Downhill

I slid to a stop on the trail I'd noticed from above a few minutes later, stopping to strap my shield to my hip where it would be completely useless if I got into a fight, but it was too much of a pain to carry it.  I didn't think that it would be much more comfortable on my hip either but the alternative was to just throw it aside and I wasn't keen on that.

The trail seemed to run in a generally east-west direction with a lot of switchbacks and dodging trees and rocks, with west heading down from the mountainside.  Looking back up the hill, the stone walls of the keep weren't easy to make out from here.  After a thoughtful moment when I had no idea what I was thinking, I shook my head and started down the mountain, practically running from rock to tree to rock like I was a kid again.

A few hundred feet down the hill I slipped in some damp leaves and ping-ponged painfully off a few trees until I managed to grab hold of something to slow me down.  I lay on the ground for a few minutes catching my breath before I started laughing at the situation.  Probably adrenaline.  It was a full minute before I got myself under control enough to sit up and take stock of my situation.  I looked behind and saw the scar that my rough path had left in the dirt and leaves and shook my head.

I had bounced off more things than I thought, but nothing felt broken or out of place.  Nothing really hurt at all.  I couldn't figure out if I expected that, or if I was surprised by it.  Somehow both.  It was weird, but I was starting to have suspicions about why.  Later, for now I just wanted to get off the mountain.

I moved to stand and found myself face down in the leaves and rolling before my conscious brain caught up with the sound of a bowstring being pulled back.  I came to a stop near a rock and drew my knees up, only then realizing that my shield had been lost in my mad dash down the hill.  From higher up I heard someone curse and I knew which way to go.  I pulled myself over the rock and kicked off hard, shocked at how easily I was moving up the hill.  Before the archer had drawn her bow fully back again, I was there with dagger in hand.  I swept my left hand forward and pushed the bow to the side while my right hand flashed out and drove the dagger up into the archer's exposed armpit.

My left hand continued over, sliding up the bow and forcing it into her partner's face.  I felt a burning sensation across my arm as the archer's grip relaxed and then a sharp pain in my side from the partner's weapon striking home, but weak, distracted by the length of wood in his face.  I released my knife and twisted into his space, the bow between us making it difficult to do anything more than grabbing his head and shoving my thumb into his eye and smashing him against the tree as hard as I could over and over until I was seeing stars and rolling down the hill.  Dimly I heard someone yelling about killing a damned deserter and I realized that he meant me.  There was another ambusher.

Somehow I stopped myself from rolling down and took shelter behind something solid while my head stopped spinning.  It didn't take long, and I ducked just in time to avoid an axe that would have taken my head off if I hadn't moved.  But in his anger he'd swung too hard and his axe was lodged in the tree and the dagger on his belt was no harder to claim than the one Hadvar had unknowingly offered earlier.  It was a good blade, and sliced his hamstrings and then his throat easily.  I resolved to keep it.

Blood was roaring in my ears and my head was pounding but I forced myself to take cover again and listen quietly before I dared to check the bodies.  It wasn't until I felt my leg muscles cramp that I realized I had lost myself again.  Fortunately, if anyone else had been with my attackers, they had already fled.