In A Forest, Somewhere...

[magicaddict]

...someone is watching, and waiting.

Motionless, arrow already nocked, he squats easily on one knee, knowing where to look and comfortable with his objective. He is well hidden in the undergrowth, benefiting from knowing the land quite well and spending a long time working out his sniper position. He is dressed in sensible browns and greens, and has concealed his shock of naturally coppery hair under a close fitting leather skullcap. Everything about his posture evokes a predator completely at ease, but ready for motion at a split-second's notice – knowing his quarry is within grasp and waiting for the mistake to be made.

To his left he hears a rustle in the grass, out of the main target area.

He allows himself a brief glance, inclining his head down and only slightly to the side. Nothing there that he can see. Either nothing to see or they're too well hidden and he's already toast. Either way, nothing he can do about it and no point letting it distract him. He turns his attention back to the main field of vision, knowing that his target will break cover somewhere around there, in order to take a pot shot at who will be commencing his run around about there, some time within the next minute or so. The rustle to his left may well have been a variable in the equation that he can't account for, or something else entirely. No matter, in any case.

Ten seconds more perfect stillness suggests the area may well be completely deserted...then all hell breaks loose.

A figure bursts from the undergrowth ten yards ahead and to his right, low and headfirst, rising into a sprinter's posture along what the archer imagines is the most beaten track. Almost simultaneously, a second archer rises from just to the left of where the first expected him to, bowstring already drawing backwards and taking aim at the runner. The first follows suit, drawing as he rises, but taking aim at the archer. He knows he has the advantage – the other archer always pauses before firing, while he tends to loose on instinct.

A pair of eyes, hooded by a dark brown fringe, flick quickly from the first archer, to the runner, to the second archer and back to the first. The high-speed calculations going on in the subject's mind are plainly visible for a moment, but just as fast they appear, they vanish, and an instant of calm replaces them before their owner's legs uncoil like angry springs and fire her forward out of the bushes like bolt from a crossbow.

Shit.

The first archer barely acknowledges the fact that the rustle to his left has turned into an animated blur before he lets go, taking into account the drag factor of big blunt on the end of the arrow. He changes his motion into a fall away to his right, knowing he won't get another shot out and trying to give what has indeed shown itself to be the rogue variable the hardest and most time consuming target that he can.

The runner is not bothering to vary his motion in order to throw off the archer trying to shoot him. He knows that that area of things should be under control. Instead, he concentrates on trying to maintain his form and make it to the stile about thirty yards ahead of him as fast as possible, so he can get into open country and hit top speed. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices something springing at the archer who's just let go at the one about to shoot him.

Shit. Not her.

The first archer doesn't need to watch his shot hit to know it's on target. Disappearing below the undergrowth line, he hears a very satisfactory thud and grunt of pain, and no telltale twang to suggest that his target has got his shot off, before he is descended on by a whirlwind of dagger shaped wooden blunts and dark brown hair. The backs of his knees are caught, along with a painful blow to the back of his head, before his assailant is into a rising low center of gravity posture and off in the general direction of the runner. Coming up holding his head, he sees the second archer clutching his leg, bow and unfired arrow by his side, and knows that he's done his job and things are well out of his hands.

“FILL YOUR BOOTS, JESTER!!!”

Shit.

The runner knows that he wouldn't have received the warning unless he needed it, meaning that his pursuer can only be one person. He has about fifteen yards to go before he hits the stile, then about another hundred of open country between him and his goal. This is going to be interesting.

The other person is doing maths as she bolts after her prey. She knows he's going to go for the stile – to this day he can't resist taking the most beaten path – which means running the two adjacent sides of a very narrow right-angled triangle. She knows there's a gap in the fence that would allow her to run the hypotenuse, which might just get rid of enough of this seven or eight yard gap to allow her to come right out of his left field and leave him with nowhere to go. She can't get any more precise without slowing down – might is the best she can come up with. This is going to be interesting.

The runner hears his pursuer taking a slightly different path and knows she's on to something, redoubles his efforts and charges headlong for the stile. Approaching it, he knows he hasn't got time to climb properly and throws down his dagger blunts, takes the first step at a full gallop and rotates forward, catching the top of the stile with both hands and describing a graceful arcing somersault over it. He lands telemark without missing a step and is back into sprint mode, sighting his goal less than fifteen seconds away and finally allowing himself to hit unrestrained flat out. There's no sign of anyone chasing him. There's no way she's given up, so where she's gone is a niggling doubt in the corner of his mind.

She comes to the gap in the fence no more than two seconds after he hits the ground. This is a slightly different type of gap than the stile, and she throws her two blunts together into her left hand before catching the fence in her right and vaulting it sideways. She lands a hair less gracefully than he did, but sees him almost exactly where she expects him to be, and sets off with a purpose.

Why D? Why'd it have to be her? It could have been...

...shit.

His left hand field of vision suddenly encompasses his pursuer approaching a point in directly front of him. She's obviously done her maths well and has come up with this in advance, and he realises with a sinking feeling that if he doesn't do something right now, she's going to drop the shoulder into his side and leave him with a bruise for a week.

Worse, Deanne's team will have won.

Left, and narrow the angle, or right, and let her push him off course? If he still had his weapons with him, he might have tried something stylish with shoulder rolls, but this is no time for finesse – too fast for a pirouette to either side, either. Relying on his legs to take the extra pressure, he sinks onto his right foot as subtly as possible and jinks to his left, cutting down the distance between them and trying to pass behind her, relying on her inability to scrub off speed in time to counteract it.

Shit.

She sees him sink onto his right foot and knows exactly what's coming. There's no way she'll slow down to deal with it in the space of two strides, so she doesn't bother trying. As he shoots past her back, she modifies her direction to that of the runner's home base, letting herself drift rather than turn in order to still keep running at full tilt – the slightest slowdown and there's no way she's going to catch him. It's all very elegant, but the net result hasn't bought him that much time, and now it's a nightmare to judge who has the advantage – runner and pursuer are now heading for the same point from different angles. The gaggle of people at the home base are on their feet, spreading out and trying to decide who's going to make it.

Seventy yards separate him from his goal, and now there's no skill, no tricks left to use. He has somewhere around two paces advantage over the only person for miles around who may be capable of closing the gap, and less than ten seconds to keep it that way. Letting the awareness of the mechanics wash over him, he relaxes into his task, keeping his movement fluid and loose, making sure he doesn't tighten up and lose his form. In his mind's eye he sees himself accelerating, flowing over the ground and hardly touching it. It flies past beneath his feet, the noise of the wind in his ears shutting him off from everything else. Right now, there is nowhere he would rather be.

She is aware that the next six or seven seconds bear very little thinking about. From an equal footing, she can marginally outpace him nine times out of ten, and she concentrates on this fact as she forcibly stops her mind doing calculations and clears it of all extraneous thought, letting herself concentrate every fibre in her being solely on – at this precise moment – the most important word in her vocabulary.

Faster.

Faster than now, faster than him, faster than anything else. Every flowing movement perfectly balanced – smooth and graceful, like the falcon. A pure expression of motion, carrying her across the ground at higher speed than her prey. Just about.

At the base point, people are clearing out of the way, lest they get collected by the two heading towards it. A woman with shoulder length blonde hair puts her hands to her mouth as she backs off, eyes on the very slowly narrowing distance between the two runners.

“STRETCH YOUR LEGS, STARKEY, SHE'S RIGHT ON YOUR FOOTPLATE!”

A man standing square to the base is heading back towards it at a run, to keep his vantage point.

“He's yours, he's yours, HE'S YOURS!”

“Oh this is gonna be close…”

He doesn't really hear what's being said. He's lost track of everything save the three fast converging points of the triangle described by him, her, and the home post. Almost an hour spent in the woods, twelve people sneaking round and beating the crap out of each other in order to try to gain an advantage for anyone caring to take it, have come down to two seconds, and two people. It almost seems anticlimactic that so much hard work from all those involved should culminate in a single representative from each side tearing up the field, where one can win for his team by simply touching base, and the other for hers by clipping his heels before he gets there.

Is it all worth it? Probably not. There's nothing that will come of the result, not even beer money or bragging rights. This is no more than an impromptu training exercise, designed to burn off some steam during revision. Tomorrow, D will still be a touch quicker than him on her feet, he will still be a touch better with knives than anyone in the company, Soran will be the master of all things outdoorsy and Kira will flirt with him like crazy. Right at this moment, however, as he comes within a handful of strides of his prize with no incoming attack in sight to take it from him, none of that matters. For now, he is the center of attention – king of all he surveys.

Shit.

Try as she might, this just isn't happening today. They have a fraction of the original distance left to cover, and of the yard and a half-or-so deficit she had when they started, she's made up about the half. He's beginning to dip forward, arm outstretched, reaching for the base, and she's in no position to make an attack. Out of time, and out of options.

But she's damned if she's giving it up that easy.

By rights, she should back off, let him have it and not risk anything. Mad acrobatics could well lead to injury, for her or him. Starke with a head start should have been a foregone conclusion, and she's pushed him to the wire every step of the way.

To hell with it. That isn't enough. Not today.

This, here and now, is probably the last time they'll get to match pace for the foreseeable future, and before it's over she needs to remind him who is – and always will be – the one at speed. She doesn't have time to consider options, and has to default to the first thing she considers.

Shit.

A dive in the order of what would be called for is risky. For a start, if he catches wind of her doing it, his chances of evading are high. Secondly, it's not her style and she isn't as good at it as some. Finally, if she misses, she'll be the one catching a faceful of dirt as he cruises to victory. Rather an ignominious end to the dance, but at the end of the day, when there is nothing riding on the outcome but who wins and who loses, such things become important. You might as well go out with a bang rather than with a squeak.

Three strides separate him from the post. She hasn't caught him. Wherever she is, however close she has got, whatever she is planning, she's left it too late. In the grand scheme of things, it may not matter at all whose team wins, but this feels good all the same. Keeping D off your back once she gets the wind in her sails is a big ask at the best of times, and he's actually managed to do it. A small victory, yes, but it's certainly sweet.

She dips onto her left foot – the right will fire her forwards. This will either be a thing of beauty or the work of a fruitcake. Such is the way of things. She trusts to luck, pivots forward slowly into an overbalanced position and springs forward off her right foot like her life depends on it.

Shit.

The sudden lack of noise from behind him can only mean one thing. Twist left? Duck right? Spring forward? Spring up? Damn it, why did she have to go and ruin his grandstand finish? There aren't many options - she's flying towards his legs right now, and the lack of distance left to cover has suddenly become a lack of space to manoeuvre anything impressive. It's going to have to be ugly, and quick. She'll be going for his outstretched left leg, which presents the opportunity. It's going to hurt.

Shit.

She sees his leg begin to fold up, away from her hands.

He knows where her outstretched, dagger clutching hand is aiming for.

His leg looks so far away. She's going to miss.

He's mistimed his evasion. She's going to hit.

SHIT.

Comments

[xanthipe]

You are no longer allowed to make comments to me about your writing like the ones you were making last night, y'hear? This is a fine piece of work ^_^

[indigogecko.livejournal.com]

didn't really follow the opening - too many archers to tell who was who? Meh. The chase was fantastic! :)