Olimpia

"Get down!" Roared a voice behind Redgenald. Before Kathren could turn to look at the blur of motion, the half-elf was falling forward. A look of shock passed over his face before it went blank, and his body suddenly swerved to the side, causing his shoulder to slam into her chest.

Kathren tried to catch herself, but a fist of panic clenched her heart when her right heel hit a body as she stepped back. She tried to turn and plant her other foot on solid ground as she stumbled backward, but her foot came down on the side of another body. Her foot twisted from the uneven footing, and her leg was thrown to the side. As her fall continued, her weight came down on her left leg, causing a spike of pain to be driven through her knee.

Letting her leg collapse and turning into her fall at the pain, she was faced with her fate and could only let out a small whimper. If it was at the coming pain or embarrassment, Kathren didn't know. She still threw out her arms to fail uselessly in the air, hoping for some miracle, but it changed nothing.

The dark pit surrounded by the ledge of the trapdoor's frame was still quickly and inevitably approaching.

As her head passed her feet by entering the stairwell, Kathren caught a glimpse of Redgenald's eyebrows rising in mild surprise and amusement as he twisted to land on the ground between two bodies. Then she lost sight of the future dead man as she tumbled down the stairs, releasing involuntary grunts of pain every time she bounced or rolled over a new step on her way down.

Coming to a final, thudding stop, Kathren lay on her side for a long moment, taking in all the spots on her body screaming at her. With a groan of effort, she flopped onto her back, looking up at the square of light and distant muffled shouts and screams coming down the stairwell, steadily increasing in volume.

Or maybe the ringing all around her was finally dying down. Who could say?

Blinking at the distant square of light slowly coming closer, Kathren knew she had to get up. She could feel it. The spikes of alarm and garbled rushed commands coursing through the mental network told her that much.

But it took nearly half a dozen sluggish blinks before the world came rushing back to her as she sucked in a magnificent breath of air. It was the best breath she could ever remember taking.

Coughing, Kathren rolled to the side and scrabbled to her feet but only made it halfway before collapsing to the ground again.

Besides the fact that the world around her started to spin and darken at the edges, which was coming back into focus, Kathren's leg screamed at her that it was in the middle of a rebellion until further notice.

With a few kicks from her new favorite leg and some flopping around interspersed with groans, she found herself slumped against a wall as the world was pounded back into focus by the throbbing in her head.

Kathren's hands went to her knives and spikes, a small wave of relief rushing through her as she found most of them were still there. That was the point of having a dozen and a half weapons. Even if some asshat knocked you down… let's say, a hill, you still got way more than you should need.

Pushing herself off the wall, she shuffled and hopped her way into balance at the base of the stairs. With her left hand leaning on the wall, she thudded up the first step with gritted teeth.

The first few steps were a struggle as every hop sent a bolt of pain from her knee to her head. By the time she was halfway up, Kathren had resigned herself to using psy to help her move, and she was almost climbing the stairs normally.

As Kathren neared the top of the stairs, she skimmed the union to discover the situation. Freezing a moment as the clusterfuck became clear, she cursed under her breath and bent down next to the body she was passing.

She took a few moments to wrestle free the quiver from the dead woman, slipping it over her head with only a few muffled curses, then grabbed the bow before getting up the last steps. Putting arrow to string, Kathren slowly started poking her head over the lip of the opening, her new bow raised and partially drawn.

Kathren was not a great anchor. She wasn't even that good of one. What Kathren was is a passable archor. And even that was a recent change.

When she decided to become a scout, she spent hours of her time off duty at the camp archery range, trying to pick up tricks from anyone who would teach her.

It quickly became apparent that she would never become a good archer, but at least she knew how to handle a bow. Not that it mattered, as she was great with knives, and spikes were basically knives you used with tendrils.

As a scout, you had probably already failed if you ever had to fight. But if you did have to fight, it would either be up close and personal as a trap was sprung or someone attacking at a distance, hoping to kill or wound their pursuer enough to escape. Having a blatant weakness seemed like an excellent way to be thrown out of the scout training program, so she wanted to learn enough to be considered acceptable.

If she had known that the Triad would be attacked and have most of their scouts killed, forcing them to accept everyone who signed up, she would have never wasted her time.

During her rushed training, Kathren cursed the hindsight that came with life and how it was so clear about her wasted effort.

Now, though, she was thankful she could shoot a bow.

Poking her head high enough over the ledge to see the rooftop, Kathren scanned the area. What was left of the gangsters and the squad of legionaries were… pinned down.

Kathren's mouth twitched in amusement at the pun. You know, because the group looked like a giant pincushion. She could see that at least five legionaries and one of the gangsters were dead. Not that those still alive had gotten off light, as they all looked like they had at least one arrow sticking out of them and couldn't move, but they were still crouching strong for now.

The gangsters had picked up a shield from the dead, and they had joined the legionaries' circle with their shields facing out with the bodies of the dead piled around their feet. Each shield looked like it held half a dozen arrows, some of them looking like they had punched through the shield and into the arm of the holder. But like a proper shield wall, none of the shields so much as wavered.

Kathren was about to stand and take a shot at one of the archers she knew had to be on the surrounding buildings, but she felt a tendril probing her mind. The controller wasn't trying to hide it at all and was actively having the tendril give off a clear path to follow.

Glancing over, Kathren could sense the tendril leading behind the formation of shields. She saw the side of a face and an eye poking around the edge of a shield, but she didn't even need to see that to know who it was. It was Redgenald.

If Kathren was a better shot, she would shoot at him and clip the tip of his ear off as it poked out from behind the shield. But I would probably hit one of the legionaries. She thought forlornly.

Redgenald's eye met hers, and the way the corner of his eye wrinkled, it was as if he knew what she was thinking and also knew that she wouldn't do it. Which didn't make her any more inclined to accept his tendril, the cocky bastard. But the way he kept staring at her also made Kathren feel like a child who knew what she had to do and was only stalling to make the other's victory one second farther away.

If people weren't dying, I would make him wait all fecken day, she fumed before sighing and giving up. He obviously wasn't betraying them, so she tentatively reached out and connected to his tendril with one of her own. As she connected to him, she pulled out of the union with the centuries until she was only distantly linked, making all but the strongest messages impossible to hear.

She wasn't so trusting that she would leave an open link for him to connect to the mental network of the legion, so she throttled the link so that any information he could get was down to the bare minimum.

"There is a target right there," his message came as soon as Kathren connected, "I will tell you when they have fired." Along with the quick mental words, Kathren received a series of images and impressions.

The sending was so complex that it was like Kathren could see a faint outline of a figure standing on the next building over. Sending down their mental link that she was ready, she remained crouched in the stairwell.

"Now!" Sent Redgenald.

Flexing her good leg, Kathren sprang to her full height in a small hop. Her bow was already aimed at the location Redgenald sent, and her right hand was pulling back the string for a full draw. By the time she was halfway up on her hop, she had already spotted her target, lined up perfectly.

Releasing her arrow, Kathren felt a satisfied smile twist her lips as she heard and felt the twang of the bow and saw the arrow leap out before her.

All of this was because of her.

Not only had she practiced her archery, but she also made the call to trust someone who… in all likelihood, deserved to be hung before anyone trusted him with more than a copper. And yet she decided to…

"Have you ever shot a bow?" Redgenald asked, his mental voice filled with incredulity. "I could shoot better while holding the bow shaft between my toes and clenching the string with my balls."

“…" Kathren was shocked into silence, and the mental link was filled with the mental popping and cracking of half-realized thoughts from her end. It wasn't that she had missed so badly that her mind couldn't process what was going on. No, nothing like that.

If she was honest, she wasn't that surprised she missed. It was the way he chose to describe her lack of skill that got to her more than anything. "Well, excuse fucking me…" she sneered, her voice filled with sarcasm. "Why don't you drop that wood you're holding so well and come show me how it's done?"

As Kathren finished sending the message, she popped up again, firing off another shot at the same target, who didn't seem to have moved in the slightest from when she first saw him. Even though the meaty thunk of her arrow hitting home was lost to her ears with all of the screams and clangs of steel in the air from battle, she still swore she heard it. Or it could have been the feeling of a confirmed hit she felt over the link with Redgenald.

As she received the next target from Redgenald, she sent him, "Oh, I guess you are one of those men who are all talk and needs the woman to hit the target, huh?"

The man sent an infuriating mental chuckle as he only said, "Good hit." the simple message and new target information only made her more irritated. Especially since he gave the impression in the message about moving on while her target was still standing, as he would soon bleed out from the shot to the neck. Who is he to tell me what to do. Even if they are the right choices.

"Go now." he sent a couple seconds later. When Kathren was hanging in the air an instant from releasing her shot, he sent her another message, "I guess you do have some practice holding a wood shaft. You'll have to show me."

Jerking to the side like she had been physically hit, Kathren ducked down while taking the time to half turn and give the dancing eye poking around the shield's edge a death stair. It only made the eye crinkle with amusement.

Turning her back to the man as best she could, Kathren drew another arrow out of her quiver, focusing on taking out her next target.

Kathren killed another half dozen more archers on both sides of their roof, though it took more than a dozen shots for her to do it before they started reacting to her. And even then, it was more of them taking the time to crouch down behind the roof railing of the house for cover than actively targeting her.

With the lessening of their numbers and a longer break between their shots, as they took the time to hide, the group on the roof could move and reorganize their defense more than huddling in a circle.

A couple more people picked up bows, one of them a legionary and the other Redgenald, much to Kathren's disgruntlement. It didn't help he was landing more hits than her as the shields shifted to open a gap for him.

It wasn't long before they cleared both of the adjacent roofs, taking off enough of the pressure from the centuries below that they could storm the other buildings holding archers.

Moving to the roof's edge, facing their target while remaining behind the shields, Kathren and the other two archers started using their bows to shoot those on top of the manor house. But even when they hit, the effects weren't immediately apparent, as the archers would only fall to the ground after bleeding out from the arrows for long minutes.

When the last archer on the manor dropped, the legionaries gave a roar and pushed forward, finally free to cut through the few puppets blocking their path.

Even with her limited connection to the union, Kathren still felt the surge of vindictive glee that ran through it as they smashed the bodies into the stone.

Their celebration didn't last long, and the centurion quickly took control, sending one of the centuries to search the inside of the manor, another to circle around the ground, and the third to clean up and watch the front gate.

While everything looked calm, Kathren didn't like the uneasy silence that settled over the street, so she stayed high, keeping watch. Minutes passed as she stood on watch, as she knew in her gut that this wasn't over, but in the end, it didn't matter.

Long before she saw anything, she heard a boom, boom, boom, of marching feet. Far down the street, she saw hundreds of figures marching from the alley into the street before turning and coming toward her. And in the other direction, it was the same sight.

She didn't even need to check to know what she would see if she went to the other side of the house to look. Not that she would with how her knee was aching.

Kathren would just assume they were surrounded.