A battle of strength was not one Heike was suited to fighting. He could feel his grip weaken, lying on top of the bandit at the bottom of the slope, his own air long ago cut off by the man's hands around his throat. This whole fucking day had been one long kick in the face after the other to Heike, and he was too pissed off to let it kill him at this point. He thrashed out, desperately, letting go of the man's throat just as his knee connected with the bandit's crotch.

With a howl of pain the grip on his neck was loosened, and fresh lungs brought renewed energy to Heike. He seized the brief opening his blow caused and dove forward with a snarl, shoving his thumbs into the man's eyes until blood began flowing and howls of pain turned to screams. Then... pain, as steel entered Heike's side, the man had stabbed him with a knife.

Heike quickly scrambled away, leaving a trail of blood as the blind man screamed incoherently, waving the knife furiously all around him. The ex-priest wanted nothing more than to deliver the finishing blow to him, but without a weapon it would be a pointless danger. That, and blood had begun pouring of of his mouth, the dagger must have entered his lungs.

Fighting pain and panic, he began stumbling his way over to squad Quinque. He knew they had a healer with them, having seen her from the top of the slope. The thought of being healed by a staff made him want to vomit, but he knew that anything less would be too risky, and at this point he just wanted to live through the day.  As if to punctuate the thought, he coughed up more blood, struggling to breathe.
Still, he knew the body as well as any other healer would, he would have a few minutes yet before blood loss or suffocation took him. 

Surely that was plenty of time...