Falling Rain

Sheets of rain blocked vision and soaked to the bone. A lone, crouching figure watched from a thicket almost 20 paces away. If there was anyone closer, Solean could not see them. They would have to be well hidden. She herself was crouched and hidden in the dense low, greenery. Her soft, leather clothing, brown tinged with green, made her nearly invisible to all but the very sharpest. It was hard to sit still in this position, to escape detection. One was a protruding arrow in her left leg. It had numbed all the way to her foot, but that she couldn’t feel. The arrow that had punched through her shoulder, and remained in her shoulder, burned, it did not numb at all, it was thicker and shorter, nearly a crossbow bolt. But her sharp eye told her it had been from a horn bow. Fatigue dragged at her mind and body, struggling to pull her down into unconsciousness. The only thing that stopped her from it was hope. For her friends, herself, her nation. Right now she couldn’t see the barricaded fort, but she had th e entirety of it in her mind. Huge walls surrounded the inner fortress, 40 spans high. It stopped her from scaling them. Even if Solean could have found some way over there were still other stoppers. Thumb-thick pikes stuck up at angles from the base of the walls. She never would have made it past those blood-soaked teeth. Guards were well hidden, spread to places you would least expect them. They were all fairly quick. Most were even fairly accurate with their horn bows, as Solean had personal knowledge.

Movement caught her eye, but she could only squint into the torrent of falling water and hope they had more difficulty in seeing, hope that they hadn’t spotted her. Hope that she could still try. Hope again. Nothing was certain in this cruel world and hope set the path time and time again for those who fought against it.