One of the helicopters had bowed its front, sweeping forwards. Robert ordered his men to duck, shouting that anyone who still had their shield should crouch behind it. He himself dived behind the cover of an upended jeep, dragging a couple of his men with him — just as the chopper's machinegun began spraying the area. It seemed not to care whether its own troops were in the way, so long as it got Robert's men. Several were thrown back by the blast, losing their shields. Then, vulnerable, they were torn to shreds by the second sweep — vests no protection from this kind of intense firepower.
"Damn it all!" growled Robert. Then to his men: "Stay under cover!"
Before they could say anything, Robert had run out from behind the jeep, sprinting towards a tank that was still on fire. Bullets peppered the earth behind him, but he flung himself forward and, taking cover behind the metal hulk, he primed his bow, igniting one of the special payload arrows from his quiver.
Stepping out he took a second to aim, but it was all he needed.
The arrow was flying even as he took cover behind the tank again. The helicopter had no time to get out of its way, the pilot so overconfident that the arrow could do no damage to his craft that he stayed there and waited for the thing to hit. Then it struck its target, glancing off one of its remaining missiles, but in the process smearing the cocktail of heated chemicals across the casing. Seconds later the missile exploded, taking the entire helicopter with it.
Robert strode out from behind the tank in time to see the blazing ball go down, striking the earth nose first. He heard cheering from behind him, his actions prompting others to break cover, attacking the two helicopters as they had done the tanks, jeeps and motorcycles.
One of them was hit with a paint bomb across the windshield, obscuring the pilot's vision, forcing him to pull back. A tree trunk fired from what was probably the one remaining catapult then struck the side of that chopper. The pilot seemed to be trying to land, then attempted to rise up again. A couple of petrol bombs to the undercarriage were enough to persuade him to set down, and Robert saw him leap from the cockpit. Two arrows from Dale's bow — the lad still riding his horse into the action — were waiting for him, pinning him to the ground.
That left one last attack helicopter.
Robert broke cover again, hunting the thing before it got a chance to hunt him. He hadn't gone far through this nightmare of war — explosions going off everywhere; armoured vehicles still ahead; not to mention a good number of Russian troops — when the black beast spotted him. It hovered close into view before him. On the side of this one somebody had painted a shark. Not a bad description for that thing in the right hands, thought Robert. But where the shark was a thing of nature, this wasn't. It had no instinct, no cunning or guile: that was left to whoever was in control. There was nothing organic about its methods of killing at all, hiding behind all those guns and rockets and metal.
But The Hooded Man: he was another story entirely. He was living on instinct and adrenalin. A true force of nature.
He stood there, all Hell breaking loose around him. Then he raised his head, not revealing too much of his countenance. Bow slung over his shoulder, he coaxed the chopper to come closer with a crook of his finger.
The pilot was hesitating, probably because of what had just happened to the other chopper. Then suddenly the helicopter moved forward, nose down. Robert knew all its weapons must be trained on him.
Faith, he thought to himself. If I just have enough faith.
They seemed to stand frozen like that, an iconic scene from one of Jack's old action movies, everything happening in slow motion around them. Like two gunslingers from a western, each one waiting for the other to draw.
Robert reached around the back of his belt first, but as he did he could've sworn he heard the clicking of the machine gun, saw it moving and training on him. He waited for a blast that never came — whether the guns jammed or the pilot hesitated again, he had no way of knowing — but he took advantage of the seconds it gave him. Pulling out a bolas (the same design as the one he'd used for hunting in Sherwood, only now made from a length of metal chain) he tossed it at the base of the helicopter's lowest rotor. It got tangled up quickly, the small spiked balls — taken from two maces — sparking as they whipped up into the blades.
The helicopter pulled its nose up and veered to one side, firing its gun now but spraying the bullets into the air and hitting nothing. Robert watched from under the brow of his hood, as it drifted across the skyline sideways Then as it piled into a bunch of trees at the edge of the field, getting tangled up in the branches.
May not have been a slingshot, Reverend, thought Robert, but it did the trick.
He didn't have much more time to think about it, because something hit him. Something big and hard that came out of nowhere, sending him spinning.
Robert felt the pain in his side as he flipped around. Connecting with the ground, he continued to roll, his sword flattening against his side. He felt his vest catch on something and rip apart at the front, the metal plate slipping out; heard something round the back of him crack and hoped it was only his bow.
When he came to a halt, he was looking up at the blue sky, the clouds passing overhead. Then it was going dark… He was beginning to black out. Not now, Robert. Fight it!
He held on to the image of that blue sky, and for a few moments it felt like an ordinary day in the English countryside.
Then whatever had hit him drew up not far away.
And he heard someone climb out, approaching his battered and bruised body.
Bohuslav had watched the defeat of the helicopters and had to pinch himself in case he was dreaming. Not that he ever had dreams like this, his were much darker affairs. More personal.
It had all started off so well. The destruction of whatever was flinging those crude missiles was countered with the more modern-day variety, guided in on target and blowing them to bits. It was when the Black Sharks had got closer to the fighting that the problems started.
And him! Govno! That irritating little man with his Hood and his arrows and his sword. He'd actually taken down two — count them, two! — of the craft himself. Small wonder his reputation had spread. His men would blindly, and bravely it had to be said, follow him into the very depths of Hades itself if he asked them to. Perhaps Tanek had been right to broach his concerns that Hood might come for them one day. Definitely better to take him out of the equation now. Except they weren't doing such a great job, were they?
Bohuslav's fingers itched. He could see that the only way they were still going to pull this around would be for him to put The Hooded Man down personally. Cut off the head and the rest of the body withers — he had learned that at a very early age in his experimentations with animals.
Bohuslav ordered his driver to double back, come at the battlefield from the side. "Ram him," he commanded, pointing ahead to the lone figure who had just defeated one of the most sophisticated pieces of military hardware known to man, as if he was teaching a school bully a lesson. It would definitely be a challenge to fight this individual one-on-one, but there was no harm in stacking the odds in his favour. Bohuslav had no qualms about this, he preferred to pounce on his victims when they least expected it, so the fight would be brief.
This one would be too, he'd make sure. As the jeep slammed into Hood, sending him reeling, Bohuslav smirked. Then he got out of the vehicle, producing his handheld sickles as he strode over towards the leader of this rag-tag team that had held fast against their might.