The Ranger of Marzanna (The Goddess War #1) - Jon Skovron Page 0,128
of that vast snowfield. She was dressed in a thick leather coat lined with white fur, her black hair whipping in the wind as a cloud of steam trailed from her mouth into the frozen sky. In her hands was a longbow, and another arrow was already nocked.
“There! She’s there!” he shouted. “Piazza! Return fire!”
His best archer fumbled with his bow and quiver, but before he could get an arrow nocked, the assailant buried one in his eye and he fell twitching.
“Damn it, take cover!” Guido shouted to the rest of his soldiers as he grabbed Gennady and pulled him forward as a shield.
Mathilde dropped to her knees, tears streaming down her smiling face as she watched the female archer approach. Then she turned to Guido.
“You’re dead,” she whispered serenely. “You’re all dead.”
“We’ll see about that.” Guido backed toward the tannery, keeping Gennady between him and the archer. The white fur lining of the archer’s jacket suggested a Ranger of Marzanna. He’d been too young to fight in the war, but he’d heard stories about the Rangers from veterans. Horror stories. They were supposed to be extinct, though.
The Ranger, if that’s what she was, walked unhurriedly toward them as she nocked yet another arrow. Then a tall man with long blond hair and a massive sword caught up from behind to match her stride.
“Thought ya’d take ’em all, eh?” Guido heard the man say cheerfully in a strange, guttural accent.
“Still think I might,” replied the Ranger as she loosed an arrow that somehow found a gap between two stacks of crates to strike down yet another one of Guido’s soldiers. “Better hurry.”
“Damn ye, woman!” he shouted, then drew his sword and ran forward at a full sprint.
“Archers!” yelled Guido. “Fire!”
But his most skilled archer was already dead. The others were not a great shot at the best of times, and now they were thoroughly rattled. Most of the arrows missed their mark, and the one that could have struck true, the man batted aside with his sword.
“There’s just two of them!” Guido said as he finally reached the relative safety of the tannery. “Engage! Engage!”
His soldiers drew their swords and charged forward. It was seven against one. Even if the archer picked a few more off, there was no way one man could possibly break through seven imperial soldiers. Or so Guido thought.
The man swung his massive sword with astonishing speed and agility. He beheaded one man, then used his momentum and balance to twist around and parry another soldier’s attack hard enough to send him staggering backward. He slammed his pommel into a third soldier’s head, then stabbed the one who had just recovered from his stagger. The combination of speed and power would have been wondrous if it hadn’t been so frightening. Soldiers fell one by one from his flurry of attacks, and any who stepped out of his reach were picked off by the Ranger.
Guido concluded his men were all doomed. The priority now was to report back to Gogoleth about this new threat. He had to escape while his men were distracting the attackers.
He threw Gennady down and ran.
But pain lanced through his leg as an arrow embedded itself in his hamstring. He had no idea how the Ranger could shoot so precisely at such a range, but he gritted his teeth and continued on, dragging his leg. Until another arrow pierced his other hamstring and he fell to the ground. Still he tried to escape, crawling on hands and knees. Guido was nothing if not committed to self-preservation.
“Ah no,” he heard the man with the strange accent say right behind him, and then felt a strong grip on his collar. “Me’ friend Sonya like t’ have a word with ye.”
The man dragged him, seemingly without effort, back toward the tundra, past the bloody corpses of his men, and deposited him in the snow before the Ranger. She was with Mathilde, patting her on the back and talking soothingly to her in a quiet voice.
“Sonya, is it?” Guido said. “You’ll never get away with this. Once Commander Vittorio gets word of this—and believe me he will—he will bring down death upon you and every damn rebel in this Godforsaken frozen hellscape.”
Sonya seemed to think about it for a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t think so. Because first we’re going to bring death down on you, your Commander Vittorio, and every other imperial who refuses to get out of Izmoroz.”