[Year 351, The month of Storm, day 16]

{Twack} {Twack} {Twack}

The knives made, what could only be called, pleasing impacts as they embedded themselves into the target a few yards away. Of course, that may have had something to do with me imagining that the round target hanging from the tree branch was actually Geisai’s face. He was avoiding me.

{Twack} {Twack}

Just like yesterday, he was gone before I woke up this morning and stayed out after I went to sleep. The only reason I knew he was coming back was the supplies and those awful berries he’d snuck back in to take.

{Twack} {Twack}

Something had set him off the other day, but I couldn’t help if he refused to be in the same place as me, let alone talk! I reached for another knife, but only grabbed the leather cover they had been placed in.

“Haah… maybe I just need to let him have this time to himself.”

Geisai always retreated into himself when something bothered him. Trying to force him to open up would only drive him further away. Still, just because I was used to this behavior didn’t mean I had to like it.

I began plucking the throwing knives out of the target and started planning out the rest of the day. The sun had just managed to break through the thick layer of clouds today and there was nothing much to do. I could go bathe, but that would be a waste of time with all mud around here. I could practice reading and writing for the hundredth time, but I could practically rewrite every scroll we had from memory at this point. Even if I went hunting, I could only pick up some mid-sized game without Geisai. Besides, I could eat three or four times my normal amount and we’d still have two weeks worth of food left.

“Maybe he’d stick around long enough to skin and gut it if I leave a fresh kill on the butchering table.”

It was only when someone was gone did you realized how important they were to you. Geisai’s absence was quite restrictive, everything I could come up with was dependent on him being with me. Well, nearly everything.

After removing the last knife, I returned to my starting position and began throwing them again. Out of everything, this was the only task I could think of that had some merit to it. Whenever Geisai decided to grace me with his presence again we were gonna have to venture into unknown territory, and being able to face whatever we came across there from a distance would be beneficial.

Whatever Geisai was doing, I just hoped it wasn’t anything stupid.

“I knew I should’ve gone back for a shovel. I gonna have to drop by the lake on my way back.”

The mud was caked onto my arms up to the elbow and I was pretty sure that the only way to get my furs clean would be to burn them.

“Never digging up a grave in the middle of the rainy season again. It just isn’t worth it.” I rose to my feet and futility attempted to wipe the mud off my knees and clothes. But after a sleepless night and a proactive morning, I didn’t have the energy or desire to waste time on the dirt.

While I was trying to cool my head after that slip-up back in the cave, there wasn’t a lot of things to do besides punching boulders and leaping through treetops. By the time the sun had reached its pinnacle yesterday, I was bored out of my mind. Then I remembered that I still needed to examine these shallow graves.

Accepting that cleaning away the mud was an impossibe, I collected my newly acquired wares and started back home while I thought over what I’d learned. After half a day’s trek and a few hours of digging, I’d basically found what I expected to find and something else. While their bodies had started to decompose, the claw and bite marks on the bodies show that a mauling had killed those men. From the location of the wounds, they had clearly been caught off guard when they were attacked. So, everything was pretty much in line with what we had speculated, everything except for one detail. The bear’s victims weren’t elves.

Their faces, or the ones that still had faces, had prominent blemishes and wrinkles that not even the oldest of elves would have. Their ears were rounded in shape and their skin was a shade too dark to belong to elves, yet too light to belong to someone like me. I’ve never seen brown eyes on any elves either. However, I felt like I’d seen or, at the very least, heard of people like them before. Maybe in an old scroll that had fallen apart some time ago.

Another oddity about the corpse was the lack of burial rites. They’d only been wrapped a thin blanket before being buried in their shallow graves, they’d also been left in their bloody leather armor. Whoever buried them hadn’t even bothered to gather the deceased's’ personal belongs to be burnt as a sign of respect for the fallen. It was almost as if…

I suddenly stopped in place, every rustle of bushes, every snapped branch, and every shifting shadow began setting off warning signs in my head. My head began darting back and forth as I peered into the shadows and listened to the slightest signs of movement.

“Fuck. I should have waited a bit longer.”

The sheer stupidity of coming anywhere near those graves dawned on me as panic drove away my tiredness. If Aiyana were here I’m pretty sure she'd beat me over the head with a rock until I lite up brighter than the sun for making such a stupid mistake.

When I heard something approaching from behind me, I jerked my head to the left just in time for an arrow to graze my cheek before it got stuck in the ground a few feet in front of me. My eyes remained locked on the fletching as blood trailed down my cheek while the cut closed itself, however, I could make out movement on my left. It seems that the friends of the deceased had arrived.

“Aiyana’s gonna have to wait in line for the head bashing.”

Before their bowman could notch another arrow, I dropped the pack of wares and ran off. I couldn’t afford to lead them back to the cave, so I ran in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, that led me right into one of their numbers. A man about two inches shorter than me jumped out from behind a tree and took a swing at me with a single-edged curved sword. I used the back of my left hand to knock the flat side of the sword aside, burying its blade into the same tree that man had jumped out from behind. When the man tried to pull it free, I gently tapped his head with my palm. I was behind the tree before his unconscious body hit the ground and another arrow bounced off of the tree I had been standing in front of a moment ago.

“Damn it. Should’ve just hung around the lake today.” I’d been so focused on the graves I’d allowed myself to be surrounded without even realizing it. Who knows how long they’ve been lying in wait for their chance to strike.

I was outnumbered, had no idea of what they were capable of, and was only running on fear and a half-empty stomach. The only perceivable advantages I had was my familiarity with the layout of the forest.

When I shut my eyes and listened, I could make out five of them slowly closing in on me with their weapons at the ready. If I managed to break through their encirclement, I could possibly tire them out or get them to give up their chase by running around in circles. If they were stupid enough to chase me all together or their numbers were so insignificant that chasing me in shifts was impossible for them to do, I could get away. Maybe I could lose them if I managed to hold out until nightfall or I reached the mountain range, whichever came first.

{Snap}

Stepping out from behind this tree would give the bowman another shot at my back, and a few arrows in the right places would slow me down just enough for his friends to gang up on me. The Bowman on his own would be easy enough to handle, but he was a major threat when combined with the others. Well, there was a way to deal with the problem, it’s just that the solution would be considered crazy under the best of circumstances.

“3… 2.. 1..”

At the end of the count, I jumped from behind the tree and spirited straight toward my five pursuers. While most people would consider it insane to do so, most people couldn’t heal broken bones or deep cuts within moments of receiving them. Plus, I doubted the bowman would risk hitting one of their own, so if I could incapacitate the five of them I could make a break for it even if it meant taking a few arrows with me.

Shock was visible in the eyes of my pursuers as I grabbed the closest of their numbers by the face and throw him into a tree. Some bark fell on top of the man as his body crumpled to the ground, but I I didn’t stop to admire my handiwork. I grabbed the arm of a man who held a spear of some sort and pushed his arm inward at the elbow.

“AAAAAAAUUUUUUUHHHHH”

The man dropped to his knees as he clenched his broken arm. However, the burning sensation in my right side prevented me from ensuring that he stayed down. When I looked down I saw that someone had left a dagger in my abdomen. My body was already trying to heal itself, but the blade was in the way. Then I felt the edge of another sword cutting across my back and a blunt object slamming into my right shoulder, driving the point that I couldn’t afford to slow down right now.

I crouched down and rolled forward when the guy with the sword took a swipe at my neck. The cut and the fractured bones were starting to heal on their own, but the pain in my side persisted. When I rose to my feet, I spun around and backhanded the guy with the mace with my left hand, while I grasped the dagger and yanked it out with my right hand.

Three down, two to go.

However, my vision began to blur all of a sudden. Something was wrong. I hadn’t lost enough blood for it to affect me yet. I dropped to one knee when the world began to spin. Then two arrows pierced my back. I noticed two things. First, that the wounds were shallow enough that my body was pushing the arrow out on its own. And second, that the arrows had simultaneously come from completely different directions. There was another bowman. I should’ve thought of that, but my failing vision prevented me from criticizing myself.

It was only when I looked at the dagger in hand did I realize what had happened. Not only did they bring two bowmen, they’d also coated their weapons in a poison of some kind. I had to get out of here quickly.

I tackled the closest moving object and tried to make a run for it. However, something latched onto my leg and dragged me to the ground. Before I could react a strange powder was blown into my face.

“Kuaaf Kuaaf Kuf” Every breath allowed more of the powder to enter my lungs, but I managed to kick off whoever had been holding me and stumble away.

Three more arrows found their way into my body, one of them digging into my right knee. I tried to hop away but to no avail. I remember landing face down before I lost consciousness.