It's been nearly two years since the last update, and I can really only apologize to anyone who's still following this. I tried for months to write this part, but didn't get it done, for a combination of lack of inspiration and effort. It's been about a year since I tried and I got something I'm mostly happy with. I hope you enjoy it, it's quite likely the last thing I'll write for this fanfiction.
Leah stumbled and rolled as the man behind her drew a sword from its sheath with a rasp. She drew her twin knives from her belt and hefted them as she found her feet again and turned to face her attacker. He held a long dagger in one hand and a smaller one in the other, as she did. He wore worn mail armor, missing one bracer, and his hands were gloved with leather.
"You'd have been better off stabbing me with that knife of yours," Leah hissed at him, pushing her hood off of her head fluidly. "Would've saved you the trouble of dying!"
He scowled and yelled something in Gallican she couldn't understand - she never cared to learn the language. She began to close in on the man, knives ready, and he did likewise, keeping the long dagger in front of him to keep her at distance. She took an experimental swipe with her saxe and he blocked it with his longer weapon; she brought her throwing knife around and he took it on the smaller dagger. She followed up immediately with a kick to his gut; he grunted and reflexively leaned forward. Without pausing, she headbutted him hard and he recoiled, bringing his weapons away and dropping his guard. She leapt forward and tackled him, bowling them both over, and plunged her saxe into his chest as they came to a stop a few meters away.
She tore it from his body and threw herself toward the nearest tree, grasping its trunk with her blade and scaling it. She could hear the man's allies already yelling and closing in; they'd not hesitate to shoot her on sight if they had crossbows. She hadn't seen the men carrying any, but in the dim light of the forest one could never be too cautious. Flickering torchlight threw long shadows onto the forest floor as three of the soldiers carefully padded into the area, swords drawn. As they caught sight of the bloodied remains of the panicked man Leah had shot, illuminated by his own fallen torch's light, they uneasily glanced behind them. The legend of the Ranger was as strong as ever, it seemed.
She slid her knives back into their sheaths and drew her crossbow, quarrel still loaded. The men began to investigate the body, finding only the single quarrel embedded in his throat. After a minute's investigation, they found the second man's body, also killed by the single wound to the heart. After just moments of consideration, one of the men yelled to another, who nodded, sheathed his sword and began running to alert the other soldiers.
Leah cursed and raised her crossbow, but the branches and leaves of the tree were between her and the soldier. She hastily dropped to a lower branch, trying to catch a glimpse of him through the canopy, but there was still too much foliage blocking her view. She couldn't risk taking a shot on a rapidly moving target through several meters of branches swaying in the midnight breeze.
She slipped across the branch, grasping another from a close-by tree, and began to make ground on the soldier, who was clumsily maneuvering around the dense tree trunks of the forest. He was evidently not used to running through the forest in autumn, as the many leaves he crunched underfoot allowed Leah to track him by sound alone. She continued to chase him until she heard a grunt and a muttered curse; the telltale sound of a man tripping. Barely pausing, she dropped from her vantage point in the branches, ready to draw her crossbow or knives.
As she hit the ground, rolled, and took stock of the situation, she groaned internally. She was just barely too late - the soldier was already in sight of the others, who were now in a small, moonlit clearing, and if she didn't act quickly, they'd notice her too. With no time to draw her crossbow, she fell back on her knives. She slipped her throwing knife from its sheath, drew her arm back and threw it with as much strength as she could gather. As she dived to the side and into the darker shadows of a tree trunk, she saw it take the man clean in the back of the throat - he tried to scream but only a painful wheeze came out. He almost lost his footing again and reached one arm out toward his allies and the other came to his own throat.
There was no time to take to the trees now. Leah had to run.
She picked herself up and, making sure her crossbow was securely holstered, sprinted into the trees. She cringed with every step, hearing the quiet rustling of the leaves underneath her, almost muted by her trained feet and padded shoes but still there. She was certain the soldiers couldn't hear her, but she had been trained for perfection and expected nothing less of herself. Behind her she could hear the faint but distinct yells and terrified sounds of the men confronted by one of their brethren stumbling toward them, a knife through his throat, eyes wild and mouth wide, gurgling blood - that would distract them, alright. It would certainly distract her.
She slowed and snatched the low hanging branch of a tree, pulling herself into it. She began to move back toward the soldiers' position, trusting they would be far too busy with their dying man to worry about scanning the trees for her. Those she could see were in various states of panic and disgust, either rushing towards the man or vomiting into the dewy grass. Two or three reached him at once; grabbing his arms and trying to avoid the gratuitous amount of blood gushing out of the grievous wound in his neck. Even from a distance, Leah could make out the rushed Gallican they were spurting to him and each other and nobody in particular; it sounded less like "you'll be fine" and more like profanity, even with no knowledge of the language.
Over the following minutes Leah crept through the edge of the treeline, toward the back end of the clearing, furthest from the Gallicans, as they began dealing with the mess of the almost deceased soldier as he choked and spluttered, throat filled with on his own blood. She took stock of the situation in the clearing. It seems they had struck camp here; three or four tents were in various stages of being pitched, supplies scattered around them, now abandoned as the platoon's full attention was turned to the messy scene at the opposite edge of the clearing. There were about two dozen Gallican soldiers in all, and considering her death toll of five already, that made a solid estimate around thirty total.
The many Gallican princedoms, dukedoms, and warlord states had been unified into a centralized kingdom barely a few years ago. Though it had seemed an impossible task to most observers, a shockingly capable king had shown that shrewd diplomacy, a large army and a few massacres could bring together even the worst of enemies. Ever since, the Gallican armies had been running rampant around the western continent; ruthless and calculating warlords who had formerly been occupied fighting one another were now wreaking havoc abroad in the King's name, though not always with his blessing. They'd been marching and pillaging through Teutlandt to their north for some weeks, and now they'd hit southern Skandia. Invasion in autumn was perhaps not the soundest strategy, as the brutal Skandian winter loomed if they stayed much longer, but invaded they had. And as it had many times before, the Hallasholm Treaty came into effect. Called upon were the hundred Araluan archers, and Leah with them.
One of the men, seemingly unfazed by Leah's knife throwing skills, turned to a half-dozen soldiers near her end of the clearing and yelled to them in Gallican, receiving a chorus of "Oui, capitaine!" He then marched into one of the few pitched tents, the flap falling closed behind him.
That's the boss, then, Leah thought to herself as she watched the men scramble to pitch some of the tents. Willing to bet he was a warlord in Gallica before the unification, too.
Three of the soldiers attended to one tent as the other three pitched another. They were close by each other and mostly cast in torchlight, affording her no chance to easily dispose of any of the men, nor lure them away, without the alarm being raised. But why did she need to avoid raising the alarm?
She slid her crossbow from its pouch and retrieved a small vial from one of the pouches on her belt. It was a hallucinogenic poison, potent and rapid-acting. She uncorked it and dipped the tip of one of her quarrels in it, letting the excess drain back into the vial; very little of the substance was necessary to achieve the full effect. She returned the vial to its pouch and carefully slid the quarrel into position, levered the string, and sighted up.
One of the men pitching the tents, she decided. As good a target as any. Balancing carefully in the fork of the tree, she took aim and fired; direct hit in the upper arm. The man yelped and stumbled, hunching over and grasping at the wound. More yelling, more running as other soldiers helped lead him away. Leah levered a normal bolt and waited.
Within seconds the man fell to the dirt in an atrocious coughing fit, his upper body convulsing with the effort. He gasped and choked as his comrades crouched beside him in near-panic. Phlegm and blood flew from his mouth as he tried desperately to control his body.
A small crowd had gathered around him now, and the men were in various states of mind, ranging from grim determination to confusion to outright terror. One man approached the captain's tent, hand on his sword pommel. For a moment Leah considered whether or not to let him get there, sighting up with her crossbow. She let him.
He entered the tent and just moments later returned, followed quickly by the captain himself. At the sight of another man choking on the ground and his soldiers scattered, he began to shout orders, organizing the soldiers into formation and calming their nerves. Now, Leah thought, this won't do at all. She took aim at his leg and loosed a quarrel.
The man's legs gave way underneath him as he dropped to the ground. Before his men could even register this, Leah had put another quarrel into his other leg, effectively immobilizing him. He screamed and grasped at his wounds as all semblance of order in the clearing disappeared.
Some men screamed and dropped their weapons as the reality dawned on them. Others threw up what remained of their stomach contents seeing another man with such brutal wounds. Some brought up their shields in a practiced maneuver - the trained militiamen among them were exposed in this moment. Others fell to their knees praying and pleading to live to tomorrow. Everyone now understood the situation.
They were not hunters, looking for an enemy sharpshooter in the woodland. The Ranger was the huntress, and she had concerned her prey.
In a single move she slid her crossbow into its holster and dropped to the forest floor below. In the rising sea of panic, nobody noticed her descent, and silently she melted out of the shadows into the dancing firelight at the far end of the clearing.
All noise ceased but the crackling of the fires, the agonized screams of the wounded captain - and her saxe as she slid it into her hand and held it out at her side. She waited. Every man in the clearing stared intently with a mixture of terror and anticipation to see what would happen. She continued to wait.
As it turned out, there was a single bow amongst the camp. One man slid carefully across the clearing to retrieve it and a handful of arrows. He strung it and slid to a vantage point amongst the two-dozen men now gathered, nearly motionless. He nocked an arrow and shakily drew, firing about as well as anyone could be expected to do in such a situation.
Leah pivoted to the right, the arrow missing by a meter or more. It wouldn't have hit her anyway, but they didn't know that - she played into their fear. In the same action she brought back her arm and threw her saxe - the man screamed as it took him clear in the chest and he fell motionless. Now she was unarmed. Immediately several of the more trained men, sensing an opening, raised swords and shields and began to move in. Leah shook off her hood and moved straight to engage them. Moving in from the sides, two attempted to strike her at once - she rolled out of the way and swept another's legs out from under him, his sword clattering to the ground. She scrambled to pick it up just in time to parry a blow from another. She brought the blade back around and cut deep into his chest; he fell. She quickly brought it back down on its original owner, rising to her feet and backing up to avoid further blows, but none came.
Six men remained and none were keen to engage this demon who had killed two men in a matter of seconds. She took the initiative and struck a feint at one; he fell for it completely and she brought the blade into to his other side. Almost in the same motion she cut at the legs of the man beside him and brought him down as well.
The remainder of the men gathered near the tents on the other end of the clearing were well and truly defeated, despite having never engaged her. Most had dropped their weapons and some were already on their knees. She backed up toward them, taking a moment to glance back and locate the men she had struck with her saxe. In that moment one of the four soldiers still fighting took a chance to strike her; she sidestepped without even looking and slid the blade into his back. She took a wide step back and retrieved her saxe from the dead man with no opposition, holding it in her offhand.
Time to finish it.
She feinted at one of the men; he brought up his shield to parry and she rolled around, pushing him down and plunging the saxe into his back; she brought the sword around to bite into the legs of another men beside her; the saxe came back up to cut down the final man. All three collapsed into the grass as she rose up, dropping the sword. This time there was no intimidating standing and waiting; she marched to the captain still rolling in agony on the ground and seized him by the collar. She pulled him up from the ground, held the saxe to his throat and tried desperately not to let the blade touch his skin as he writhed, the wounds in his legs agitated again. Staring hard into the eyes of each man before her, the blade still at the captain's throat, she called with utter malice:
"When I release this man, you will take him and your dead and you will leave Skandia. You will not return. You will tell your king what happened tonight. And you will tell him to expect worse if any Gallican sets foot on Skandian soil with anything but the purest of intentions."
At least a few of the men understood her and nodded excessively.
She sheathed her saxe and threw the captain at the feet of the men closest to her. She backed up several paces and they took him. Over the next several minutes they hurriedly gathered supplies and the fallen and left the clearing, heading due south toward Teutlandt. She followed from the trees, watching each man as some blubbered incoherently and others stayed deadly silent. When she was sure they would not return, she dropped to the ground and returned to the clearing. She gathered her crossbow bolts and throwing knife from the ground where the soldiers had left them upon removing them from their victims.
Then she sat quietly in front of the fire, sharpening her knives, cleaning her weapons, and waited for the night to pass.