Another rock rammed into his back, forcing his lung contents back where they belonged, and he was airborne. He had a single instant as he flipped through the air to observe the waterfall’s crest and the deep pool waiting below, and then he smashed front first into what felt like stone.
* * *
“..ake up!” someone grunted.
The roaring complaint from his ribs brought him fully to consciousness. He tried to unleash the scream that had been held back for so long but ended up coughing streams of water instead. Raimie thought it was over when he took a gloriously clean breath of air, but his body rebelled again. Tilting to the side, he vomited, somehow missing his kneeling father with the projectile-like liquid.
“Thank you, Alouin,” Aramar whispered as if in prayer. “Are you all right, son?”
Raimie laboriously sat up and assessed the damage. He’d acquired numerous lacerations and abrasions, and the skin on the front of his body was a brilliant red from the pool’s impact. The worst injuries, however, were by far to his ribs and hands.
The ribs were definitely broken, and something felt wrong in his chest. He couldn’t take in a full breath, and a faint click sounded every time he tried to fill his lungs.
His hands were ruined unless they could find a healer quickly. A black stripe ran across his palms allowing bits of bone to peek through. His fingertips were a ruby red, and the skin between the two was blistered a brilliant pink with welts already beginning to form. He’d unconsciously curled his hands into claws in order to lessen the pain.
His father spoke in the distance, but Raimie couldn’t take his eyes off of his hands. Even if they could find a healer in a timely fashion, he knew there would be long term consequences from this. They would never heal back perfectly.
Aramar smacked him.
“Can you run?” he asked again.
Raimie massaged his cheek gently.
“Run, no,” he answered, voice scratchy beyond recognition from recent abuse. “I could jog for a little while, but why do we need to run? We’ve escaped the fire safely.”
In fact, the flames crackled angrily nearby, furious that their prey had escaped. The two men were separated from the blaze by a wide stream. Furthermore, they’d reached grassy plains which, while normally a spark box waiting for a match, had recently been doused with a deluge of water from both the melt of mountain peak snow and spring showers. Fire would have difficulty spreading with so much moisture to dampen its enthusiasm.
“Two reasons we should already be running,” Aramar answered his son, standing and stretching. “One, hypothermia. We’re soaked in freezing water on a very chilly night. The exercise will keep us warm while we search for shelter.
“Two, your hands. I don’t know how you burnt them so badly, but from what I’ve seen, we need a healer immediately if you’re going to retain any function whatsoever from them.”
His father was correct.
“I’ll run as much as I can,” Raimie conceded, unthinkingly pushing his palms into the earth in order to stand.
The blistered sections shrieked at him, and he yelped. Aramar flung a hand over his mouth.
“Let’s stay quiet. There’s no telling what type of reprobate such a disaster will draw out,” he reprimanded. “I’ll help you up.”
From behind Raimie, Aramar hooked his elbows under the young man’s armpits and heaved him to his feet.
“Try not to touch anything if you can help it. The skin on your palms has taken enough trauma tonight. I’ll assist you in any way I can,” Aramar said, grabbing a pack and holding the straps out for Raimie to slide his arms into.
“I’m amazed this thing’s still intact,” Raimie rasped as he pulled it on.
“You secured it to yourself surprisingly well. I almost had to field-strip it off of you to start chest compressions.”
“Oh, is that why my entire rib cage feels like a horse trampled it?” Raimie asked.
“Well, my choices were: wake you with a sore chest, or let you drown on the water that you decided was a good idea to breathe.”
“Fair enough.”
Raimie refused to mention the popping he felt every time he inhaled. He tested taking short breaths which ended up feeling a bit better and took off running in what he hoped was the direction of the nearest town.
“You coming?” he asked his father, turning to jog backward.
Aramar shook his head wryly and sprinted past his son. Raimie put in every effort to keep up with his father, but his breath kept hitching in his chest. No matter how much he wished it wasn’t true at the moment, his body needed more air in order to continue functioning.
The adrenaline rush from his fall and subsequent revival was also tapering off, and his energy flagged. He was miraculously able to keep to a steady jog, but the slower pace had his father pulling ahead by a large margin. As long as he could keep the older man in his sights, however, Raimie wouldn’t ask to ease the pace.
As he jogged along, he came to the realization that it was over. Whatever happy life he and his father might have eked out living in the forest by themselves had been destroyed by flames. The two were now refugees, those sad peasants who occasionally passed by during hard times begging for scraps and shelter. Raimie couldn’t remember how many times he’d had to turn one away simply because his family had nothing to spare. Is that what they would now become?
His hands flashed into his gaze, and he remembered again that he was now most likely a cripple as well. The pain from the blistered sections of his palms lurked under the surface even with his brain’s stark ignorance of it, but he couldn’t feel the blackened portions at all. He supposed he should count that as a blessing, but it only terrified him. He kept forgetting they were injured.
He experimented with opening his hands and stretching the fingers, but they protested so heavily that tears formed in his eyes. He let them curl together again.
He couldn’t think about the future right now. If he didn’t focus on the present, on getting to a healer and shelter, the fear and panic would overwhelm him, leaving him in a ball on the grass.
He supposed he should be grateful that, at the very least, Dim and Bright weren’t popping in to distract him, but for some reason, he found the lack of their presence disturbing. Maybe it was because Dim had helped him navigate the fire or maybe it was the fact that they’d attempted to communicate, but whatever the case, Raimie had to admit that he occasionally found their appearance comforting. When he wasn’t absolutely terrified that they were a figment of his imagination that is.
Up ahead, Aramar slowed to a stop. He waited for Raimie to catch up and pointed to the low straw roofs of a collection of buildings ahead.
“We made it to Fissid, thank Alouin! Seems all those years learning navigation weren’t a complete waste of time after all.
“I hope Ytrella’s awake. You know how she gets when her rest’s disturbed. Either way, she’ll give us a good discount on her services which we’ll have to figure out how we’ll pay…” Aramar trailed off for a moment, only now comprehending their situation.
Raimie’s sole focus was on his breathing. The sudden stop made his body realize how air starved it was, and his lungs longed to fill completely. He forced them to merely take sips in and out, in and out. If he focused on that one action, maybe he could ignore his growing dread of the future, the beginnings of a migraine forming between his ears, and the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach at the sight of those familiar houses.
“In any case, we should approach together and slowly at that,” Aramar said. “I’m sure the townspeople aren’t used to random men visiting at night unless they’ve come to thieve or murder. Let’s not give anyone a reason to shoot us unless we have to, yes?”
He looked at his son.
“Are you all right?”
“Just… fine…” Raimie wheezed between gasps of air. “Ribs impairing… breathing. Headache… from lack of… air.”
“I didn’t know it was that bad,” Aram
ar muttered. “We’ll take it slowly, all right? We’re almost there. You can lean on me if you need to.”
Raimie frantically threw his arm over his father’s shoulder. As they started toward town, he didn’t allow the older man to take too much of his weight, just enough to keep going. Fissid loomed before them, and for an instant, he was a child again.
He kept mama aloft with his broken arm, clinging to the rope with the other. The clumsy curses he muttered under his breath helped drive the pain back, allowing him to stay conscious. He’d need to thank Bryruned for teaching him if he ever saw the blacksmith’s apprentice again.
“Help!” he called loudly, taking a small break from the cursing. “Mama, please wake up.”
The whisper echoed deafeningly alongside the quiet slosh of water.
As time passed, the light peeking under the roof and down the long stretch of stone crept higher and higher up the wall. The tiny patch of sky visible from this far down turned orange and purple.
By the time the stars came out, the cursing couldn’t hold the pain back anymore, and he lazily floated in the water, holding just enough to consciousness to maintain his grip on his mother.
“Mama, why were you chasing me?” he mumbled dazedly. “Did you want to play Flee too? You should’ve said something. We would’ve let you join us.”
Mama said nothing, and he swallowed a lump in his throat. Voices called in the dark above, but he couldn’t summon the energy to call for help anymore. It hadn’t helped earlier, why should it now? He sleepily hummed a lullaby, indulging in the illusion that mama had fallen asleep and he was putting her to bed for once.
Her weight lifted from his arm, and it screamed in protest at the change in position. He mumbled his own protests at whatever had shaken her from his grip. Sluggishly, he kicked to move and slap at the water nearby, searching for her.
From behind, pressure wrapped around his shoulders and stomach. He twisted violently, flailing at whatever held him. It lifted him out of the water and into the air. He dangled uselessly as it pulled him over the well’s lip, and when the pressure released, he flopped to the ground.
“Son!”
A familiar, rough hand caressed his face, and he grabbed it.
“Mama?” he asked fervently, eyes clearing for a brief second to take in his father’s anxious face.
“She’s fine. Waking up now, Raimie. What happened?”
He closed his eyes and drifted off.
Four days later, both he and his mother fell ill.
“Something’s wrong,” Aramar murmured, drawing Raimie from miserable recollections of the past. “There’s not a single guard out tonight?”
The headache progressively worsened, no matter how much air Raimie brought in. It had only been a dull ache scant minutes before, but the closer to Fissid they drew, the more the pain blossomed. Three hundred yards from the outskirts of town, his head threatened to split open.
“Alouin damn it all!” Aramar suddenly and quietly exclaimed.
He continued cursing under his breath, bringing the two of them to a complete stop.
“Can you run if we have to?” he asked his son in a barely audible whisper.
Raimie didn’t hear him. His head took all of his attention. The pain was worse than his hands, worse than his ribs, a battering ram threatening to tear down his consciousness.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Aramar said in reply to his son’s lack of response and movement. “Damn it. We’re going to die.”
The older man gently lowered Raimie’s arm off of his shoulder and scanned the horizon, presumably for some form of cover. Looping his bow off of his back, he flipped the latch keeping his quiver closed. He nocked an arrow, refusing to draw just yet, and ran directly in front of Raimie toward town, keeping as low to the ground as his body would allow. The young man detachedly watched with perhaps a tenth of his attention, the other nine-tenths intensely absorbed with staying cognizant.
A shadow peeled off of the gloom cast from buildings blocking the moon. It advanced purposefully toward Raimie, ignoring Aramar, the only one of the two actively armed.
Intense, immobilizing terror shot through him at the sight of it. In the moonlight, the shadow was revealed to be a tall man clothed in a dark, hooded cloak. The cloak billowed around the figure in such a way that the eye was constantly drawn away from any defining features.
One-third of the way to his prey, the unknown man drew his sword and swatted an arrow out of the air. Raimie watched his father draw, nock, and shoot three more projectiles in quick succession. One whizzed toward the stranger’s head, one to the chest cavity, and the last to the throat.
It was damn fine shooting, better than he’d ever seen from his father before.
Aramar’s target flicked its sword thrice, and the arrows fell to the earth, each cut perfectly in half. His father continued firing impossibly well-shot arrows, but not a single one stopped or even slowed the cloaked monster from advancing on its target.
It strolled past Aramar’s position near where Raimie stood, paralyzed with mind-numbing fear and skull crushing pain. Roaring, his father charged, raising his bow to strike. In his other hand hidden behind his back, an arrow dangled. With inhuman speed, the monster yanked on the bow, twisting Aramar around with the tug’s force. It plucked the hidden arrow away and jammed it into the base of his father’s neck. Never losing a beat, it shoved the older man away and folded Aramar around its boot.
His father flew across the grasslands, tumbling to a stop nearby. Raimie silently willed the man to get up and run away, but Aramar lay still. He flicked his eyes back to the monster as it stepped over his father, cloak dragging over the body briefly. A minuscule portion of his mind shrieked at him to flee, and for a split second, one foot did as it was told, taking a step backward.
His head exploded with exquisite agony, and he fell to his knees, scorched hands crushing into his temples. The world dimmed, and the monster raised its sword to strike.
A streak of flesh collided with the monster’s side, pushing it sideways and back, and the pain lessened immediately. A tall man sprang from on top of the monster, and a sword quickly appeared in his hand. He spoke to the fallen monster, and Raimie watched incredulously as it was allowed back to its feet. The two clashed, blades whirling faster than his torture addled mind could keep up with.
On the last pass, his rescuer ducked past the monster’s defenses and buried his sword halfway into its armpit. He withdrew the weapon, flicked the bodily fluids away, and re-sheathed it, all in one fluid motion. Leaving the wounded monster still standing, he turned to assist the two of them.
With the last of its strength, the monster lashed out, catching Raimie’s savior halfway up his back, before dropping to the dirt. A large spray of blood followed the monster’s sword, and the good samaritan collapsed.
Before Raimie could get up the help, a parting gift of terror and suffering assaulted him, and he too joined the others on the hard, unyielding ground.
* * *
In the dark, Raimie flexed his hand, the only part of him free to move, and he felt no pain.
“Am I dead?” he asked. “Have I been dreaming of hell this whole time?”
He found no answer in the dark.
“Come on. I know you’re there.”
The stranger leaned into his field of view.
“You offended me last time,” he said. “Your level of fear indicated a desire to never interact with me again.”
“I’ve met scarier things since then. You seem tame in comparison,” Raimie replied through a desperate grin.
“Are you accepting my assistance?”
“For now, sure, but I don’t trust you.”
“You would be a fool to trust me based solely on two interactions,” the stranger agreed.
He flicked out his knife and dug into the restraints holding Raimie’s left arm down.
“You are very much alive,” he said.
“What?”
“You asked
, and I quote, ‘Am I dead? Have I been dreaming…”
“Yes, yes, I remember,” Raimie interrupted.
“I was answering that question. I am not quite sure how, but you are alive.”
“Great,” Raimie said with only a small fraction of sarcasm laced into his voice. “I guess that means I have a silly amount of problems to look forward to when I wake up. Maybe I should stay here.”
The stranger halted mid slice and brought both hands to rest on top of his knees.
“That can be accommodated.”
“I was only joking!” Raimie scoffed. “I don’t like this place enough to stay here.”
“Ah.”
The stranger worried at the bonds along Raimie’s upper arm with the knife.
“All I meant by my offer was that, sooner or later, you will retain the ability to employ my help in the waking world when you desire. You have already given me a multitude of new skills that I would love to use to assist you. I can hardly wait to try halting an arrow mid-flight, and some of these sword techniques are truly fascinating.”
“I can handle my waking problems myself, thanks,” Raimie answered.
The stranger jerked back and jumped to his feet.
“I must depart for now,” he said, looking off into the distance. “I will return momentarily.”
He strode out of Raimie’s vision.
“Was it something I said?” the young man asked after the retreating back.
Chapter Six
I’m the one who pushed you to take the actions which precipitated the destruction of our idyllic lives, and others, in their hate and ignorance, took advantage of my family’s unexpected weakness.
Kheled gave Ferin enough time to get distracted by another of the many problems each council member dealt with on a daily basis before he attempted to escape. While he waited, he unloaded his medicine cabinet in search of one of the rare tinctures that had few practical applications in his own practice. The other clinics open to the general populace used it much more heavily, but the warriors that Kheled treated had an extreme distaste for the stuff.
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