Flight
He ran, through the underbrush and down the hillside – one foot over the other and then no feet at all as he came out into thin air, over the side and down into the gorge below, tumbling. The fall was nothing, it was only momentum, but the noise worried him – the shale tumbling with him, sliding, echoing his presence for all to hear in the forest. Clumsy, too clumsy, and for it he received another arrow to match the one poking from above his hip, this one in his thigh.
The blood was cool down his leg, but he didn’t feel it. No, Casimir didn’t stop – he couldn’t. Faced with death he found life was, contrary to his belief previous, worth living. And so he scrambled back to his feet and limped back into the cover of the trees as quick as he was able. The strain was getting to him: weak from blood loss, lack of sleep and food, and days on the run, he was starting to see fanciful colors along the corner of his eyes.
Another explosion sounded, and he knew behind him part of the forest was up in flames. By Dav, they were persistent. Without rest, without folly, they had dogged the lord Azadar at every turn. They might have cornered him sooner had he not set a false trail. It was uncanny, the precision with which they could follow his movements, as if they could see directly into his mind. He had trained these men, yes, but it was neither boast nor pride when young lord Azadar stated he was one of the best outdoors-men west of Lithmore – and the real tricks of the trade he had shared with nobody.
But they had him pegged. Another arrow ‘whooshed’ through the air, dangerously close to where his face was. Casimir turned left, intent on putting as much distance between him and the group’s crack-shot archer as possible, and came face to face with one of the swordsmen.
It all happened in the space of two beats, but in that time there was one thought – quicker than light and more persistent than guilt: ‘I know this man.’ It was hardly the first time the words had came into the young lord’s head, and it never stopped him from doing what needed to be done. No, it was either them or him, and Casimir was sure it would be them. Two beats – there was one, wherein the soldier raised his sword and prepared to strike – and then another, wherein Casimir lunged into the man and drove both fingers into the eye holes of his helm. Messy, and ungraceful, but it got the job done – at least a little. The man did not scream, he did not fall – no, and Casimir realized again that these men were cursed. Corrupted. They did not feel pain as normal men would – and where once their sanity was only a fiery insanity remained. It was that insanity that the swordsman brought to the forefront: he raised his off-hand, palm out, and from there a cloud of fire erupted. Diving back behind a tree, Casimir only just made it. Breathing heavily as fire licked at his clothing, the young Azadar glanced back out to see the swordsman blindly shooting his fire the opposite way. A sigh of relief: corrupt, and insanely powerful, but they were still limited by their flesh. A man without eyes is still blind.
The victory was short lived as another arrow came thudding into the flesh of Casimir’s shoulder, knocking the breath out of him. Longbow, thirty to fifty paces away, and again the arrows were intricately barbed so that he had no choice but to leave it in. The pain was growing as weariness set in and adrenaline took a back seat, but he couldn’t stop now – even though he had not seen the archer he knew his rhythm. The timing was impeccable, and practiced men don’t normally stray.
Casimir stumbled away, through more growth and behind a larger oak sapling, and he let himself a two second reprieve to assess the damage. One in his side, above the hip – another in his thigh – and a third sticking from the edge of his shoulder blade. He knew the last had nipped bone – the pain was extreme – but for the moment the others were not agitated by movement.
He had to do it, and so to steel himself he latched his teeth on the inside of his cheek. When he slid the arrow forward, further into flesh and past the edge of his bone, instead of screaming he just clenched his teeth all the fiercer, drawing blood in the process. In the end, the arrow was out and he could move without pushing it further into bone.
Two seconds. And now, back to the flight.