Tentatively, I pressed a hand to my latest wound and suppressed a curse as a new wave of pain shot through my ribs.  My hand was sticky with my own blood and my leather, which had done little to protect me, was in tatters around the wound.

In the dark, as best I could, I sliced my shirt and wadded it into a crude bandage.  I did my best to avoid spilling any more blood.  Partly because I’d heard horror stories about magical tracking using blood and partly because I’d prefer my blood on the inside.  I’m old fashioned like that.

Making my way down the corridor, in the dark proved to be complicated.  With one hand I kept pressure on my wound, hoping that the balled-up shirt would keep my insides where they should be.  This left my other hand free to check for another trap.  Progress was slow and every time I moved too quickly I was rewarded with more pain from my ribs.  The upside was that I was still moving which meant that in some regard I’d been lucky.  The bolt hadn’t been poisoned.

The care that I should have shown in the first place paid off.  The end of the corridor ended in a door guarded by another crossbow trap.  I’d been expecting a trigger wire to be head height, since the previous one hand been low.  As it turned out, this one was also low down.  I wasn’t sure if the trap setter was lazy, a fool or if this was a double bluff.  I shrugged slightly as I triggered the trap, careful to stay well away from the bolt’s possible path.  The intentions of the trap setter didn’t really matter.  What was important was not getting shot again.