Deathless

Deathless Chapter Twenty-Five: Reinforcements

Chapter Twenty-Five: Reinforcements

Vinron had tasted pain before, but not like this, never like this.

He lay on his back, sweat beading through on his forehead, rolling down in great swathes of liquid, dripping into his eyes and mouth, and yet he could not raise his arms to wipe his face. For he had no arms to lift.

He shuddered in agony as another spasm of pain spanned his body. His head lay on its side, facing the stump where his arm had once been. He looked over at where his severed arm lay, its tip glistening with blood in the scorching mid-afternoon sun, the plate armour he’d fastened onto it askew, but his gauntlet, shining with crimson, still attached.

Vinron felt the area on his left, where his other hand had been hewed off, at his wrist, when, after he’d been knocked to the ground, he’d tried to draw the dagger he always kept at his side. He’d lost his left hand for that. He grinned despite himself. It had never been much use, anyway.

And then, the greatest pain by far, came from the right side of his rib cage, where someone had run him through with a sword. He sobbed as he felt blood drip from the wound, and yet no tears came. He could not move, not so much as jostle his eyebrows, or move his lips. Yet, he could still feel.

Every single impact, every single piercing, every single thrust he’d thus far suffered he had felt, his agony multiplying by the hour.

He had felt the shock when his arm had been hewed off at the elbow, and then the scorching pain that had suddenly coursed through his entire body. Nothing in his years of training with the Battalion had prepared him for such agony.

He had felt the sword, a hulking two-handed greatsword, entering his skin, piercing a lung and wrenching his ribs apart, and then felt every nerve in his body twitch and scream and shudder as the blade was drawn out, more agonising than its entrance.

And he had felt the thump, the wrenching impact in his head and ribs as he had collapsed, striking the rocks with a thud, the rough ground of the plains of the Pass pricking his skin as his blood poured from his countless wounds, watering the soil beneath him.

Another spasm of pain shook him. He felt the throb of the place where his arm had been, the twinge of agony that scorched his phantom arm, and his chest, oh gods, his chest….

At first, the pain had been concentrated; he had only felt the twinge at the area that the sword had entered him, piercing through his coat of mail like it was nothing. 

Argh…. he supposed some of the chain mail had entered his skin, along with the greatsword.

But then, the pain had begun to spread throughout his entire body, at first a dull throb, then an excruciating burning that he felt throughout his entire body, as if he had been placed through a furnace of molten lava.

And for some reason, for some atrocious reason, he was still alive. He did not know how, or why, he still lived. Before he’d been sent on that scouting mission from River’s End, he’d heard naught but tales of men who would not die, despite mutilation. He had dismissed it as a hoax, stories told astride the campfire to frighten the gullible.

He tried to grin again as he thought of how foolish he’d been, how naïve he’d been. He did not know how long it had been since he had thumped onto the ground, condemned to his weary existence upon the stones in excruciating agony.

A day? Two days? He had no idea. All he knew was that his party had been ambushed in the hills, just as they had decided to turn back to head for River’s End.

He’d drawn his sword, the newly-forged blade, fresh from the anvil, glimmering in the setting sun’s orange rays, thirsty for blood and glory.

How pointless it all seemed now, as Vinron lay on the ground as yet another throb of pain gripped him. He had been so young, then, hungry for glory, eager to raise his blade and win himself a place among the men of the Imperial Battalion.