…Left, to out run them.

“You expect-“

You go left, sprinting through the wide arch into the candle lit room. The reaction from the people in the corridors is immediate, the front door guard and the newcomer ‘Tony’ giving chase. Captain Roland abandons his half-finished sentence.

“GET HER!”

The room contains a modest table in its centre with various small wooden chairs gathered around it, and you sprint past to the door you identified, pulling out a chair with an idle hand to trip those behind you. The door swings open, near warping with the speed your put into it, wrenched open and slipped through as you hear the sound of the chair being thrown aside. You close it behind you, the latch catching for almost a full second before being pulled open. It’s time enough for you to be sprinting down one side of the dimly lit corridor laid out before you, the unfamiliar house a warren that holds no safety for flighty prey.

The doors of the blurred corridor fly by you as you run its length, all of them closed and showing no life glowing through their frames. You run near the length of the houses whole left wing, a sharp right turn taking you towards the building back, with one door at its ends standing open and inviting. As you run through it, into another large room with tall arched windows, you grab the door and throw it closed behind you. The latch on the door catches its frame, and twin thumps shake it with impact as you move forward without pause. You barely see the surprised looking man standing by a window as you look for another door, find it, and charge through, opening and closing it to the sound of the door bursting open behind you. Frustrated noises give chase, multiple runners tangling themselves up in the narrow doorway, their numbers and size betraying them. You opt not to lose the advantage, sprinting down a corridor that should take you back to the centre mansion, albeit to the buildings rear instead of its front. Hopefully, no one thinks to cut you off.

More doors and corridors fly by until you explode through a handleless door that swings back and forth, finding yourself in a splendid looking kitchen. Similar doors, made for a tray laden servant to pass through with ease, are across the room and to its side, leading either back to the foyer or to the right side of the building respectively. Neither catch your attention as much as the alternative. To your left you see a man standing in a nearby doorway, looking confused at the ruckus you caused. Candle light shines on his back from the small antechamber behind him, reflecting off his pierced ears and highlighting the wooden bat in his hands. You recall the path leading around the back of the building; no one guards an abandoned looking kitchen, but a backdoor is more likely. He doesn’t stop you; for all the shouting, he only sees a fellow pirate. You see a way out.

Footsteps thunder down the corridor behind you and you decide to take advantage of his confusion, charging towards him and drawing your dagger. It’s only a few steps, but you bring it up to your chest like a spear, putting your palm behind the spike handle as you run toward him. His eyes go wide and he tries to manoeuvre his long bat forward. Too late. You ram your shoulder into him at the same time you ram the blade into his heart, both tumbling down in a heap, but only one tumbling into a messy roll before standing again. You don’t try to remove you blade. The black painted silver stiletto remains in the man you leave behind, passing through the doorway he walked out from. As the door that recently swung closed bursts open, you don’t have time to morn its loss and the expense associated with it.

As you start to pick up your speed again, you see the second doorway in the small room, to the outside world, and run through it without hesitation. Bright stars and moon light replace wooden beams and flickering lanterns, and you run across the open grass of the buildings wide lawns, aiming for the trees and the back of the island. Escape is the only thing that matters now.

Your lungs burn, your breathing turned to ragged sawing gulps as the panic of the chase sends your legs into overdrive. Footsteps still sound behind you, the two or three or more men still giving chase and closing the distance they lost. Darkness and leaves both strike you, the open field giving way to trees and foliage as you dive into the wall of nature without slowing. If you can make it to the cliffs you were told line the back of this island then you can try and make it down them. In the waters of the sea, you can swim the half mile out to your guides position and go home. Right now, you just want to go home.

Branches whip past you, scratching your face and tugging on your clothes. You power through it all, hearing the sound of pursuit grow dimmer. What you have to lose is far more than what they have to gain, some wayward mystery who ran into the night, and the difference shows in the speed that you **** out of your exhausted body.

Before long, trees and bushes give way to a grassy field, not at all like the once tame grasses found around the manor, but patches of wildland full of thigh high strands and ankle catching tufts. Some of the grass is as tall as your waist as you stomp your way through it. The grassy field falls off in the distance, replaced by the sight of gentle waves and distant islands floating on star laden water, but for all the calm majesty of nature waits, you have no time to stop. Pain forming in your side, you look back across the half crossed field and see the distant form of the man that ruined everything -Tony, the messenger- running out of the trees towards you. The others had fallen behind it seems as you cannot see them anywhere, but the lone man is still bigger than you and looks the stronger for it. You gain no advantage for his solitude.

You run to the cliff face and look down it. It’s a steep slope where you stand, made of loose broken stones that are too steep to climb up. Further along and you’d be far less lucky, the cliffs more shear and the rocks below more vicious looking. You gingerly climb over the cliff edge and drop, sliding down in a shower of stones to the foamy rocks below. You run across where they had been worn flat to where they had been worn away, and as you step into the cool sea water, you quickly look up at the stars, using them to assure yourself of your direction and your aim towards the correct black silhouette looming in the far distance.

Once again you look back. Tony is standing on the cliff edge, hands on knees, stopped in his tracks by his unwillingness to go on. You have made it. You sides burn, your lungs ache, you head spins, but you made it. As you slowly float out, carried by the currents and catching your breath as he does, the angry red glow filling the sky behind him intensifies, ash beginning to fall even here, like snow upon the sea. You take deep breaths, head up, and let the cool waters sooth your burning limbs, wondering how many pirates your actions have killed tonight. Not enough to be sure. As many as it was, it didn’t include the one that mattered. Still, you have single handily decimated Wendigo island; many pirates have met a just end, a dangerous partnership has almost certainly come to a close, the infrastructure of many buildings are up in smokes and with any luck the ships as well. Not bad for a single nights work.

You throw your arms out and drag yourself though the timid waves, gently propelling yourself towards freedom. It was mostly rash action and luck that got you here, but the result is difficult to ignore. Your alive, if empty handed; if you can make it back to your guide and the mainland as soon as possible, you may be able to tell the navy and catch the captain while she’s recovering. The reward would be less but better than nothing, and enough to recoup the painful loss of your knife.

More than likely, however, she would be long gone. She’s very good at that.

Still ... there will always be a next time.