It didn’t matter. He’d already become too distracted. Locksley first, his allies after. The sounds of the melee drew him closer, but he tumbled again. It wasn’t a branch on the ground that tangled his feet, but a body, a woman’s body. He was standing over Elena Gamwell, her face frozen in an open-mouthed scream.

A snap of leaves behind him gave warning, and Guy ducked and twisted at once. Still, he felt a blade glance into his side, a fatal blow if not for the mail beneath his tabard. His ribs took the brunt of the force, and Guy spun to avoid the inevitable second attack. He dove for the ground and let go of his sword. He snapped his boot out and found his attacker’s kneecap, rewarded with a harrowing snap as the leg bent at an undesirable angle. The man fell on top of him, screaming, and Guy struck quickly for the man’s throat to stun him. But he was now pinned down, his legs trapped beneath the huge man. Guy’s hands grasped to find purchase, a heavy stink and horror rose as his vision faded to black. This was his unfortunate end, at the bottom of a mountain of dirty flesh, and the forest would burn.

If he died before killing Locksley, it was for nothing. All his men, for nothing.

His fingers scrambled through his assailant’s beard and found soft skin beneath. He squeezed, even as his opponent’s hands found his own face. Guy angled away, trying to free himself, but the beastman’s thumb clawed upward. One smashed down into Guy’s left eye, pushing, his vision burst white with stars, something popped and a panic surged through him, giving his muscles renewed strength. He clawed at the man’s throat. He buried his fingernails in and crushed it. The instant he found any meat thick enough to grasp he tore as hard as he could. The man spasmed, abandoning Guy’s eye and rolling away. Guy followed and punched down into the man’s throat again, then was back on his feet, blindly, moving without seeing, but he had already retrieved his sword and drove it down into the man’s skull, all of his weight pushing, heaving, until there was nothing left but the surging pressure of his eye socket, and exhaustion.

The way that noises distort underwater, such was how the world now appeared. Guy waited, praying for his own breath to catch, his vision black and blurred. He probed his left eye for any vision. For all he knew, his eyeball might have been pierced or dangling from its socket. But the world was there, where he expected it. It was simply milky and unfocused. He leaned on his sword, still piercing his would-be murderer’s head, and tried to assess what he could see.