Brandt didn’t wait for the argument. He made himself light and ran into a small alley between tall buildings. He zigzagged between the walls, kicking higher off of each until he landed on the rooftops.
He didn’t believe what he first saw. High above the streets the moon’s illumination was stronger, but Ana was covered in shadows. At least three warriors attacked her, but Brandt couldn’t be sure of the number.
He charged in, heedless of the danger. His sword cut down one thanks to surprise, then another after a single pass.
An arrow zipped past his head as he ducked under one shadow’s cut. Brandt closed with his assailant just as another arrow sliced through the robes over his shoulder.
If their attackers were Falari, which Brandt suspected, they would only rarely close with their opponents. Instead, they would hide in the shadows, firing whenever the opportunity presented itself.
Brandt cursed. He wasn’t skilled fighting on such terms.
It also meant killing their immediate opponents posed a problem. Right now, the archers restrained themselves out of fear for hitting their fellow warriors. If their friends fell, far more arrows would fly.
Leaving them alive wasn’t much wiser, though.
So he fought through the shadows, and when the last one dropped he shoved Ana off the ledge and followed her down.
Ana landed lightly on the street below and rolled, easily distributing the impact. Brandt tried the same, but his lightness wasn’t as well-developed. He crashed to the ground, cursing whatever names he could come up with. Fortunately, if he had twisted an ankle, the blood in his veins was too hot to notice.
Darting from cover to cover they made their way back to where their host waited. They rested there for a moment, catching their breath before pushing on. Brandt tested his ankle, finding it strong.
They reached Regar’s quarters not long after. Their host again stopped them as the building loomed overhead.
This section of the town was quiet.
Far too quiet.
Brandt and the others hid deep in the shadows, examining their surroundings for the traps that surely existed.
Two members of Regar’s bodyguard were dead, face down on the street, several arrows in each. Brandt pushed his feelings aside for the moment. He’d gotten to know those guards on the journey here and had liked them. They deserved better than arrows in the back.
Judging from the angles of the arrows, the attacks had come from up high. Brandt allowed his gaze to travel up and search the buildings. Shadows crawled over the rooftops and Brandt saw at least one archer perched on a corner, watching Regar’s quarters with unbroken concentration.
Brandt whispered softly in Ana’s ears. “Any ideas?”
She shook her head.
Brandt figured he had even odds of reaching the building. If he moved fast and shifted directions frequently they might not hit him. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was all he had. If they climbed the roofs they would just find themselves in the same situation as they had before. The archers would bide their time and pick them off.
Still, he had to act. Regar couldn’t last in there forever, if he still lived. The silence surrounding the quarters portended an ominous future.
Brandt collected a few stones and started twirling them around his body. He still hadn’t found his way past the cost, so he couldn’t launch them with lethal force like the Etari, but they still served as a useful tool. He whispered his plan to Ana. If he could distract the archers for long enough, she could help the prince escape to someplace safer.
He sprinted from cover, drawing the attention of at least two archers. His quick direction changes kept them from hitting him, but both arrows passed too close for comfort. Again he kicked from one wall to the next, reaching the rooftops with record speed.
He saw four archers as soon as he crested the roof. He sent stones their way at the same time that he dove. Two shafts sailed overhead as he split his focus between the stones and his own movement.
The stones weren’t large enough or fast enough to do anything more than stun the archers, but it was the distraction he was going for. One stone hit an archer square between the eyes, knocking him onto his back. Another caught an enemy in the chest. The others missed, but they’d forced the archers to evade, which was all Brandt could have asked for.
Brandt didn’t know how long he fought for. He didn’t pause, his body in constant motion. Between his own movement and the circling stones, Brandt managed not to get shot.
He gained ground against the invaders. Whenever one of his stones hit a nearby archer hard enough to keep them off-balance for several moments, he was there, his sword nearly invisible in the darkness.
His defense wasn’t perfect. One arrow caught him high in the left shoulder, embedded at an awkward angle. The arrowhead didn’t penetrate all the way through the light armor Brandt wore. Another arrow grazed his left leg, causing a burning line of pain to erupt whenever his weight settled on the limb.
Then the pressure against him eased.
He saw her moving on another rooftop, liquid death.
Ana had joined the fight.
Something below had gone wrong. They should be escorting Regar away. But the archers gave Brandt no time to ask Ana what had happened. He simply had to trust. If she was fighting, so would he.
He kept pushing. His weariness grew, his body growing heavier with every beat of his heart. He held his focus, using the stones against any archer he noticed, but the effort cost him.
Brandt stumbled, then pushed himself back to his feet.
He couldn’t keep this up for much longer.
An arrow glanced off his torso, the shallow angle causing the shaft to skip off his armor.
He was failing.
And then the attacks stopped.
Brandt kept moving, kept spinning, but there were no more arrows and he couldn’t make out any archers. On some silent signal they had all vanished into the darkness
