At the sight of the metallic blur launching itself upwards out of the cloud, Rolan found a single thought crossing his mind as the arc began carrying the blur back down towards the knights, the caustic smoke doing far less than he would have preferred, again, as it was cast away with a stiff breeze that was conjured. He caught himself muttering under his breath as he kept moving, though he was moving for a covered position rather than simply bolting further upwards with no regard to what was incoming.

[color=lightblue]"Fuck..."[/color]

Positioning himself in cover, he looked to where the daemoness had slammed down, cutting him off from the Captain and Sir Renar while the magic intensified. No, now was not the time to think, as he snapped the crossbow to his shoulder and fired. He wasn't aiming center mass for the daemoness, he expected her to be fast and smart enough to know he would react to her landing as well and evade. Hell, maybe she was expecting it and deliberately positioned to allow a missed shot to strike his allies. That's why he aimed low, aiming for her knee, specifically one that, on a miss, would harmlessly slam into the ground instead of risk injuring his allies. Still, this was a juncture he had to resolve quickly. The daemoness was the kind of threat he was not going to be of much use dealing with, not in a fair fight, and right now he had to assume the original plan had been scattered to the wind just like his smoke screen had been. That meant adapting, and that meant making for the top of the hill. Sir Renar had the right idea with attacking the mage, though the throwing knife was likely more a distraction than a true attack. Rolan was not going to allow himself the same luxury as he bolted up along the more sparsely covered path, trusting the daemoness to Sir Renar and the Captain.

It was likely one of the other Knights would peel off to engage the daemoness as well, Sir Gerard given the previous volunteering to face the daemoness, leaving two knights for the more guarded path, and Rolan alone for the sparser path. Not ideal, but considering that the daemoness could slaughter him in a melee with little effort he was only going to slow the others down dealing with her. No, he focused on the original plan, lead the way up even if no one was following him. Only one of them had to reach the top, and with two remaining on the other path had better odds splitting attention than he did. But he could work with that, as he finished reloading and began trying his absolute best to land a killing shot on the hundi on the top of the hill as he bounded upwards, only pausing to line up a shot when he was weaving through the veritable hail of magic coming down on them. At worst, he would get her attention and focus long enough to create openings, at absolute worst the daemoness may take offense to his efforts long enough to leap up after him, buying the knights time to reorganize and advance.