Tales of the Lorekeepers 01 - Rise of the Red Dragon

wished his father would come and tell the other kids to stop pestering his son. He wished Angeline would pause everything and take him back home.
    Of course, none of that happened. No one was going to come save him. If he wanted to make it out of here alive, he would have to do it himself.
    Hundreds of arrows flew over their heads for another two minutes, or maybe twenty, he could not say.
    “Hold fire!” they finally heard a man yell from somewhere in the wood. Gradually, the flow of projectiles dwindled, until one last arrow hit a tree next to Malloy and fell on the warrior’s back. Silence returned to the forest. Samuel cautiously sighed in relief. But a moment later, the sound of a blown horn set his heart beating once more. The enemy was approaching.
    “Move in! Take no prisoners!” ordered the voice.
    “Saxons,” whispered Malloy. “They must have spotted us earlier and were waiting for us to fall in their trap.”
    “You think?” asked Darroch sarcastically. “Those bastards shot at us from above, like cowards.”
    “You can thank the trees, my friend, or we’d all be dead by now,” replied Malloy.
    Atwood moaned something unintelligible. For a few moments, they remained still on the ground, waiting for a sign, anything to indicate where the enemy was. The Saxons had the benefit of such information regarding the small group, but they would quickly give it away if they revealed themselves too soon.
    Samuel slowly lifted his head. Holding his breath, he parted two small branches of the bush behind which he was hiding, but could only see shades of green, countless leaves and branches, dancing with the gentle wind.
    “They’re probably circling around us to close the trap,” whispered Freston.
    The archer pulled out his bow, trying to stay as low as possible. He placed an arrow on the string. Malloy quickly followed suit. Kaleb already had his fighting sword in one hand and a small dagger in the other. Darroch and Atwood pulled their shields over their heads and readied them on their forearms. They gripped their swords in their other hands. Samuel noticed that Atwood had broken off the arrow’s shaft close to the wound, probably to prevent it from becoming a hindrance in the fight to come.
    The young boy’s attention returned to the woods. His heart was racing, the blood pumping fast in his veins.
    He slowly placed a hand on the hilt of his sword.
    Suddenly, from the corner of his eye, he saw an arrow fly by, very close to where he was. Only this time, it had originated from within their group. Samuel turned around and saw that Freston was already notching a new arrow and lifting his bow to aim at the same spot. Following his gaze, Samuel spotted the body of a man between the branches, an arrow in his throat. Then he noticed five or six more Saxon warriors, running down the hill and toward them, a mere hundred yards away.
    “Behind us!” warned Malloy, who had also fired an arrow, cursing the trees that blocked his line of fire. “A dozen men from behind!”
    Freston fired a third and soon after, a fourth arrow. Samuel immediately understood why this man only carried daggers and preferred to use his bow. His accuracy was deadly, and he succeeded in taking down five more men before the enemy wisely decided to hide behind trees and stop their progression.
    “We’re as defenseless as lambs,” observed Kaleb, looking round for an exit.
    Unfortunately, there was none. The Saxons had picked the perfect place for their ambush. The group had inadvertently walked into a natural basin, with steep slopes surrounding them. The Saxons had been waiting for them at the top of those hillsides and were now encircling them, blocking any escape route.
    “What are we going to do?” asked Samuel, unable to hide the fear in his voice.
    “We won’t have much choice,” calmly answered Malloy. “Time to pull another of your tricks my friend,” he added, looking at Samuel.
    Unfortunately for the older man and the rest of the group, Samuel had no tricks up his sleeve, no magical power to get them out of this predicament. Unless Angeline had not mentioned the ability to teleport, he and his companions were not going anywhere.
    Malloy shot another arrow, and hit one of the Saxons in the arm. His comrades immediately jumped back behind boulders and trees.
    “We have to do something,” said Atwood. “If we keep them at bay like that, they’ll move their archer closer and shoot us dead without putting the rest