[Mkguild] MK: The Long Day (4/5)

[Hallan Mirayas]

   /This was not, perhaps, my brightest idea,/ Drift thought to himself
as he raced across the rooftops.  In full animal form, he was both fast
enough to catch up to the assassin and light enough that he didn't go
crashing through collapsed or half-burned roofs, but it was a little
lacking in weaponry.  /Come back here!  I'll bite your ankles off!/  He
snorted, leaping across a narrow alleyway without missing stride. =

/Thank Eli for close-packed houses!  If Erin could see me now, she'd
call me a harebrained idiot for doing this.  Sorry, Sis, but I'm not
going to sit and wait for the next arrow to find me, like Dad did./ =

Cresting a rooftop, he spotted the would-be assassin, a tall,
dark-haired woman, three houses away and still running.  /Still,/ he
thought, an unseen smirk crossing his mind as he ran down the slope in
pursuit and leaped to the next house, /if it wasn't for the chance of
getting shot, I think I'd be enjoying this!/

  =

The street had all but exploded when Wolfram was shot.  The crowd had
scattered like a dropped ball of quicksilver, and the acolytes had
snatched the older children who'd been helping unload the wagon and
pulled them under cover.  The wagon's owner was nearly trampled by her
own horse when a Keeper ran right under the horse's nose, her speed
putting the lie to the turtle shell on her back.  Drift and Merai both
had pulled Wolfram into the shelter of the wagon.  "I take back
everything I said about this wagon," Drift said, having earlier griped
about the difficulty the high sides had caused while loading.  "Is he
going to be all right?"  Judging by the string of curses Wolfram had
gone through while being dragged, the Samoyed figured his friend was
not seriously injured.

   "He'll be alright once I get that arrow out," Merai replied.  "It's not =
deep."

  =

"Good," Drift had snarled, "because I'm going after the one that shot
him."  He couldn't turn his body as quickly as usual in taurform, but
he'd been able to twist far enough to see her leap from the orphanage
roof to the roof of the half-ruined building next to it and start
running.  Stripping off his vest and unbuckling his dagger from his
right bicep, he'd handed the first to Merai over her protests, seized
the belt of the second in his mouth, and leaped for the eaves of the
building the assassin had first jumped to.  Shifting shape as he
leaped, he'd grabbed the eaves with the hands of his standard form,
pulled himself up, and shifted to full animal form once he'd managed
it.  The first few rooftops had been nerve-wracking, their supports
half burned-out at best, some with gaping holes to jump, but now the
chase was over rebuilt homes, and he was gaining.  On the other hand,
the storm clouds were closer, and if he didn't get into range before
they arrived, their rain would wipe out any chance of him tracking her.

  =

He knew he had to get her down on the street somehow, where he could
switch back to taurform and where, hopefully, he'd be able to get some
help.  Anything else would put him at even more of a disadvantage than
he already had.  Leaping another alleyway, he cursed himself for not
thinking of training for fighting in animal form.  Heaven knew he'd
heard of enough enemies using Keepers' curses against them.  He crested
another roof=85 and then dove for cover when he saw the assassin's hand
crossbow raised to fire.  He was -almost- fast enough, and the bolt
meant for his right eye nicked the tip of his ear instead, making him
wince.  George's lessons on approaching an archer in clumped cover
sprang into his mind, and a sharp dogleg left sent him diving over the
edge of the next roof, a crossbow bolt whining past the tip of his
tail.  /Never pop out of the same spot twice,/ Drift remembered as he
raced for the other edge of the roof, /and get back under cover -fast-./

  =

He was jumping the alley to the last rooftop when a bolt sliced past
his nose, coming from the left, and reminded him of the rest of the
lesson.  /Don't assume your target will stand still between shots!!/ =

He jumped the roof peak, the only cover available from that angle, and
yelped in shock when his forepaws landed on grease-covered slate
shingles, a quickly laid trap courtesy of the assassin.  The main
market space of Metamor waited below, and the freshly splattered grease
sent him sailing down the slope onto a vendor's stall.  The stall
collapsed with a crash and a yell, but it wasn't the landing that made
Drift howl.  The fat merchant he landed on cushioned him nicely.  It
was, instead, the merchant's wares erupting from their containers: =

ground spices.  Pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and more buried his
nose, mouth, and eyes in burning, fiery pain, each breath producing a
paroxysm of coughing and gagging as he staggered into clearer air.

  =

He'd finally managed to gasp an unfettered breath when fat fingers
closed on the scruff of his neck, lifting his forequarters painfully
off the ground.  A dark-skinned face roared with apoplectic fury in
Drift's ear, a barrage of foreign curses sandwiched between explosive
fits of sneezing, and the Samoyed yelped and nearly bit the man when
the merchant started shaking him.  A well-practiced shapeshift unfolded
his body into taurform and Drift's elbow bowled the fat man over,
clutching his belly.

   Eyes streaming and his temper only
barely held in check, Drift reared onto his hindlegs to scan over the
heads of the busy marketplace.  He quickly spotted what he was looking
for, dashed over, and plunged up to his shoulders in the nearest rain
barrel, shaking his head back and forth.  Even keeping his eyes open
underwater, he had to come up for air twice before the burning subsided
enough that he didn't quite want to claw his eyes out, and his mouth
and throat were little better.  "Yes, I know I'm going to have to pay
for damages!" he snapped at the merchant, whose yelling had been
clearly audible even underwater.  "Total it up and bill it to Snow's
Tinsmithy!"  He sneezed hard enough to stagger himself and his hand
came away a disgusting shade of orange-brown when he wiped his nose. =

He washed it off in the rain barrel with a shudder.  "Will someone
please tell me when this day is over?" he muttered.

   The
merchant would have none of it.  "I will -not- bill some=85"  He
sneezed.  "=85some smithy for this, you=85 you=85"  He seemed at a loss as =
to
what to call the taur.  "=85you creature!  My stall is ruined!  My wares
are-"  The man's voice was buried under a rumble of thunder as the
first fat raindrops started to fall.

   Drift spotted the
assassin slipping out of an alley far down the street in spite of his
still-watering eyes.  "Stop that woman!" he barked, and bolted in chase
as she ducked back out of sight with a frustrated scowl.  Behind him,
the merchant continued to shriek and rage between violent sneezes.

  =

"Guards!  Watchman!"  He sneezed again.  "Somebody stop that=85  thing!" =

Few of the other merchants heeded, trying to get the last of their
wares under cover from the rain.  Most of the other people in the
market seemed more interested in getting out of the charging taur's
way, but not all. A trio of animal Keepers stepped into the roadway: a
cheetah, an elk, and a rat, and they spread out to block Drift's path. =

The cheetah took the center spot, moving forward and bringing up his
hands.  His voice was sharply commanding as he took a bracing stance,
the elk readying to grapple, while the rat stepped back a pace. =


  =

"Hold, sir!" the cheetah yelled, and his eyes widened when Drift reared
and leaped clear over him.  Drift felt a grab on his left hindleg,
still sore from bouncing off the wagon seat earlier, but his momentum
tugged it loose and he managed to get it back in line in time for
landing.  He swerved immediately right as the elk lunged for a tackle,
and blocked the elk's velveted antlers wide with a forearm.  The elk's
shoulder still caught him in the left hindquarters, though, skidding
him sideways toward the rat.  Drift had counted that one as a lesser
threat, but he spotted a smile cross the rat's face just before it
passed out of view.  With a jerk on the fur of Drift's forequarter and
a practiced swing of his legs that staggered Drift more from sheer
shock than from the sudden weight on his back, the rat swung himself
aboard.  The pair of triumphant cheers in his wake confirmed a
conclusion that left Drift furiously indignant: the other two had set
him up for the rat!

   "Get -off-!"  Drift yelled, jabbing back
with an elbow that missed the small rat-man completely.  The rat
clamped onto Drift's taur chest with his knees and twined one set of
claws into the long fur low on Drift's left shoulder-blade.  The other
reached up, closed on the taur's right ear, and hauled back, and the
Samoyed howled in pain.  "OOOOW!!  Let go of my ear!"

   "I
shalt not!" the rat shouted back as the taur's gallop arced sharply to
the side of the pulled ear, and then turned into a bucking bounce that
utterly failed to either displace the small rider or loosen his grip. =

Even an abrupt stagger as a wave of dizziness hit Drift didn't shake
the rat loose.  "Cease thy riot at once, sirrah," he said, starting to
twist the ear, "or I shalt truly hurt thee!"

   "She's
getting-"  Drift stumbled as a second wave of dizziness hit him,
closely followed by a different twisting sensation, this time in his
gut.  He managed two more steps before a knifing pain jolted through
his stomach, buckling his legs and sent the rat rolling in the dust
with a surprised shout.  The last sound Drift heard before blacking out
was a little girl shrieking as his body went completely haywire.

_________________________________________________________________
Climb to the top of the charts!=A0Play the word scramble challenge with sta=
r power.
http://club.live.com/star_shuffle.aspx?icid=3Dstarshuffle_wlmailtextlink_jan
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.integral.org/archives/mkguild/attachments/20080210/0b8d97=
da/attachment.htm