Sword of the Godslayer

Race the Roof

Ashvell quickly pulled Cassana away from the window. "What in Seti's breath was that?" she screamed.

She looked at Frederick. His body was slowly tipping forward from its seated position, with the long metallic projectile piercing through his body. Its tip finally touched the floor creating a sight too gut-wrenching to behold. His muscles and joints started twitching and his mouth began spitting blood. Cassana instinctively stood up to get to him, but Ashvell pulled her back towards the wall.

"We gotta help him," Cassana cried. She tried to peek at the window and after seeing a glimpse of a person, she ducked down again and another spear shot through the opening, almost hitting her.

"What was it?" asked Ashvell.

"There's a person on the roof. Has some kind of weapon on his arm..." She glanced back at the dying Frederick. He was looking at them with eyes that spelled helplessness and despair. Cassana felt a pit in her stomach. "We have to help him."

"I'll get his attention," Ashvell grabbed the crossbow off Cassana's hands and started crawling underneath the window. He reached the other side and aimed his weapon over the ledge. He saw the man on the roof across the central courtyard. As soon as he pressed his finger on the trigger, Cassana ran to Frederick and tried to pull him away.

"You'll be okay, you'll be okay," she wailed.

Ashvell spanned and loaded his crossbow for another shot, while Cassana tried her best to stay out of the shooter's vantage point, pulling Frederick to safety. But then, another spear shot through the window hitting the poor man right on his head. His skull cracked and shattered, throwing brain matter across the room.

Cassana's panicked shrieks echoed through the warm, high-noon air. Ashvell took a deep breath, aimed for the man again, and took another shot. Not a quarter-of-a-second after he pulled the trigger, he saw the shooter flinched in pain. "I got him!"

The redhead stared at the gory sight in front of her and a sliver of memory tried to slip through her head. Early morning, cold breeze of wind, the smell of leaves, and the lifeless body of Otheric in her arms. She quickly closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, not today, no.

She tightened her fist to a ball and attempted to stand up, that was when she realized that Ashvell was trying to talk to her from across the room.

"What do we do? Cass, what do we do?" He kept repeating.

"Let's go get him," she told her friend with a resolute tone and vengeful eyes.

"How?"

"I'll have that," she pointed at Lira's crossbow, "grab your axe and get up to the roof."

Ashvell passed his weapon to Cassana and grabbed his battleaxe. The redhead aimed over the window ledge and spotted the man trying to look for them from across the courtyard. His face was covered with a mask, and she could see where her friend's bolt hit him a moment ago. He was taking cover behind the ridge of the tiled roof, looking in their direction.

The man quickly ducked down when he saw her aiming at him. "Go!" shouted Cassana.

Ashvell dragged his axe and hopped over the windowsill to a hanging balcony above the courtyard. There was a ladder leading downward to another balcony below them. He looked up and saw that he could reach the roof if he stepped onto the balcony's railings and jumped up and grabbed onto the edge of the roof tiles. He tossed his weapon ahead of him and did exactly that.

The redhead took note of what Ashvell did as she waited for the shooter to reappear. "You see him?" she yelled at him.

"I think? He's hiding behind that roof. I'll get him..." The young driver tramped across the tiled roof, carefully minding its slanted angle. The apartment complex sat on a square lot, east of the main road. It had a narrow alleyway separating it from an adjacent building opposite the street, and shared walls with two other buildings on its north and south sides. The open space courtyard in the middle of the building gave Cassana a good vantage point of the top of the roof across from Frederick's unit.