The Lone Rider

Chapter 6

Leaves rustled from a cool breeze on a beautiful day. Grass warmed by a grateful sun. Not a cloud in the sky. Serene like home not too far away. A blissful moment, calm and unattainable. The riverbed croaked and coughed, satisfied with the way things were. Someone sang in the distance, following the rhythm of the birds. A wonderful voice that filled you with joy and warmed your heart. The type of voice that made men kill. Her name was Leora and she was dead.

Kell knew it was a memory too distant to be real. His heart leapt for a second when he heard her voice, but she grew detached and floated away. It became like watching through a fogged window where the world grew smaller by the breath. He would have lunged for it if he could, hold it tight and cradle it in his arms. But his body ached and called for him to return. The last things he heard as he came back were the sounds of stomping feet and a wavered cry.

The world turned real again; his vision blurry with little dancing lights. Everything hurt from head to toe and he wondered how he was alive. Cold air bit at his skin, a harsh comparison to his dream, and the wind howled, blistering. He willed himself to move and his body complied, first his hands then the rest. Groaning, Kell turned himself around and shuffled on loose gravel to find himself looking out over the Metimos Valley. He hoped never to see it again.

The sun was high in the sky, near noon, and Kell knew he had been out for some time. He sat on the sloped side of the mountain and as he glanced back, he saw how he was saved from his fall. A bed of brush lay torn and broken a few yards above him. A visible print from his body, where he slid in the dirt, trailed below that and led to him. The last thing he remembered was seeing the whole world below him, but he supposed that was a false sight. The insanity of what happened had his mind playing tricks on him, too fast for him to keep up with. In reality he only fell a small distance, a miracle really, given how worse it could have been. Just a few yards further, or to the right and he would have cascaded through a mile of open air.

He could feel how bad his injuries were and they weren't good. A few broken ribs, obvious from the pain in his side, and his dizziness and confusion pointed to a concussion. His ankle hurt, though it was probably just a sprain, and he counted three broken or dislocated fingers. His left shoulder was dislocated as well and there were several cuts on his body, many of them deep and lightly bleeding. If he had to guess, he figured he'd never been in as bad of shape, though it could have been worse, and he knew it. He could have been dead.

Slowly and painfully, Kell went through the process of putting himself back together. He started with the dislocated shoulder, using his body weight to pull it back in place, something he'd done on several occasions. The shoulder clicked and forced a harsh grunt from his mouth. Next, he popped the wounded fingers back into place as well, then gripped his hands to check how well they worked. It was terrible and the pain would be great, but he could still hold a sword.

As soon as Kell thought about his sword he jumped to his feet. The motion put too much weight on his sprained ankle and he nearly tumbled off the steep slope he stood on, but he caught himself and steadied. He glanced around frantically but didn't see it anywhere. The blade was the most precious thing he owned, more valuable than castles and even whole cities. The material used to forge it was rare. The rarest, actually, and he had had to kill off pursuers before who wanted their hands on it. He hated the fact that the old man gave it to him, but it was his only reminder of home and the life he used to live so he did not want to lose it.

Groaning and panting, Kell did his best to ignore the pain and began to climb the mountain side. His sides screamed at him and it felt as if his ankle would give out any second, but he endured and pushed himself upwards, scrambling and slipping constantly, forcing bad thoughts out of his head along the way. He had fallen a good dozen yards or more and slid almost twice that through sharp rock and thorny brush and he had to work his way through all that again in terrible pain. After ten minutes or more, Kell finally crested the top and came back to the flat clifftop he stood on before.