Blood and Strength - Part 12
They hurried to hook the beasts of burden up, as the arrows at the wall heard Usar's call as well, and came together, hurriedly notching arrows in their bows.
Vol found himself glad beyond mention that he'd spent the last few days fulfilling the System's quests as he had. He was pleased he'd completed that second Path to Strength quest before arriving. He needed every shred of agility and stamina he could get. He was four times stronger in each than he used to be – according to the System. If that were true, he had no doubt that he would have been caught long ago without them.
They managed to hook the mules up, but the gates were growing closer. Vol's axe was ready. Twenty metres away, a single guardsman stood, with his own axe out, as though to block him. Ten archers were lined up on the wall, their arrows all notched.
The first man let his loose, and then the rest followed, in a staggered stream of terminal threats, all of them well-aimed, all of them nearing Vol's chest. He threw himself off to the side suddenly, without a single shred of hesitation.
THUD!
And yet an arrow still hit, punching its way into his shoulder. And it truly was a punch. It was like the hardest hit he'd ever received. It gave his body extra force as it slammed into the snow.
!! SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT
YARMDON THRILL ACTIVATED!
If not for the blood of his ancestors running through his veins, allowing him access to the same berserker instincts that had won them their glory all those years ago, he would have fallen to the blow, and the guardsmen would have caught up with him.
As it happened, it only slowed him for half a second. It was thoroughly embedded in his left arm, making it useless, spreading a numbness down his arm, but the pain was not immobilizing, he forced himself to move with it.
The guardsman stood in his way, in a battle stance. He was a big man – but Vol was bigger. He did not slow down as he approached. The man timed his axe swing to match Vol's speed, but Vol's boot found him first. He launched himself, two feet forward, in a reverse imitation of the salmon dive that had gotten him through the window.
!! SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT
NEW SKILL UNLOCKED!
RECKLESS JUMPING – BASIC 1/3
THE VESSEL THROWS HIMSELF FORWARD WITHOUT REGARD FOR HIS SAFETY IN ORDER TO SECURE A BETTER POSITION IN COMBAT, OR TO NAVIGATE TIGHTLY ENCLOSED SPACES
Vol's heavy boots caught the man in the chest. He'd heard a crunch. He'd sent the man's heavy chainmail slamming back into his chest. Vol rolled to his feet less gracefully than he would have liked. The man struggled to do the same, but found himself being too slow. Vol's axe caught him in the head soon after, stealing his life permanently.
And now Vol was faced with a choice. The gates were closing behind him, and beyond them, the guardsmen were streaming down the hill. The option to close the gates had worked against them, temporarily, but there were still the archers on the wall to contend with.
Running towards archers, where he could see their arrows flying – it was an entirely different story to running away from them where he could not, and he'd already been hit by one arrow. Another arrow would ruin his chances of escape.
He was half tempted to pick up the man he'd killed and slop him over his backpack as a meat shield, but with one arm numbed, Vol doubted he could carry another fully armoured man at speed. Besides, he'd only just got his coat cleaned, hadn't he?
And now he had an arrow wound leaking blood all over it…
"Damn it!" He cursed aloud. Irritation now, rather than panic. It was simply annoying. He'd been striving to get clean, so that he could put these murders behind him, but no matter what he did, more blood demanded to be spilt. Now that he thought about the arrow wound, he saw the splatters of blood over his chest from where he'd just killed the man.
He'd gone full circle – the only thing he had to show for it was a clean pair of trousers and boots. His coat, once more, was thoroughly ruined, and he had a whole town's worth of guardsmen chasing after him as well.
He heard the gates stop their moving behind him. He heard Usar's voice demanding that they be reopened so that the men could get through.
"SADDLE UP THE MULES! WE WON'T RISK LOSING HIM IN THE FOREST! THERE'S ONLY SO FAR THE DOG CAN RUN!"
"What did he do?"
"MURDER! CAN'T YOU TELL, YOU FOOL, FROM THE BLOOD ON HIM?" Usar replied angrily. "HE SLAUGHTERED LYDIA AND BURNED DOWN HER STORE!"
"Gods…"
The forest had been cut back a good distance away from the walls of the town, for defence purposes. It would be a two-hundred-metre sprint to get there. The first few metres would be the most dangerous, with the archers ready and waiting for him, but if he were to make it to those trees… his chances of survival increased dramatically.
What could he do, other than simply run as erratically as possible? The System did not speak to him, in his hour of greatest need, it was silent. He had a feeling that it simply wasn't strong enough to assist him in overcoming this. There had been so much potential with it, so much that he felt he could achieve, so many interesting things to be unlocked… It would be a terrible shame to have it all end here.
He sucked in a break and steadied himself. He snapped off the arrow in his shoulder, leaving just the stump in. He knew enough to know that removing the arrow itself, without properly dressing it, would leave him in great danger of weakening himself with blood loss. But nor could he allow the shaft to remain at its full length, liable to be caught on anything.
He didn't have a choice now, despite knowing it was a poor one. He stood before the body of the man he'd killed, ignoring the blood. He prayed to the Gods that he knew, hoping beyond a shadow of a doubt that the stats the System had provided him with were as effective as they'd seemed. His strength had grown by a dramatic amount in the past few days, but would it be enough to lift a man's body with just a single arm?