Easy Target

Chapter 3: Ari

Ari already knew that they would burst in, with thousands more than her one-person army, hoping to overwhelm her defenses.

No one had found her exact hiding spot quite yet. Ari had hidden in the tiny loft above everyone else, planning to jump on top of the attackers. Unfortunately, this plan would have to wait, as there were far too many there to pick them off one by one with her bow, as she had thought.

One man seemed to stick out from the gray-and-brown smudges that the rest were---he was the only one who wasn’t in the awful, dirt-colored uniform they all wore.

He seemed to be in charge, his shiny bald head looking almost comical against the colors of the helmets of the other men. He was quite fat, his obviously wide waistline getting in the way of the other men who swarmed like bees around him.

They were here to kill her.

“Come on, let’s get her. It’s a miracle that we found her in the first place, I expected her to be much better hidden...but perhaps that was what she wanted us to assume,” he mused, stroking his beard. His beard seemed to be growing fine, unlike his hair.

“Sir? Can we set fire to this place, to try and flush her out?” asked one of the men.

The captain shook his head. “No, she’ll come out eventually on her own.”

Ari hissed quietly. He knew her too well. Either that, or plain logic...proving that he was smarter than he appeared to be.

The red-headed girl prepared herself for injury, numbing her mind from the pain that would ensue.

It was one of the tricks she had been taught.

Ari screeched at she launched herself at the rather large target, certain that she would win.

Killing the captain first would be ideal, because if there was no one to order the others around, the entire attack would fall into chaos.

She seemed almost catlike as she flew through the air, landing on top of the captain and knocking him to the floor. There was a silence as everyone turned their eyes to look at the girl, and absolutely no movement to help him was made.

Time seemed to restart itself as all of the soldiers’ faces contorted into ones of determination, rage, and bloodlust, all vying for their chances to be the one who would take Ari’s head.

The fat man underneath Ari’s feet was beginning to struggle to get away. She smiled and took out a silver knife---the same one as before, and stabbed it into the captain’s heart. Blood poured from his chest as he gasped for breath, with no hope of survival.

A fountain of red against the first light of day.

The anger of all of the men only increased as they watched their captain die, right in front of their eyes.

“Bitch!” one of the soldiers shouted. He was wearing a black cloak, the hood down, with red-tipped ends. It was very tattered.

Ari turned to see that no one was advancing on her except this one soldier who had yelled an insult at her. He seemed to have a resemblance to Ari’s first kill---the captain.

He was probably the captain’s son.

Having no regrets, Ari stood up tall, wiping her bloody knife on her already red-stained pants. “You gonna attack me, asshole? I dare you.” She smiled as she watched him unsheath a crooked sword with several long scratches on its hilt and along its blade.

The man, his reddish-brown eyes filled with rage, pointed to the weapon. “Do you see these marks on the hilt? They represent how many people my father has killed. He only gave this to me today, to pass it down the family, and if I remember correctly, two of these marks...” He paused to point out two particularly prominent cuts into the sturdy wood. “They were put here for your disgusting, murderous parents.”

This was the sword that had killed her parents? Her parents were killed by this man’s father?

Ari felt nothing but pleasure as she learned this information. It meant that she had already gotten rid of the very person who had taken her only family away from her, and she was happy.

But her happiness lasted for only a few seconds, as she was overtaken by the rage of the situation, not to mention the degrading comments this man had made about her parents.

They hadn’t been very good parents, but at least they had been there for her, no matter what. They might be dead parents, but Ari knew that she had to make them proud of her. She wasn’t going to let all of their lessons go to waste.

Ari rushed at the cloaked man, grabbing him by his weak neck and pinning him against the wall. She had totally forgotten that he still held the sword in his hand, and by the time he raised up his hand and slashed her across the stomach, she still didn’t quite realize what had happened, until she felt the pain. She had never truly felt such agony before.

Her stomach began bleeding freely, a waterfall of the vital red liquid pouring from her body, flooding the floor, as her eyesight grew blurry, and she felt faint.

“I...lost,” she whispered in a hoarse voice as she reeled, nearly falling over. “Mom, Dad...I’m sorry, I’ve failed you again.”

She collapsed to the floor, losing consciousness almost immediately after saying those few words.