Chapter 3: The First Battle of Lith Harbour, Part I

"Mitts" ran lightly down the deserted streets of the industrial complex. The shipyards were empty - the workers were on strike. A half-completed ship once meant for transport to and from Ossyria sat abandoned on the dry dock, a crane still hanging over it where it had been left by its operator. Mitts noted that it was occupied again, this time probably by a Grosjager guard.

He waited until the guard's head was turned away, then dashed to the crane's base in one fluid motion. This was a safe place to take a short rest, since the guard shouldn't be able to see through his compartment's floor. Mitts wasn't about to risk his life on something as dumb as that, though, so after a moment he rolled to one side and took up a proper hiding spot among several cargo boxes.

"Crap!" He almost uttered aloud. An unmistakable glint of light caught his eye from a window not far away. Someone in armour was behind that window. Had he been seen? Mitts wondered if a sniper's bolt was even now tracked on him.

One minute... two minutes... I'm still alive! Mitts decided with relief. By sheer luck, he had avoided detection. Now to find a way to get out... Mitts waited until the figure in the window moved away, then began to extend a foot... but something in the cautious side of his mind told him to wait just a moment longer.

Sure enough, a white taxi soon rumbled by. Breathing a sigh of relief, Mitts began to make his move. He stepped out slowly-

-and instantly ducked back as yet another person appeared at the window. Mitts knew he was pushing his luck (which he didn't have quite as much of as he would prefered, since he used strength daggers) beyond the limit, but he could not resist sneaking a peek over the crates to see who it was this time. He idly fidgeted with his radio, setting the communications to "2 - party" in preparation for making his report.

The bowman hat... the yellow luster of a golden crow... the serious face... Daar! It was true, here was the very leader of the Grosjager himself. In later recollection, Mitts would never be sure whether he wetted himself with excitement or not as he radioed in to base, although he always denied it.

"Tally-ho on umpti! Coordinates 354-721, elevation 8. Repeat, tally-ho on umpti!" Mitts still remembered to speak in code despite the supposed security of a "2 - party" line.

"Calm down, Mitts. Call in the shots clearly, now," the Lieutenant advised.

Mitts remembered the guard in the crane above him. "Lorang, 352-728, elevation 25, straight. Umpti, repeat, umpti, 354-721, elevation 8, royal flush!" He had called down a liberal amount of artillery on the guard, and directed the rest at the 4th-floor window where Daar was as well as the area immediately around.

"Bombs away on final confirmation," Mortar responded. The hunter, a few blocks away, pointed his Vaulter 2000 into the sky and drew the bowstring back, ready to release arrow bombs any moment.

Mitts took a final deep breath. This was the last moment of relative quiet for hell would soon break out all around him. He made one last sweep of the surroundings, and satisfied that there were no surprises in sight, uttered into his radio "Positive."

"Commencing fire." Mortar.

"Move out, troops!" The Lieutenant.

What Mitts did not know, though, was that the taxi had stopped and unloaded its passenger just out of his field of vision.

After a long, fruitful, and fulfilling career in the Grosjager, Daar was ready to retire. A chartered ship was due to arrive shortly to take him to the world of W.o.W.... he looked at the Maplean sunset one last time, savoring the warm light basking his body. There was something very beautiful about the simplicity of all this.

He heard the whistling before he saw the object. Smiling, he pulled down a steel shutter over the window and walked to an adjacent room further inside the building. This had once been an office building holding the bureaucrats of the shipping industry. The spaces had been designed for comfort, and comfort meant increased efficiency for his teams of radio operators and codebreakers.

The master codebreaker shook his head; they had not yet managed to compromise Heavy Battalion's private "2 - party" communication line.

"That is no longer necessary," Daar said. "They are coming." He nodded at a warrior in heavy armour - the same one Mitts had seen earlier - who gathered a few more people and headed down to the ground floor.

The first arrow bomb impacted perfectly on top of the crane, followed by two more. There was no chance their "guard" on it would still be conscious. Stunned, at the least, and more likely ripped apart by glass shards. But this "guard" was merely a dummy to distract the first few shots. The sounds of the explosions could not be missed by anyone. Everyone, including Daar, reached out to hold on to a secure object. The bombs would strike their building soon enough.

Arrow bomb number four, expertly launched courtesy of Mortar, struck dead centre in the window where Daar was a few seconds ago. But the explosion could not do much against the steel plate placed behind the glass. Likewise, the bombs after peppering the entire building merely shook the walls and shattered other windows, but all in all no true damage was done to the inhabitants inside.

After the first few hits, Daar decided that the building was not on the verge of collapsing and took over one of the radios to begin to give his orders to his other asset which he knew had just arrived in the city. This asset, he knew, was just returning from a (successful) mission and may or may not still have her reserve arrow, but that would be her problem, not his. A Grosjager sniper never makes any excuse.

First, he used the most secure method of communication currently known to the Maple world - the "/ - whisper" communication line. The identification code to communicate to this particular asset was memorized, and he entered it in personally, not risking letting anyone else (a RVMP spy among his ranks was highly unlikely, but nothing was impossible) know of it. With the command and the six-letter code entered into the radio, he gave his command tersely and precisely: "Target Heavy Battalion Lead." Immediately he shut down the radio and destroyed it to remove all trace of the communication.

Another smile played on his face as he turned to the master radio operator. "Tell Mekil to go out and engage this 'heavy battalion' when he sees their leader neutralized." The trap was fully set now.

Finally, my first worthy target, Naimee thought as she stepped carefully along the roof of an old warehouse. There was no parapet, and the roof's slide-prone shingles did not make for the safest walking surface. What decent sniping spot was ever perfectly safe, though?

It was too bad that the target would have been a good man otherwise. He was vehemently opposed to the cult of Haxor and spoke out against the followers of Boter. If he had not had similar convictions against organisations of justice like the Grosjager, he would have been a likely recruit for the Grosjager. It was so unfortunate, really, that so many of those who had the vision to see the cults of Haxor and Boter for what they truly were - the two axis of evil of the Maple world - could at the same time be so blind as to view the righteous Grosjager as another terrorist cell.

And so, the target had to be neutralized. At least this way, he would fall in battle and be amply rewarded with a hero's funeral. It was the least the Grosjager could give him as a token of thanks for his work against Haxor.

With these thoughts in mind, Naimee set up her mountainous crossbow and loaded her only bolt. After the messy fiasco with Laoprada, she was determined to do this one cleanly and perfectly. The target was now leading his troops down the street, darting from one shadow to another to avoid detection. The shadows weren't quite dark enough.

Three pounds of pressure on the trigger, and that familiar whistle of split air again.