Nineteen: Another Shooter

Thanks to TheD for your support!

I saw him before he saw me, and ducked behind a tree. It was one of the guards that looked excited about hunting me, so I felt less bad about what I was going to do to him.

Peeking over a low hanging branch, I tracked the guard by the movement of his helmet. The little bronze ridge at the center moved steadily forward, like a shark fin parting the waves.

Once he passed me, I slid around the tree, came up behind him, and caught him around the neck.

“Grrk!” he managed to gurgle before I cut off his air. He squirmed like a fish on a line, eyes bulging indignantly. If this was the first time in his life someone had caught him off guard, then the palace wasn’t training their soldiers right.

I watched his face go red slowly, shade to shade like a painter mixing colors, and then he slumped in my arms. Not feeling particularly sympathetic, I wasn’t very careful with his body after that, dragging him off the path and letting him fall in a heap by some shrubs.

One down. A fuckton more to go.

A shape pressing down the grass caught my eye as I came out, wiping my hands from imaginary dirt. Upon investigation, I found the guard’s bow, dropped when I’d grabbed him, like he wanted me to have it.

How thoughtful!

Now armed with a bow and the quiver I scavenged off the unconscious guard, I continued silently down the path, steps light and quick. Archery wasn’t really my strong suit, but having a weapon was better than having nothing, and Valentin hadn’t said I couldn’t defend myself. Truly, I was making this more interesting by leveling the playing field. He should be grateful that I was putting in so much effort to improve his little game for him.

I was flying down the path, feeling confident and carefree. This was nothing, five hours would be over in a blink –

“Awooooo!”

I stilled, upper body jolting at the sudden loss of momentum. The arrows clattered in my quiver, forward, then back.

The first howl was joined by a second, a third.

Hunting dogs.

Oh, that’s just great.

‘We won’t use horses to make it fair’ – fuck off. When was that vicious prince going to tell me that they were using dogs? It hadn’t been very long since I’d entered, they couldn’t be struggling so badly to find me already. I could only assume he was keeping that from me on purpose, just for fun. Just to catch me off guard.

What an asshole. His father had taught him well.

Luckily, I was able to out-asshole even the most incorrigible of men. It was a skill I’d honed for quite some time.

Prepare yourself, prince. You’re going to regret capturing me.

With that oath silently offered to the wind, I kept going, listening intently for any sounds of rushing water. There had to be at least one creek or river running through these grounds, somewhere for the hunting party to water their horses. The dogs had my scent; I had to find a way to throw them off track.

After jogging for a few more minutes, the barking of the dogs faded some, allowing me to hear the faint gurgle of a water source. Following the sound, I quickly came to the bank of a small stream, more of a creek, really. It flowed down back the way I’d come, so I quickly waded through it to the other side, then began following it upstream. It wouldn’t help me for long, but it would give me some time to find a good place to defend myself from. Constant running would wear me out faster, so finding rest stops periodically would be best.

Thankfully, after another thirty minutes of travel, the sound of the dogs fully faded, meaning that they’d probably hit the stream and gotten confused, giving me more time, not that I needed it. The landscape had been gently sloping upward for some time now, and at that moment, I came upon a rock outcropping with a small waterfall. There was a small opening in the rocks to the left of the waterfall leading to a small cave.

The walls were smooth, and upon investigation, there was a small opening in the ceiling, carefully carved, which meant the palace had deliberately created this shelter for their hunts. A rest point where they could build a fire and cook whatever they’d caught.

Unfortunately, that meant Valentin and the others definitely knew about this place, and would check here eventually. But for now, it would be a good place to hide and wait for someone to come along.

Since they were coming after me one by one, I would take them out as they arrived.

I slumped into the wall of the cave, folding my arms behind my head. What a strange situation to find myself in.

I couldn’t help but wonder exactly how the king was going to…extract information from me. He wanted my skills, I knew that, so how was this going to work? Was he going to have me as a sort of guest instructor for his men? Was he just going to privately interrogate me to figure out my methods? And more importantly, what lies was I going to come up with to keep him from gaining the keys to my tricks?

Because the last thing I wanted was for the king of Pansolum to be able to do what I could. He’d become more of a scourge than he already was. It would be good for nobody – not the surrounding kingdoms, nor his own people.

If I was right about Valentin, however, I could leverage the son against the father. Use him as a weapon to keep the king in check, and then I could leave without worrying about the king of Pansolum taking over the world.

What do you care about the world? A voice that sounded suspiciously like Garrick’s echoed through my head.

 I don’t, I replied to it. But I’m kind of a part of it, so.

I could certainly fuck off to some forgotten corner of the world and live out the rest of my days without worrying about what was going on in the world, but that was an optimistic outlook. Trouble would still find me eventually. I had no care to save the world, but saving myself in the long term would require some careful obfuscation on my part, as well as a little…reeducation of a certain prince.

A little smirk found its way onto my face at the thought, but quickly vanished as a sharp whistle sounded. I rolled to the side just in time for an arrow to hit the rock wall behind me hard enough to chip a chunk away. Clunk! And it clattered to the ground with the arrow, now dented and useless.

…I thought he said they weren’t going to try to fucking kill me? That would’ve gone right through my head if I hadn’t moved.

I frowned at the arrow as I scrambled to my feet. Some strange instinct made me scoop the fallen arrow up, tucking it into my waistband as I took out one of my own arrows and darted out of the cave, bow raised in the direction the arrow had come from.

The creek, trees, rocks. Not even the shadow of another person. It had been a couple minutes already, but no more arrows came at me despite how I was now out in the open.

I held my breath, waiting for movement.

“You think yourself a little assassin, do you?” I called. Leaves rustled gently in the wind. “What, you don’t want to try again? Isn’t the point to catch me? What are you waiting for?”

The creek gurgled along, obliviously happy. No one stepped forth. Still cautious, I kept the bow up as I walked sideways along the rock wall so no one could shoot me in the back. Once I felt I was far enough along, I started running. No one chased me. No one shot at me again.

So what was that? A warning shot?

I took a winding path from thereon, and once the ground started leveling out again, I slowed to a walk and pulled out the arrow that had been shot at me.

It was a sleek, black shaft fletched with black feathers. The tip was iron and razor sharp, although it was now bent in half from its impact against the rock.

Dirt crunched under my boots as I stopped. I pulled out an arrow from my quiver.

Brown shaft, white and gray feathers.

I thought back to the guards, trying to remember if any of them were carrying unusual arrows, or if they were all the same. Valentin’s arrows were the same as the guard I’d stolen these from, I remembered that from when he held it in my face.

So either one of the guards had their own bow and arrows, not standard issue, or…

There was someone else out here. Someone that legitimately wanted me dead.