Dragon Soul - The Ancestor Gods Saga Book 1

14. Beast or Man?

He crawled across the ground, the scent of the rich, wet earth filling his nostrils as he dragged himself along. Fingers digging into the dirt, drawing up more of the fertile aroma. The pain was the worst he had ever known.

His shoulders felt as if something was trying to claw its way out. They burned as if fire was pouring onto them. They jarred as if daggers were stabbing into them. The pain had started after he lost his temper with the sorcerer.

If only the man had answered his questions instead of being so stubborn! He didn't mean to kill him. He never meant to kill, but when his mind flipped, it was as if a different person inhabited him. In fact, it was not a person at all, but some beast that just roared and raged and lashed out at all around him.

A wounded beast so addled by the pain it could do nothing but destroy.

Afterwards, first his shoulders cramped and tensed, then his back spasmed, followed by his guts and slowly but unerringly, the pain slunk further and further down and about his body until every muscle and tendon was knotted up, every minor movement was agony, and nothing could stop it.

Somehow, he had made it back into the woods before the pain had reduced him to dragging himself by inches across the ground. He only had one thought on his mind – to get far away before the alarm was raised about the murder of the sorcerer. In his weakened state, if they came for him, he was not sure he could fight them off. In some pain-riddled moments, when just moving his fingers could have made him weep if he had the tears left, he wanted them to come and end it all.

After all these centuries, to die like an outlaw in the middle of a forest, caked in dirt, writhing in agony, it would seem a poor end. Mediocre, indeed. But at least it would be an end.

His seemingly mindless progress finally brought him to the edge of a shallow stream. With the last of his strength, he lapped at the water and then rested his head on his arms. He had reached a point when any normal person would have been so overwhelmed, they would have lost consciousness. He did not have that luxury. He merely lay there, enduring.

Had he come all this way for nothing after all?

He did not want to believe that. Still, the notion was creeping into his mind. He breathed deeply, sucking in the smell of the soil and leaf litter. It began to dawn on him the pain was ebbing. He remained motionless in case the slightest twitch would set off the excruciating agony once more. He had become almost numbed to it all, now he realised his muscles were relaxing.

He closed his eyes. He would like to sleep, except somewhere along the centuries he had forgotten how to. No matter how tired he was, no matter how desperate, he never shut his eyes and was sucked into oblivion. It was just part of the curse of his existence. Still, he rested.

He allowed the sounds of the forest to flutter over him. He became aware of his surroundings again. It was after dawn, he realised. Long after dawn.

How long had he been dragging his trembling, twitching body through the trees? Clearly longer than he had supposed. The hours had been so bleak, they had passed in a haze and left him here, exhausted on the banks of a stream.

He decided not to move for a long time. It felt good to just be still. He thought of his plans, of his hopes. If he had not been so stupid as to kill the sorcerer, he might have discovered where the thing was. Why had the man been so truculent? Over and over, he had denied knowing anything about it. How could he know nothing?

The man's sheer determination to be obstinate had driven him over the brink. It wasn't really his fault he had killed him, after all. It had been the sorcerer's dogmatic denials. He had only been able to bear so much!

But if the sorcerer were dead, then how was he to discover what had happened to it? He had come all this way for one thing. Now it seemed a wasted journey. What was left for him?

He lay on the bank, wondering if he should try to drown himself and be done with it all? He had tried before and failed, passing out but not dying. But maybe he had simply not tried hard enough?

Drowning was not an ending he had ever envisioned. He had thought he would die in battle, some glorious demise fighting for, fighting for...

What did he fight for these days?

He pulled his brow into a frown. Once he had known what his purpose was. He had had a purpose. He had a vague memory of those days. Was that when he was still a mortal man, or had that time spilled over until he had become this.

No matter how he probed his memories, he could not answer his question. Despair started to creep in, what was his purpose now? What was meant for him? A strange hopelessness filled his mind and the temptation to try to drown in the stream came over him once again. He was so close, all it would take was to just give up, to just give himself to the water.

He moved his head and his lips hovered over the babbling stream. He started to drop his forehead, felt strands of hair spill down and dip into the water. He was so close, and he really thought he would do it, really thought this was the time to end things. To give up and forget about suffering.

The water of the stream was trickling around his chin when he sensed it.

His eyes went wide, and he shot up his head like a hound on a fresh scent. Forgetting everything, the pain, the thoughts of drowning, the murder, he was up on his feet and moving once more.

He still had hope. He still had a chance.