Into That Wild Blue Yonder

7. Forfeiture of a Path

Colm exploded out the door and took off down the street, weaving in and out of crowds to stay as hard to spot as possible. He had to make the extra effort to avoid creating chaos, lest Idara roll up on him to finish their previous fight. He could hear her barreling through the crowd behind to catch up.

She closed a lot of distance in a little time, so Colm stopped weaving and barreled through the crowd as well, shoving people out of his way until he made it to clearer streets. He continued running and decided on direction on the fly, taking an alley and jumping over the homeless on his way through. None of them seemed to care about the man leaping over them, but all moved aside for the angry elf close behind.

Colm stopped for a moment at the end to catch his breath, but when he turned to look down the alley, the Kosmich elf was right behind, eyes trained on him like a hawk on a squirrel. Colm spun around and kept running down the street. Without armor, she was easily as fast a runner as he was.

He had to make his way to Jerry's section of town, where the streets weaved and bobbed and he could lose her in the winding paths. She swung out of the alley hot on his tail as he took a turn onto uncertain streets. He would have to run through areas he wasn't familiar with in order to get to safer ground.

Colm started running up a hill and risked a glance back to see Idara closing the distance maybe fifteen meters back. Given her speed, he knew he couldn't outrun her up the hill and had to think fast. There were no side alleys here to duck into, so he would have to outmaneuver her. The other street-goers watched with interest as the famous woman angrily closed in on her target.

Colm spotted a young couple ahead of him holding a metal baking tray; probably returning home from a friendly party; and put his strategy together. With Idara less than eight meters or so behind, he rushed them and grabbed the tray to intense protestation and ran forward to a lamp post. Idara was close, nearly within grabbing distance, when he used the post to swing around and placed the tray beneath his feet to slide away.

"Get back here!" Idara shouted between pants as Colm slid down the hill.

"No!"

Colm slid almost all the way down the hill and the tray caught on something and threw him forward to the ground. He hit as smoothly as he could, diving into a roll, but lost control and rolled sideways the last few meters down the hill. He got up on all fours and shook his head, then turned to see Idara running down the hill. He wobblily stood up and tried to run, but fell back to the ground and had to roll again to regain his footing.

"Just give up!" Idara shouted.

Colm staggered to a lamp post and used it to push himself off and start running again, once again in control of his body. Idara sighed and sped up to catch him as he turned a corner and escaped her line of sight.

Colm knew he couldn't outrun her, so he had to trick her. Not far ahead of him, he spotted some scaffolding on the side of a building leading up to a sign and quickly climbed up before Idara could turn the corner. Once on top, he lowered himself down just below a lip on the side so she couldn't possibly see him and remained prone.

He could hear her running beneath him and stop just below to look around. Idara shifted slowly, likely looking all around for wherever Colm may have hidden or run to, and seemed to be murmuring something to herself. Colm couldn't quite make it out, but her heavy breathing calmed down and he could hear her chuckling.

Colm figured he could sit up a little since she was just beneath him and look around to find his next escape point. There were a few alleyways across the street and the next intersection wasn't far. He couldn't get any law enforcement to help him since he was in possession of stolen property, but he could try to get their attention on Idara as an aggressor. Maybe he could-