Nightmares

A small sound drew me back to awareness. I grabbed for my sword, and it wasn't there. Now I was fully awake as I scrambled to get to my feet. Both of my arms were grabbed as I was yanked away from the rock face by two burly men. There were now five men in the clearing with me.

Two of which I recognized from the tavern earlier. They yanked me around so I had my back to the fire, and was facing out into the forest. I was nose to nose with the rat bastard that had pissed me off earlier. I tried to ignore the smell of alcohol on his breath as I glanced around the clearing quickly. The two big brutes holding me now were easily the strongest of the group.

I couldn't see their weapons though. Strong men who had the speed to use it were deadly. Then there were the two that were standing back further. One I could barely see, but he didn't seem to be bigger than me. The other was easier.

He had a lean frame, but had clearly eaten too much to take complete advantage of the fact. The skinny rat faced man in front of me was clearly the weakest of the group.

"You're not listening to me," I heard the rat faced man's voice as he punched me in the gut.

It didn't hurt too badly. I'd taken much worse hits in my time, but his cocky attitude told me he was in charge here.

"I'm sorry all I heard was a little rodent squeaking," I smirked slightly as I looked right at his face, "I didn't think I needed to pay it any mind."

His fist hit the solid muscle of my gut. One of the advantages of being half starved most of the time was not having any blubber cover the muscle beneath my skin. The rat bastard shook his hand off as if he'd punched armor. Must have felt like he just punched a rock. Disadvantage of not having any blubber though was that I didn't have enough energy to keep my muscles working for long.

"I'm sorry," I snorted, "Did I hurt your hand?"

The rat bastard looked at me like I just pissed on his shoes. Actually it was an awfully tempting image in my mind. If it were just me, and him I would've beat the crap out of him before I acted out that tempting image. Although I would probably have aimed higher than his shoes. I heard his dagger sing free rather than see it.