Chapter Fifty - Ambush

“Drop all of your weapons and equipment and get onto your knees,” the deer-person (Cervid, Amaryllis had called them) in the middle of the pack before us said.

“This isn’t good,” Amaryllis said. Her knife-wand slid into her hand from somewhere and began to crackle with an electric hum. “Cover the rear,” she said.

I nodded and spun around, my backpack coming off to be tossed to the side as I pulled my shovel off my pack and held it before me. “Insight,” I muttered.

A confident Cervid Lancer, level ?.

A confident Cervid Runner, level ??.

A bored Cervid Plains Speaker, level ?.

“They’re pretty strong,” I said. That had just been the three that snuck up behind us. I was willing to bet the leader was even stronger.

“We can take them,” Amaryllis said, her voice brimming with confidence that I didn’t doubt for a moment was fake. “It’s just three on six.”

I wondered what she meant for a moment before I saw Orange wriggle out from her shirt to come padding through the air. She stood floating at shoulder height next to me.

Licking my lips, I stepped up towards the nearest group of deer people and raised my voice so that they could all hear. “Hey everyone. My name is Broccoli. My friend and I were just travelling by here. If this is your bridge we apologies.”

“Five, Six, you’re on the secondary target. Two, Three, Four, you’re with me on the primary,” the one I suspected was the leader said.

Judging by the way the cervids shifted, the numbers were their names. Or at least, code names. Most of them were wearing helmets of one sort or another, and all of them had padded clothes on, like my gambeson but stretched out over their entire bodies. No markings that I could tell except for thin orange lines on their shoulders. Their equipment looked uniform, all made of the same materials and with the same cut.

Were these soldiers?

“Broccoli,” Amaryllis said. “You should run. It’s me they’re after.”

“No,” I said. That wasn’t going to happen. I didn’t abandon friends, especially not when they were about to be attacked by some bandits or something.

“Break!” the leader said, and that ended any hope that we could have a civil discussion.

Amaryllis was the first to act, her knife hand stabbing at the air even as a thunderous boom sounded out and a pillar of bluish light as thick around as my wrist shot out and hit one of the deer folk.

He screamed as his body convulsed and his charge turned into an ungainly flop to the ground.

I didn’t have time to feel pity for him.

Two of the deer people rushed straight at me. One with bare hands, the other with a long spear. The Lancer and Plains Speaker.

I froze for just a moment, the cracking of their hooves on the stone bridge like machine gun fire in my ears and the focus in what I could see of their eyes in the slits of their helmets rooting me on the spot.

Then Orange collided with the Lancer’s face and his spear slid past me, cutting a hot line into my sides as it caught on the edge of my gambeson.

I screamed and did the first thing that I could think of. I jumped.

The Plains Speaker looked up to me in time to win a foot to the face. I used him as a springboard to land on the hip-high stone railing of the bridge.

This wasn’t some fight in a dungeon where the enemies were only mostly real. This was dangerous, truly dangerous.

Amaryllis was ducking and weaving around a pair of spears trying to hit her, sparks flying out of her talons and skittering across the skin of her enemies. She was taking them four on one and, somehow, was holding her ground.

One of the cervids was a mage of some sort, throwing translucent shields around that took Amaryllis’ attacks without so much as a shudder. “Orange, help her!” I screamed.

I didn’t want to fight, I didn’t want to hurt people. I didn’t want to be attacked. And I especially didn’t want to fail a friend.

I swallowed and tightened my grip on my spade.

The Lancer spun around and his spear darted towards me. I batted it aside, jumped off the railing so that I was right up in front of him, then I fired a blast of cleaning magic right in his face. He stumbled back, which gave me all the time I needed to hop up so that I was a bit above him. I came down with my entire weight swinging the head of my spade down on his helmet.

The ‘bong’ of steel meeting steel was like music.

The Cervid Lancer said some rude things as he took a step back.

I didn’t have time to follow up as the Plains Speaker flung his arms out at me, a net opening wide in the air between us.

Eyes widening, I flung my spade at the net and, fortunately, slowed it down enough that I was able to side-step it.

The Lancer shifted his helmet back in place with one hand and looked ready for more.

And now I was without a weapon.

I jumped, flying over the Plains Speaker.

He raised both hands to catch me but I brought one arm up and pointed it at his face. “Fireball!” I screamed.

The Plains Speaker shielded his face.

No fireballs happened.

I did get to land on the opposite railing without any issue though. My spear was next to my backpack, but I didn’t have time to grab it. Instead I pressed both feet against the rail and shot backwards as hard and fast as I could, my legs springing out to trail behind me.

I crashed into the Plains Speaker shoulder-first.

The breath escaped from his lungs with an ‘oomph’ and he stumbled backwards until he was pressed up against the rails.

The Lancer had moved out of the way and was stabbing for me again. I don’t know how I avoided the stab, it was all a blur of scrambling limbs to try and not get poked by the shining tip of his spear.

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I grabbed the end of the lance just behind the metal spike at its end and, with my entire weight behind it, swung it around and into the Plains Speaker’s side.

The Plains Speaker yowled as his partner’s spear cut through his cloth armour. The Lancer yanked it back and out of my grip, but the damage was done.

I froze for a moment as blood spurted out of the wound and onto my hands.

It was hot.

The Lancer’s foot kicked out and I coughed as a steel-shod hoof buried itself in my side.

I crashed to the ground. Rocks dug into my palms and knees as I tried to gather my breath and fight through the pain.

A shadow moved above me. The Lancer, his spear raised up to strike.

I rolled backwards, a move that I hadn’t done since gym class some time ago. I was soon under the Lancer, on my back with my legs above me.

My stamina dropped to near-empty. “Meanie!” I screamed as both feet crashed into his chest in what would have been the strongest jump I ever made, were I standing up.

The Lancer went flying.

He was lighter than I would have thought, barely heavier than I was when wearing my full pack and gear.

The last I saw of him were flailing limbs as he went over the railing and splashed into the water.

No ‘ding’ that announced that I had killed anyone. Good.

I was panting and rolling onto my feet when a hoof rammed into my side and sent my rolling across the bridge. “Ah!” I tried to scream, but my lungs hurt too much.

With tears in my eyes I looked up to find the Plains Speaker walking up to me. He was favouring his injured side and had taken off his helmet. It was laying off on the ground some feet away.

His expression wasn’t pretty. “Filthy human scum,” he spat out before lashing out with another kick.

I couldn't do much to stop this one either except to curl into a ball around the impact to my stomach and try to keep my lunch inside as pain roiled across my chest.

“Making me look like an--” he began, then stopped.

Amaryllis screamed.

We both looked over to see her pinned to the ground, the long shaft of a spear through her thigh.

“No,” I said.

“Hah, see what happens when--” the Plains Speaker began to say as he turned back to me.

I wasn’t where he had left me.

My shaking hand clenched the edge of the helmet he dropped.

The cervid turned around just as I swung with every last bit of strength I had left in me. His helmet caught him full in the side of the face.

I saw a tooth fly.

“Don’t!” I said.

I swung in the other direction and caught him in the forehead.

“Hurt.”

This time the point of the helmet caught him across his deer-like nose. It crunched.

“My.”

He was falling back, eyes watery and wide, blood spurting out of his nose as he exhalled. I couldn’t reach his face anymore. I let my hand fall into the helmet, wearing it like an oversized glove as I pushed what little stamina I had left into a forward lunge.

“Friends!”

My wrist snapped.

I cried out and pulled my hand back to my chest. The helmet, with its pointy edges, stayed stuck in the Cervid’s chest armour.

I was breathing in gasps as I cradled a wrist that wasn’t bending the right way.

The four remaining Cervids were moving closer. One had Amaryllis bound and unconscious on his back.

“Kill her?” One of them asked.

“No,” the leader said. “She’s a witness. Where’s Five?

One of them, the mage, snorted. “Went over the edge. He’s swimming to shore.”

The leader looked over the side of the bridge and sighed. “Against a level six. Sad. Four, knock her out. Two, give Five a healing potion.”

I watched as one of them raised a wooden wand my way. Light gathered at the end of it.

I tried to jump but my legs only wobbled.

The ball of light crashed into my chest and sent me flying back.

I wished that the world went black, that I would fade into the abyss of unconsciousness. No such luck. I writhed on the ground, tears streaming and teeth grit against the pain. I saw the Plains Speaker, looking the worse for wear, stopping above me.

His hoof came down and planted itself on my leg and twisted.

“Six!” the leader called back over my scream. “We’re going. Leave her.”

“Tch,” Six, the Plains Speaker said.

He spat on me and walked away with a limp.

I heard them all moving off, five sets of hooves clacking across the bridge. They were joined by the lancer I had thrown off the edge.

Then their voices faded away into the distance. It didn’t matter to me.

My hand, my left hand that still shook, reached into my bandoleer. Fingers scrapped across broken glass as I pulled out my broken trifecta potion. The remains had leaked out.

I flung the glass aside with a cry.

My backpack was still there. Someone had kicked it, but it was otherwise untouched. They weren’t bandits here for our stuff.

I crawled to it.

Health 31/120

Stamina 02/125

Mana 79/115

I wasn’t bleeding, not much that I could tell, but I was hurting all over. I didn’t want to wait and see if I would heal over time.

Reaching my pack was hard, looking through it was harder.

Then Orange came closer and I saw the kitty climb into the backpack. She came out with a potion between her teeth.

“Thanks,” I said. The cork came off. I downed it in one swallow. It was surprisingly sweet.

Health 37/120

Stamina 02/125

Mana 79/115

My health was ticking upwars, a point every few seconds. I found a second potion and drank it too.

The pain left, but it was slow. A soothing warmth that banished the hurt.

I sat against the side of the bridge and waited for my health to climb back to full. And in the meantime, I allowed myself to cry.

***