"Remember, at will."
My breathless murmur was met with another deep thrum as Aethisia just let loose another arrow, filling me with a bit of pride as I saw yet another body drop to the ground a moment later; we only had so many targets left, so I needed to keep up with her, but that didn't stop me from appreciating her skill.
A skill that I had helped nurture in her ever since she was old enough to string a bow and follow behind me without alerting the entire forest to our presence, and seeing it on display against prey that was far more dangerous than anything we had taken on before now brought a small smirk to my face.
Laying out another arrow and guiding it in front of the rapidly fleeing Catkin, I pulled back on the bowstring and held it for a moment before letting it go, listening to the sonorous voice of my weapon and finding another source of pride.
These bows Astra made for us were so damn good, the lightweight metal frame making them easy to carry while also giving them one hell of a draw weight, meaning they also packed an even heavier punch.
The arrows too were crafted to such perfection that I couldn't help but wonder what I was going to need to do to make sure my wife understood just how much I appreciated these things; gemstones wouldn't be enough, and even though I would love to say that my cock was the greatest gift in the world that wasn't entirely true either...
Part of my mind was wandering as I relied on years of muscle memory, instinct and precisely honed skills to lay another arrow on the string and take down a third mercenary, lowering the numbers of enemies even more.
They were all running for the safety of the cave, so I started with those that were closest to it and worked backwards, hoping to create a pile of corpses around the entrance of the cave that would help psychologically damage our enemies before we engaged them in melee combat.
With only around two dozen total mercenaries here, us having killed half of them already was beyond what I was expecting, and any additional bodies we put to the ground now would make what was coming all the easier.
I had no doubt in my mind that the two leaders were going to be adamant on taking us on with their fodder between us and them, using them as distractions to do hit and runs so that their own chances of survival increased.
That was why I was shooting as fast as I could, dropping another three and just barely putting a fourth on the ground with an arrow to the back of their thigh, while Aethisia just got two more dead and another injured.
With no more targets I kept an arrow on the string and just surveyed the now quiet town, taking it in and wondering if we should double back once more to hit them from the caves or if it was just time to do a frontal attack...
~~~
Aethisia PoV
Breathing in and holding it for a few seconds, I focused on keeping the arrow where it was before gently removing it when Dama murmured "Alright, time to get closer...", my mind feeling slightly detached from my body at this moment.
What I had just done was... seeing them drop like that because of me filled me with an odd sort of chill that attacked my nerves, making me all sorts of tingly, and yet at the same time it was sort of... thrilling...
In an odd sort of way it was a sign of my skills being so honed that I was able to end someone's life from such a far distance while they were running away, and that alone was... it gave me a little bit of pride.
And yet I couldn't really find pride in the result since it meant that I had just taken another three lives and was probably going to be told to finish off the mercenary that had an arrow in their lower back now...
At the same time though there was no time to think as Dama began to slide down the tree so that she could make her way into the town, and unless I was going to leave her to finish everything off I had to join her.
Scaling the trunk and returning to solid ground, I took another breath and tried to clear my mind as I slung the bow over my body and grabbed my spear, the familiar weight feeling just a little bit heavier in my somewhat shaky hands.
My vision was even getting affected by this now, but in such a minuscule way that it made me wonder if I was just imagining things; the light seemed sharper while what I was seeing seemed somewhat out of focus, but at the same time everything was... fine.
I didn't know what to think, so I just kept trying to keep my mind clear as I followed behind Dama, who was rushing into the town with her own spear in hand; not having time to think really did help, because the moment we rushed in we were locked into what was happening.
She took us towards the cave, and along the way we passed by one of the corpses, an arrow sprouting out from their skull; blood pooled around them and a little bit of pink could be seen, but I wasn't taking a good look to verify.
This entire ordeal made me all the more thankful that a majority of my life was going to be spent not doing this, and that I had everything I could ever want at the drop of a hat... because if I needed to do this to make a living...
When the entrance of the cave came into view we were met with a thunderous shout that almost felt physical, giving us a moment of pause as we lingered far enough away to gauge what was going on while also being close enough to engage.
"Are you the ones responsible for this?! Two puny fucking Deerkin?!"
The voice had to belong to the Leopardkin, and yet the wall of crates and mine carts didn't let us see inside, giving them the cover they needed to start unleashing their own barrage of projectiles.