“Shit!” Andrew said in surprise.

A couple of soldiers bailed out of the building next door and raced across the road to the restaurant there, although they didn’t go inside. Instead, they went around the back to put the building between them and the enemy. Andrew couldn’t see anything from where he was, so he diagonally ran across the road to join them. Leaning out looking down ground Street he could see one of the gun carriages just turn at the roundabout where Station in Griffith met. That lined itself up on the college building to the right of where Andrew wasn’t fired, the explosion knocking down a fair chunk of one of the buildings.

Andrew still couldn’t see enough and decided he needed to get higher. He could try and get upstairs in the building he was hiding behind, but then, if the building became a target, that wouldn’t be such a good idea. He spotted the big tree in the verge area between the car park on the main road. He made a snap decision, kicked in the rear door, and started through the restaurant. Then he spotted a fridge with drinks in the main dining area and grabbed a cola. The sugary drink was just what he needed! Then he saw some sports drinks in the last section and grabbed two of them. One he chugged even as he moved to the front of the restaurant while he shoved the other into his backpack for later.

He spotted the tree just out front and then had trouble opening the front door before nearly ripping it off its hinges. He raced out to the tree, trying to keep low, and took up a position behind the trunk while he studied the trunk. There were a couple of convenient branches that allowed him to haul himself a fair way up, and then the was a junction area where several branches spread out that he managed to climb up to and where it was possible to stand.

From here, he could just make out the closest of the silvery, reflective gun carriages much more clearly, and he could also see that it was apparently open-topped. How convenient! He smiled as a thought occurred to him. He prepared a strong fireball as he could manage and then looped the spell into the open top of the gun carriage. A flash of flame shot up from inside the vehicle, and then it exploded as the ammunition cooked off. He could see a second vehicle still driving up Station Street, but it was just too far away for him to reach with a fireball.

The house on the corner that had blown up was now just a smoldering ruin, so he hopped out of his tree and raced over the main road, where he took up a position behind a tree with a lot of branches. He was able to work his way up into it to some extent, although not as far as he had on the previous tree. Because the house had been largely demolished, he could see down Taverner Street, where two of the gun carriages were moving forward in tandem. The tree had too many branches for him to throw the spell properly, so he hopped down and ran across the road to an electrical box or something. The gun carriages must’ve seen him as one of them fired in his direction. He heard the shell whistle past his head before it smashed into the house behind him, where it exploded, wrecking the house pretty much totally.