Shard

  A while ter, Leanna raised her hand suddenly and the whole group stopped, rapidly readying their bows before she turned and shouted that she only needed her elites. Most of the band rexed and put their bows aside again, while four men and two women with absolutely massive bows advaowards her.

  Dawn hadn’t noticed them in the group, but each was very heavily muscled, and their bows looked thicker than her arms, while being nearly the size of their wielders. As she watched, two of the carts were brought forward and parked beside each other. The men pulling them then cmbered onto the beds and began unfolding wooden braces, quickly ereg a frame several feet high on their cart.

  Dawn’s curiosity was quickly answered as boards were lifted up and pced betweewo frames, produg a ptform a fair distance off the ground.

  As the ptform was finished, Leanna fialking to her small group of elites, and they began climbing the carts, then the frames, cmbering atop the ptform. As the archers pulled out their bows, Leanna began walking towards Dawn. As she unhooked herself from the cart, she tinued watg, seeing the group all face down the road in the dire they were traveling, and grabbing huge arrows from their gear to nock to their bows. One of the mewo arrows to the string at once, while the others each had a single arrow.

  As she arrived, Leanna began to speak, “My apologies for the dey, but more of the group I mentioned before are ahead of us. I was intending to keep it secret, but it appears to not be an option now…”

  Dawn cocked her head to the side in fusion as Leanna sighed before resuming, “We ran into an official messenger from Granitehill yesterday who was on the run after being ambushed. It appears we found his carriage, and,” she said with a grimace, “those bloodthirsty bastards are still trying to loot it...” She snorted in clear disgust before shaking her head and stated, “I hope you don’t get sick from seeing blood or bodies, as we will be giving them some free arrows to pay them back for their as.”

  Leanna turned and began walking back troup after she finished speaking, and Dawn tio watbsp; The archers had been talkiween each other while looking into the distance, but had now begun to draw their bows. Dawn was shocked, as she heard the bows creaking horribly even from so far away. It sounded just like when the roof of the house was being crushed beh deep snow in the winter.

  As they released their grip, the bows made an immense crack as they snapped bato shape, hurling the massive arrows forward in a blur. A few seds ter, one of the women nodded and turo her fellows, saying something, and they all began to climb down.

  Seeing that the ptform was rapidly being taken apart again, Daw ahead and hooked herself back to her cart. She was surprised to see that the group ahead had already begun moving in the short time it took her to head bad get ready. Apparently, taking dowform was signifitly faster than raising it.

  It was far lohan she expected before they came across the carriage, the ba to the side of the road to pass it. As Daroached, she couldn’t help but feel sied and afraid. While she had fought when the Bck Tide arrived, she hadn’t been so close to the dead at that time, and the few people who died then had been sin by monsters, as opposed to other humans. That distin felt very meaningful to her.

  The three feet of arrow stig out of the head of a young man pinning him to the remains of the carriage didn’t help either. He appeared to have been wearing robes and carrying a staff, so she figured he had been a mage, much like her. She couldn’t help but shudder, thinking of herself being in that position.

  Three more bodies were o the carriage’s debris as well, with another pio the ground nearby. With a quick mental tally, she figured that two of the arrows must have missed sihere were five bodies, but then she passed the carriage and saw two more bodies oher side. With how they y, they must have been on top of the wreckage when they were hit.

  Even more siing, it appeared one of them did not die quickly, a trail of blood eg the body’s gut te sptter on the ground. Seeing the arrooking through the back of the corpse, she was gd she couldn’t see the other side. While the clothes covered up most of the wound, the arrowhead was a horrifying mass of bdes stig out in every dire, almost the size of her hand, disting the long point protruding from where the bdes met.

  As she stood there taking in the se, trying not to puke, she heard a shout from ahead. Looking up towards the source, she saw Leanna looking back at her with a ed expression. Dawn shook her head and began heading fain, trying to put what she had seen out of her mind.

  Several, thankfully uful, hours ter of following the group of bandits without them making any ges to their movements, Dawn started in surprise as they suddenly pulled off the road and into the tall grass. As they vanished into the sea of grass, she noticed Leanna had stayed behind and was walking towards her. After taking a quick step back to detach from her cart, she began walking towards the womaing her a short distance away.

  “This is where we will be parting ways, the town is just ahead, though I am unsure if you reach it before nightfall. As you might imagine, we are ly wele. Though that may be ging soon, given what we heard from the messenger,” Leanna expined.

  Dawn nodded, realizing why they had suddenly ged their course. While she had heard they were retively nice, and it seemed to be true for the most part, it would still be idiotic for them to try to ehe town they were engaged in banditry against.

  Leanna motioo the side with her head, tinuing, “If you are not certain you speed up quite a bit, and don’t want to travel in the dark, you should stop and camp soon. It is up to you if you are willing to trust me or not, but I io tiraveling for about an hour before stopping, so you won’t be too close to us here.”