The air was biting. Ruune could all but smell the snow in the air. The clouds had been hanging heavy in the sky all day, but the snow hadn't started falling yet. It would soon, though.
She sped her pace. There was an inn not too far down the road, she knew. She wanted nothing more than to get there before the snowing started and before it was fully dark. The tips of her nose and ears were cold. She would need to get a hat or at least some yarn to make one in the next town. The pack bore into her shoulders from the hours of carrying it, and her back was wet with sweat under the layers. Her feet hurt. She just wanted a good meal, a wash, a bed. She loved being on the road, but sometimes she wondered if she should have chosen differently.
A growl, loud and abrupt. Something big.
A human voice answering it, roaring back. Ruune stopped for a moment, hesitated. They were ahead of her, right where she needed to go. Finally she pulled her bow into her hands, an arrow from the quiver on the side of her pack.
The growl turned into a shriek, and a moment later so did the human voice. There was a thump as something hit the ground.
Ruune moved towards the voices, bow and arrow ready, pointing towards the ground as long as she couldn't see a target.
And there they were. A woman, brown hair flowing around her as she picked herself off the ground, wincing and holding her side while lifting the sword in her other hand to defend. A wyvern, a relatively young one based on its size, but still easily the height of an adult human.
The wyvern hissed. The woman yelled, trying to make herself as big as possible. The wyvern tried to attack, but was met with a sword to the side and retreated again. The woman continued to yell. Ruune couldn't see her face, but from the way she held herself and the sword, it was clear she knew exactly how to use it. It seemed like someone with her skills should have fared better against a wyvern. Maybe it had surprised her?
They were both already bleeding as the wyvern lunged once more. The woman was too slow to react. She swung the sword wildly, hitting the thin membrane of the wyvern's wing just as its fangs got a hold of her shoulder. The blade fell from her fingers as she screamed, a howl both pained and angry.
Before it even hit the ground, Ruune's arrow scraped the wyvern's eye and sank in where the neck met the shoulder. In better light she would have hit it square in the socket, but you had to take what you could get. It let the woman go and screeched, but it had apparently had enough, as it took flight and abandoned the fight. Its wounds made it unsteady in the air -- one wing membrane slashed through, an arrow in the other shoulder, and at least temporarily blind in one eye -- but it managed to get over the trees and away from direct line of sight, before a terrible crash rose from the forest.
Ruune didn't care about that though. As soon as it had taken off, she was already on her way to the woman, collapsed by the side of the road. She knelt down next to her, laying a hand on her chest, next to the shoulder wound. She pushed in with her mind, felt the damage done.
She had lost blood. Not enough to be in imminent danger of bleeding out, but she would, eventually, without help, and she was already too dizzy to walk. It also seemed like she hadn't eaten much. She wasn't malnourished, but at least today she hadn't gotten enough food. Her body had been weak even before the fight began.
The wound on the side was a flesh wound, two long, shallow cuts. With some stitches and keeping it clean it would heal fine. The damage to the shoulder was worse, though not as bad as it could have been. The wyvern hadn't had time to bite down properly, but she definitely wouldn't be swinging a sword for a while.
Ruune couldn't do anything about either of the wounds out here. She would need more light, clean water and a way to disinfect bandages, as well as a needle and thread for stitching. She needed to get her to the inn, where it was warm and--
The woman made a sound, partially like a groan, partially like... something else. Ruune turned her attention from the shoulder to her face to find her laughing, of all things, looking up at her with dark eyes glimmering despite the obvious pain she was in.
"You fool," she said, voice tight, a grin wide on her face. "You've no idea what you've just gotten yourself into."
And then she passed out.
Ruune stared at her for a moment before sighing. She took off her pack and hid it out of sight of the road -- she would have to come back for it later or send someone else for it. She lifted the woman onto her back and started towards the inn down the road just as the first flakes of snow hit her cheeks.
______________________________________________________
We're finally back!
After two years of no Christmas story, we are here now with out tenth ever Christmas story. (And a crisis about how fast time has started to just slip by. There's no way it's been ten years.)
I hope you enjoy it.
The topic for tomorrow is Thread.
~matleena
No comments:
Post a Comment