Deathless

Deathless Chapter Thirty-Five: Sacrifice

Chapter Thirty-Five: Sacrifice

Darkness enshrouded Risselyn. A kaleidoscope of colour dominated his vision. Red, black, blue, and red again. So much red....

It was almost blinding, the crimson hue. Murky, distorted crimson. Swirling, contorting, mixing, flowing. Like waves beating against the shoreline. Like blood flowing from an artery....

So is this what death feels like? Risselyn asked himself. His memories were... murky at best. He remembered the ambush, the sudden bursts of silver that erupted from the ledges surrounding them, his companions dropping like flies. He'd panicked, then, bringing out his sword and slashing wildly. 

He remembered the flash of silver that had entered his flesh, like an oar breaking the surface of water, bringing him to his knees. He remembered the figure leaping down from above. 

The figure had drawn out a club. And he remembered seeing a flicker of brown coming straight at him, and the sting of the blow as it connected with his face, taking out a few teeth. And then he was falling...

Risselyn felt weightless, he felt himself twisting and contorting, unable to control his own movements, as if his consciousness was floating on an endless sea of time. His head throbbed....

Hold on.... Risselyn thought. If my head can still register pain... then I can't be dead. I'm alive.

This epiphany came with several implications. Risselyn jolted awake, and finally felt his body respond. He felt the currents that he had thought was the afterlife around him and realised that they were waves lapping at his side. 

His eyes felt heavy with exhaustion and fatigue, and he wanted nothing more to simply let go. To lie there on that soft shoreline for the rest of eternity.

But he steeled himself and forced his eyes open. His eyes was distorted by mud and soil, but his vision eventually cleared. He pulled himself into a sitting position with his hands, his arms feeling like lead, his face feeling as if it had a red hot poker pressed against it.

He looked about him, and found towering walls of earth extending upwards from either side of him, a river running in between, and a thinning shore between the rapids and the walls of earth on which he now lay.

Risselyn got up and looked about him. He ran his hands up and down his body. It seemed banged up, but he had miraculously survived with no broken bones. His head hurt like hell, though, and he was drenched in mud and twigs and gods-knew-what-else.

Instinctively, he reached for his sword, but found that his scabbard was empty.

"Fuck," he swore under his breath. He was defenceless. Then he remembered the dagger he usually kept in his boot. He prayed it was still there.

Risselyn reached down and wrenched off his boot, and there it was. A bright steel hilt, the blade obscured with a drenched leather sheath. He shoved the dagger in his belt. He'd need to be able to access it easily at this point.

He stood up, stumbling slightly, for his legs were still weak, but he managed to keep his footing. His companions were probably captured by those savages at this point. He needed to find them. But how?

Lindale was the one who usually navigated them through the terrain, with Vanya and Sirya chipping in when needed, but Risselyn usually only helped with manual labour, like setting up campfires while they were still in friendly territory, and such.

He cursed. If only one of them was here.

The night was dark and full of terrors, snow falling lightly from above. He could see the aftermath of a snowstorm from perhaps a day or two before. The upper reaches of the peaks that surrounded him were chalked with white, more so than they had been before. Even down here, at ground level, he could see patches of white  littering the sides of the canyon.