Trials (An ErasermicXreader Medieval AU)

Chapter 15

You gathered yourself and climbed down to the village, one of the snow mounds was caved in, the meat gone and in the largest building a small trail of smoke puffed out of the stacked stone chimney. The rest of the building were still lifeless, the bottom of the doors pilled up with snow, no one had been in and out of them in days. There was a part of you that hoped desperately that the people of the village had been allowed to evacuate, that they went south to the farming country to seek refuge. There was another part of you that was there that night Noro agents were perfectly willing to burn down an innocent man's barn and field and knew that there was a high likelihood that the villagers were dead or detained.

You were tucked away in a bush capped with a thick snow blanket when a squad of armoured men lumbered right past you towards the village. The House Noro agents were careless from what you'd been able to see, too long without conflict made them lazy and dull. There was no care for covering their tracks, nor keeping quiet, but you supposed that there was a part of them that wanted to fight. You watched them trudge down the path towards the farm house, one hopped the fence that surrounded it, while the other roughly kicked a loose board down with a loud snap and then easily overstepped the lower one. They began unloading their heavy bags and with a mighty pull opened the barn door. You were able to get a glimpse of what lay inside before they closed it again and headed to the main building for their dinner. You caught sight of lumpy rolled fabric weapons piled into heaps by type, large travel bags that you assumed held medicine and rations, and leather wrapped trunks that had bright red symbols resembling fire on them. If that meant what you hoped it meant then you knew exactly how to raise hell.

You had to wait until the sun set lower, more squads returned and it seemed as though the village had settled into a dead state. You'd noticed in the handful of times the barn had been opened that there were guards inside and whoever was opening the door knocked a certain amount of times before doing so. While you were sure you could replicate the knock you weren't up for close quarters combat and were much more confident with a ranged weapon. There was a loft window with a pulling dangling over it, if you could find somewhere to month the end of the pulley rope on then you could scale up to the window and use your height as an advantage.

The guards swapped out and you were relieved to find out there were only three, that meant you wouldn't have to deal with several sets of reaction times, only two. Feeling better about this plan you sprung from the bushes and slid down the icy hill quietly, stalking through the snow until you reached the side of the barn. Luckily for you one side of the pulling rope had a metal bucket attached to it that would be too large to fit around the wheels at the top so you pulled the other end tight, trying to keep the clang of the bucket hitting the pulley wheel to a minimum. Praying that it held while you climbed you used the rope as leverage and slowly stepped up the side of the keeping your foot impacts painfully quiet. It took nearly three times the time it should have but with how thin the walls were, slow and silent was better than rushed and caught.

You swung your leg over the loft window and hoisted yourself up onto it so you stradling it like a horse and peered downwards. One of the guards was asleep soundly in a chair, you mentally checked him off as the last target as he would have the slowest reaction time. The other two were right next to each other, this meant reaiming would take less time but finding the trajectory of your shot would too. There wasa thin platform below you, if you laid down on it they wouldn't be able to see you if you needed to hide but being prone on your stomach was too vulnerable a position. You shook your head and scolded yourself, you were analyzing the situation too much. Just do.

You lowered your hands so the lip of the platform would over the dull glow of your conjured bow while it appeared in your hands. It started from your palms, the grip first, the arms budding and sprouting from it. In your other hand an arrow formed, feathers to head. You took a deep breath, narrowing in on the left guardfirst. Once you felt like you were aware of the space enough you lifted the bow quickly, aiming as accurately as you could before you felt that the glow might alert your target. You let go of the string, a thin sharp noise chased the arrow as it tore through the air and then it buried itself into the neck of your target. You pulled back the string again, an arrow forming in your hand as you drew. Aimed. Fired. The second target stood as you fired, the arrow ment for this throat burying itself in his chest.