(Monty) Title? We Don't Even Know. (Katz)

Still Sandy looked straight ahead, staring at the man on the floor, rather than at Jackdaww a metre away. She listed patiently as he spoke whilst watching the man’s movements like a hawk. She wasn’t in the mood for any last feeble attempts of escape. She had had enough of everything. How much chaos these people had caused when they still didn’t have any hard evidence of what they were doing. She had a hunch, oh yes, but she wouldn’t put her life on the line with nothing other than that. But as he mentioned scampering away at the noise of some leaves, her thoughts immediately turned to the moment when Jackdaww fell like a rag doll over the wall. She knew it was too good to be true for that to go unheard, yet she tried to keep a stern, straight face.

Out of the corner of her eye, Sandy took note of Jackdaww doing something with his injured hand, and she felt apprehensive as he sheathed his sword. For if the man had a change of heart, and decided to attack again, then she would most probably have to deflect any strikes that came their way. And with reason, she didn’t quite want to do that at this moment in time. But she stayed calm and still, nonetheless. “Rubbish!” She spat eventually. “Why are you here?” It took a few seconds for him to respond, but he did as her dagger was flicked into a more threatening angle. “We were-” he paused, shifting his eyes around uneasily, as if being watched by his own people, as if the information he was about to give could turn against him if they knew he had told them. “We were instructed to find those who were in the forest yesterday. We had to take you both back.” Sandy’s slight movement of her wrist inclined that that wasn’t enough, so he quickly continued. “I don’t know why, honest I don’t.” He blubbered, “they just paid us to work for him.”
“Who?” Sandy hissed at him, feeling that money wasn’t an excuse for what he had done. “I don’t know, a man. He wants something from the forest, I don’t know what. Kay something, I really don’t know!” The man’s voice was becoming more anxious now, his eyes never leaving the dagger. “Well if you were sent to get us, then why did they all go away?” She asked, becoming slightly more suspicious. “I was sent to get you, I don’t know why they were here, seriously, I really don’t.”

Sandy shifted her wait unevenly, trying to find a more comfortable position to stand in. It all sounded fishy in her opinion. “Where is the man who sent you?” He hesitated slightly, “North.” With that, Sandy moved her hand holding the dagger back to her hip, before she spoke to Jackdaww, but keeping her eyes and head set on the fallen man below them. “Anymore questions?” She asked, plainly.

The man on the floor narrowed his eyes slightly at Jackdaww’s question, as if suspicious as to why and how he knew about the scroll. “Answer him,” Sandy insisted, by moving her dagger slightly. She watched as he looked at it for a split second, looked to her, then back to Jackdaww. “I got the scroll, but it was a messenger who gave it to me.” There was a slight pause, and Sandy began thinking to herself. If this man had been give a scroll like Jackdaww, then who was to say that most of the people he had up his sleeve didn’t also, receive scrolls like this? Did that mean that the majority of men were doing it for money, and didn’t actually know the man? So only a few would be skilled swordsmen, others skilled snatchers and others skilled thieves? It was quite an abrupt assumption, but one that she would almost definitely call up later.

The man seemed a lot less hostile now, more interested in what they had to say, but Sandy could tell that there was still a part of him who wanted to bring them back and receive the money. So she wouldn’t take any chances with him. After all, they didn’t actually know the man and who knew what could make him snap. The next thought would be how they moved away from this. She didn’t have the guts to kill him, or the will, in that fact, but they couldn’t just let him go, otherwise he would surely go back to the man and inform him of what had happened, so he would know they were coming. But maybe, that was for the best?

Still refusing to let herself take any moment’s gaze away from the man, Sandy listened intently as Jackdaww spoke again to him. His voice sounded different, somewhat shocked or unbelieved, she wasn’t quite sure. But something had struck a chord in him. She didn’t want to make it anymore obvious that he had just had a change of mood, so she blinked away the idea of turning to look at him.
The man on the floor watched Jackdaww turn a different colour in his face, and figured he could use it to his advantage. A small, sly grin appeared on the man’s face. “Do you speak from experience?” He asked, at the mention of a threat. It was then that Sandy limped forwards again. “We ask the question, not you.” She said sternly. But she saw that her limp only made the man grin more.

At Jackdaww’s question of how they were going to finish him off, whether they set him free, which wasn’t an option for he may go straight back to whoever was paying him, or murder him, which again, wasn’t another option. She was the rider of a guardian, she couldn’t go round killing people. If there is reason, then yes, but right now, there was another option. She believed people could change, and this man obviously wasn’t that much interested in anything apart from money.
Looking down at the dagger in her hand, then at the man, then back at the dagger, she finally decided on what to do. Again, without looking at Jackdaww, she brought her dagger up to about shoulder length. As she moved, the man’s eyes widened and any colour from his face drained. “W-what? You’re not going to k-kill me are you?” Without answering him, Sandy brought her hand down with one quick swipe to the man’s head. There was a thump as the metal and wooden back of the dagger connected with the man’s head. His eyes rolled as he fell to the floor unconscious. She had learned that knocking someone out was the best way to get out of a situation like this. There was no way she would have killed him.

The pain in her side cropped up again all of a sudden as the adrenaline slowly edged away from her. She winced a little, before pushing all of her weight onto her left leg, as to not put as much strain onto the wound. But standing like that still proved to be too much, and she let herself collapse onto the floor into a sitting position, her hand on her side. She groaned, out of frustration as well as pain. The little journey had just proved to be a lot more complicated than originally thought. And she ad no idea how she was going to manage it, in a state like this.

Sandy half-smiled as Jackdaww acknowledged her little trick of rendering people unconscious with a quick blow of a dense object. It had been a while since she had tried it out, but was actually glad she could still remember it. “I’ll have to teach you,” she joked, looking up to the man stood over her. But then she felt naïve for thinking that a small laugh would help draw her attention from the agonizing pain in her side. The smile was soon wiped off her face when a slight movement aggravated it.

“No, there is no time.” She said eventually in response to Jackdaw’s question. “If we went to find a healer, then that man would have no doubt come round and told others of what we have done. If we move now, we have some sort of element of surprise, even if it is a small one. We don’t want to give them anymore time to gather more reinforcements. Right now, as far as the man is concerned, we have been captured and are on our way to wherever he is. We don’t want to give him any reason to send out search parties.”

With that, she turned to look at her side. With a deep breath, she twisted slightly so she could get a grasp of the bandage with both hands. After a few seconds of pulling and tugging, the pain began to escalate again at her awkward position and she was forced to rest her hands back on the floor to support her weight, leaning back again. Another moan of frustration and pain escaped her lips.

As Jackdaww knelt down to her height, her eyes followed him. Sure, the help would be good, but she had hoped she could have gotten away with not having to do anything with it. She wanted to avoid as much more pain as possible, but she knew deep down that if she actually didn’t do anything it to it now, then it won’t only kill later on. “Okay,” she said eventually, taking a quick glance down at the bandage. Perhaps it was better for him to do it, rather than her. After all, she had just established that wriggling around and twisting was only doing more harm than good.

“Do you have any water?” She asked, thinking that maybe she should clean the wound before bandaging it back up again. That would probably be best. Clean it, press it to stop anymore bleeding then re-bandaging it. That was the best idea she could think of, and to be honest, there wasn’t much more a healer could do, unless they had magical powers, of course. And it was at times lie this she wished she could befriend one. For no matter how hard she tried, she always managed to get stuck up in a mess like this.

Looking away, Sandy immediately winced as she felt the bandage move ever so slightly, and she had t bite her lip in order to focus her mind on something else, or she felt she would yell out. Even though she had dealt with wounds similar to this in the past, it made it no easier for her. After all, no one could get used to pain. She felt her teeth dig harder into her lip as the last part of the bandage was finally tugged off, followed by a deep breath as air reached her side once more.
At the sound of Jackdaww’s voice, Sandy turned her head back round, not looking down, and received the water skin. She shook it gently, testing to see how much was left, and to her delight, there was quite a lot. She poured a tiny bit of it onto her side, washing away some of the blood, and had to suppress a small groan as the liquid hit her.

Once she had finished, she quickly held out the water for Jackdaww again. “If you just tie it up again, then we can get going.” She tried to sound as casual as possible, in order to prepare herself again, and possibly to help relax the sickly looking man next to her. She could easily tell that he wasn’t a knight the way he looked now. Simply because a real knight would be used to blood like this, and he obviously wasn’t. But you had to start somewhere.
As much as she wanted to stay sat down and merely watch the clouds go by to wait until she felt fit enough to go again, she knew that wouldn’t be possible. Not anytime soon anyway.