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Revolver in hand, Vincent rested his back on the wall near the window, peeking through the small lateral curtain gap. Joe's carriage was leaving, half out of the gate. The trader was bent forward, shaking the reins to make the horse walk faster. Riding in front and rear of the vehicle and back, the guards held their spears ready, scrutinizing the courtyard and the street.
What was in the carriage was what mattered. Two human shapes covered in blankets, with a tiny bump in between. Tied prisoners. The bump was Cupcake; thus, one of the prisoners was Irene. The second one was Irene's bodyguard, most likely.
"Fuck!" Vincent hissed. Giving a general alarm openly was out of the question. Likewise, firing his gun and risking hitting the hostages.
He activated Identify, hoping to see the second captive's identity. It failed. Instead, his gaze fell on the last horse, and the result made his heart skip a beat: War Mount, Elite. Level 60.
Vincent slapped his hand over his forehead, burrowing his finger in his skin, putting pressure on his eyes, then pinching his nose before moving to the back of his neck, massaging it. He sprung into action, dressing in seconds and darting out the door.
Lukas was out dating a maid, so he had only himself to mobilize people. Two doors down the corridor was Jorge's room. The door was unlocked, which spared him the time to break through. The young man was asleep, with his back turned to his roommate, a plumper scientist, who snored in the next bed. Leaving the door open to let the light from the corridor's oil lamps, Vincent shook Jorge's shoulder.
"Huh?" the young man moaned.
"Irene has been kidnapped. Joe did it. I need you to pick up your drone and meet me in the lobby, in five. Can you do that?"
Jorge shook his head. Vincent ran toward the end of the corridor, where Jong's room was, across Irene's. The girl's door was open, a finger's width. He woke the archer first to give him time to prepare, then barged into Irene's room to search for clues, only to find himself face-to-face with two black holes staring at him. The bodyguard's gun.
"Idiot, I almost shot you!" the woman blurted, lowering the weapon. "What are you doing here… where's Irene?" he furrowed her brow. "She didn't return yet?"
So Irene wasn't in her room when they took her?
"Joe kidnapped her," Vincent said bluntly. "Stop!" he put himself in front of the woman before she could rush out. "He has four guards. You jump them; you're as good as dead."
"Lukas enhanced my gun," she showed him the hunting rifle, her hands trembling. "Together, we can take them."
"The guards' horses are level sixty Elite War Mounts. You think that's normal for a bunch of Uncommon level thirties?"
"They hid their class?" she gasped.
"We have to play it smart. Meet us downstairs in two. Take as much ammunition as you can."
He darted on the stairs, his heart pumping like mad. I should have prepared for this. It was only a matter of time until someone made a move to get control of a Summoned, he admonished himself.
The inn's outside door was open, and Jorge was raising the drone. "They're beelining for the rear gate," he announced.
"There's a rear gate?" Vincent asked.
"Yeah, because of the road to Pragwyn. It's small, a ten-foot arch in the wall."
"How high can your thing fly?"
"Three thousand feet."
"For how long?"
"With the new magic enchantment, two hours."
Vincent grabbed Jorge's temples and kissed his forehead. "Atta boy! Get it up, maximum altitude. I need to see how the road goes."
"Give me a minute… What the fuck is that?" Jorge leaned the screen so Vincent could see it.
"Shit!" Vincent clenched his teeth. "The Mongols!"
"They weren't there this evening, I swear!" Jorge blurted.
Twenty miles to the north, a cluster of hundreds of campfires on a hill. Pragwyn was at the same distance but eastward. Far from having the same brightness as on Vincent's earth, it was still recognizable.
"Go grab the Mongol bow and arrows," Vincent ordered Jong. The Korean had his compound bow suitcase in hand.
"But this is better—"
"We'll need both bows. Just do it." Vincent cut the argument short, showing the image to the bodyguard. "That's a Mongol army. I took out one of their scouts yesterday. That's Pragwyn, the capital. Joe is going there."
"But why kidnap Irene?" Jorge asked. "I mean… a social scientist? No one gives a fuck about social science."
"She did bring you guys together, didn’t she? And she’s also a Sorcerer."
"Sorcerers are Rare tier classes, so it's no big deal."
"Last evening, Irene went to… see Bee. I waited for her for an hour, and then I fell asleep," the bodyguard said, biting her lower lip.
"Bee's the target!" Vincent yelped, realizing the truth. "A Legendary Academic… They want him to make them advanced weapons or something."
"Boy, they are in for a surprise," Jorge laughed. "Bee has no practical sense at all. He knows only quantum physics and—"
"Which will get them killed when the kidnappers realize the truth," Vincent said without any nuance in his voice, knowing that a neutral tone was the best to snap people back to reality. "We must save them before he opens his mouth…. Shit! Don't you think we should have a quest about that? This is strange… Never mind. Where are they?"
"Barely a mile away." Jorge touched the screen over a tiny dot.
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"We exit the town and cut through the forest, through here," Vincent traced a line. "Let's move."
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An hour later, they exited the forest shortcut at a stranglehold beside a ravine. Deadly yet unassuming. People often thought a precipice meant a thousand-foot vertical drop, looking like the Matterhorn on a bad day. Vincent knew better: a fifty-foot fall was as likely to kill someone. This one was two hundred and not straight; it had a slight incline.
"They'll be here in about fifteen minutes," Jorge said, trying to appear calm despite his trembling hands. "What's the plan?"
"I shoot the ones in the back, Vincent shoots the ones in front, the Korean shoots Joe," the bodyguard said. "Take care not hitting the—"
"Brief question: what's your name?" Vincent asked.
"Brandi?"
"And… what's your class, Brandy?"
"Oh, that… Rogue. But I can hide it. There's a skill displaying a random—"
"It says Sexual Worker."
"No!" Brandi gasped.
"Yeah… I thought you might want to explore new things… If you're a Rogue, you have some hiding skills, right?"
"I do… for now, it's about standing still."
"Then you'll stand still up there," Vincent pointed to a bush higher on the slope. "Jorge will hide behind the ridge, above you, staying out of the fight, and Jong farther to the East, to have the best line of fire."
"But—"
"In the Special Service, you were all about protecting an asset, right?"
"Of course," Brandi nodded.
"And I was all about attacking one. This is how it's gonna go: I'll make sure that bridge falls under the last riders," Vincent pointed to a few logs that were fixed along the ravine's wall, supporting the road. "It'll appear an accident. Maybe they die, but at their levels, I think they'll survive. They'll have to regroup, and—"
"Why not attack the first riders?" Brandi asked. "That would block the cart, forcing them to rebuild the bridge. We shoot them while they work."
"They'll take Bee and Irene on the horses and pass through the forest. But if the carriage is safe, they'll concentrate on helping their buddies out of the water. I'll sneak inside the cart, free our people, and lead them somewhere safe. Then we shoot them with everything we have, retreating and covering each other."
Vincent paused, squeezing his eyes shut. He didn't know if the Mongols intended to lay siege to Krivoburg or not. They would jump out of the frying pan into the fire if so. The lack of information, any quest or notification, was getting maddening. Nevertheless, the Mongols were a problem for later.
"Ten minutes, max," Jorge announced.
"Take positions. Sorry, moment… If my plan fails, I'll lure them away… Jorge, follow them with the drone and see where they go and what castle or mansion they enter. You have the autonomy, right?"
"I'll make it happen," Jorge promised.
"Let's rock and roll," the bodyguard said, going up the hill.
Knife in hand, Vincent went down the slope, under the bridge, and cut a few indentations into the first two trunks serving as pillars. Such constructions were sturdy, but it was not a matter of destroying it but making it fall. He tied a few ropes around them, then to a fallen tree below. A storm or weak roots had dislodged it from its place, and only a few branches stuck stopped it from falling into the precipice. Vincent made sure to reduce that support to a single branch, to which he tied a rope and retreated into the forest, hiding under the leaves.
A couple of minutes later, the first two riders arrived. Their disguises were off; they were level sixty Dark Knights, Elites. The class's name sent a shiver down Vincent's spine. The riders went over the bridge, moving slowly. The wood creaked but stayed together. The carriage followed. Vincent could hear sobs, but if it was Irene or Bee, he couldn't know. The last two riders came, and as he hoped, they advanced together. When they reached the right spot, Vincent pulled the string with as much force as possible. The last branch gave way, and the loose trunk slid down, pulling on the bridge support.
The distance between the beams increased by an inch, then two. The wood wobbled and shifted to the right. Neighing, the War Mount on the right tried to regain its equilibrium, only to fall into the ravine with a giant pile of wood beams after him. The steed somersaulted, falling over the rider, and then they both ricocheted and fell onto a group of pointy rocks before being thrown in the air again and crashing into the stream below. Dead, there was no doubt about it. The pile of debris fell on them. Tons of wood and displaced rocks.
The second horse jumped off the collapsing bridge of its own volition, surfing on the slope and staying on all fours. It was an extraordinary feat, albeit not one Vincent wished for.
"What are you idiots doing?" Joe screamed. "Let me pass, morons," he yelled as the first two Knights tried to help their comrades. Seeing reason, they dismounted and returned to the remains of the bridge on foot, talking to the one below. Joe joined them.
It was the moment Vincent waited to execute his real plan, one so risky that he dared not to tell the others about it. No notification came—which was scary—but his open Menu showed his level was now twenty-one. He instantly bought Outsider's Stride, Insight, and Iron Grip. The last two were optional, but the first was essential.
There was no gauge, notification, or indicator, but deep inside him, he knew he had an almost full Karma pool, as he had hoped, counting retroactively. He imagined a gate would open to the cart but was teleported there instead. Joe and the riders were looking the other way.
Vincent removed the blanket, revealing two terrorized faces and a hissing cub. He threw the tiger on his back, hoping it would have the instinct to grab onto his clothes, then put his hands on Bee and Irene. The plan was to get them back to the town, but he felt resistance when he tried to do that, so he transported himself and the hostages next to Jong.
"Use the Mongol bow. Shoot as many arrows as you can," he blurted, taking cover and starting to untie the prisoners. The cub jumped down and chewed on the rope, trying to help. Irene and Bee were mumbling something through their gags. "
"The Mongols!" a Knight yelled bellow as an arrow hit his helmet. "Retreat!"
"It's not the Mongols, stupid, it's their friends," Joe yelled. "They're up the hill." The man had put on a monocle that was shining a faint blue. A scanning device. "Get them, what are you waiting for?"
Mounting their horses, the two knights started to climb the hill. The one from the ravine had made a slight detour to find less steep ground and was almost out of it.
"Fire at will," Vincent shouted. "You two, hide behind the ridge," he instructed the hostages.
Jong took his compound back and aimed at the incoming hostiles. The arrow hit one knight square in the chest, the point exiting through the back, yet the man kept coming. Vincent added his bullets to the fray. He shot the closest foe in the head, thrice, directly in the face; the visor was up. Brains poured out through the spaces between the shattered bones; the back of the skull was visible, but the enemy didn’t even flinch.
Brandi's gun barked, and the horse neighed in agony, shot in its belly. Its knees bucked, and it rolled down the slope with its rider, resting momentarily on the bridge, then crashing into the ravine.
"Shit!" the archer yelled in pain. A black bolt shot forward from the Knight's spear, impaling the Korean's shoulder. Brandi and Vincent's guns were empty; they were reloading. With a groan of satisfaction, the knight raised his weapon, towering over Vincent. The young man teleported away. A second later, flying at full speed, the drone brushed against the knight's helmet. Already unbalanced by his position, the rider jerked back, making his horse miss a step, and both fell backward, joining their friends in death at the bottom of the canyon.
"Get him!" Vincent yelled at Jong, pointing at Joe, who was running away on foot.
"You want me to shoot him in the back?" Jong complained.
"Yes!" Vincent screamed, shooting at the last incoming knight, the one thrown into the valley at the beginning of the ambush. The enemy had dismounted, realizing the horse was a liability on that kind of slope, and was climbing alone, sword in hand. He looked like a porcupine from Jong's arrows, bled from at countless bullet holes, but still walked on, unbothered.
Irene and Bee started to throw rocks, a mere annoyance and no more. The knight was twenty paces away, and Vincent's gun was again empty. Brandi closed the battle by sneaking behind the knight and shooting him in the back at point blank, blowing the knight's head into smithereens. Meanwhile, the knight's mount had taken off, and there was nothing to do about that.
A hundred yards farther on the road, Joe laid on his back, panting, with an arrow in his thigh.
"I managed to maim him," Jong spoke.
"Kill him," Vincent said with a glacial tone.
"C'mon man, he's defenseless," Jong pleaded. "Let's take him to town to face justice."
"He will tell lies, how he was forced to do it, then some nobles from the capital will arrange he walks free," Vincent hissed. "Then he'll come after us with more of those bastards, and the next time, they'll bring ranged weapons and wizards."
"He planned to sell me as a sex slave," Irene said, her voice shaking. "We heard them talking… about the price catgirls fetch…" she choked.
With the faintest woosh, an arrow flew straight into Joe's eye. The man flailed his arms and then fell on his back, jerking uncontrollably a few times before all movement stopped.
"What do you know, that aiming device works just fine," Jong said. "Thanks, Joe."