For Pollo, it all happened at once.
Gerand's head went rolling mid-laughter. It took everyone a few seconds to even comprehend it'd happened. By the time they had, he'd fallen atop them.
He fell as if placed by The Dreamer, sudden, and with a loud thud. A cracking noise and a pained scream rang out with his arrival. Samona was pinned to the floor, her ribs must've been cracked by the man's fall.
He was dressed in dirty clothes, what amounted to rags. His earthen hood cast a shadow over his face, the fire only just lighting his chin.
Not a spectre, just a man. No need to retreat.
They'd killed plenty in their time. Sure, Gerand had been one of his group's best, but they could go on without him.
First, they needed to get him away from Samona.
Pollo threw some knives in the man's direction, who deflected the first one with his walking stick, but then had to step back from the second and third. His foot was no longer planted on Samona's back, she could help soon.
Thirty seconds, maybe.
Next, his weapons.
Pollo motioned for Leran to shoot. The young archer kept the pressure up on the enemy with his bow. Arrows went flying as the hooded man stepped further back from the campfire and circled around to the group's left, behind the neat mound of farmer bodies they'd arranged.
As Leran's arrows flew, Pollo dashed towards weapon that'd been thrown to behead Gerand. It had landed a few paces back from the group: a small, stubby sword of some kind. It had decent weight to it.
How did he throw this with such force?
Pollo picked it up and chucked it into the nearby foliage, hidden in the night. One less weapon was an advantage for them.
Lerand's arrows had kept flying, hitting the corpses that acted as cover over and over, shifting it ever so slightly. There was a good chance the dead father atop the pile would fall with a few more shots, exposing their attacker.
Good. We should pressure him more. Pincer on each side.
Pollo communicated with hand signals. It was difficult to see, but they needed to make a move regardless. Giving an ambusher time to recuperate would only lead to another ambush.
Samona was now standing. She cursed under her breath and grabbed her sword from beside the fire, the meat that had been roasting on it slid onto the blood-soaked dirt road with a small squelch.
Samona went to the right of the pile, her shield half-raised as she tried to nurse her ribs while moving. Yuldan, their muscle, crept around the empty carriages to the left, making sure to hold his large sword low, but not low enough to scrape on the floor. Pollo went left as well, favouring the cover of dark to the lit route on the right.
The men had just gathered themselves in the corner of the priest's carriage before pushing, when they heard a small, gagged yelp. Quickly turning the corner of the carriage to get behind the corpse pile, they saw Samona falling to her knees. Her eyes were rushing about, small-pupiled and nervous. She looked down at her neck and saw something sticking through it. And then, she saw nothing.
"Fuck!"
The two hiding men heard Leran shout, he sounded scared.
As long as someone grabs the priest, we can still claim that bounty. I'll have Leran be bait, then I can outrun Yuldan even with the hostage in tow.
Yuldan fell to the floor, swiped at the ankle by the walking stick that'd just been lodged in Samona's neck.
Does he have extras?
Either way, the man was underneath the carriage.
Pollo smashed the carriage's closest wheel with his foot, and it started to fall. It snagged Yuldan's leg underneath it, but this was of no mind to Pollo.
I will survive.
A shadow moved from beneath the carriage with three small knives. They were the famers' knives and they pierced into the two men. Two knives in Yuldan's pinned leg, and one into Pollo's shin.
Pollo went to pull the knife out, and struck above him with his sword as he bent down. He met the man's walking stick with his longsword. Years of fighting for bounties, and his old training in the East, hadn't failed him.
He tried to push the man, falling mid-air from above the carriage, back. But the man weighed so much more than his estimate. It took Pollo all his strength to twist his blade flat so that it wouldn't slice his own neck as he fell.
He turned his body during the fall and managed to push the man off him. He saw under the hood, pale eyes with a young complexion. He seemed tired, and a little nervous.
Pollo let a smirk escape him and pushed away from the man's... no, the boy's stone-like body. The boy cursed under his breath and turned away from Pollo.
He heard the deep voice of Yuldan cry out as his life was snuffed out.
Pollo vaulted into the carriage and grabbed their bounty and the rope that tied them. As long as he made it to the clearing he could get away. He started running, dragging the priest along behind him. He hoped the priest's muffled screams wouldn't be heard by the boy as he finished up the rest of the team.
The team had died, but that was okay. He could always start again. Pollo had survived plenty of times. There was nothing stopping him gathering a new team with better equipment when he'd claimed this bounty.
Why even make another team? This bounty was enough for him to live in comfort until he died. Maybe he could settle down with that nice lady he'd met over in Endsham, maybe even Lucia would talk to him again if he made it back East...
The moon tumbled in his view, and the treeline stopped coming closer.
Why? He was running, there should have been nothing stopping him, he just needed to keep going.
Why am I so low?
Pollo turned around, seeing the arrow stuck firmly through his knee, blood sputtering across the golden grass he laid upon.
"Die with us, coward."
Leran panted from back at the campfire, his neck was sliced open shortly after. As the traitor fell, his eyes stayed locked onto his boss's own hateful gaze.
The boy approached. Slowly. His steps sounded thunderous, leaving deep prints in the wet grass, a heavy trail that would soon reach him.
"Stay back!" The captain yelled. He wildly slashed his last knife about, pulled from within his boot.
"I-I'll kill him! I'll kill this damn priest, I will!"
"W-Who sent you? Did those paladins double-cross me?"
Pollo erupted with desperate laughter, a double-cross was such a fitting end.
No, no I can't end here. I will live! I must live and get back East and use this money for Lucia.
The boy didn't seem to care much for his shouting. A quick raise of Leran's bow. Not as far away as the last shot had been, and one arrow.
Pollo was knocked back by the blow to his head, he looked up in his final moments. As the world pulled away from him there was one thing that stayed with him the longest.
The moon. It reminded him of home.
***
All in all, the ambush went pretty well.
Welt hadn't expected to have this much power stocked in his body. Maybe his Truth just gave his body more power?
Maybe not, it seemed like a lot of this power came from him using all that weight he now had. Throwing with a downward angle was particularly effective, with the extra weight pushing down on him he could get some very high speeds with the right technique.
He'd also been much slower than he had before. Being used to walking with all this weight and being able to fight while under it were two different things.
Welt collected himself for a moment before freeing the rope-bound person before him.
The man looked to be in his twenties and had ginger hair. His eyes reflected with a deep brown and his face, painted with a mix of hope and fear, was covered in freckles. The robes he wore were black, with crude etchings of green and brown on them - patterns and runes that Welt had seen before, but couldn't exactly place.
That man said he was a priest?
Welt bundled the rope as the man nursed his wrists and stretched himself under the sun. A sigh escape his mouth over a few seconds, and he relaxed more and more, as if the tension in the air was deflating.
"You're okay?"
Welt spoke with a slightly deeper voice than normal, he had done it subconsciously and wasn't too sure why.
"Oh come off it, boy. No need to act like my elder. I am in your debt regardless of being older or not."
The priest stood up and fluttered his robes, shaking them free of the dirt that lingered on them. It seemed pointless to Welt, who could still very visibly see blood stains on the robe from the previous battle.
"I am Gahan, a priest of The Dreamer."
The two shook hands under night sky.