Acelin stumbled forward, the featureless dirt road blurring below him, the edges of his vision darkening. He realized in some distant way that he should be worried, but he couldn’t muster the strength to care. He only knew he had to keep moving. He couldn’t stop. His escape had been comprised almost entirely of that rare commodity, luck, and he wasn’t keen on relying on its continued viability.
All at once, the ground rushed up to meet him, and Acelin found himself face first in the mud at the side of the road. Acelin groaned, the dull throb of pain in his side flaring to a biting pain at the impact. He tried to stir. Any delay could mean his death, and his pulse pounded an insistent rhythm in his skull. Even as he realized this, though, Acelin’s vision was slowly darkened until, mercifully, everything was blackness.