One Thousand Feet High

If only there were other options.

Hal's palms are sweaty, slick on the rocks. Blood under his nails. He pants, shifts his foot about until it finds a hold. Pebbles clatter down the cliff face; gritting his teeth, he hauls himself up and keeps climbing.

The crossbow slung over his back digs into his ribs, his sword clanking against his thigh. He wants to be gripping that sword. Far below the soles of his boots, there's a battle churning, rending the valley into writhing masses of men and sound and the wash of searing daylight. The heat is battering his skin like a solid thing.

He's a thousand feet up and the battle continues and he's alone.

Shrieking and the sound of horns. And a scream drifts up the hot sandstone—to me! Knights, to me! For God and Vercingetorix—and his fingers are blistered and his eyes sting. A ragged breath rattles in his throat and he finds a crack to wedge his fingers in, push up with his foot.

The mission is to ascend to the precipice. Shoot. He has his bow and quiver. Hal's a Knight-captain, twenty-four and strong, but he's no hawkeyed marksman and that's just the fact of the matter. There'd been archers stationed on the cliffs this morning, and then by noon those stations were reduced to no more than charred rubble and landslide remnants, devastated by smokepowder bombs and slathered in crimson. Commander Trent had screamed for backup bowmen, anyone who can fire, anyone, and Hal did have his crossbow so he's now hauling himself skyward, wondering why, why is this happening now, he needs to be down there ordering men—

He's a good climber. He was born and raised in the mountains. His fingers find the ledge and he strains, but there's a nasty crack of a ballista firing. He flings himself toward an overhang, but he's still stretched and dangling and though the iron shot misses him, there's still a shower of debris bouncing off his back, his arms. He'd abandoned his breastplate and mail and gambeson for the climb, and this leather jerkin won't protect him from the bruises.

Something hard glances off the fingers of his left hand, snapping bone; instinct forces him to release, and for a terrifying moment there's nothing but pain and empty air, but somehow he regains his footing and scrambles, claws at the rocks until he's collapsed on his knees there on the summit, dizzy from the sun and this new agony.

It takes a few moments to force his lungs to inhale again. He sets his crossbow on the ground, and he takes cover behind a outcropping of boulders and examines his hand. It moves, painfully, and all of the fingers are responsive, but for the littlest one, which is possibly broken in several places. He binds it with a stiff bit of leather from his jerkin and strips torn from his shirt, and after that's over with, he proceeds to ignore it, as best as he can, flopping on his belly to crawl forward and peek over the rim to the ground so far below.

The Knights are on the defense, losing ground. It's easy to pick them out, white surcoats and shields, tiny exclamations. One thousand. Hal closes his eyes for a bare moment. He's wearied. He's climbed for over two hours, but he's alone on this western wall and the wind is in his favor. He has work to do.

So he crawls to his bow. Hal hefts it up, turns it over, and cleans the dust from its mechanisms with his tattered sleeve. Stiffly, he clambers to his feet and turns the weapon down, sliding his foot into the stirrup and reaching to take hold of the whipcord. Even if he's a swordsman by specialty, the string still fits comfortably into the calluses between his finger joints. He draws.

The whistle of a ballista's shot, fired again—takes him by surprise. The mass of solid metal buckles the ground beneath his feet as it strikes the cliffside. Hal stumbles, lands on his side. He's wheezing, and his brow is throbbing, fresh and urgent; he touches his head and his fingers come away tacky with sticky blood.

The young Knight growls, rolling onto his elbows and knees, stands again. Rage is pumping through his veins, he's angry now. He yanks on the crossbow's string, hears the click, and drops in a bolt. He takes two steps forward, surveys the frantic chaos of the battlefield below him for a heartbeat, and then he jams the butt of his weapon against his shoulder, takes stance, and fires.

The ballista operator is the first to go. A clean shot. Hal doesn't spare him more seconds than it takes to make sure he's dead before he fires again, several times. Drop, yank, hoist. Snap. He wipes his hands on his trousers between every shot to keep the trigger dry, and he moves constantly. Snap. Sometimes he misses, but he swallows frustration with cold calm. He's no sniper, but now he's one thousand feet above this war with death in his sights.

This is my land, my people, he thinks, and cocks his finger. Watches a bronze-clad body hit the ground. I do this for my wife, my friends, family. For Kate's sister, who you raped to death.

Perhaps, then, that movement, a thousand feet up, a thousand bolts, perhaps he fells a thousand lives. Prays a thousand prayers to plead forgiveness. From a thousand feet up, he looks down his sight and sees a man on a horse with a banner, and even so far away he knows him for the general. Hal swallows hard and thinks of scripture. Capture the dragon for a thousand years.

Cut off the head of the snake.

Taking a deep breath, Sir Haldor dashes blood from his eyes, aims, and squeezes the trigger, firing his death shot from a thousand feet up and away.