The Wings of Storm

13.3- The Twin Archers' Ambush

No one had released our captives yet. The two fighters on the ground were placed next to each other, and the ones Kei had caught gazed at us from the balcony. Judging by their glares and the whispers they exchanged, they were probably cursing us to high heaven. I was sure they'd attack us given the chance. Thank God my friends were smart enough to keep them trussed up.

Daisuke was still tying up our share of the loot to his belt. He muttered under his breath as his fingers struggled to intricately loop the wire. Maya, on the other hand, had already attached hers with a simpler knot and was digging in her pockets for something. The golden key stood out against her purple overalls.

'We were talking about exchanging maps,' Cho said, shooting us an inquisitive glance as we stepped within the quasi-circle of our group.

'Sounds like a great idea.' Kaede nodded, then looked around. 'Where's Rina?'

Cho sighed and shrugged. 'She said she's had enough bossing around for one day and left. I told her to meet up at my place tomorrow at seven o'clock.'

'Oh. Good for her, then.' Kaede pursed her lips.

'Uh, here's the map,' said Maya, handing out the brown parchment to Kei. Tsubasa and I shuffled over, while Daisuke joined us after giving ours to Kaede.

This time, one point was exactly south, while the others were more south-west and south-east. I mentally plotted in our own spots, wondering if there was a hidden clue somewhere. The task so far had seemed a lot more riddle based than I'd thought. I drew in a breath as I saw something peculiar.

'Guys, the distance between our south, their south and south-west points, do they look equal to you?' I traced the lines with a finger.

Daisuke pulled out a ruler and pen, and started measuring. 'They're placed two centimetres apart. I think you're onto something.'

'It looks like the HQ is in the middle of all the spots as well,' Kei pointed out.

Daisuke measured the distance, and he was right. All the locations were a little less than six centimetres away from the headquarters. Taking out a large book, Daisuke crouched on the floor, map on the paperback. With a compass— he sure comes prepared— he drew a circle centred on the HQ that intersected with the three dots on the map. Then it was short work to plot the other points in, each two centimetres apart from the other. All of us, even Kaede's team, crowded around him. Maya held our map closeby to double-check the points, and sure enough, they overlapped. There was no way we'd have figured this out without another map. Was this task also about forming alliances between teams?

Kaede grinned. 'We can split up and check out all the other locations! Actually, since you're missing a bronze and we don't have a silver one, why don't we collect either of those if we find them? Then we can meet up somewhere and exchange.'

'Only if they're still available,' Maya said, twisting her side braid. 'Our gold key was already taken, remember?'

'And so was our bronze and silver, but it's still worth a try,' I said, when another idea hit me. If the points on the map themselves hadn't been random, what if the placement of the metals also followed a pattern? 'Which were gold, silver and bronze to you?'

Maya showed them. The three points close to each other in the south, one of ours and two of theirs, were gold, silver and bronze going clockwise. Continuing that pattern further, the metals of our north-western dots and their south-eastern one matched up. A mix of pride and excitement made a smile grow across my face. We figured it out!

A few minutes later, after deciding on a rendezvous point just in case and untying our captives, we were off on our separate ways. To my growling belly's relief, we hit a street food stall first and had a quick meal of roasted sweet potatoes.