Becoming The Hunted

• Jacob Pobjie, Grade 9, Kedron State High School
• Short Story
• 2016

Excellence Award in the 'Top Secret 2016' competition

She was carried along by the crowd; doing her best not to get noticed. She knew if she didn't get out of the hustling bunch of people filling the streets the person chasing her would find her.

She slipped unseen to the left, occasionally having to give away her position by yelling curses whilst savagely pushing people away from her.

Elise let go a sigh of relief as she finally broke out into an alley. She didn't care about the dead end - after all, she was going up.

She looked at the wall of the tall four-storey building and then began to climb; her hands, and feet, finding purchase easily.

After all, she thought. I was trained for this.

Her training as a musketeer made sure of that.

These weren't the french musketeers, they were protectors. In Argual, an ancient medieval country now hundreds of meters under water, they were trained as eyes and ears for each of the thirty-nine states. They were skilled in all arms: bows, daggers, crossbows, swords - you name it.

But Elise was trained with a bow and a dagger. She favoured a double re-curve bow, which gave her more stopping power at the expense of draw-weight.

She saw her target, pushing through the main street of Inova, one of the king's main states. She noticed the distinctive dark brown cloak that identified him as an assassin.

With fear, Elise realised that she only had one shot. The two crossbows in the assassin's hand would make short work of her.

She also knew that the brown-clad assassins favoured poisons so that if they only merely grazed the skin, the poison would finish the job.

Elise nocked an arrow and drew back. She then stopped aiming, realising that she had a bigger chance at hitting the innocent civilians walking down the main street. She put the bow back on her back and ran, jumping over gaps so she landed on the other roofs.

She knew one way to do this, and that meant the assassin needed to give chase.

He did exactly what she wanted him to do. He grappled onto the building behind Elise and pulled himself up and onto the roof before aiming his two small crossbows. Elise heard the double twang of the quarrels as they fired and instinctively ducked, all her training ringing warning bells in her ear.

She turned around and pulled out one of her small daggers and hid it in her left palm. It was her throwing knife. She also pulled out a stiletto and ran headlong at the assassin.

He dropped his crossbows and brought up a dagger, easily parrying her blows. Elise threw her stiletto at him and he casually stepped to the side, grinning. He was grinning still as the throwing knife hit him in the knee.

He looked down in shock, without noticing that Elise was now standing next to him. He looked up just in time to see her ram her fist into the side of his head.

He was going to prison.

She picked him up and hauled him off the side of the roof into a carriage full of hay. She jumped down nimbly and landed gracefully beside it.

She then pulled him out and got rid of all his weapons. Then she realised, that this man had tried to kill her. Tried to kill a musketeer. That was punishable by death. She didn't have time for that. She then reached over and pulled back his cloak, and found with shock that it bore a mark.

A crossbow quarrel stuck out of it, and the wound was a sickly yellow, obviously poisoned. Then it struck her as she felt a bolt go deeply into her stomach. As her life slowly faded away she realised there had been two assassins.