Unnur's Line

Chapter Fourteen:

Grabbing her sword Dawn bolted out into the kitchen only to be bombarded with smoke and fire. Another crash and the dining room window exploded as a fire arrow landed on the shelf and it burst into flames. “Sienna” Dawn yelled and heard a faint reply from the far end of the kitchen.

   Smoke made her cough and Dawn got down on her hands and knees and crawled into the burning kitchen. “Sienna where are you” she choked as the smoke burned her eye’s and faintly saw Sienna up against the counter with her bow in hand and a towel over her mouth.

   Knocking over the chairs Dawn crawled to her with her eye’s watering so badly she could hardly see as smoke filled the room. “Are you ok” she barely managed to croak and she nodded. “Orc’s and goblins outside the house, I didn’t see them till the window broke and the kitchen went up in flames” Sienna coughed through the towel.

  The smoke was black and getting lower and the heat was building and the crackling of wood burning all around them all but made Dawn want to run out into the yard. “Follow me” and she grabbed Sienna’s hand and motioned for the far door towards the library at the back of the house.

   Together they made their way through the burning home to the library and Dawn shut the door blocking the smoke. By now half the house was engulfed in flames and they could hear the orcs and wargs yelling and howling out in the yard.

  Coughing where they lay on the floor Sienna looked at her aunt in fear, she pointed to a small window high up on the wall that lay just above the ground where a thicket covered the window.

   Taking a deep breath of somewhat clean air from the floor Dawn got up and broke the window and then fell back down on the floor feeling faint. “On two we get out into the bush ok” she whispered in Sienna’s ear and she nodded and rolled onto her stomach from her side.

   “Two” and both woman got up and with help they both managed to climb out of the window into the cover of the bush. Gasping for breath and trying not to cough Dawn listened to the yelling coming from the around the corner.

  “Sienna, we’ve got to find a way to get away” and Sienna shook her head while heaving her face covered in black soot from the fire. A loud crash announced part of the roof caving in right where the armoury hall was to dawn’s relief they wouldn’t find it.

    “Common get up we need to get out of here” she pulled Sienna into a kneeling position and peered out of the thick bush and into the forest. The forest wasn’t thick here and tree’s were well spaced apart as they went up the slope towards the mountains.

   “Sienna you go first, we’ve got to get up high enough to hit the ridge going east, we can loose them if we can reach it.” Licking her dry lips Sienna took a deep breath trying to ease the ache in her lungs.

   “Ok, what about you” and Dawn smiled “Get to the vale, if one of us falls no looking back ok just run” Sienna felt the tears starting to run down her face. “This is it isn’t it” she whispered and grabbed her aunt in a hug.

   Then just as soon as she let go, Sienna got up and dashed out of the bush and up the slope with her bow in hand running as fast as she could. There was a shout and from the side of the house and two wargs howled and came barrelling after her.

   Turning as she ran Sienna got her bow up and let an arrow fly with a thrum of the string and the one warg went down with a howl. Yelling could be heard from the front of the house as Orc’s realized they were alive.

    Dawn took a deep breath and bolted after Sienna hearing a yell, looking up the slope at Sienna she had let another arrow go but didn’t see the other warg charging her from the left and Dawn yelled to warn her but not in time.