Eros

Vengeance - 38

Alora gasped as she saw Kaido fall from the second floor and crash against the ground. The bells of the alarm sounded, ringing throughout the estate, and guards began to swarm into the garden. In horror, she watched Kaido struggle, and fail to rise.

The power hit her like a splash of ice cold water, blanking her mind and invigorating her body. She threw her hand forward, and leaped off the roof.

She landed on an entangled mass of roots and vines that were previously the ladder. Her fist clenched and moved down. The plant mass rippled beneath her, rose then plummeted towards the tower below.

She stepped forward and jumped, landing into a crouch on the roof of the tower. Guards crowded the garden beneath her, rushing towards where Kaido fell. She stretched her fingers and swiped both hands before her.

A swell rippled up the barks of the trees in the garden, and sprouted from them as thick branches. One after the other, the branches stretched into the air. She skipped from the tower, then from branch to branch, each bracing her weight and launching her towards the next.

Guards yelled underneath her, and an arrow whistled past as she took the leap to the ground. She bent her knees at the landing and rolled into a crouch across the grass. Kaido peered up at her from where he laid.

"You're fucking insane." He laughed raspily, clutching onto his blooddrenched side.

"I know." She said, and straightened up. They were in the cover of darkness and trees, but the guards knew where Kaido fell, and she heard their shouts louder by the second.

"They're coming, can you stand?"

He half laughed, half coughed. "My leg is broken, and so are half my ribs."

She cursed, and glanced over her shoulder when an arrow planted into the grass several steps from them. Several bowmen stood at the wall, shooting arrows into the darkness. She flexed her fingers, and the extended branches tensed at her command, then she cast out her arm. The branches lengthened and arced over the wall in a whiplash, swatting screaming bowmen off and across its walkway.

"Alora," Kaido breathed out painfully. "I am touched, truly. But fuck off here while you still can."

"Be quiet," Alora frowned. Her hands rose and her fingers spasmed, as if strumming invisible strings. Thick roots burrowed out of the grass and wriggled into the air around them. "I am not leaving here without you."

Her statement was left hanging in the air as a guard scruffed through the bushes.

"They're here!" He called right before a root coiled about his neck and slammed him head first against the ground. More guards emerged between the bushes and trees, charging at them from every direction.

Alora stepped forth and lashed a hand, pivoted upon her heel and thrust the other, then spun around with a wide swipe. Her hands became a blur of flowing movements, her body revolved between her coming foes, and her feet slid across the grass in a dance that was as elegant as it was deadly.

Cries of pain and panic echoed throughout the garden. The roots around Alora rose and lunged like snakes, battering the guards with bone-cracking strength, grappling them in suffocating tangles, and tossing them off their feet with sheer force.

The guards who survived Alora's assault fled. For a moment, the air smelled of victory. Then the bowstrings twang.

Alora heaved both her hands overhead and the roots tightened together and sealed over her and Kaido. Knocks rapped against the improvised hut as the arrows pierced into the roots. Arrowheads peeked inside, but the hut held steady, for now.