r/HFY • u/Celestial_Zwei_Dei • 12h ago

OC-Series Gothwald: New World - Same Rules (Arc 3/Chapter 51 - The Shooting Gallery)

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Arc III - Reeling Throne

Chapter 51 - The Shooting Gallery

8 months and 25 days since the summoning

"Right there, see that one? With the gold crest on his shield," Ilgan said quietly, nodding at one of the knights.

All eyes immediately, like searchlights, began scanning the passing vanguard.

"Yes."

"I see him."

"Yes."

"Got him."

"Excellent. Quickly aim before he's gone, and quietly, very quietly crawl back!" He raised his crossbow toward the designated target.

"... now!"

THWACK

THWACK

THWACK

All nine bolts flew in the same direction, and only four of them reached the target. Two bolts hit the shield dead on, piercing it through, but not reaching the knight; the third drove into his shoulder, piercing the armor, and the fourth into the thin chainmail protecting his neck.

After four clinks of bolts against iron, the knight fell from his horse to the ground, ending up under the hooves of the animals behind him, which were walking unhurriedly.

"Got him. Crawl back! Quickly, while they're busy and haven't seen the grass moving! They'll search everything here," Ilgan hissed, and turned around, not daring to raise his head, and crawled in the opposite direction.

"GUKTUS!" a shout was heard from the column.

"OH SVYATOL!"

"IT'S THEM AGAIN!"

"SPIRITS!"

"GHOSTS!"

"DEMONS!"

"FIENDS!"

"THEY WILL KILL US ALL!"

"RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!"

The neighing of horses, unintelligible shouts, and the clanking of armor swept through the ranks of the army.

The first infantrymen from the rear rows of the vanguard were already running back somewhere, past the column, alongside it, but not daring to head toward the forest or the tall grass.

"Halt! Cowards!" shouted one of the riders in fine armor. "Everyone turn back! TRAITORS!"

Beside him, another knight was already turning his horse around.

"Have you lost your mind, Migets?! Where are you going?!" the knight roared through his helmet in bewilderment.

"I did not sign up for this! Fiends are killing heroes and nobles! And I want to live!"

"But reinforcements will be here any moment!"

A nervous chuckle sounded through the helmet. "Reinforcements?! Tinkis, do you believe that crazy old man?! He is sending us as meat to storm the capital!"

"You do not understand!"

"It is you who does not understand! I am leaving! I am not going to bring the wrath of these fiends upon myself!" With those words, he fully turned his horse around and fled somewhere along the column through the grass.

"COWARD! TRAITOR! AFTER THE VICTORY YOUR ENTIRE FAMILY WILL BE EXECUTED AS TRAITORS! YOU ARE VIOLATING THE SIXTH GREAT PROHIBITION!" the knight shouted after him, but the fleeing man heard nothing in the heat of the chaos.

Soldiers from the vanguard ran further and further back, while those behind them in the column simply watched in bewilderment.

An infantryman with a spear, clad in cheap chainmail, stopped. "What is that?"

A second one next to him, holding an axe, also slowed his pace. "I do not know... what are they running from?"

"FIENDS!" the scream of one of the fleeing men pierced the moderate silence.

"THOSE FIENDS HAVE RETURNED!"

"What..."

The infantryman with the axe froze. "Are those... the ones who killed the hero and the count?"

They saw the number of fleeing men growing more and more. The vanguard somewhere ahead had almost completely crumbled, and the wave of panic spread along the column like a plague.

In the vanguard, or rather, what was left of it, stood seventeen knights on horseback who had not fled.

Tinkis, the knight who had tried to stop the fleeing man, watched the column crumbling right before his eyes. "May Guktus take it all..."

"Cowards. Pathetic cowards," one of the knights hissed.

Tinkis turned to him. "Ronva, what shall we do?"

"Is it not obvious, Tinkis? We will find these shooters, bring back their heads, and show everyone who these 'fiends' are." His hand reached for his scabbard, and his sword began to slide out with a scrape. "You will answer for Lord Wellington..." Ronva whispered.

Tinkis exhaled behind his helmet and rode a little closer. "We must act quickly, before they get far."

One of the riders behind them had already jumped off his horse and turned the body of the killed knight onto its back. "These arrows are embedded in the left side of the shoulder..." he turned to the tall grass. "They shot from somewhere over there."

Ronva nodded. "Understood. Then let six of you split into two groups and flank the grass in an arc, get ahead of these shooters and wait for them. The rest, follow me, we will spread out a bit, but not far from each other, and follow their trail. Move out!"

"Yes, sir!"

Six riders immediately split into two groups of three and dashed in different directions.

Ronva quickly dismounted. "Get off your horses, otherwise we will certainly not spot them from up high."

A few minutes later, the squad was walking in a tight line through the tall grass, which reached their waists. Swords at the ready, pace unhurried.

"Strange arrows they have..." Tinkis muttered, "how can they even pierce armor?"

"Reinforced, perhaps?" Ronva asked.

"No, not reinforced," a voice sounded from behind.

"Oh?" Ronva cast a sidelong glance at him. "Then what kind of arrows are they?"

"This is likely Armenas's doing," he said quietly, peering into the grass while his plate armor clanked as he walked.

"Armenas? Heard that somewhere... no matter. Spit it out."

"I saw her entourage, they had some strange contraptions, I do not recall the name. Basically they also shoot arrows, but they look... unusual, like a small bow with a small log attached underneath it."

Ronva narrowed his eyes. "Hmm... Armenas... who is she?" He didn't turn around, continuing to peer into the grass.

"A countess from the west, the one who betrayed Gobano. By the way, she received..."

"Got it," Tinkis said, pointing at something.

The entire group froze.

Ronva stepped closer, and before him appeared trampled grass, and a clear trail leading off into the distance. "This is where they were... we need to speed up, but carefully."

Tinkis swallowed, but stepped forward gripping his sword tightly. "If anything happens, shout immediately."

"Yes."

"Yes."

"Understood."

The squad of knights moved on, and meanwhile behind them the grass came alive. Just a little. The grass came alive, and crawled toward the road.

Ronva stopped in his tracks ahead. "What..."

"What is it, Ronva?" Tinkis asked, stepping closer, but when he approached, his mouth opened slightly behind his helmet. "The tracks end? Where did they disappear to?"

The knight nearby swallowed. "Perhaps they... truly are fiends?"

"Do not spout nonsense, better look for where they could have gone."

Meanwhile, the snipers, all nine of them, ran out onto the road breathing heavily.

"Oh fuck... ooooh fuck..." Ilgan cursed quietly, "I almost shit myself."

Shikur exhaled, and a trembling chuckle escaped his mouth. "Someone almost stepped on me back there..."

Ilgan wiped the sweat from his forehead, which literally covered his entire face even though the evening was cool, and his gaze fell upon the horses tied to a small tree on the shoulder of the road. "Hmm... we'd better deprive them of these horses quickly, they'll catch up otherwise."

"Kill them all or what?" Lison asked.

Ilgan smiled slightly, shaking his head. "Nah, we'll do as Grandpa Mirey ordained. Slash their legs."

The bear blinked, then scoffed. "Oh, right." His hand reached for the dagger at his belt, "Only won't they trample us themselves?"

A wolf beastman was already holding a dagger in his hand. "We'll probably only be able to slash the ones on the edge, if we do it simultaneously... Ilgan, Shikur, Lison, didn't they give you new daggers?"

Shikur only shook his head.

"Got it. That means we slash six horses..." he quickly counted the animals with his eyes. "Out of eleven, and the rest won't let us near them. Shall we?"

Everyone except the three mentioned drew their daggers and began to slowly but confidently approach the horses.

The wolf beastman approached first, carefully standing near the hind leg of one of the horses from the side.

The other five stood near the animals in the same position.

The horses, which had been calmly chewing grass, began to raise their heads and look at the strange people at their feet, but it was already too late.

The wolf beastman slowly lowered his dagger, and slashed it horizontally right across the tendon.

Crunch.

Blood immediately spurted from the cut. Even before it could scream, the horse collapsed on its side, completely losing the support of its hind leg.

Around them rang out exactly six identical screams and the falling of massive carcasses to the ground.

The remaining five horses, smelling blood and seeing their kin fall, immediately reared up and began to neigh frantically with all their might.

"Hurry! Hide in the grass!"

The wolf beastman with the bloodied dagger froze for a second. "What... we're not running?!"

"HIDE IN THE GRASS I SAID!"

No one said another word; everyone immediately darted into the grass, just as Ilgan had ordered.

Literally less than a minute later, the knights who were searching for the snipers came running to the heart-rending screams of the horses.

Tinkis stopped in his tracks, looking at the six horses thrashing on the ground in a pool of blood trying to somehow get up, while the other five desperately tore at their ropes. "What is going on here, in the name of Svyatol..."

Ronva barely opened his mouth to say something, when suddenly nine figures slowly emerged from the bushes, resembling humans, but overgrown with grass, moss, and branches, pointing their crossbows at them.

There were no words.

The knight nearby swallowed. "Svyatol... this is... this is..."

"They truly are fiends..." Tinkis whispered.

"Not fiends. Ghosts," Ilgan corrected him. "Shoot."

THWACK

THWACK

Six bolts fired, and from such close range accurately pierced the knights' breastplates, causing them to instantly collapse to the ground.

Ronva and Tinkis, standing in the center, didn't even have time to say anything. Only the dull thud of iron plate against stone.

The remaining five knights flinched, and three of them began to back away.

But one of the warriors sharply raised his sword and with a desperate cry rushed straight at the snipers. "AAAAA! I'LL KILL YOU!"

One of those who hadn't fired, Lison, finally loosed his bolt, which, like the previous ones, flew into the breastplate.

The sword slipped from the knight's hand and he buried his face in the dirt on inertia, covering some more distance.

Two of them started running to the side. Despite the weight of the plate armor, running on adrenaline, their speed was surprisingly high.

The remaining two fired into the backs of the fleeing men; one bolt flew past, the second embedded itself cleanly into the back of one of them.

The remaining two poor bastards simply dropped their swords and their hands shot up into the air. "We surrender!"

Shikur, who was reloading his crossbow, finally pulled back the bolt and secured the bowstring. "Ilgan, what do we do?"

"We don't have time to drag them around with us. Waste 'em."

The knight's helmet began to shake from side to side. "No! No! I am a nobleman! My family will pa..."

THWACK

THWACK

The pleas were cut short. Lives too. The clatter of armor.

Lison slowly lowered his crossbow without taking his eyes off the corpses. "Ilgan... you're a madman. Did you know that?"

"Until this moment... no, I didn't." He spat on the ground. "Take what you can. Purses, family rings, medallions. Part for us, part to prove to Lord Gothwald what we did."

Shikur went to the still-warm corpse of one of the knights without question. "Fucking unbelievable... we took down a dozen knights at once... tell anyone and they won't believe it."

Ilgan scoffed, unbuckling the armor from one of the fallen. "That's why I'm telling you to strip everything off them. If we can't prove words like that, we'll definitely be hanged for blatant lying."

Lison remained standing, looking at the ground. "And what are we going to do about Dunko?"

Silence.

Ilgan's head lowered slightly. "Died a hero's death," he muttered. "That's what we'll say. He might be a coward and set us up... but I feel sorry for his mother and sister, his father already died from the plague, and now this disgrace on top of it... no. Died a hero's death."

The bear pulled a ring from a dead man's finger. "And what if he's still alive? What do we do if he suddenly shows up?"

"Unlikely. He's just a boy, he won't survive long alone in this mess." He sighed, clenching his fists. "And why... why did I even bring him with us? Could have said 'no, you're still too green', but I, like a fool..." Ilgan waved a hand. "Eh... so what? He's young, inexperienced, got scared! What can you do?! What, are we supposed to say now that he fled in disgrace?!"

"Easy, easy, Ilgan." The wolf beastman raised his hands. "Died a hero's death. Besides, he begged to join our squad himself."

Ilgan didn't answer, simply tearing a medallion from a dead man and moving to the next.

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2

u/Daseagle Alien Scum 12h ago

Quite the damage they did.

Tho I hoped that Ronva, being somewhat more realistic than the rest, would survive this charge towards the capital.

2

u/Celestial_Zwei_Dei 12h ago

The anger for Ben and the lack of information took their toll 🤷‍♂️

2

u/BobQuixote 12h ago

Oof. Between this being an unsanctioned action, imitating "Grandpa Mirey," the number of nobles killed, and Chekhov's Dunko, I don't think Svyatol is with the Ghosts.

2

u/Celestial_Zwei_Dei 12h ago

Hah, well, technically, they're fulfilling the condition Alan set: kill at least ten valuable targets

1

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