Season One • Chapter 8
Lyra had been counting.
Not the goblins --- Hayate and Haruki were handling the goblins. She had been counting the chief's deflections. The intervals between them. The angle of the sword each time it came up to meet her arrows. She had been feeding it information and watching what it did with that information, and now she had what she needed.
The chief favoured its right. Every deflection came up strong and fast on that side --- instinctive, automatic, the movement of something that had done it so many times it had stopped thinking about it. The left side was different. There was a lag there, small but consistent, a fraction of a second between the threat registering and the sword responding. Not enough for most shots. Enough for the right one.
She kept moving, kept the chief tracking her, and started repositioning.
It took four retreating steps to get the angle she wanted --- the chief between her and the fire shaman, all three of them on the same line. The chief did not notice. It was focused on her, which was exactly what she needed it to be.
She reached into the quiver and pulled two arrows. One between her index and middle finger. One between her middle and ring finger. She notched the first and drew in one motion, aiming not at the chief but just above its left shoulder --- a shot that any observer would read as a miss before it left the string.
She loosed.
The chief's sword came up on the right side, fast and automatic, tracking the arrow's path. The arrow passed above the left shoulder exactly as aimed. The sword was on the wrong side to meet it and the lag meant it stayed there a fraction too long.
Lyra had already notched the second arrow.
She loosed it directly behind the first, through the window the first arrow had opened, on a line that continued past the chief's left shoulder and kept going.
The fire shaman dropped.
The two goblins on Hayate's side saw it happen.
They had been holding their ground with the wind shaman behind them, and then the fire shaman was simply gone --- dropped mid-cast, staff clattering to the ground --- and the confidence went out of them. They froze. Looked at each other. Looked at the staff on the ground.
Hayate did not freeze.
He launched himself at the wind shaman before the goblins had finished processing what had happened, greatsword coming down in a diagonal arc that took the shaman's head clean off. The momentum carried through --- the blade swinging wide, catching both goblins and sending them flying.
His side was clear.
He looked past the empty ground in front of him at the chief, still pressing toward Lyra, and ran.
The chief heard him coming --- turned and braced, sword up, weight dropping into a solid stance. The sneak attack was gone before it arrived. Hayate kept running, closing the distance, greatsword coming up.
"Lyra" he called, mid sprint, without looking back. "Cover Haruki."
Lyra was already moving.
She pulled arrows from goblin bodies as she passed --- enough --- and came around the outside of the fight at a run, finding the angle on Haruki's side. She assessed in the half second she had.
Haruki was still on the defensive, the rapier moving in tight controlled arcs, holding ground through technique rather than force. Nine goblins remained, still pressing from multiple angles.
She loosed twice in quick succession. Two goblins dropped. The formation broke --- the remaining goblins pulling back, reassessing, the collective instinct of something that had just lost two of its number to a threat it couldn't locate fast enough.
Haruki felt the pressure ease and went forward.
He moved into the gaps the panic had opened and used the rapier the way it was meant to be used --- precise, economical, finding the point and committing to it. Two more down before the remaining goblins reformed.
Seven left. Still circling.
Across the clearing, Hayate and the chief had been at it long enough for the cost to show.
Hayate's burned shoulder had moved from numb to something considerably less manageable. His grip on the greatsword was still firm but the swings were coming from a different place --- tighter, more careful, compensating for the arm that was not fully answering. The chief had found this and was using it, pressing the left side, forcing Hayate to cover angles he couldn't cover cleanly.
He was holding. He was not winning.