“We need to move,” I muttered to Nel as I tried turning her around and shepherding her away as unobtrusively as possible. “Try not to draw attention.”

The stall owner I’d been hassling looked at me funny but didn’t comment. I think he thought I was some street thug in trouble with the law. If only he knew.

Nel and I slipped through the crowd, the voices of the guards behind us didn’t fade which worried me. There was another short blast of the whistle followed by someone bellowing out. “Move to the side of the street and remain quite! Weapons should remain sheathed and if you have a hood remove it! Now!”

Fuck! Nel’s eyes were bound to attract attention, not to mention the fact she didn’t look old. If only Saza was here. There was general confusion as the people around us tried to sort themselves out. Parents calling to their children so they wouldn’t be separated, husbands prodding along their wives while making sure no one bumped into them. That kinda thing. I took advantage of it.

Stealth be damned.

Taking a firm grip on Nel's elbow I pulled her through the crowd, anyone that got in my way was knocked aside or trampled over. Several angry voices followed me, but amongst the confusion of it all, I managed to get us to a small alley between two buildings. An old woman had set up her stall near the entrance and was selling some type of fruit cake thing, though she had stopped selling to crane her old withered head down the street and see what was happening.

I slipped around the nosy woman and pulled Nel further down the alley. We exited out the other end onto another street, this one just as full as the last and I looked around, my height putting me above most of these people's heads. I swore when I saw more guards walking up the street and the people moving to the sides.

“What do we do?” Nel asked me.

I pulled her back into the alley and leaned against the cool stone wall, my brow furrowed as I rapidly thought through all our options. Nel stood opposite me, her large round eyes staring at me intently. I was not the greatest strategist and most of my plans revolved around 'punch it' or 'punch it harder', so of course I was thinking along the lines of: how many guards could I punch and how much harder would I need to punch them.

I am also not a complete idiot so I knew that was a stupid plan. It was just the only one I had. If this was Dockside I’d just knock on a door, tell the occupant I was willing to pay for sanctuary and that would be that. People always needed the money and no one liked the law back home.

I spied an open window on the wall opposite us and up on the top floor. The wooden shutters were wide open, the interior gloomy.

Well, my new plan was only marginally less stupid and probably more dangerous than the previous one.

“Can you get up there?” I asked Nel, pointing to the open window.

She scoffed, almost insulted. “Of course I can...oh, I see where this is going. Smart. Can you jump it?”

“I’m not coming with you.”

“What!” Great. Now she looked angry. “Why not?”

“I’m going to go lead the guards on a merry chase around the town. They need to have a target for the murder or they won't stop looking for days, and that means days of trying to hide and I don't like our odds. Add to that the fact that you can’t be found. If they can link a Denvii to the scene... as you said earlier, it could be war. The only choice I see is to give them a target.”

I smiled at my awesome plan. Not only was it awesome because I had come up with it, but it also made me look heroic and dashing, both things that make a man look even more awesome.

Nel looked at me like I was not awesome.

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” She said, stepping close so she could jab a finger in my chest.

I could hear the whistles getting closer on the streets. We were almost out of time.

“It’s not stupid and we are out of options. Get up that window. Hide. I’m going to run around for a while, then let them catch me. I presume I would have to be judged by the mayor? Well once I’m in front of him I can show him my stat screen with the Champion Class and that should let me explain whats going on. This is a trade town. He doesn’t want war with his neighbor’s slash trade partners... it's bad for business.”

“And what happens if they decide to just slit your throat in some dark alley!” Nel hissed.

“Ha! Like they could! Now go!”

Looking frustrated and a little adorable because of it she took a quick step forward and planted a hard forceful kiss on my lips and then she was gone, scampering up the wall like a..well like a spider.

“Okay,” I muttered to myself. “Time to go cause trouble.”

I boosted a little, just enough to increase my speed and quicken my perception and ran out of the alley. My timing couldn’t have been more perfect. A guardsman was questioning a man, his hand on his chest to hold the civilian in place when I blew past. I turned right, my feet sliding a little on the stone street before I righted myself and took off.

There was a moment of silence before all hell broke loose. Whistles went off like automatic gunfire as the rapid slap slap slap of feet on stone came from behind me. Voices called out for me to halt in the name of justice, the mayor, god, and king. Honestly, I think they were just name dropping in the hope I’d fall to my knees in awe. Which I didn’t.

I spun around a startled man and juked to the right to avoid his wife, her scream echoing in my ear as I continued on my way. I chose alleys and streets at random but always kept a generally upward direction. My reasoning was the closer to the mayor I got the more likely it was the guards couldn’t just try and kill me.

Shops blurred by as my pursuers fell away, but they were replaced by new ones that sprung from side streets and buildings in response to the whistles.

I hurtled over a stall selling fruit juice in large pitchers with the grace of a gazelle and was just patting myself on the back for being cool when there was the hiss of displaced air and something punching my right shoulder hard enough to make me stumble.

I tipped forward, almost sprawling across the street but righted myself at the last second. Picking up speed again I looked down and frowned. There was an arrowhead sticking out from just below my right clavicle. An arrow bounced off the street in front of me, sparks flying as the metal screeched against stone, and I dived sideways into an alley to avoid further shots.

It was awkward running with the arrow in me. I could feel the shaft grating against bone, but overclocking as I was the pain was just above a dull ache and easily managed.

I exited the alley and had to dive into a roll as that same hissing noise was the only warning I got before an arrow nearly clipped my foot. A second projectile missed my head by a millimeter, the tip got stuck in the gap between the stones. I jerked away in shock before growling low in my throat.

Running was one thing, getting shot was another.

I turned around, my eyes scanning the streets for my attacker. There was a flicker of movement from a roof down the street before another arrow came hurtling towards me. Feeling like an animal being hunted pissed me off. I overclocked enough to watch the arrow approach and reached out, grabbing the shaft out of the air. The force of the shot split the skin on my palm and the shaft slid another inch before finally stopping. I was about to drop my energy usage to conserve power when I saw another arrow already on the way. Fuck, talk about determined, and just a little skilled. I grabbed it out of the air with my other hand and had to duck the third that was fired so close behind the second and followed the exact same flight path that I hadn’t even seen it.

Okay, very skilled.

I turned and ran down another alley, putting a building between me and the sniper. And that’s where I met the giant.

He was dressed in mail over thick leather and had a steel plate pauldron covering his left chest and shoulder. There was a crest of some sort stamped into the metal there. He was clean-shaven and bushy eyebrowed. He towered over me, his dark green eyes bore into mine as he hefted a massive war hammer up and over to rest on his shoulder.

I tried to ignore the way his sleeves strained to contain his biceps or the fact that his neck was as thick as my thigh. Those would have intimidated me and I didn’t need to be intimated anymore. His height did that. He stood a head and a half taller than me.

“You stand down, small man.” He said, his voice sounding like gravel going through a blender.

I had been more than willing to surrender to the guard when they finally caught me, and I’d been leading them on a merry chase for long enough, so the thought of standing down was appealing. There were just two problems. One, he didn’t look like a guard; he didn't have the tabard for starters and also he looked like he would eat the guards like skittles if left alone with them. Secondly, I think he called me a small man. Granted, compared to his rather large frame I was...smaller...but I wasn’t a small man and that meant that I instantly got combative.

“Why don’t you stand down, small man.” I retorted.

The Giant blinked at me, his bald head bobbing to the side as he considered my words.

“You small man.” He said eventually before smiling as if he had won the argument. The bastard!

“Fuck you. You the small man!” I said back, getting angry.

I was running from the law for crying out loud. I was getting sniped!

“Move small man!” I said to the giant.

He bounced the hammer on his shoulder, his hairy eyebrows pulling together in a frown as he thought through my words.

“Okay,” He said at last “I move small man.”

Oh, bugger.

He moved incredibly fast for someone so large and that hammer moved faster. I ducked under the swing and nearly went blind as the hammer smashed into the alley wall and broke apart the stone in a shower of dust and stone chips. I felt the little fragments pepper the side of my face and rethought my life choices.

I lunged forward, drawing close to the giant's midriff and planted my left foot, my right falling behind me to push off the ground and add more force to the movement. I torqued at the waist, my fist dragging behind my body as I twisted, before snapping forward like a bolt, to hammer into the giant's gut.

He let out a huff and took a step back.

A huff!

I looked at my fist like it wasn’t working.

The giant was smiling now. It wasn’t those angry, I’m going to kill you, smiles. It was genuine joy and I realized that he hadn’t even swung his hammer at me out of anger. He had just misunderstood the conversation.

He lifted his hammer, his meaty hands turning on the handle for a better grip. I raised my fists, planted my feet, tucked my chin, and overclocked. Even as lines of orange started to glow along my skin a nagging voice in my head was saying I needed to watch my energy levels and that I had forgotten something else.

That's when an arrow pierced me from above. The tip drove down through the muscle of my right shoulder and stopped with just the grey goose feather fletching sticking out to tickle my ear.

My right arm dropped useless to my side, much to my shock.

A shadow passed over me and I looked up in time to see a hooded shape fall from the building above to land beside the hulking behemoth. The new stranger was covered in a black cloak with its hood up. The material, loose and billowing, pooled around his/her feet and hide everything but one thin pale hand that held a bow made of...bone?

Staring death at the pair I reached up and gripped the fletching near my ear in my left hand and pulled. It was hard, and the angle was all wrong, but I managed to pull the arrow out, though my arm still wouldn’t move, which was concerning.

“I take it you aren’t guards,” I said, trying to buy time to see if I would get movement back.

The voice that answered was high and feminine and came from the hooded figure. “We are not, and if you are trying to buy for time till your hand starts working again you can give that up. It was my promotional skill: crippling shot, that hit you. Even if you regenerate instantly you can't use that limb for the next twenty seconds. More than enough time for Pruda here to smack you with his hammer.”

I remember Saza saying that the promotional skills were awesomely awesome but I had no idea they were this...awesome. And if she had a promotional skill that meant that the big dude probably had one too. Crap.

Pura took a step forward and I raised my one arm. I go out swinging!

“Hold!” Roared a voice that bounced off the alley wall and made me flinch. I wasn’t the only one. Pura took a step back, his hammer falling to his side so the head rested on the ground. The hooded chick slipped her bow back into the folds of her cloak and the hood dipped lower.

I turned to study the third stranger that had come to fuck me up.

He was thin, almost unhealthily so, with pale skin and short greying hair. Eye’s like twin chips of ice stared at me from under thin sharp brows as he stalked forward. I’ve spent my life fighting and with that comes a certain...sixth sense. You can sense a threat. I don’t know if its the confidence in the walk, or the way the person holds themselves. All I know is the skinny man was making me feel all kinds of nervous.

I eyed the rapier, almost as thin as a needle, that was held in his fist.

Well crap.