Lola stayed on the roof while Rovan waited on the other side on the top of the steps. The other three stood before the netting on the ground level and waited.
What came around the corner just then was not a team of horses leading a wagon, but instead an old mare pulling a large, rickety cart at a gallop. Her eyes and nostrils were wide with fear, and a small quarrel jutted from the back of her rump. On top of the rickety cart were six men barely fitting on top of the surface and fighting against one another: three burly hooded men wielding short swords and three men dressed in dirty rags that had an empty hand crossbow, club, and knife respectively.
The man with the hand crossbow swore as he was cut along his forearm and fell from the cart. He may have been the lucky one as the mare and cart crashed into the netting full on, splintering away the harnessing that held the horse as the sound of her screaming from a newly broken leg pierced the night.
The man with the knife soared over all his fellow cart riders and slammed into the netting with such a jerk that his corpse became tangled in the mess and he hung upside down, his neck at an awkward angle. The club wielder fell next to the mare and he received a kick that tossed him aside. That left the three hooded men, who all were bruised as they nimbly had jumped from the cart before impact and rolled to a stop. Each retrieved their weapons, which they had held onto or had not skidded far from.
The netting had given way in two places; one of which was below Lola's perch on the ground floor and the other had been at the stairs near Rovan's head. The spike holding it and come loose, glancing Rovan along the brow and disrupting his spell.
The cart had become upturned and its contents spilled. In between the glaring, angry hooded men and the flailing, screaming horse could be seen a long chest... the object of the Wilder's ambush.
