M3C10 - Arrow Avoid

I was staring down at about two thousand arrow tips, and two thousand guys squinting up at me along the arrow shaft.

<Uh-oh.>

Flit! Flit! Flit! FlitFlitFlitFlitFlitFlit!

The air was filled with arrows. It was like some weird backward hail. It was a wall of arrows!

Flit!

<Aaaahhhh!>

An arrow passed clear through my wing. I banked hard.

Flit!

<They’re shooting at me!> I yelled. There was a sharp pain in my wing, and blood streaked my feathers. The wing was weaker, but I could still fly.

<Get outta there!> Rachel yelled.

<Gee, do you think?!> I said frantically.

I beat wing but now it was like every idiot on the ground was trying to murder me. Already, they were reloading. But I was hauling. Hauling not exactly in a straight line because one wing was dragging, but I was moving. I headed more or less along the front of the English lines, trying to stay in no-man’s-land. One thing I knew for sure: I didn’t want to try and cross directly above the English troops.

Unfortunately, that was a bad insight. The archers were on both ends of the line, in the woods! I was heading straight for another couple of thousand archers! Ahhh! I tried to turn. I tried to haul. I would have run on air if necessary.

Arrows snapped into place, up came the bows, and …

FlitFlitFlitFlitFlitFlit!

Clean miss! I was out of the way, and now I could watch where the arrows were heading. Down they came.

The arrows arched toward a column of Frenchmen on horses. Maybe three hundred guys, many loaded up in fabulous armor. Some in less-than-fabulous armor. But all yelling from behind their visors, all with long lances leveled.

The French cavalry went straight for the archers. The archers were behind a lame wall of spikes angled out toward the horses. Unfortunately for the English, their spikes wouldn’t stay up in the mud.

But the spikes weren’t the important issue. The important issue was the arrows.

FlitFlitFlitFlitFlitFlit!

Thousands of arrows, all shooting up, all arching, all seeming to hang in the air. Thousands of these arrows just sort of waiting, poised at the top of their arc. A fly could not have gotten through that wall of arrows.

Down and down to stick in French arms and necks and shoulders and heads and thighs and faces, and all of a sudden what was happening below me was not a joke anymore.

FlitFlitFlitFlitFlitFlit!

Arrows flew again, tracking the approaching column of rowdy, disorganized cavalry.

The main knights seemed almost invulnerable at first with all their armor. Even their horses were armored along the back of their necks and over their heads. But the arrows were so thick that they found their way into the narrow slits in knights’ visors.

Men were dropping. Horses were dropping.

If I’d stayed one second longer, avoiding the arrows would have been like avoiding raindrops in a thunderstorm.

If I had stayed a second longer I wouldn’t just have been shot. I’d have been a pincushion.

Now the screaming started. Guys with arrows sticking through their necks, into their stomachs, out of their sides, all fell and crawled and stood up and fell again. And it wasn’t just the men. Horses were screaming, too. And that’s not a sound I’ll ever forget.

The cavalry fell back. They didn’t look good. They plowed right into their own lines, practically riding down their own people.

The English kept coming. Looking a little more sure of themselves, too. Like maybe two masses would have been enough.

I tried to find Visser Four again. I looked for that weirdly clean face, the weirdly white teeth.

And that saved my life. Because I saw now that the archers were forward, half in the woods, and they had shifted their aim.

Suddenly, the arrow barrage had changed direction.

<Aaahhh!> I yelled, spilled air, and plunged like a rock. I saw the English archers release their strings.

I saw arrows fly!

Right. At. ME!

FlitFlitFlitFlitFlitFlitFlit!

Hundreds of arrows arched toward me as I dove toward the ground. Hundreds of arrows, some so close I felt the breeze from them, blew above me.

I raked, opening my wings to catch air. But now my injured wing failed. It collapsed, seemed to break in half, and down I went at impossible speed.

Flump!

I hit mud, beak first. I maintained consciousness for about a half second. Passed out. Woke up to hear Jake yelling, <Marco! Marco! Get up!>