I knew I’d been careless the moment I heard the distinctive whistling sound from behind. Was it the soldier’s lucky hit to my temple from earlier that allowed me to make this careless mistake? Or was it when I realised that I’d been deceived from the beginning? That one of my allies had been a wolf in sheep’s clothing, waiting for me to throw my guard down before brandishing his claws and slash me in the back? Well, no matter what it was, it was too late to duck now. Sometimes you just gotta’ grit your teeth and take it like a man I guess.

“pSss!”

The sting of pain that came less than a second after confirmed my suspicion. I followed the trail left behind on my cheek, touching the half a centimetre deep gash with my fingers.

People often tend to regard lady luck as a beautiful lady. I don’t know about that– but today I finally understood what people mean by, you just know when she smiles on you. Yes, I would be lying in the gutter by now if it wasn't for her, serving the rats in the sewers my just a bit over twenty year aged red wine.

The strength inside me was slowly fading as I limped through the woods. Dry branches broke in halves and gold-rust tinted leaves crunched beneath my boots. Oh darn it, even my vision was turning blurry now. My broken foot was beyond redemption and my handsome face ruined. What a day.

If anyone in the future were to say that the loss of blood is harmless, I can assure them– it’s not.

The grey sky came into view as the moist ground below my feet turned into solid but uneven rock. A dead end. Awesome.

“I can see him! He’s at the cliff! Shoot him you moron!”

Ignoring my fans who were as happy as always to see me, I searched for a way to survive. And just thought everything was over and that they would catch me, an idea sparked. I knew what to do.

Looks like this is a ‘to die or live’ situation anyway. Why not leave fate up to lady luck to decide yet another time? Better to let a stranger do it than brainless fans who seek nothing but to hug me until I suffocate. Who knows, lady luck might even have a thing for me.

With that cleared out, I sprinted to the ravine’s edge and threw myself out without hesitation. Cool air greeted me as I plunged down from the ten to fifteen meters height. A relief, it was to see a large thicket of bushes below, ready to act as my personal cushion.

“Thud!”

The impact was truly frightening unlike how I thought it would be when I was still in the air. I’ve always believed myself to have quite the resistance to pain. Well, today that resistance was asleep. Either that or the thicket wasn’t thick enough.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

No pun intended.

To make a short story long, the impact was like getting slammed into the ground by a catapult and then helped up only to be slammed again. As if every bone in my body broke. My lungs were unable to hold the remaining air inside as I violently coughed blood. Holy cow. What a fall!

I shakily got to my knees and crawled through the bushes, toward the side of the mountain where I would able to hide. My chest and legs were hurting like hell. I had no doubt of broken bones and internal damage.

Once there I pressed my body against the coarse rock, holding my breath as I did. A sweet, metallic taste filled my mouth. Great.

“Fuck! We lost him!” A voice bellowed furiously from where I judged to be the edge of the cliff – just above me. “How the hell did he get away!?”

Clutching to the box in my hands, the item which I had risked my life to steal, I grinned like never before. My back was tightly pressed to the solid rock as the curses form above became worse and worse.

“You there! Yes, you, who else!? How could you miss him from that distance? You’re a licensed master ranger, aren’t you?! Did we hire you to fail? You dimwitted idiot! Fuck your mother!”

I heard a loud and clear slap resound throughout the otherwise silent valley, followed by more of them, each one fiercer than the last. Guessing it was the guard commander, letting out his rage on the unfortunate archer, who barely qualified for his job, I sighed. What does it matter to blame your subordinates now, Mr Commander? You’ve lost the treasure you had sworn to protect with your life, snatched from under your nose. Do me a favour, you piece of trash, just patiently wait for your master’s punishment. Oh, and the gutter needs a dining partner, have I heard. His plans for tonight were cancelled in the last minutes.

“Fuck! What am I to tell master, that we let his most prized magical device be stolen right in front of our eyes while we sat watching like clueless lambs to be butchered? Huh?!”

The voice kept going and the slaps kept singing for minutes. A silence was all I could hear after that, except for the soft patter of rain, showering down from the sky and wetting the ground. The guards had probably left this cursed no man’s land long ago, along with their hope of living till next dawn. But I took no risk. That I’ve learnt from my years of doing this. Better wait more than less, or else the unexpected might happen.

Ten minutes later, I stepped out from under the cliff, holding the box in my hands like a newborn child. Like the most precious treasure in the world. Greeted I was by trickles of what I at this time thought to be better than wine.

Rain.

I looked up toward the grey sky where dark clouds coiled and from where heaven’s dew fell. Smiling, I closed my eyes. As I stood there, motionless, the cool sensation of roamed freely and wiped out almost all traces of my previous hardships. My unrecognisable face, smeared with blood and dirt and god knows what, was cleaned by the downpour, leaving behind the sun-tanned face of a young man in his proud prime.

Knowing it was time to leave, I patted my legs and took a deep breath. The main guard force would surely arrive any minute now. I drew my hands through my black hair, forming it into a perfectly arced backslick. Even royal barbers would be impressed with this backslick if they were to see it. Or so I always always told myself in the mirror after breakfast.

“Well, better get going before they come again,” I muttered and slipped into the shadows, still haunted by my crippled foot.