The Iron Teeth

Queen of Swords 13

A loud twang-like noise suddenly split the air behind Blacknail.

"Eep!" the hobgoblin squeaked in alarm as he dropped to the ground and covered his head.

A crossbow bolt ripped through the greenery with a whipping sound. There was then a loud crack as the projectile sunk deep into the bark of a tree trunk that lay several feet ahead of him.

The forest behind Blacknail suddenly echoed with the crashing and snapping of plants as Malthus and his men shot forward and pushed their way through the forest towards Blacknail. It was time to get going!

The startled hobgoblin jumped to his feet and dashed forward deeper into the trees. As he ran he snuck a look back and saw Malthus' form burst out of a thicket of bushes and throw an angry look around. Blacknail quickly stepped behind a tree and out of sight.

Okay, maybe he had let Malthus get a little too close that time. Blacknail was glad the assassins only had one crossbow...

"Damn that bastard to all hells! I thought we had him this time," Malthus hissed angrily.

The master assassin was standing next to where Blacknail had been a few seconds ago and staring hatefully at the crossbow bolt stuck in the tree.

"Do you want to turn back?" one of his men asked with more than a hint of nervousness in his voice.

"No, we're right behind him," Malthus replied angrily.

"I still think this is a trap," the other man replied.

"Of course it's a trap; we know that, and it doesn't matter. Stop letting a little patch of bushes and trees unnerve you and let's get after him," Malthus commanded his men.

Blacknail took advantage of their discussion to slip away to the side and put some distance between him and his pursuers. He really needed to take care of that crossbow. It was too much of a wild card, and being shot would probably hurt a lot.

The hobgoblin crouched down behind a bush and squinted as he watched the assassins. All six of them had been close together while they talked but now they were spreading out again. It was the one on the far right that held the crossbow.

There was no way he could charge the man before Malthus intervened, and even using his sling would involve getting dangerously close and revealing himself. It also wasn't guaranteed to take the man down in one hit, and it might convince Malthus to turn around and leave.

Well, it was probably about time to begin anyway. He had lured them deep enough. He would just have to position everything just right so that the crossbowman got taken out first.

The hobgoblin slowly got up and crept further away from the assassins. When he was far enough away that a screen of bushes and leafy tree limbs concealed him he stopped. Then he looked down, selected a fairly large twig, and stomped on it.

The twig snapped beneath his boot and a loud cracking noise echoed through the forest. Blacknail was already diving behind a tree. A second later another crossbow bolt tore through the greenery and sliced through the air where his chest had been mere moments before.

Blacknail picked himself off the ground and peered around the tree he had used as a shield. One of his eyebrows rose in surprise at how accurate the shot had been. That assassin was really good with a crossbow. The hobgoblin was definitely killing that guy first.

Blacknail hurriedly got up and began dashing through the forest. He made absolutely no attempt to be quiet about it, and instead just focused on keeping ahead of his pursuers.  It was also important to keep the crossbowman too busy running to reload.