Desperate Escape

In the midst of battle, a few hours not long before sunset.

Night observed the battle dragging on and on without an end in sight, he felt frustrated at this whole ordeal.

"Do I really need to siege them in this pass all night?" He really did not want that, but he had to finish his mission here and now otherwise he would never be able to.

He had worked so hard from the shadows, advising and guiding these worthless group of bandits until they became one hell of a nuisance for any lord to deal with, all just to draw the marquess himself outside the walls of Landow by making him personally take action against them.

This was the culmination of all his efforts and he would be damnd if he let it go to waste, too much is at stake here.

Unfortunately, things did not go as planned, officially being upgraded from frustrating, to bad, to finally becoming disastrous.

He had made sure to stay away from the fighting, just in case things went south and he had to "retreat". But when he learned of the pincer attack from the back that had pretty much cut off their escape route as well as the number of men that had done it, he took action.

It did not take him much time to realize what had happened, that this whole thing was a trap set up from the get-go to catch them all at once. It took him just a little longer to understand that the cliffs were the only factor they had overlooked, therefore being the likely place from which this new force had come from.

Armed with this conclusion, he simply melted into the crowds quietly, quickly changing his clothes, swapping his for a dead man's to blend in.

"Damn you, Ulric, you ruined everything. These incompetent fools deserve just as much blame." Night grumbled.

He did not try to save the situation by assuming command for a few reasons; first of all, he was not really a good battlefield commander, he was competent at best and certainly far behind the marquess himself.

The bigger reason was that he understood that a breakthrough was impossible, they had been pushing against the marquess for hours now and have been met with little progress, the pass was just too narrow for battles like these to allow for any attacks to pierce through enemy lines that are dozens of lines deep.

Understanding this, he saw his only hope of escape being the cliffs themselves. He loved the idea of using the same tactics that led to their defeat today to fool his enemies.

"Night" quickly searched for the best possible climbing point he could find and started his journey up. The pass had mostly turned dark by now, enveloping those inside it in a blanket of darkness to the degree that torches have been lit in some places, more than that, though the battle was coming to an end, it was still raging for now taking the attention away from him.

He climbed slowly and methodically making sure to keep a good grip on the cliffside, after all, he had no rope to act as a safety measure so if he fell, it would be all over for him.

Several near-death experiences later and sometime after the battle had ended, he finally reached the top of the cliff completely exhausted.

After a short rest, he got to thinking about his next move. "Now what? eventually, they will discover that I am missing, be it amongst the living or the dead, I can't rely on those two to keep their mouths shut. Do I hide? or do I find another place to get down from hore away from the marquess's forces?"

"Night" kept thinking and analyzing his situation, trying to find the best path he could take that would allow him to escape from his eventual pursuers.

He looked down into the pass below to see the situation and though it was already dark and the lights from the torches were not very bright, he could still see the marquis"s men going around collecting corpses and taking them away.

Seeing this, an idea popped into his mind that though risky, could certainly help him in his endeavor to getaway. He knew that they would look through the dead to identify him, checking every body they find, that was why he did not play dead to try to hide amongst the corpses.

But once they were done with checking the corpses, he could then slip through and hide with them, at least for the night, and if he were to leave some traces to lead his pursuers on a wild chase, it should buy him enough time to run away.

With this idea in mind, Night hesitated no more as he observed the guards as they took the bandit's corpses away making sure to note the direction for later use.

A few hours later, once the pass had become quiet, he once more sneaked down, this time in complete darkness making this endeavor almost suicidal.

Most of the journey down went without the expected "slip and plunge" to his death that he expected, mostly due to his extreme concentration and effort fueled by stress and the will to live.

Unfortunately for Night, this did not go on until he came down, about ten meters from the ground his nerves and hands finally gave out, he slipped and fell down on the ground.

Fortunately for himself, he fell on his legs instead of his head as well as on top of a small bush, which substantially helped his body weather the fall.

Yet it was not enough to completely soften it, resulting in his left leg getting the brunt force of the trauma from the impact.

Night wanted to scream, but he held himself back with sheer will, his leg looked fine from the outside, from the inside though, he could feel that there it had definitely suffered some damage, whether it was the bone or something else, he did not have the luxury of time to find that out.

He picked himself up and slowly made his way towards the pass's southern exit, he did not have to worry about his tracks for now, since the whole pass was covered with countless marks from the battles making it impossible to distinguish his from any other's, he would have to be careful once he gets out though.

He limped his way outside hiding whenever he heard a noise or saw some light coming his way, he almost got caught by a couple of guards when he accidentally stepped on a tree branch, but narrowly escaped capture by throwing a rock in another direction to divert their attention away from him.

Eventually, he made his way to the pile of corpses left behind by the dead and stacked on top of each other by those who had ended their lives. He waited around for a bit to see if there are any more bodies that would be added.

Seeing nothing he got very close, smeared some blood on himself and lied down right then and there.

"I fucking made it!!!! Even with this fucking leg injury I still made it. Now, what though? Even though I made sure to leave as few tracks as possible, all it would buy me is a little more time. I need to rest for a while, then make my move by then."

"Night," thought to himself as he lied on the floor, the smell was quite bad even though the bodies were still fresh, being soaked in their fluids was very much still disgusting.

Before he could think any more about his situation, he heard someone coming in his direction, there was no light around him so whoever was coming did not have a torch on them.

"Have they found me already? No that's impossible, they could not have come here so quickly!!!" Night panicked a little at the sudden change in the situation, so he simply stayed still and closed his eyes hoping that he would be taken for a corps just like the many around him.

Soon he heard the steps come to a halt, followed shortly after by the sound of someone vomiting and a loud "What the fuck?".