While I tried only one thing. I braced myself and half rose with Langer in my grasp, and as he flailed, I brought him down on his side with such an impact the air left his lungs. Went for a choke hold from behind. Held Langer tight, his back against me, his throat pulsing, trying to shout but gasping instead. My legs were wrapped tight around his legs, to keep him motionless. I hoped my bad leg would hold. Langer began to concentrate on breathing, trying to pull my arm away.

I thought I had him. I had him.

But he managed to reach his arm around and get to the knife and stab me in the bad shoulder just as the bad leg gave way. I could feel my choke hold shift. Another second and I’d lose that position. Langer would be on top of me or straddling my side. Stabbing and stabbing until I was dead.

I bought some time clubbing him with Bog. Opened a cut on his head before he managed to smash it from my grip. My treacherous fingers.

But there was the slope. Literal last ditch. The leverage of one good leg. I used my weight to roll and let gravity do the rest, keeping the choke hold, loosened, as we rolled and rolled back down the gravel slope, bruised and torn by the sharp black pebbles and our own momentum. Dizzy with it.

Knife gone flying. I saw it kick back up slope. A glittering glint lost in the haze.

Langer shouting now. Incoherent, bucking, trying to get free, even as the slope pummeled us.

The difference between us: I didn’t give a fuck what came next so long as I kept my weight on him, kept my arm around his neck.

There came a crack and smack that knocked me half unconscious and I lost my grip on Langer. He’d landed up against another dead tree, me facing him. Washed up on this strange shore of moss in the moonlight. I could smell only the fresh, rich smell of the cedar trees. Blood in my mouth. Felt like a brick had been thrown through the back of my skull.

I heard a weird sound. Langer.

“Don’t destroy it,” Langer was mumbling through the gash in his mouth. “Don’t destroy it.”

I lay there too tired to reply or to move. Drifting in and out of consciousness. Getting colder and numb, but not caring. In the end, it was too much. I had limits. I wanted an end, but I couldn’t get to my feet to get to the end. Something essential to standing knocked out of me.

The stars above blurred, came back into focus, moved in odd acrobatic orbits. Thought I saw the knife still spinning, falling toward me. The thick black hilt. The silver, shining blade.