The Jack of Souls (Multi-award winner!)

Chapter 35 - Sir Bannus

 Bannus fled, fleet Giggon ran,

Arkus' hallowed isle.

Revenge he vowed

On Willard proud

Who bested him with guile.

               —From "Bannus's Bane," Arkendian heroic song, late reign of Walren III

Chapter Thirty-Five

Harric heard the crossbows fire — two, three, four at once — and the sound of hissing bolts. None of them struck the corpse beside him or anywhere near him; they'd gone hissing down at some target near the head of the stairs to thump dully into wood or crack off the cliff.

"Run!" Caris yelled.

Harric twisted his neck to the side to see Caris crouching well behind him on the ledge, side-stepping in his direction with a quarrel-riddled shield held in both hands before her.

"Run!" she yelled. "They reload!"

A spitfire popped, and Caris dove forward to crash on her armored belly on the stone. A gout of white fire sprayed across the wall and ledge where she'd been. "Run!"

Harric ran. Five running strides — almost halfway to the fissure before someone on the tower cried, "There!"

He concentrated on placing one foot before the other on the ledge, for his legs felt so weak he feared they'd fail to respond quickly enough, and he'd stumble. Six, seven strides, and still the crossbowmen loaded their weapons. Then a bolt cracked against the wall only a handbreadth before his nose, spraying rock fragments into his mouth and eyes. He cried out in pain, blinded, and stumbled, his arm scraping along the cliff. His boot caught the stone and he fell hard to his knees. A bolt hissed by and slammed the rock above his head. He scrambled blindly on hands and knees. Tears flooded his eyes as he tried to blink out the shards.

Pounding boots behind him.

"Run!" Caris yelled, and the sound of her voice was loud in his ears. She bumped his back hard with an armored knee. He heard her grunt as a bolt hissed into a wooden thunk beside him. She shoved him in the back with her knee. "Run! You're almost there!"

Before him the blurry fissure rose like a sanctuary. He scrambled forward and threw himself on his belly, then rose again onto hollow-sounding planks. As an eye cleared enough to see he'd made it, he dove into the farthest reach of the fissure.

A flurry of bolts clattered around the mouth of the fissure. One struck wood, and one struck metal with a dull plink as another ricocheted around the stone walls to land beside him on the planks. Caris piled over him and crashed onto the planking. An armored knee stove a plank in two, and her leg disappeared in the hole. A spitfire splashed the entrance of the gap with burning resin. Smoke filled the chimney, but none of the fire reached where they lay.

Caris was cussing like a raftsman. Tears cleared from Harric's eyes. He watched as she flung her crumbling shield aside and fought free of the hole in the planking. Staggering to her feet, she doffed her helmet and beat at one of her boots, which was on fire.

Harric propped himself into a sitting position and grinned around gasps for breath. "Gods leave me, that couldn't have gone better if we'd planned it."

Still cursing, she socked him in the arm, hard. "Yes, it could have."

He didn't even grunt. "Okay, Maybe I deserved that."

She socked him again, harder, and this time he winced.

"Ow. Okay, I'm sorry. You made your point."