More or less.

You try your best to relax and focus on getting to the others, but after a few miles you realize most or maybe all of your adrenaline has worn off. Every step Copper takes sends a jolt of pain that spreads from the bolt to the tip of your extremities.

"Was pretty stupid to not bring along some healing potions" you tell yourself. In fact the whole escape was pretty hap hazard in your planning. You worry a little about if the girls were able to successfully get away, but from what you could see they had a clear path. Even if they were seen, pursuit was unlikely with how much of a head start they had. You crane your neck as much as you can to look at the bolt still sticking out of you.

"I hope it isn't barbed Copper" you say. "If it is getting it out isn't going to be much fun" you sigh. You reach your left hand under your shirt to feel below the wound and you feel fresh blood is still oozing out. Looking down you see a trail of blood streaking down Copper's leg to the ground.

"That's a lot of blood" you say out loud and Copper warbles out his agreement. It's more than you expected for a wound like this, and at this point the blood should have stopped. Some knowledge worms its way into your head and you remember there are some poisons that will stop blood from clotting allowing it to flow freely. Additionally there are plenty of ways they could track a path of blood. Your head is getting a little bit more foggy, but you have a plan again. You turn Copper to the right and he protests the direction change.

"I know you know where we are going bud, but if they are tracking us I want them going in the wrong direction before I try to clear the trail behind us" you tell him. Copper seems to accept it and you ride about another mile or two before you stop Copper.

"I need to get down buddy, think you can help me out a little" you ask him. Copper crouches down as far as he can allowing you to easily slide off him. It's still pretty painful and you almost fall over when your feet hit the ground. This next part is going to hurt a lot. You reach down and take your boots off and then your pants. You use your pants to wipe down the trail of blood on Copper as best you can, and then you put your pants and boots back on. You get a little frustrated at only being able to use one arm really, as this is taking longer than you want it to. You take a deep breath to steel yourself for the next part. You grab your shirt and pull it over your head. It catches on the bolt, but you ignore the pain and pull it off of you completely. Next you sling your shirt over the wounded shoulder and wrap it around the bolt and under your arm pit several times as tightly as you can manage. It might help a little to stop the bleeding, but if it doesn't it should at least give you some time as the blood is absorbed in the shirt first before it can leak down onto the ground.

At this point you are feeling a bit nauseous and you can feel a doozy of a headache forming, but you have to keep going. Copper gets as low as he can for you and you scramble clumsily into position.

"Alright Copper lets get some distance going before my trail of blood hits the ground again" you say turning him to go over the other side of a hill in the distance. Copper races up the hill and you turn him in the direction of the girls once again leading him parallel to the fake trail you left previously. You remain hidden as long as possible until you are about even with where you started the fake trail. You slow Copper down and creep him up the hill until you can barely see over it. Your suspicion was correct. Off in the distance you can see a group of riders that look to be taking the same path you went. You quickly move Copper back down the hill out of sight and urge him to run onwards towards the girls.

"Why the hell would they bother with just one person like this" you wonder to yourself. It doesn't make a lot of sense right now, but maybe it will when you're a little more clear headed. To do that though you need to get to Annabel. Surely she can craft something to stop your bleeding. For now all you can do is grit your teeth as Copper runs towards your goal. Every other mile or so you slow Copper down to a walk so he doesn't get over exerted. Each time you slow down you look to see if you were leaving a trail of blood or not. It took about ten miles for your dam to fail and you could see a path of blood down Copper's leg again. That gave you a little hope as tracking Copper by himself was going to be difficult in this type of grass. It tended to bend and pop back up after being stepped on, and only really dry patches would show your path, and those were easy to avoid. However, your bleeding definitely wasn't stopping and you worried you might have lied to Copper before when you told him this bolt wasn't going to be what took you down.

You're plan didn't change though, you couldn't wait to see if they were still able to track you, and you had to reach girls as soon as possible. At this point you were racing against the timer of your own blood. You were finding it harder and harder to keep your eyes open, and several times you almost nodded off. The only thing that woke you was your equilibrium being disturbed when you starting falling off of Copper. Fortunately Copper seemed to be fully aware of this and would shift in one direction or the other to help you keep your balance. Eventually you decided to lean forward against him and gripped the saddle as best you could. This seemed to work well keeping you on him.

You can only remember bits and pieces of the rest of the journey. You began seeing things. Like the girls for instance. You tried to warn them that you might be tracked, but you weren't sure if they were real or not, or even if what you were saying was anything more than groans and gibberish. It was like a fevered dream. Some of it seemed real, and some of it was just bizarre.

You awoke with a start. Your eyes jolting open. All you could see was the sky once your eyes adjusted to the light. It was sunny and the clouds were moving pretty fast. You tried moving your arms but found that you couldn't move them. You then tried turning your head to look around, and you couldn't move your head either. You started to panic a bit and wondered if you really did die.