» Mon Jun 14, 2010 8:46 pm
The next few minutes were hell to Nathan, as he followed the small group to the tavern, crouching as much as possible as he made his way to the small building. Shots cracked all around him, and he could hear a few near misses whiz by his head, or punch into the earth only inches next to him.
Following the lead of the only woman in the group, he made a desperate, zig-zagging run to the tavern wall, his musket flailing wildly and his sword banging into his hip, hindering him slightly as more shots buzzed by. He heard a rip, but didn't contemplate it as he saw the wall only twenty feet away, the smoke hanging lazily over the area made it hard for him to tell though. IN the back of his mind he thought he heard someone yell for a medic of the Optio, but as with the rip it didn't register fully.
He was now running slightly parallel to the wall, though he didn't understand how, and he made a desperate leap to the wall, hoping to cover the last ten feet with it. He was rocketed forwards however, as a loud metallic pang echoed through the air around him, grating into his ears leaving them ringing as he landed hard and without grace face first into the solid ground below him. He lay quite still, but only for the few seconds it took him to realize he was -- unfortunately -- still slive, and he forced himself up and propped himself against the wall. His head pounded, and it was like somebody had turned down the volume of the battle around him, as he could hear virtually nothing besides a dull ringing.
Looking down, he saw his pant leg was what had ripped, and blood was trickling out from a scraqe of a wound, most likely from a near miss of a musket ball. As his hearing slowly started coming back, he began to register what was happening around him, as he saw Daenlin several feet away, in obvious pain, and Artois and the Bosmer girl talking about something, and he could see nearby white-shirted forms running the opposite direction. It was happening everywhere, and he watched as Artois fired a large, clumsy looking gun into the crowd of fleeing men before returning back.
Nathan didn't really want to move, as his head pounded, but he removed his helmet, and saw a small dent, at the very top, where another near "miss" had saved his life. An inch lower and the shot would not have riccocheted off his helmet, but merely penetrated it.... and him. Looking down at his musket, he realized he still had not fired that shot, and looking around he felt ashamed of himself.
Im no hero. The Optio is hurt, and it looks like those two did most of the work on this place. I was only good for getting shot and knocked down. He thought, trying to stand up, but only strapping his helmet around his bag, thinking he would try to pound that dent out later with a rock or something, as he made his way over to the Bosmer and Artois.
He put on a fake facade, and asked, "What the hell happened?". It was then he realized he should have shot his ball into the air or something beforehand, to make it seem like he had done more then hide. His leg stung a little, but looking at Daenlin on the ground, he felt he was more than fortunate to only have a little scraqe, though his head did pound, and his ears still rang from the clanging of his metal helmet.