He awoke to cold dampness. He wondered if perhaps he had
drooled on his pillow while he slept. Eyes still closed, he slid his head to
the side a bit, but did not feel the silk texture, nor any dry spot for that
matter. His eyes opened reluctantly, heavily, to find his vision mostly blocked
by mud and leaves. He was on the ground of a forest, his face planted firmly in
the wet ground and his limbs sprawled haphazardly in the roots and dead leaves
that covered the forest floor. Why was he here, he wondered. Only a moment or
so before he was sitting before a fire, the voice of his sister whispering
stories of dragons and knights in his ear. Or was he at the Fist, laughing and
dining with the other trainees? His thoughts were hazy and indistinct, running
into each other and melding oddly into dreamy concoctions of his mind. It took
him a few moments to sort out the processes of his mind and focus his thoughts
enough to remember. What had happened? Why did he feel so alone? What was this
sinking feeling in the center of his chest, this…overwhelming sadness? At first
the memories were vague, hazy and indistinct. Then he remembered, the
sensations and memories coming back in a flood; his father was dead, his
brothers dead, and, after last night, Serys, his men, his friends…They were all
gone.
He
moaned in pain as he tried to push up from the ground with burning sore arms.
His arms shook and his armor creaked in protest as he put all of his energy into
extricating himself from the mud, his sword clattering against his hip loudly,
the sound seeming to bounce around the inside of his skull, banging, amplified.
He hoisted himself up onto his knees awkwardly and twisted his torso enough to set
himself down at the spongy, mossy base of the closest tree. He rested his sore
back against the mossy trunk, and let his arms go limp at his sides. He knocked
the back of his head against the scaly trunk. Then again and again and again
until the skin at the back of his head went numb, and he felt a warm liquid on the nape of
his neck. He could not cry out, wail,
scream as he so badly wanted to. He would not. He would not stain their
memories by getting himself killed wailing for them like a babe. So many were
already lost. He stopped hitting his head against the trunk and chastised
himself for acting like a child, his head now throbbing even more violently
from his emotional stupidity.
He
eventually came to the realization that he had no idea where he was, although in
his current state, that fact did not really register too terribly much
emotionally. He began looking about, searching for an indicator of where he was
on the island, although he had little hope for anything. He had lived in the
central islands of Talias all of his life. The Durstan islands, including this
one he currently sat upon, were utterly foreign to him. Hell, he thought, was
it not for the him-sized indent in the mud that he had found himself in when he
woke, he would not even know what direction he came from. Above him, massive
trees seemed to go on endlessly into the sky, which was so obstructed from
clear view by a thick canopy of broad leaves and reaching branches that he
could not tell what time of day it was, if it even was day anymore. The branches
of the trees intertwined and weaved to the point where no one, save the trees
themselves, could tell where one tree ended and the next began. At his level,
the trunks were massive, equivalent to six men thick at the smallest, covered
in moss and fungus that varied in color from sea green to a blinding orange
that seemed to glow in the shadows. The one he was resting against had a
blood-red color, which he dearly hoped was the true color of the moss and not the
true color of his insides spilling out from a wound. He was so tired, but, he
thought, he was alive, and he would prefer to stay that way for at least a
little longer. He calmed his mind, and closed his eyes.
Pentos
Mairi had taught him this. He blocked that thought from his mind with some effort,
the memory of the stick-thin old man stubbornly swimming through his head until
he forced it out. His mind was empty but for the sound of his own breathing. He
focused on his breath, then on his own heartbeat, the rhythm of blood pulsing
through his body. He turned his mind inward, to the rhythms and sensations of
his inner organs.
His
heartbeat was as strong as ever, if a bit fast. His muscle tissues were overly
fatigued and his sternum was aching from hard breathing, which he had known
already, but he felt what could be a sprain in his right ankle. His right hip
was badly bruised, and the bone had chipped a little bit from a blow he had
received during the battle. It would
impede his walking for a while, but might heal by itself if he held the leg straight
for a few days, even after running on it as much as he had. That would prove to
be a difficult task, he thought, considering how far into enemy territory he
was. Besides those injuries, he only had a few cuts on his left calf from a
close call with the business end of a mace, and a few cuts on his face from
running through low tree branches. Then of course, there was the self
–inflicted bruise and cut on the back of his head now, but that had not caused
any damage beyond the purely cosmetic, fortunately.
He took
a deep breath, then turned his senses outward, ignoring his own body now, and
experiencing the outer world. He heard the rustle of leaves in the upper canopy
from a thin breeze, and the faint chirping of birds that must be far above him.
So it was day, he thought absently. He searched for a cricket in the forest’s
orchestra, and sure enough there was one. The chirps were quick and faint, but
he could tell from the speed of them that it was nearing twilight. The chirps
stopped abruptly, and he heard a faint hiss and a crunch. A tarantula. Closer
to him there was a skittering sound, probably from one of the closer trees from
his estimation. A squirrel, although the lack of chatter from it was
worrisome. He searched for the culprit
with his ears. Ants scurried underfoot, large enough to move the leaves and
dirt just slightly as they went, and he heard the faint flutter of bird wings
in the upper canopy. Then he caught the scent of blood not his own. And from
what he could tell, it was not animal either. It had a human tang to it. Then
he heard the crunching of leaves and twigs, and the clink of metal on metal,
although it was faint. Someone was coming.
He took
a deep breath and opened his eyes. Suddenly everything seemed so bright, but
then again, it was always like that when he came out of his Focus. Now, he
thought, I can get up and fight them with the slight chance that I may die
fighting, or sit here and wait for them and hope they don’t notice me in my
bright gold armor, sitting like a child’s target practice dummy. Choices,
choices…
He slowly eased himself up, pushing
against the tree as ache in his hip and sternum threatened to topple him. He
forced himself to ignore his screaming muscles, instead searching for that
sound again to judge how much time he had to prepare for this possible threat.
He steadied himself against the thick trunk, and wiped the mud from his brow to
clear his vision. His normally golden hair stuck stubbornly to his face in a
mass of mud and leaves.
He caught the sound again, now much
closer and more distinct, but slightly slower now, and the rhythm of steps told
him enough to prepare accordingly. From the pattern of steps, he knew that only
two unburdened and lightly armored people were coming. He heard only minimal clinking
of metal; probably a belt and sword, some buckles at the most. He cursed his
armor. He could not move without making a sound. Now they were close enough
that they might be alerted by the sound of him raising his arm, let alone
unsheathing a sword. The weight was no object; he had worn heavier suits in his
endurance training at the Fist. This armor was simply noisy. When his brothers
in arms had insisted he wear this armor as a symbol of authority; he had
blindly accepted. Yet another blunder of his, but who could blame him, he
thought. Who would say no to a mob of advisers fussing and pleading and
demanding that he take on another useless mark of his rank. Not only did the
gilded steel clang noisily at the joints, but it creaked mightily where a second-rate
blacksmith had “adjusted” the armor to fit him better. He would have been happy
with the mail by itself, a chainmail so fine that it felt like cold silk at
times. Unfortunately, mail was only an underlayer for royalty and it simply
would not have done for a member of the royal family to run about in underwear,
no matter how useless the plate was or how good those underclothes were.
The
footsteps continued to come ever closer, until he was certain that they were
only on the other side of the tree. He gripped the hilt of his sword, and began
to go back into Focus. He slowed his breathing, closed his eyes, and cleared
his mind. He focused only on the footsteps for a moment, then he opened his
thoughts to the Red. Memories flooded back, taking over his thoughts and
senses. Blood and pain and screaming. His mouth tasted that echo of the sickly
sweet coppery taste on the tip of his tongue, and it brought his focus to a
sharp, bloody point. His eyes snapped open, his aches and pains gone. The
footsteps came closer. He heard them approach on his right, and he tensed his now
warm muscles. His senses had not lied. In one heartbeat, the tip of an exposed
blade peeked around the trunk of the tree, cold steel that shone even in the
shadow of this dark forest. In the next heartbeat, the face of the swords owner
appeared in profile from behind the tree, and he moved his muscles into action.
He
swung down, knocking the blade out of the way, and in the next beat he swung
back up with all of his strength, aiming directly for the unprotected head. All
he saw in his Red haze was a target, not a man.. He saw a meatsack to be ripped
open. The meatsacks sharp features contorted into a shocked, silent scream as
the blade came at it, faster than its muscles could move.
Then,
from nowhere, a blade swung out, swinging faster than man or meatsack could
register, and his blade met it with a clash and a jolt through his amrs. The
force knocked his blade high, making it skim over the meatsacks head instead of
through his neck. The second assailant, he saw, was hooded and helmed. And the
hood was quick. The hood darted backward, sword at the ready, a fearsome black
blade with a curve to it. The meatsack dropped to the ground and rolled
backward, away from his and the hood’s reach, finding refuge behind the closest
tree, where it would no doubt regain its composure and change its pants. He
grinned, holding his sword at the ready, pointed directly at the hood.
He
lunged. The hood parried, leaped gracefully to the side, and returned a quick
jab. He blocked. He attacked, the hood blocked. They met each other blow for
blow, barely escaping injury until he made contact. The hood grunted as his
sword slashed through the leather armor on the hoods arm, leaving a gash and a
growing stain. The hood looked from its new wound to him, and then back. He
smiled, and the hood grinned back, a new fierceness behind the helm.
That marked a turn in the fight.
The hood slashed, rolled, dealt sweeping attacks, and as he dodged and blocked
frantically, he began to realize that their “fight” had only been play for the
hood: it had been toying with him. His rage reignited and the Red grew stronger
as he increased the strength of his blows, and the speed.
He
faintly heard a noise in the background, and he could see in his periphery the
meatsack, now out from behind its tree, waving its hands at he and the hood,
shouting loudly, urgently. He could tell that the hood was listening, turning
its head toward the meatsack and then looking back at him, face unreadable. The
hood was still easily meeting his blows, but the hoods attacks slowed and hit
with less force. He forced the Red to fade slightly, enough that he could hear
what the meatsack was saying.
“No! Alistair stop! It’s me! Dammit, Logan,
don’t…He doesn’t realize-!”
That
was all he heard. Suddenly, the hood spun, and he lost sight of it. Looking
about, he did not see the hilt of the black sword until just before it met with
his head.
No comments:
Post a Comment