Spring 2, 512 AV His fingers clutched convulsively, the first movement to signal that he was alive. Somehow, he had survived. Bright sunlight pricked at his eyes, though filtered to a warm pink through his closed eyelids. With the return of conscious thought came also pain – a great deal of it. His right shoulder was an agonizing stab of misery. To look at it, it was abundantly clear that the head of the humerus had slid from the scapula and the arm that was half buried in the sand lay at a funny angle. That entire side of his body was entangled in rope – lines from the casinor that had disintegrated in the storm. The storm. That thought brought a little snort of derision from him, and a resultant bit of sand shooting from his nostrils. Could it even be called a storm? It had seemed like a thing alive – with some dark, malevolent will all its own. Through a sky split and torn asunder with wild swirling swaths of djed, came winds that seemed to howl from the bottom of the sea itself. A storm – that was no storm. It had been a malediction – a curse, one which Will could not help but take very, very personally. If that . . . thing . . . had let him live, it was only for the purpose of inflicting more misery on his already miserable self. The lines followed a tangled mess to the iron fittings which secured them to the bit of mast that had been his salvation. At some point after hitting the rocks – no – after being driven upon them as if demons drove the little craft before it, and being slammed down into them as if Izurdin’s own hammer had fallen – Will had found himself overboard, scrambling for the surface, grasping for whatever his hands could find to grab onto – anything that would float. How he had managed to avoid being crushed and broken to bits on the jagged teeth that reared out of the boiling froth could only be attributable to pure luck. Scrabbling onto the broken mast, it had taken all his strength to hang on. Finally he got his near frozen hands to work, tying himself to it, as what little strength he had left ebbed away. Rushing down forty foot troughs – clawing back up to the crests, his miniscule life preserver carried him along to . . . here. And where was here, exactly? He moved a fraction of an inch, and groaned. Pain encompassed him and he almost blacked out. But slowly it formed up into concentrated points and focused in his shoulder, his right ankle and his head. The fingers that had moved so slightly seemed to be alright, as did that hand, wrist, arm – slowly his mind traced its way up the sore but relatively unscathed limb. His left leg too seemed to be basically intact. His other ankle though . . . With the light stabbing at his pupils, he forced his eyes open, repeatedly blinking, trying to see past the dizzying black spots and the pounding, pulsing beating in his head. Finally getting them open, he craned his neck, feeling his shoulder shriek in protest, looking down to see . . . “Sweet holy fuck . . . “ he groaned, his already pale face going sheet white. His ankle, what was left of it, was a complete, fucked up mess. He had seen the white of bone – lots of it, shining in the brilliant sunlight. And fresh blood – lots of that too. Flies were swarming about it and he thoughtlessly tried to move it to make them leave. Nothing. The nerves were there – or at least enough of them for the pain to be coming through like waves of molten heat washing over his brainstem. But the ligaments were mostly severed and the muscles ravished, ragged, ripped. Easing his head back down to press his cheek into the sand, he closed his eyes again. Maybe Krysus had more in store for him, but he bloody well wished that she would just let him go. Wherever Nate was, that’s where he wanted to be too. In hell, perhaps. But even hell had to be better than this shit. Though from the looks of his leg, it wouldn’t be too long before his wish came true. Did he black out again? Did he drift off into some awful dream state – though what could be as awful as being awake? Images floated through his overheated brain. He had woken up that morning – the morning after that horrifying night – and Nate was gone. Fled. Will had looked for him everywhere. And of course the other casinor was gone. As much as Will had made those idiotic, fake, desperate promises to make everything better, Nate had known better. There wasn’t going to be any ‘better.’ Cursed by a goddess – how did one get ‘better’ from shit like that? That girl, that damned fucking girl. It was all her fault, wasn’t it? But in his fevered vision it wasn’t the girl that his cousin looked so accusingly at – it had been him. He was the one who had thought of it. He was the one who had planned it. But it had been Nate who had been marked. Some fucking joke of the gods. For three months Will had looked for him – or maybe he had been running away. What chance had there ever been that he would fortuitously bump into Nate on the swell of the vast ocean? He had hugged the coast, and searched, knowing it was still like looking for a needle in a haystack. How many thousands of coves and hidden beaches had he passed up? But still, he had sailed south, and south, and south. And then rounding the tip of Ektyol and north. What else could he do? Finally admit that Nate was gone? For good? That he would never see him again? Never hold him again? Never again argue good naturedly with and aggravate and have fun with and make love to? Never, ever again? Maybe in a year he could have brought himself to do that. Or two years, or ten. But not now, he told himself, every morning. Not tonight, he’d say silently, looking up at the stars. So he kept on, having no intention to stop, until the storm that was no storm stopped him. Like a brick wall. And now here he was. He would die if he didn’t get some major, skilled medical attention very, very soon. And he didn’t particularly mind. |