Well.
That was unexpected.
The ice shattered, and suddenly Gwen was flying through the darkness. And by flying, she meant falling, the air whistling in her ears and shards of blood-ice stinging her skin where they scratched and prickled and added her own blood to the mix. But she was hardly conscious of the pain, hardly conscious of anything else but the odd sensation of being suspended in the air, floating, even while knowing she was about to become mush on the rocks.
Like a dropped tomato, she thought, surprised that she wasn't afraid--but too surprised to feel anything else, and vaguely wondering when her life was going to flash before her eyes like it was supposed to--
And then there was a snap, an explosion of pain, and even more blackness.
Who knew how much time had passed when Gwen stirred again, but stir she did. She came to with a groan and a hacking cough as every part of her ached and hurt, and her leg had a strange, intense burning pain in it, and was hard to move when she tried. Her head throbbed.
Still alive, she thought, bringing a gloved hand up to her sticky forehead. If she wasn't, she wouldn't be hurting. The question was, how much longer would she be alive? How bad were her injuries?
She cracked her eyes open and saw the sky above her through a patchwork of leaves and branches--and could see, vaguely, that a lot of those branches looked snapped off. There were leaves scattered all around her, and when she stiffly turned her head, she saw more branches. They were probably what had saved her; they'd probably cushioned her fall before she hit the slope and tumbled the rest of the way down.
Her clothes were all torn up and and as she tentatively felt at herself, she found with relief that at least nothing had impaled her. She was scratched up and bruised and had a bleeding cut at her hairline, and her leg was all wrong, but all things considered, she was pretty well off. Fuck. That was lucky. Her crossbow was nowhere in sight, though it must be near.
And Rylan...
Sucking in deep breaths, Gwen managed to crawl to the base of a tree, grabbed onto it, and hauled herself up onto her good leg with its help.
He was down here too, dead or alive, and if he wasn't dead...well, he wouldn't be alive long when she was done with him!