The Trap - Part 5

The sound of a piece of wood being snapped was like the starter pistol for this fight. The arrow Lyrika had fired had stunned everyone, but it was when the guard reached up and snapped the shaft that everyone moved.

Olivia called out for Philly and Lyrika to protect the rest, while she headed off to deal with the two thugs that were heading her way.

To their side, the heavily demoralised villager gave her a wide birth and headed towards the girls, seeing them as an easier target. How wrong he would be.

But if that wasn't enough. She could also hear voices from a few different directions, eluding to these being the villagers that had been taken out before, but were still well enough to fight. They must have wiggled enough to get out of the debris.

She was however sure that Philly and Lyrika could handle them.

The chief stood at the back and funnily enough, had made no movements. Olivia had expected him to take up arms, but all he did was stand there with his arms crossed. She also realised that he didn't even have a blade at his side.

But enough about him, Olivia had to worry about the two men heading her way, covered in leather and metal armour. One was wielding a sword with a shield in his other hand. The other opted for a spear of some sort, a short one, but she was also sure she saw that he had a bow on his back.

An observation that was very quickly proved correct as while the man with the shield continued towards her, the other man stopped partway and swung his bow over his shoulder. She barely had time to react before he fired a shot which just whizzed past her head.

'Ah, that was close.'

It's possible that was just a lucky shot, but she had a feeling that these guys actually meant business.

All of a sudden, the man with his sword raised it high about his head and swung down at Olivia, who managed to block it with the shaft of her Morning Star. Locked together, Olivia tried to keep the man in front of her, so the archer wouldn't have a clear shot. But these two were tricky because as soon as the swordsman pulled away, he moved to the side and an arrow was fired.

Too bad for him, however, that Olivia saw this coming and moved along with him, causing the arrow to miss its target.

As she did she swung her Morning Star to the side, hoping to get a clean hit. But as a shield wielder, he was prepared for her attack, raising it in time for the hit.

What he may not have expected, given the grimace on his face, was the sheer force of her attack. She was sure it must have hurt, especially given the small dent that she could see in the shield as well, which told her it had been a solid hit. But before she could do anything more, the man was just to the side enough for the archer to make a clean shot himself.

Pain hit Olivia's body as she felt his arrow sink into her skin. It had ended up in her side, so she was still free to swing her arms and move properly, but she did not want to take any more hits like that, lest she be taken out of commission by attrition through many smaller damaging shots. The first may not hurt her much given her physique thanks to being part Orc, this would not do much against a load more.

These two continued to do their song and dance, utilising each other's skills and being in sync with each other to attach Olivia, and it was causing her to be pushed back. She couldn't find an opening to attack, as whenever there was one, she then found herself dodging an arrow that was coming right for her.

She didn't know how she would make it past these two by herself.

*Splat*

But that is when she realised…she didn't have to do it alone.

…

As Olivia fought off the two guards, Kathleen, Ameril and Beatrix stood a short distance behind Lyrika and Philly. In front of them, the villager that had been at the chief's side was heading towards them.

Normally, it would have been easy for them to take the man down, but as it turns out, this man was the hunter of the village.

He moved up, his bow and arrow in hand, taking potshots at the girls as he did. This caused Lyrika and Philly to take cover and keep dodging as they too tried to take him down.

A moving target was hard to hit. Even more so when that target was also trying to hit you. So far, several arrows from both sides had been fired, all either glancing blows or missing entirely. Rocks had been slung by Philly, but the man was nimble and managed to evade them.

Knowing conventional attacks would not take this guy down, Philly moved to ammo that had proven very useful in the carriage attack.

With the man moving all over the place, and the other villagers making their way out of the housing area, Philly took hold of one of the glass vials filled with the sticky substance and a hefty amount of explosive powder.

Lyrika saw this and knew what she had to do. She took centre stage, drawing the attention of the man, firing a few shots in rapid succession. The man locked onto this, dodging to the best of his abilities and ended up disregarding Philly. Which then gave her ample opportunity to take aim and fire her round.

*Splat*

"What the?"

The man may have just seen this out of the corner of his eye, and so had moved out of the way on instinct, but he did not move far enough. Likely expecting rocks, seeing a glass vial shatter and then some of so substance come flying towards him, gave the man quite a shock.

He had globules all over his body as well as his face and hair. It was so unexpected and worry started to befall him over what he had on him. Was it poisonous… flesh-eating? He didn't know.

*Thunk* *Thunk*

Not that he had much time to worry about that though as in his confusion and worry, standing frozen there, it was plenty of time for him to receive an arrow and a rock to the chest, taking him down for the count.

The three girls behind them gave a quick 'yes' when the man went down…but the fight was not over yet.

A short distance away, several of the villagers that had been taken down were now making their way over towards them, all covered in various injuries, and they would need to deal with them next.

But before either of them took aim again, they noticed the archer that Olivia was fighting, along with her having to fall back, and they realised they might need to level the playing field a little in her battle. They wouldn't have long, but even something small would help Olivia with her fight.

The archer was just about to take a shot at Olivia, while the shied user had just finished his swing, all of a sudden found themselves assaulted from the side.

The shield user received an arrow to his leg, courtesy of Lyirka. While the Archer found the side of his body coated in a sticky substance.

The shield user fell back on his leg in pain from the hit, but he was still very much fine to keep fighting. He was unable to move as fast as he had before, but that was all it had done.

The archer, on the other hand, found that the sticky substance had ended up covering most of the arm and hand that he used to grab his arrows. To top it off, it had also coated some of the quiver as well. That meant his time for firing arrows in this fight was now over and would have to take a more close-quarters role in the battle.

He even looked over his shoulder at the chief but found him standing there and just looking bored. No wonder he hadn't helped by shouting out about Philly and Lyrika's attack on them.

But with his quiver out of commission and the substance on his arm slowly hardening, he had to resort to the short spear that had lay dormant at his side.

The shield user quickly snapped the arrow, but left the rest of the shaft in his leg, before readying himself for another attack. Before long, the archer now spear user, had made his way over to his side, and they both stood at the ready for the next stage in their battle.

At this point, Olivia wasn't actually sure if Philly's shot on the archer had actually helped make things easier for her or not in this fight anymore.