...flee into the woods to fight on.

Woods. You move, running up and over what little beach remains between you and them. The man on the ground is crawling towards something. The men in the distance are running to his rescue, bobbing lantern light ever closer with each second. The bushes and trees swallow you, but not without incident. They snarl your clothes as you run into them; a wall of tangled branches, bending and resisting, and slow you before breaking. If you were slower, you could pick a delicate way past, but at speed you have **** but to launch your body through the night shadowed obstacles with careless frenzy.

Pursuit follows; an unseen spectre; the sounds of men and running, cursing and breaking branches, all keeping you face forward as you try to dodge the trees that race out of the dark. Dappled moonlight shivers through the fluttering leaves above, lighting your blind way, but soon the rampant nature grows miserly and squeezes out the generous moon, leaving you in darkness. The way becomes lit only by the pursuing light, and as it fades with distance, an unseen root takes it chance to seize your ankle and send you sprawling. The light grows again as you stand, painting nearby bark with a faint orange hue.

As you get up, the sounds of confusion come from behind you, clear to your ears even as your own breath races. While their words are lost, one voice seems familiar, and its anger soon raises to recognition.

“Give me that! Fine! Go tell the captain!”

You can’t see your surroundings, and the ground here is uneven; perhaps not trodden for a hundred years, if ever. It forms a kind of valley, you think, as you perceive a feeling of being funnelled and surrounded by high sides, though how you can tell you’re not sure as only inky darkness lies around you. Perhaps it’s the way your running feet sounded, the snaps of dried twigs too quickly swallowed in their echo, you’re your sawing breath caught in the same strangling confinement. You grope blindly forward, away from the encroaching light seen through distant trees, and you find your pace slowed for the darkness and its catching roots; only when your pursuers near and their light begins to reach you can you make any progress. They have no such limitations, and every bush you stumble upon, every dry branch you grab and break noisily from its origin, your every move, no matter how quiet you try to be, keeps you from losing them completely. They are going to catch up, inevitably.

You make your way into a small hollow. It’s not so sparse in its greenery that the stars can be seen again, but it is clear enough for the splintered moon to freckle the dirt once more. A fairy hollow, one might call it, or a brief place stony enough for the greedy trees to shun.

You hide behind a trunk, keeping the light from you as you take deep breaths. Another’s huffing and puffing grows close, with the glow of the tame lantern fire brought along. Is that only one person? It’s hard to tell, from the feet and the breathing and the distance muffled by trees. Subtle noises seem drowned in the gale of your own breathing and the thunder of your heart, masking their movements, and you can’t help but feel that hope may be hearing what it wants. It could be one man, stomping inelegantly, or a hundred, sneaking on whispering feet. The forest, by comparison, is distractingly quiet, with the air still, the beasts asleep, and even the night owls silent. This is as good of a place as any to make a stand

Better, in fact. The dim light begins to banish the moons spots as it filters through the trees, and its angle shows a rend in the ground near the edge of the clearing; a long crack in the earth between the broken flat edge of a large rock and the ragged dark of dry ground, perhaps formed from some long fallen tree or dug by some critter, or simply from the shrivelling of the dried summer ground. It looks as long as you are tall, with its depth hidden in darkness and the stone side buttressing it to the clearing. Clothed in black as you are, it would be perfect place to hide and let him pass, to search an empty wood, but it would leave you nowhere to run if he managed to see you. The perfect hiding spot begins to look like a shallow grave.

Another option catches your eye, teased as it is by the moon. A rock much smaller in size. A weapon. A fatal chance. If you could perhaps catch your pursuer and hit him with it, you could move forward unhindered. You’d have to be quick with it, and strong, and catch him by surprise, in the head preferably. Oh, and you’re probably done for if there is more than one person still out there.

You supress a sigh: all in all, not the best options, but if you run, your pursuers with run you down, so you hide, or you fight.

You dream wistfully of the fallen blade lying in the sand somewhere. The light gets closer, feeling out the last sound you made, and you decide, with not a small amount of ****,