He could hear his heartbeat, his life’s rhythm, as it pumped his life away.
Was it slower than it had been? He thought it was slower.
Why was it slower, why was that beat a bad thing? Oh right. His leg. It was gone. Taken from him in fire and smoke and dirt and so much pain. Why didn’t he feel pain now?
He could see it, over there on the ground. It looked fine. A little smudged. If he could just reach out and grab it, if he could just- Oh. His arm. It didn’t look fine.
Oh dear. That was bad, too. His blood was spilling out with each beat.
There went some more. Was there less that time? He thought there was less. There was so much of it on the ground. He couldn’t move, couldn’t turn his head, but he could see so much blood pouring into the hole. Oh right, the hole.
The hole that the fire and smoke had made. Trunis, it was so wide. Why hadn’t the amulet protected him? The amulets were supposed to stop the magic, the priest had showed the whole company how they stopped the magic. Had he lied, had Trunis abandoned them?
Maybe he could ask Trunis in a minute. He could see less now, see darkness closing in. That must be Trunis’ Cloak, enfolding him at last. Why was it so cold? It was supposed to be warm.
...What was that? That wasn’t his heart. He could feel the ground shake, could see his blood shudder with the force of it. What could be making the ground shake like that?
Trunis’ Cloak did not walk the ground with heavy steps. It drifted to the dying, ushering them to His embrace, sparing their pain and suffering, soothing their fear. Why was he so afraid, then?
It was coming closer. He could hear the steps striking the ground now, not just feel it. Trunis save him, was it a demon? Was it one of the northern devil-knights, searching the dead for new slaves to raise?
The thought sent a fresh shiver of fear through him, spurring his heart to kill him faster. He didn’t want to be some fresh zombie fodder to throw against his fellow soldiers, some undead horror to do his brothers and sisters what had been done to him. He’d grown so close to them in the few short months he’d known them.
Yet that wasn’t what truly frightened him. The chill spreading up his body, the vision he was losing to impenetrable black.
There was suddenly a foot in front of him, but it was wrong, somehow. He wasn’t sure how, but he knew it was. It was like it was the wrong way around, somehow. And it was so big.
Something was moving him, turning him over. He could see the sky, clouds, plumes of ugly smoke. And something… dark, looming over him, gazing down with strange eyes, glowing from shadows. He felt the gaze, felt it examining him, judging him.
“Are you afraid?” The voice was deep and filled with echoes. He could feel it rumbling through his bones, could hear the weight of ages in it. Was this Trunis himself, come clad in His Cloak to see him to the afterlife?
He tried to take a breath, to speak, but his chest wouldn’t rise, and the words struggled in his throat, coughing out senselessly. The figure moved, raising a hand wreathed in light that streamed down to his chest.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
His breath returned with sudden vigor, the darkness in his vision retreated. And the pain. Dear Trunis, the pain. His first breath caught in his throat as he tried to scream, yet found himself without enough energy to cry out, and he was still so cold.
“Are you afraid?” He took a shaky breath, even then feeling it sap away the life he’d been granted, saw the edges of his vision beginning to fade away again.
“Yes,” He heard himself dying in that word, heard the strain in his voice.
“Of what?” The figure leaned down above him, the bright stars of its eyes gazing into his soul, it seemed.
“I don’t want to die,” He was barely able to answer, barely saw the sea-green sparks looking down at him.
“I can spare you your fear, or I can spare you death. But if I spare you death, I will have your allegiance. So you must choose: Death or life?” It loomed closer, the edges of the cowl brushing his face.
“L.. life,” It pulled back from him, hands coming before it in a gesture that summoned light, holding some arcane instrument that he could barely make out through the darkness that was nearly complete.
“Very well,” The voice sounded amused, as though they had just heard an unexpected joke. “But this is going to hurt.”
The hands came down, the thing they were holding pierced his chest, the light rushed into him, and he screamed as the darkness flew away from the pain. He ripped his throat raw with screams, which became another note in the symphony of agony that consumed him, overwhelming his senses until he surrendered to sudden nothingness.
He would reflect, later, that at least they had told the truth.
