Zolik’s labored breathing became uneven as the arrowhead pained his chest. Turmer’s voice strained to pronounce his needed words. Fliss gave manic giggles as she steered the horses. Ashlette was on high alert, listening to her surroundings, but it had become useless to try and discern anything beyond the cart. The spell that let them move ahead at such a great speed robbed her of the ability to be able to notice the reality around them. Sounds that did manage to reach them no longer represented something tangible.
Ashlette had to focus on those immediately around her. Zolik needed much of that attention. Her hand cupped the wound where the arrow had pierced under the dwarf’s arm. She did her best to keep the shaft still, trapping it between her fingers as she prevented Zolik from bleeding further. It was a losing battle while the shaft remained in place, but without supplies to counter the damage, it was a necessary hindrance if she didn’t want to lose Zolik entirely. She looked forward just as a shape came into focus among the shifting scenery. A cart that would have taken ages to overtake normally now was being charged upon as if it stood still.
The gnome was entranced at the motion of the landscape and failing to respond to the coming threat.
“FLISS!” Ashlette commanded, with one hand pointing at the obstacle ahead. She then gripped the back of the wagon bed as the wagon lurched at the gnome’s sudden correction. Ashlette grit her teeth wanting to reprimand her little friend, but it was not worth drawing her attention away from the road again.
“We can’t afford any delays Fliss, he’s fading.” She said quietly, deciding that the spoken stakes would be enough.
She looked down to see if Zolik had shifted only to find him bleeding rather badly again. She readjusted her hold to best press while taking care not to push the arrowhead further. With both of her hands tending to Zolik, her own injured leg had rolled about in its makeshift brace. The pain and throbbing were being ignored, but she knew that it had been further aggravated. She mentally cursed at not having just spent some funds to have had it healed. Another thought of reason countered that those funds would be needed to save Zolik’s life. A third snarled that neither expense would be needed if the bandits hadn’t targeted them.
She humored the last voice in her head. Wondering what would push bandits to openly attack a wagon on one of the main roads. They were a small group with nothing drawing attention to themselves as worthwhile to steal. At most bandits held up traders and robbed them of coins under threat before riding away quickly before the patrols would pass. To kill a trader, especially on the main route, was suicide. Ashlette thought back to the moment. The bandits had been organized and had planned ahead. Arrows had come from both sides from nearly hidden positions, so they had been waiting. Ashlette looked back towards the long-gone cart they had passed. It would have been through not long before them. Why had it not been targeted instead? Had they been specifically chosen?
Ashlette looked at the crates beside her. She had signed up for a mixed and undescribed load of deliveries that were to be dropped off at a designated warehouse. Some local would deal with customs and registries before taking the crates to their specific destinations. Any one of them could be something sought after, but even she didn’t know the contents. Could the attackers have known?
A sound pulled her out of her analyzing, and she saw Turmer crumbled in the back of the wagon as his spell faded around them. He had put too much of his energy into his spell and had passed out. She would check on him if it wouldn’t cost Zolik more. The boy had been panicked more than normal. Ashlette thought he normally managed danger with a sensible level headed calm. As Zolik had been struck, the dwarf had hauled the screaming Turmer to safety into the back of the wagon. Fortunately, once he had stopped shouting…
The sound came back slowly as Ashlette remembered.
He had been screaming “I’m sorry.”
Ashlette looked at the fallen wizard. The boy who had driven himself to his limits for what reason? Guilt? His spellbook lay open to the page of his latest spell which had carried them out of harm. It had not been an old overlooked spell near the front. It was new and freshly added to the back, the next page beside it still blank. The ranger steadied her breath as she glared past her own injured leg, an injury that had persisted because the group had decided their funds had been too tight to bother wasting coins on magical healing, let alone a spell. Turmer wouldn’t have been able to buy that spell even if he had stolen every coin between them to spend.
Ashlette looked down at Zolik and the blood on her hands, then back at the boy who, for now, seemed to be stained far worse.