haft pressed into his own chest. Then Bron pulled his axe sharply to the right. With his own axe pinned to his body, the man could not defend himself. Bron’s axe-head cleaved across his throat. The man fell with a gurgle and a spray of blood.
The big noble heard rapid footsteps coming towards him. The other man had seen his friend in trouble, but was far too late to help him. Bron lunged forward to keep his head away from the man’s likely angle of attack. He trusted his armor. His face and neck were the only real vulnerable targets. He felt the impact of a sword high on his shoulder. It resounded off his mail hauberk with a metallic clank.
He pivoted around to face the attacker. But rather than lean away from his attacker to get a full chop at him, he leaned toward him. His opponent held a saber and a shield and raised his shield to defend himself. Bron was close enough to extend his axe past the side of the shield. The man’s sword on that side was raised to strike again and in no position to defend.
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