"A" (Writers of Kern A-Z Blog Challenge)

          I started the day by falling.

          We had been walking all night with nothing but the soft, blue glow of Bryan’s staff to light our way. That hadn’t been a problem. We were careful. We were watching our feet, making absolute sure that the path was safe before placing them down. But as the sun began to dawn and our wits began to falter from the grueling nighttime hike, I stepped on a rock covered in icy moss and slipped.

          My back jarred against the lip of the mountain trail as I fell and effectively launched me out into the open air. I felt myself starting to pitch forwards into a would-be somersault, but my feet abruptly struck a drift in the snow not ten feet below where I has slipped, which caused my legs to buckle and my body to tumble end over end down the side of the mountain.

          The world became a whirling mist of snow encompassing the whole of my vision – the occasional stray arm or leg visible for brief moments before the blizzard took over.

          And then I was still. The spinning stopped and I lay face down in the snow. My head, though, continued to twirl about and my stomach twisted and turned, eager to heave the bits of bread and jerky I had for dinner.

          I shakily rolled myself over on to my back and took a deep breath as I looked up at my friends standing high atop the mountain. They were peering over the edge down at me and I wanted to say their expressions were worried, but to be honest, I couldn’t make out their features from this far away.

          And then Erik stood up suddenly and jumped off the cliff. In midair, he drew his bow, knocked an arrow, and fired down at me, directly at me.

          What the hell?!

          I managed to roll partially to my side before the arrow whooshed passed me and disappeared from vision with a thunk just above my head. The heavy, hot mass of shirtless dwarf fell down on top me, his great axe hammering into the ground at my back, just inches from gutting me. I struggled under his weight. There was a warm flow of blood marring his chest which made my hands slip and slide across his body. Finally, after an elephant’s worth of force, I rolled him off and scrambled up to my feet. Erik came to a sliding stop beside me, another arrow already set on his bow and fired. I saw it add a third body to the pile – apparently, he had killed another while I was struggling under the first one.

          A female voice screamed and I found its source peeking out from one of the many tents that lay out before us. There was some bustle from the camp and a number of dwarves came running out of their shelters, weapons in hand. Though they had just woken up, they looked ready to fight.

          My friends and I were a scout party. A small band that was sent out to search the mountain passes for signs of dwarven infestation. We found it. In this situation, our orders were to return to the King’s Castle at once, but at the moment, that wasn’t looking like an option. I had stumbled my way down a snowy mountain to accidently ambush a bushel of sleeping dwarves.

          And now the fight was on.

          The closest dwarf to us charged with his axe held high. There was a loud sound, like a focused hurricane, that roared above Erik and me. It impaled the dwarf with a six foot lance of ice that buried him into the ground.

          “Move!” Bryan shouted from the mountainside, his staff held above him and shining with frosty energy. “Get out of there! Hurry!”

          I drew my sword and ran along the outside of the tents while Erik launched arrows into our attackers. A dwarf, who had somehow managed to find the time to don his leather and stud armor, appeared from around the corner of a tent in front of us. I rushed him and parried the heavy axe before stabbing my sword through his belly. I never stopped running.

          Behind me, I heard another hurricane slam into the ground. I didn’t even bother to look back to see what I knew would be another pulverized dwarf. Bryan’s aim was impeccable.

          As we ran towards the front of the camp and freedom, I could see the dwarves running along beside us through the tent rows. They managed to cut our escape off just short of our goal. There were twelve of them in total. Each one with a random mix of armor and weapons, whatever they had had time to throw on in the ambush.

          Erik stopped running and pointed his bow at the group. But before he could fire, I ran ahead and jumped up on to a stacked pile of hay barrels and vaulted myself off of them. Bryan popped into existence behind me with a rush of energy that pushed me higher into the air above the dwarves. With a warrior’s scream, I crashed down amongst them and slammed my foot into the ground creating a shockwave that rocked the snow and blasted the dwarves off their feet and away from me.

          I saw Erik’s arrows hit two dwarves as they fell backwards and a chilling blast of air, which froze the hairs on the back of my neck, told me that Bryan had taken one out as well. I stood from my kneeled position and swung my sword down on the dwarf directly in front of me. He died instantly.

          “Halt!” A burly voice said from the tents that shook my bones. “What are you doing?! Stop this now!”

          This dwarf was taller and broader than the others, obviously the leader of the clan. Beside him were his two attendants and behind them stood the rest of the clan, all of them, forty or more at least.

          It was then that I realized that I didn’t want to fight these people. I was a scout. I wanted to run, to get out of here, to get back home where the king could then send a proper force to deal with the problem. I lifted my arms and sword in surrender. As I did, there was some commotion to my right, and I looked to see Erik being tackled by three dwarves. One of them punched the ranger hard across the cheek and he fell limply at their feet.

          “Hey! What’s that?” I shouted pointing and readying my sword again. I started to move forward with tentative steps.

          “Wait, look around.” Bryan said before I could get my first step down. He had dropped his staff and there were a dozen or so archers positioned around the camp pointing their weapons at us both. “I don’t think we can save this.”

          I nodded to him and turned to the leader. “We’re scouts.” I said as I dropped my sword to the ground. “We don’t mean you harm.”

          “You killed six of my men! I could care less what you are. Axton, kill these bastards.”

          One of his attendants perked up and gripped his axe tighter.

          “You don’t want to do this, sir.” I said.

          “The hell I don’t!”

          “If we die, the King will know where you are, and he’ll send his whole army over this mountain to get to you.”

          The dwarf leader started laughing. “And you think letting you go will stop that? That’s the funniest thing I‘ve ever heard. The second you’re back home, I have no doubt you’ll tell the King where to go. No, no. I don’t plan on letting that happen.” He raised his hand, signaling to the dwarf standing atop Erik. The man swung his axe down with a violent arc and buried it into Erik’s back.

          “No!” Bryan and I shouted together.

          I saw a blue flash of energy explode on the dwarf, freezing him instantly, and then Bryan screamed in pain as several arrows penetrated his flesh. Then the pain hit me. The dwarf leader charged forward and rammed his shoulder into my midsection knocking me backwards into the snow. My sword lay at his feet, where I had dropped it, and he bent to pick it up.

          “You three mean nothing to me. Humans mean nothing. You are the plague that’s destroying this world. Not us.” He swung my sword down and severed my foot. My entire leg ignited in excruciating pain and I screamed. “Now, I want you to do something for me. Crawl yourself back to the King, like the animal you, are and tell him this: ‘We dwarves will not put up with his actions against our kind any longer! We’re ready for him! Come and fight!’” The dwarven camp burst into cheers and battlecries.

          I crawled out of the camp, a trail of blood marking my path.

"A is for Accidental Ambush"