Arthur quickly dismounted the horse and ran towards the house Captain Tasius was hiding within. He ducked and weaved through destroyed fruit stands and the like until he climbed through a side window and into the building.
The elite guards inside were on high alert and nearly skewered him with their halberds. “Stand down. This man is a friend.” Captain Tasius placed his hand on the weapons encouraging them to lower their tips pointed straight at Arthur’s face.
“Are you alright captain?” Arthur looked at the crossbow bolt sticking out from his shoulder, for now the bleeding had stopped with some bandages tightly wrapped around but once it needed to be removed there could be complications.
“For now I will be fine. I did take notice of you racing towards me on horseback shouting something. What exactly did you want to tell me?”
“I wanted to tell you the whole attack was a trap to lure as many of the city's guards to one location to be killed all at once. But it looks like you were the primary target of the attack.”
“Yes it does appear that this was all staged to get me out of the picture. But even if they did do that the next captain to replace me would have quickly brought order to the city, all criminal organizations that were involved in the attack would end up purged and the attention of the guard would be fully directed to the bandits once again. So I cannot say I understand their plan, as everything will eventually fall apart.”
“Sir, have you considered the possibility that an outside force is behind this attack?” The elite guard who held up the captain’s right arm asked.
“I have, but I cannot think of any group that would have the resources or desire to pull such an attack off.”
“What about the bandits? We have been absolutely wailing down on them so perhaps they are trying to keep us preoccupied.” Another elite guard spoke up while peeking out the windows at their assailants.
“That is certainly a possibility, but it would have taken a considerable amount of time to negotiate a deal between all the major groups, let alone the smaller ones. The only way they could have enough time to set this all up is if they ignored the smaller groups entirely.”
“While all this speculation is interesting, I think we should focus on the more important matter of how we are going to deal with the traitors on top of the wall raining down with crossbows.” Arthur interrupted the captain and his guards.
“Yes that is a good point, I actually have a proposal for how to deal with it.” Captain Tasius directed his men to set him down on a rickety old chair as he spoke.
“Great, what is it? Arthur smiled, now knowing there was a way out of this mess.
“We have two choices right now. First we can wait here for reinforcements that are equipped with either bows or crossbows to deal with the traitors.” The room went quiet at the idea of more waiting while the enemy could simply run away if they so wished.
“Our second option is to send someone up there to deal with the situation with a bit of help from a bag of fire seeds and support from inside the walls.” Captain Tasius smiled and turned to Arthur as he spoke.
“You want me to just walk up there with just a handful of fire seeds?” Arthur looked at the captain as if he grew a second head like a hydra.
“You will have support from inside the tower, I can send a few men to infiltrate from one of the sides and flank them from behind when you have them distracted.”
“That's nice and all, but what about all those crossbows all pointed towards me. I don’t have my armor with me and even then it took little effort to bypass yours.” Arthur pointed to Captain Tasius’s wound to further emphasize his point.
“I know, I know. But you have something neither we or they have, magic. All you need to do is conjure a thick enough shield of earth and hunker down while you roll a few fire seeds out from under small little holes in the bottom and wait for reinforcements. The guards atop those walls are dedicated to archery and the crossbow rather than the sword or spear, that leaves them at a disadvantage even if they have superior numbers.”
Arthur paused for a moment thinking over the risks and possibilities. “One last question. How long will it take you to run all the way through the battlements to their position?”
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
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The corporal looked over the battlements upon when the elite guards were now scattered and hiding behind cover, anyone else in his position would be boasting and quite happy with how things turned out, but not him.
‘Dam it! I was aiming for his head! Now they've managed to get away and hide in that building. If we attempt to go down there we won't survive the guards and their fire seeds, but if we wait reinforcements will arrive and butcher us like livestock.’
The corporal could feel the possibility of success slowly draining away from him with every second that passed. Every second that the captain lives for is a second closer to their treachery being discovered by the crown and their subsequent execution.
‘Should we just make a run for it now? If we do, we should be able to get out of the city, but the Rusted Daggers won't like that and will probably try to hunt us down. Even if they don’t care about our failure, our equipment might be tempting enough for them.’
Suddenly out of the corner of his eye he saw at least five guards grouped up and running to the west, and clearly he wasn’t the only one as his second in command turned to him and asked “Corporal, should we open fire on them?”
“Yes! Yes! Open fire! Don’t let them escape or they will return with reinforcements!” The corporal shouted at his men while he readied his own crossbow.
The path that the elite guards took was specifically chosen to bring enough attention to the traitorous guards atop their wall while withholding any good opportunities for a clear shot. They ducked and weaved through anything in their path resulting in practically all arrows and bolts missing their marks and instead hitting nearby walls and other obstacles.
With all their eyes on the five guards on the run they did not pay any attention to anything else that was happening in the area, a mistake they soon would regret.
“Shit!” The corporal shouted as the five guards quickly left the range of both bows and crossbows. ‘Soon they will be returning with reinforcements, and we will be in deep trouble.’
“Everyone! Collect all your valuables, we are getting out of here before things get any worse!” The corporal shouted to his men.
“But what about killing the Captain? Won't the Rusted Daggers be angry at us if we fail?” The corporal’s second in command spoke up after a short moment of silence.
“We can outrun them, once we are far enough away they will stop following us. The kingdom on the other hand will not stop unless we get far far away.”
All the newer members along with a handful of the more experienced members of the group were assigned with collecting all the things they would need to make it out of the capital and its surrounding regions. From there on they would trade, hurt or steal to get what they needed until they got far enough.
The rest of the group kept their bows and crossbows trained over the wall watching for anyone trying something. For a good fifteen minutes everything progressed as normal, a good portion of all the equipment and food they would need was packed up and no one had moved since the first group of five.
But suddenly they saw someone stepped out into the open, it was a human man wearing a brown overcoat over some clothes that appeared to be of above average quality, he presented himself in a way that gave the look of an alchemist. But the man did not stay standing for long, soon with his skill in geomancy he conjured a thick earth barrier with both his hands and began to quickly walk towards the wall.
“Open fire!” The corporal shouted at his men and they fired everything they could at the small earth barrier, but nothing appeared to work. When the human got close enough to the wall he used geomancy to create a set of stairs that allowed him to easily walk up to their height.
In response to their enemy getting closer some of the traitorous guards tried to find other angle to attack from where the human mage might not have covered himself, but they found that the barrier easily covered all the possible angles they could get to leaving him invulnerable.
But despite what the traitorous guards were thinking Arthur was not quite as invulnerable as they thought. The massive barrier he created required a large amount of mana to create and even more to maintain it. And just because the normal arrows were just bouncing off did not mean the crossbow bolts did nothing, in fact there were several sticking out from the wall leaving small almost invisible cracks that with several more well placed shots could cause the whole barrier to fall apart.
With a small leap Arthur managed to get atop the wall and confront the traitor guards without their height advantage. Although he could see them he could still hear them which helped him decide where to place the small holes to roll out a few fire seeds.
With a loud crash the earth barrier slammed into the stone brick floor and became a small fortress that Arthur could easily attack from without being harmed. And upon being placed on the ground the mana consumption dramatically dropped as he was no longer forcing the earth to levitate.
The corporal had several beads of sweat dripping down his face, a mage had just arrived on his doorstep and he was practically invincible without any magic weapons. Heck even a few alchemical devices would be helpful in such a situation.
‘Note to self, next time buy some alchemical items to help fight against mages.’
The corporal raised his crossbow again and fired a desperate attack, by the time the bolt hit the barrier he was halfway through loading another. He continuously fired bolt after bolt in a mix of fury and fear and only after he used up half of his ammunition did he notice that there were large cracks on the places where several bolts hit.
Hope returned to the corporal as he smiled a wicked smile, he had a way out of the impossible situation, even without alchemical items.