Snippet #1548723

"You fool of a knight," screamed Secru, attempting to struggle to his feet, and collapsing again in agony. "If the elven girl's gone out there - " He sighed. If they were under attack by the Yugile, the last place the elven woman - or the wizard, for that matter - should have been, was out in the open alone! He had to admit, he admired the knight's bravery - going into the back of the dwelling, where he risked being crushed by a falling beam, to save the servant woman. In Kelinia, such bravery was expected - any child who showed cowardice faced a worse ass-tanning than anything he or she might have shrunk from. But for an outsider, it was rare bravery indeed. It was a pity the knight's tactical acumen didn't match his courage.

He watched the wizard blunder through the living area, and a brief thought that he couldn't quite catch ran through his brain. Shut up, shut UP, he screamed at his own pain, dragging himself upright on the third try. Even hobbling with the aid of Leo's scythe would be painful, but to run - as he did now - sent waves of excruciating pain so deep into him that he felt as if an army of evil demons were racking his body in some mythic hell. Vomit rose in his throat.

"Wizard. Stand!" he hissed, his face and body soaked with sweat. "If the Yugile are out there -" He pushed his way in front of the wizard. The door was closed, and with his ankle too weak to bear his weight he knew a shoulder-charge was out of the question. In a comic, ungainly movement, he flung himself backwards, using his own ass as a battering ram. The one consolation was that the pain couldn't get any worse.

"Let me lead," he moaned, barely able to form words through his pain. He held the scythe in his left hand, the sword in his right. "Let me hold them as best I can, while you run. It's not bravery or nobility, by the way - I can barely move anyway. No sense us both - what the - ?!!!!"

His jaw dropped, as he saw the area outside the hovel. Where he'd expected to see a mass of Yugile, armed to the teeth with all the panoply of war he saw...

Their own horses, and an empty clearing.