Fate, Like an Arrow

Traitors to the crown live and die by their wits. (A very short prompt fill for Get Your Words Out on DreamWidth.)

Sharp pine needles graze his skin, though the wild, animal fear that has taken over does not allow him to feel it but dimly. They are coming. Hooves shake the ground, and hounds bay nearby. Have they caught the scent, or are they still searching? It seems to Ren that each rustle and crack is a new enemy, giving his position away further, but if there's even the slightest chance that he can get away without-

Something whistles past his cheek, the breath punching itself out of his lungs as he leaps sideways and pelts through the trees again. Had that been an arrow, or a crossbow bolt? It matters, if only because one is far faster to reload than the other.

If there are gods, please let me-

Driving pain in his chest, like it's been torn open. And it has, because an arrowhead protrudes from it, red with blood and fragments of skin.

Ren stumbles a few steps further. Then he stumbles no more. The ground is rushing up to meet him, and he has a moment to think that at least the others have gotten away before the world goes dark, spinning away from him as if the arrow has sent him tumbling from the edge of it.

"Got that one," a voice rumbles nearby.

Yes. You did, didn't you?