3. Hold Up
Bor was a captain. He lead a small patrol of soldiers along the Ramr River. Two nights ago the small group of men were awoken in the dead of night by a most loud and unusual growling. The lookout had reported it steadily growing off in the distance. Soon it became louder and louder. One of the look out party walked towards the place the sound was coming from. A light was growing in the distance.
What was that? The man had thought. The light got bigger and bigger and the sound became louder and louder. The man dodged suddenly out of the way just as something the size of a small horse zoomed past, nearly running the scout over with the unimaginable speed.
Bor had sent thirty of his best men ahead to track the thing that barged through his camp two nights ago. While he stayed behind, he received an urgent message from the king himself, describing a thief that had broken into the castle and stolen the last dragon hatchling. His description matched the thing that rode past their camp. Bor hurried himself to track down the party he'd sent ahead of him.
Now the bit of the small battalion followed the sound of banging where his men were huddled behind rocks and trees to shield themselves from the never ending banging coming from the cave. Their bows and arrows were pathologically useless against the new rider's unusually loud weapons.
What the hell was this magic?
"Druan!" He waved his second over to him. "I got here as soon as I could, what's happened here. I thought you said you had the situation under control when I left you in charge. You said you had the rider surrounded without his awareness."
"W-we did sir." The tall, thin man replied with a stutter. "But um, one of us set off a booby trap and well… it all went downhill from there."
"Well why haven't you had Markus put up some wards to protect yourselves." Markus was suppose to be one of the most talented magicians from Uru Baen. Even these… inventive weapons shouldn't have been hard to create some barriers to protect them for a while.
"Well… ahem… sir," The man found the hilt of his sword suddenly very interesting. "He was the first one she hit. Her aim is quite good. Got him right in the forehead with a pebble I think. She's obviously a very powerful magician."
The captain looked over and sure enough, found their magician lifeless on the ground with a gaping hole, barely a pebble's length, in the dead center of his forehead.
"A pebble? How was she able to kill a grown—," The captain cut off suddenly. "Wait a moment. She?"
"Uh, yes sir. The new rider is a woman."
"Oh really," The captain sneered at this information. He'd never been one to trust women could have resilience or sense enough to know how to build a good booby trap, let alone kill anyone. Their place was in the home, tending to their and families and cooking, not a battle field. The man growled. "Stupid worthless tramp! How many men are left?"
"We came here with thirty-five all together, but um you see," His second was quite reluctant to speak today, but pressed on as asked. "It appears she was the one expecting us. Some of the patrol fell into other booby traps and the others were hit with those things she keeps firing and well… now there's only a percentage of us left."
"How many?"
Druan hesitated. "Nine."
"NINE?" Captain Bor was outraged. "You came here with thirty-five well trained men, and you only have nine left. This is a woman. You were beaten by a good for nothing girl!"
The second rubbed his back sheepishly. "I beg your pardon sir, but I'm under the impression that she's had more training than even we have."
"You are useless!" The captain turned from the man and looked up to the cave where sparks of light flashes erupted each time a string of bangs came from the strange black weapon she held. Her face was covered with a sleek black helmet. He wondered how his men were able to realize she was a woman if she hadn't even shown her face. It appeared the captain would have to sort this all out himself.
"Hey, girlie!" He called up to the cave. The barrage of booms stopped momentarily. "We're not here to hurt you. We just want to talk."
"You bastards with the Umbrella Corporation?" Now he knew how they found out. The voice coming from the cave was unmistakably feminine. He wasn't quite sure what was in her voice. He detected what could've been hope. Maybe he could sweet talk his way through this. Women were weak after all.
"If that's what you so desire," He said smoothly, "then yes miss. We are from this uh… Umbrella Corporation, was it?"
"Oh really, you say? That's too bad," She lifted her weapon again and spoke with venom. "Because I hate the Umbrella Corporation!" More bangs ran through the patrol. The captain barely had time to dodge back behind his tree for cover. To the right of him, two more men fell.
She paused in her shooting to scoff and yell at them. "You boys are pathetic! Why don't you quite playing with those bows and arrows and hit me with some real artillery already? I can't believe you would sacrifice your men to keep up your dumb act. By the way, the whole Lord of the Rings getup is really lame. And I thought you guys were suppose to be smart."
"That's it missy!" The captain was red with anger. He'd get this little brat for this. "Throw down your weapons right now or we'll be forced to use violent aggression with you."
There was laughter in her voice. "Aggression! Well it's about time, ladies. I'm beginning to grow mushrooms up here." The captain felt his skin crawl with her insult.
"Impertinent little bitch! I'll get you for this!"
"Ha! You want my weapons here you go!" She tossed something over the ledge and for a moment the man thought she'd actually given up.
He looked over and saw a small black cylinder with a metal hook on the top of it. "What the—what is this?"
"Look out!" Druan yelled, tackling the man to the ground. Fire and earth erupted from where the cylinder landed. The man felt his insides rupture and thought he was going to be pulverized. He could feel fire on his face and threw his hands out in front of him to shield the attack. As quick as it had begun, it ended. His ears were ringing when Druan helped him to his feet.
He was saying something now, "—she's been throwing those things down here all day. Got five of us with the first one. After that we all started dodging them."
The captain's arm hurt tremendously and since Markus was dead, there was no one to heal it.
"Sir," Druan called, clearly frightened out of his wits at the amount of power those weapons were raining upon his men. "Please grant me permission to order the retreat."
"What! You cowards want to run from this… GIRL!"
"With all due respect, sir, but we've lost our magician, we have no way to heal ourselves, we're sporting useless weapons in this situation, and it appears she's carrying more power than we can ever dream to poses, undoubtedly because she now carries the power of the dragon hatchling as well. We have no choice, sir. We're down to seven men when we originally started with thirty-five. Do you believe we should just sit here and wait to die?"
"COWARD! I'll show you how this is done." The captain rushed out from his hiding place brandishing his sword and scaling the steep hill. He didn't get very far.
There was a bang and the body of the captain fell back into view. A gaping hole poured blood from the center of his forehead. Somehow it didn't disappoint Druan the way he thought it would. After all, the captain was a bit of an ass and it's not like he didn't really deserve that. No idiot would've gone blazing out there without cover or weapons that were affective. The man practically served himself up on a silver platter for her. Looks like Druan was the next in command.
He didn't need to think twice about his decision. "Retreat!" He shouted to his men and they were almost too happy to obey.
K-Mart watched them run and felt an unorthodox feeling of satisfaction. It was brief though. Now that they knew where she was hiding, it would mean she would have to leave and make another camp somewhere else.
"Come on Neo." She said holding out her hand to the small dragon. He gripped her arm and used his nails to climb up where he could perch on her shoulder. She packed what few items she'd gotten off her bike and replaced them in their rightful places. She mounted and revved the engine. "This might be a little bumpy." She warned the hatchling, who tightened his grip in response. She hit the gas and the bike flung out of the cave. It soared through the air like a dart flying from a gun. K-Mart focused all her power and concentration on the bike. She needed to keep it air born for as long as possible. She couldn't' over exhaust herself though. If she used too much energy, she wouldn't have enough to drive her bike. And then she'd really be in trouble.
Her bike lowered like she intended and she aimed it directly at a group of boulders that swept down in a smooth ramp for her landing. Time sped up as she neared the landmark. She hit it with more force than she would've enjoyed. In fact that landing really took a number on her crotch when she hit her seat hard and unexpectedly. The bike bounced and made it even more uncomfortable. She did her best to ignore the pain and focused her attention on the road. Her bike dodged trees and shrubs as it zoomed quickly past. Her eyes caught several of the men who'd retreated from her before.
Why in the world weren't they riding a helicopter or a gun ship or something of the sort? Why did they insist on running? Well she could figure that out later. The one thing she had to do at that moment was stay focused and drive her bike.
They were barely nine meters away before Druan saw the rider zip by them on that great machine of hers. Ye Gods she was fast on that thing! Whatever it was.
She sped by them, barely acknowledging them as she rode by. She disappeared in the trees and the roar from the mechanical horse dulled till it was completely silent in the trees. Druan slowed to a jog and stopped finally when he realized she wasn't coming back.
"By the great love of the gods, what was that?" wheezed one of his men coming up from behind.
Druan shook his head. "I'm not sure. But whatever it was, the king must be informed."
They waited for two nights before Murtagh finally found what was left of their battalion. The crimson rider jumped from Thorn's back before the monster had landed completely. He looked the men up and down one at a time and scowled. They were beaten, thirsty, hungry and exhausted. Since their magician had been killed they had to settle with tending to their wounds the old fashioned way, which required yards and yards of bandages as well as salves and cauterizing to staunch bleeding and infections. There was a grand total of five men left out of the whole unit.
Murtagh lifted his eyes at the amount of damage they'd undergone. "Where is the rest of your party, Captain?"
Druan sighed wearily, as if he'd feared that question. "This is the rest, sir. A few days ago we came into contact with the new rider and attempted to engage her."
Murtagh frowned in disbelief. "It's a woman?"
"I'm afraid so. And she is much more powerful that you would suspect, sir."
"Already? Is she a magician then?"
"It would appear so. She was sporting weapons in which I have never before encountered until now. It was a slaughter sir, we didn't even have a chance."
Murtagh scowled as he ordered the man to tell him absolutely everything. And the captain happily obliged.