Displaced

Chapter 19

Arlette Faredin grabbed hold of the side of the wagon as one wheel hit a large rock and the entire side lurched precariously into the air before smashing back down with a massive crash. She readjusted her makeshift shield, really nothing more than the top of a broken barrel, getting ready to block as many of the incoming projectiles as possible. She batted away a stone the size of her fist, then dropped to the floor to avoid the spike of ice flying in just behind it. The icicle pierced through a floorboard with a terrifying screech, lodging a good two hand widths of itself into the board. Luckily, the wood held.

The stones were annoying and posed a major injury risk, especially if somebody got hit in the head, but they wouldn't do much to stop the wagon they occupied from continuing its thundering flight through the last few leagues to Stragma. The icicles, on the other hand, were more dangerous, both to the people of the wagon and the wagon's structural integrity. Some of them, like the last one, came in at such speed that she didn't trust her impromptu shield to stop them. But rocks, ice, and even arrows weren't why she was standing at the back of the wagon. No, the real concern was the fireballs. Just one fireball landing in the wagon would start a blaze that they'd be hard pressed to quench before a second fireball landed, and then a third. Only with an intact vehicle did they stand a chance to escape for the last time.

The trip had been quiet and uneventful enough for Arlette to get her hopes up. Lucas and Liela had been true to their word. They'd arranged for a wagon and gotten them into a trading caravan headed for Stragma, one where, as long as they kept their heads down and faces hidden, nobody would ask questions. The group had traveled like that for almost twenty days, heading southwest through the desert sands towards the mountains that marked the border to freedom. But somehow the bounty hunters had found out. They always seemed to find out. This time, however, failure on their part meant losing their reward for good, so it seemed that those that remained had finally teamed up.

They'd struck in the pre-dawn light, coming out of nowhere. Most came in battlewagons and several chariots, pulled by armored garophs. The weight of the people and armor meant that, even with more beasts per wagon, those hunters could give chase but were too heavy to easily catch up. That was not a problem, however, except for the vekkel riders.

If garophs were the ideal beast of burden for heavy loads and peaceful times, vekkels were their opposite, fast-moving lizards that carried a single rider only and excelled more at fast sudden strikes than sustained long-distance travel. Vekkels were rare and people trained enough to ride them rarer still, but somehow at least five vekkel riders had been part of the attack.

Together the bounty hunters had overwhelmed the caravan's few guards and begun to make their way through the wagons, killing anybody who wasn't one of their targets. Chaos beset the camp and Arlette's group had fled, making a break for the nearby border while they still had a chance. The vekkel riders had descended upon them fairly quickly once it became clear they were the target. Arlette had managed to kill a rider with a lucky toss of a throwing knife, but the others had veered off, using their fast, agile mounts to get ahead and set up ambushes, popping out at the worst times to attempt a strike against the garophs.

That was how Arlette and her companions had ended up careening towards the nearby mountains, garophs frothing from one part terror and one part exhaustion, as at least a hundred hunters gave chase. Jaquet stood by the front, using his weapon and anything else he could to protect the garophs and Sofie from the incoming assault and any vekkel ambushes from the front. Sofie, not one for long-range battles, or any battles really, was doing her best to steer the panicked beasts around the winding road. For somebody whose only experience driving a cart was a few shifts guiding the wagon during the earlier part of the journey, she was doing a fairly good-