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Lykon’s spearhead swings in a swirling flash of bronze, past Andromache’s shoulder and into the throat of the warrior behind her. He laughs at her expression, calling, “I know, he was yours! You will just have to be faster next time,” as he spins away toward a man with an axe.
“Mind your own back, brat!” she yells after him. His whoop echoes back to her.
Quỳnh’s bowstring snaps against her armguard somewhere off to Andromache’s left, and Quỳnh laughs even as she shakes a spray of blood from her mouth with a wet cough, pausing to pull a knife from her side and whip it back toward its owner. He falls with a cry. Andromache throws a kick to knock a shield open enough that her ax slides past it and into the shieldman’s face.
Their attackers pull back, wary that their first assault has gone so badly, but oh, that is a mistake. Quỳnh picks off three of them in short succession as they bolt for the treeline, cowering unsuccessfully behind their shields as they go. Lykon’s shout alerts her in time and Andromache catches him by the back of the tunic as he races to pursue them.
The force of his movement spins them both around and he looks up at her with annoyed confusion that quickly melts into understanding. "Ah, a trap."
"Almost certainly," Quỳnh agrees. She slings her bow over her back and grabs some dry grasses from the ground, ties them into a packet around her arrow, and calls them over. Lykon, catching her aim, hands Andromache his spear and strikes a spark for her. Quỳnh gives the arrow only a moment to catch alight, then looses it after their fled opponents. It arcs in a glowing curve in the gathering dusk.
It has been a dry season.
There is nothing for a moment, then a rush, a crackle. The grasses at the base of a tree glow orange in the dimness and suddenly the bark is aflame.
Lykon watches it grow, then turns slowly to Quỳnh. "Did you check the wind?"
She snorts. "Of course, or I should not have struck my target."
"Did you check that the wind would not drive the fire toward us?"
Andromache holds a hand up to catch the breeze and swears. "Back toward the ridge!" She tosses him back his spear and bolts for the bag she dropped when they were first attacked.
"On the bright side," Quỳnh calls, gasping as she runs, "I think they shall not pursue us!"
Lykon chokes, trying to laugh and pant for breath at the same time. Sparks swirl on the breeze, spreading and catching as the wind picks up. Grass starts to smolder ahead of them. Andromache winces.
"Run for the places that are starting to burn before us," she yells and then shuts her mouth tight and tries not to breathe in the searing heat coming up around them.
The world becomes a hot, fast, roaring thing closing around them like a great throat contracting.
She dives into a smoldering patch of ash from the fires that had caught in front of them, slings her pack down and curls around it and her axe, and hopes the other two have done the same.
The air is sucked out of her and everything is heat and pain.
When the world returns, she sits up aching and raw, her tunic scorched off her back, gasping in the cool evening air. Her skin scabs over, then flakes away as she rolls her back.
The line of fire traces the outline of the ridge but they’re out of its path now. She wipes the sooty remains of her hair off her shoulders and looks around. Quỳnh’s a few yards farther on, shaking herself free of her wool cloak, which has saved her hair and some of her clothing. Lykon, fortune-touched, is soot-smeared and wet but otherwise undamaged, as he pulls himself out of the stream he apparently stumbled into. Quỳnh flops back down, coughing her lungs clean and laughing and swearing at herself.
“It could be worse, it could be worse,” Lykon sings, coming over to offer Andromache a hand up. She accepts it, pats him down for damage and finds none. Then he pulls Quỳnh up and into a bear hug, soaking her and smearing her soot worse and into new patterns.
“It could,” Andromache agrees. “There could be scorpions.” She grabs them both by the back of the neck and tips their heads close. They all reek of smoke and Lykon of streamwater, and they each press a kiss to her cheek. They’ll make more mistakes and laugh about those too.