Into That Wild Blue Yonder

25. Check Your Corners

Colm and Idara sprinted across the room and burst through the door into the stairwell after the kidnappers. The sounds of dozens of feet slamming against the floor echoed from above with Oswansha's voice struggling to get away from her assailants. Idara took the lead running up the stairs, skipping steps as she hurried to catch the enemy.

Colm stayed right on her rear, keeping an eye behind as well in case any bad guys ran up from behind to pinch them on the stairwell. He saw the door burst open and felt a moment of panic as he thought the enemy would surround them, but felt odd relief when it was just Dolf coming through with a panicked expression.

They made it to the top level and Idara threw the door open to find one of the kidnappers waiting just on the other side. He went for a downward slash at Idara's face that she caught at his wrist and deflected sideways. She threw him back toward Colm, who caught him in his hands and delivered a knee to his face and threw him down the stairs. As he and Idara ran through the door, he could hear Dolf's voice angrily calling out about the man getting in the way.

Idara had to stop and listen for a moment to catch what direction the kidnappers ran. The sound echoed off every surface in the halls, forcing her to focus hard to figure out the direction it originated from. Her head whipped left in the direction of the sounds' origins. Just as she and Colm started running again, Dolf came up through the door, breathing heavily.

"Hey!" he shouted as the duo started running. He started running beside them. "What's going on?"

"Get outside," Idara ordered. Dolf blinked, unsure of how to respond. "GO!"

"What is happening?!" Dolf shouted. Idara snarled and ignored him.

"Go outside!" Colm said angrily. "Make sure there's no essence mages!"

Dolf blinked again, even more unsure of how to respond now, and quickly spun around to make his way outside. His face abundantly betrayed his sudden fear of the situation and Colm knew he wasn't going to stick around to help in any capacity. With any luck, he'd still run into some other kidnappers and they might make short work of him. Or him of them. Either way.

Idara perked up as some shouting sounded out from the bend up ahead of them and sped up while Colm fumbled through his pockets. He grabbed the first scroll he could grasp and pulled out his tracker tag. He slowed his pace, falling a little behind, as he worked the string and unraveled the scroll and prepared it for use.

As Idara went to round the corner, she met with a masked thug with a war axe who took a sideways swing at her neck. She evaded backwards and landed on her knees, sliding forward under the axe and toward another thug with a knife. As he went for the stab to her chest, she clasped her hands onto his wrist and yanked his arm to her left, keeping the knife pointed at anything but herself.

The man with the axe turned to take another swing at Idara and Colm leapt up from behind and planted a knee in the back of his head, dropping him. He landed into a sideways stance and spun around into a wheel kick for the second thug. He tried to escape, but Idara spun on her hip and kicked out his knee, sending him down in the direction of Colm's foot, multiplying the impact and sending him crumpling to the floor.

Idara rolled up to join Colm taking a stance against several more assailants in front of her. In the back of their group, the man Oswansha had been dancing with stood with her in a weak choke hold, trying to get her to cooperate and stop fighting as he brought her toward another door.

Colm cast the tracker tag, targeting Oswansha, and let the paper fall to the ground, fading out of existence before it touched. The thugs before him twitched, hesitating at the sight of a spell they couldn't identify, and Idara took a position next to Colm standing against them.