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With trembling hands you rip off a length of your own tunic and use it to apply a tourniquet to the leg, to stop the bleeding. You then proceed through a back passage, for there are bloody footprints that lead in that direction--three pairs of feet by your count. The passage takes you to a trapdoor which serves as alternate entrance to the cellar. The trapdoor is open and descending the steps you come to two more bodies, these wearing mere padded jackets which have been rent asunder by terrific force.
One is holding a small arbalest whose bolt is missing. You find it within a short search, embedded in the guts of someone you instantly recognize. It is Ragnvald, one of the fishermen under your employ. He sits leaning against a row of large empty barrels, holding a naked longsword in his right hand. When you step toward him he stirs, and even his weakened state, with the sheen of sweat on his face and his labored breathing, he makes as if to rise and renew battle with another foe.
You call out to him for peace, making yourself known, and he, partly in relief, and partly by his wounds, collapses back against the barrels. You rush toward him to examine his wounds. He ignores your exhortations to keep silent and answers what he knows must be the most pressing question in your mind. Your Gran is safe. The Haroldson cousins came to take her to the castle just as soon as the raiders arrived, hoping to win your favor. He had accompanied them (for the simple reason that they asked him). By the time they had arrived, however, some of the raiders had the reached the house.
Ragnvald offered himself as a diversion so the others could escape. The captain, he had surprised, then retreated to this cellar, knowing the other two would search for him. He had not expected one of them to wield such a "contraption" as the arbalest, against which "sword-skill proved of little advantage".
Slowly, he slides his hand down to blade of the sword and then raises the hilt toward you. He would die the heathen's death, the warrior's death.
You decide to:
>Honor his wishes and kill him
>Try and save him somehow
>Ignore him and make for the castle
>Write-in
