Delirium

I ran as fast as I could. The sound of raindrops hitting my helmet reverberated through my ears. Branches and brushwood breaking under the feet of my pursuers came in intervals from all around me, I could hear them breathe laboriously, and I could feel their fatigue and weariness as well as mine. I had led them on a two days pursuit, I knew I couldn't fight them all, so I opted for a contest of endurance and will.

I kept hope alive. Even though deep down I knew there was no way out of this. I still pictured my free company's camp emerging just over the next clearing. But it never happened, I was gone too long, and they assumed the worst and moved elsewhere to avoid an ambush, either that or that sniveling son of a whore told them nobody else survived. I don't blame him, I would've done the same, I hate his guts.

The glaring sun brought me back from my disoriented ramblings. I run a bit further before slowing to assess my surroundings. There are no trees in front of me anymore, just wide fields of wheat spanning across the hills and sparsely placed burnt barns and mills. I have circled the forest. Sometime during my escape, I got lost and my pursuers in their rush didn't notice, and we are both back where we started.

Half-eaten dead bodies spread along the dirt road remind me of the violent skirmish my fellow scouts and I had with the enemy advance party. Ludovic, the archer in my group, and I were the last survivors, while half a dozen of them had survived. I led them on a wild chase through the forest, while Ludo who was quicker on his feet and wore lighter leather armor quickly vanished into the wild bushes.

These persistent bastards, wearing chainmail and hauberks couldn't keep up with him so they had no choice but to pursue my slow arse. Now here I am, standing where it all started. All too tired to keep running through the muddied road. The rain washed the blood from the dead bodies, mangled by ravens and rabid dogs probably. I take a deep breath as I turn around to see the six of them emerge from the forest that ran the length of the road.

I stand there watching them catch their breath across the road, fields of wheat behind me, and further down the ruins of a burnt village, smoke still rising from some of the houses. Not a bad place to die, I've seen a few better places, and many worse. There's a church still standing in that village. We Routiers tend to be superstitious, so we avoid raiding places of worship, not to anger any gods or daemons, and also, not to provoke any roaming zealot paladin or warlock party, they're a pain to get rid of once they're on your trail.

(A/N: Routiers are French medieval mercenaries.)

While my mind wandered around, my instincts and muscle memory took control. I unsheathed my sword from my right hip, and grabbed the pouch of black powder I use for the handgonne I dropped sometime while running to lighten my load. Once I lightened my belt of the only items I need, I dropped it at my feet, grabbed the shield at my back, and with a swift downward swipe with my sword got rid of the few arrows still embedded in it from the pursuit, I inspected it for any fissures or cracks and when satisfied, planted my sword in the ground and strapped the shield to my right hand. Being ambidextrous was a big advantage on the battlefield, but on my last stand, I chose the hand I am most comfortable with, if they never fought a lefthanded swordsman before, it'll give me an edge. Once ready, I pulled my sword out of the ground and examined my situation.

'I am facing six enemies, all wounded to different degrees and exhausted, as am I. I can't let them surround me, the wheat behind me is high enough to not be a viable solution for surrounding me. I should stay just beside the dirt road, now turned mud from the rain, and keep them in it, it'll make moving harder for them. The most dangerous one is the fat one with the flail, that's a hard weapon to master, and he's still alive, so he's good with it. Next is the greatsword-wielding oaf, he's got the most reach, I have to gut the bastard before he guts me. the four others are the most injured and appear to be the most exhausted, I'll kill two first, deal with the dangerous ones, and keep the other two at bay till last, they'll get in each other's way if they come all at once anyway.

I'm fucked, aren't I? Should've listened to Guillaume when he told me to learn the spear. Would've been much easier to deal with them if I could just avoid getting it grabbed. I'm sure that snake would've been able to at least kill half of them before they got to him.'

As if giving me a chance they started arguing between themselves about who should circle me. They know at least one of 'em is coming down with me. While they're distracted, I grab a sizeable rock from the ground and throw it at the closest one to me, one of the weak ones. And immediately bolt to the rightmost one, I saw him limp, must've hurt his leg while running after me.

I saw from the corner of my eye a small spray of blood, nailed the cunt square in the dome. And lucky for me, the limping jack was too stunned to see my sword go through the side of his neck and out the other side. 'Fast and smooth, good start'. While he's still standing on his own and grasping his throat, I push him out of my sword with my leg and he falls in the ditch between the forest and the road, gurgling. With no time to admire my work, I jump back just as a greatsword comes down heavily on the ground. Without looking I keep hopping back until I'm out of the road and back at the edge of the wheat field where I started.

"William ya fuckin' cunt, I told ya to keep yer eyes on the bastard !" The fat one screamed.

"Why didn't ya do it yerself ya big fuck?!" The greatsword-wielding oaf answered.

They kept looking at me while talking, they won't give me another free kill it seems. Just then I noticed one of the two weak ones still standing run to the one sprawled on the ground, bleeding profusely from his head where I nailed him with the rock, maybe he's his kin. I'm pretty proud of that throw, it's not every day you get to slay somebody with a rock like that, maybe in sieges, but I haven't been in one in a while.

Well, seems like people get melancholic when they know their end is near. There's no fooling myself, this is my last fight, might as well make them fight for the kill. I can feel the exhaustion seep into my bones, my shield hand is getting heavy, I'm not sure I can properly block with it, but I have no choice. I gotta do something while one of them is occupied with the dying one, the one in the ditch nobody cared for, then again there's no bringing him back from the dead with how I went through his neck.

I feint a lunge at the weak one still standing at the leftmost, the fat guy in the middle throws his flail towards where I should've been, and I lunge at him. I lift my right arm and feel the shield crack under the weight of the greatsword the oaf swung at me, but it's too late, I gut the wide-eyed "big fuck", from right to left, and leap back again at the end of my swing. My right arm broke, I can feel it, it wasn't just the shield that cracked, but it's a fair trade, the flail hits the ground almost at the same time as the intestines of the pig while he tries unsuccessfully to push them back in.

'Three down, three to go. I got one broken arm, my leg got twisted when I leaped back. So I guess they got half of me too? Ha, should've been a court jester instead of a hired sword, curse that fool that ran from home to be more than his father, better a gong farmer than a dead man. Who am I kidding? I'd rather die in this ditch than live my whole life swimming in the cesspits that those pink-arsed nobles so graciously filled as my father did. I'm glad I fucked that countess. I heard she gave her husband an heir some nine moons after, I hope it's mine.'

The idea of cucking a count, and putting my descendence into the nobility without anyone but the whore, her maidservant that's rotting somewhere in a well, and me knowing put a smile on my face. A smile that terrified my foes, given my current state.

"The fucking devil's smiling! Kill the fucker and you get Hugo's flail you fucks!"

The pig with his intestines sprawled across the road squealed weakly at that, it looked like he wanted to keep his weapon even in his death.

'That big oaf got a filthy mouth on him, doesn't he? Let's help him keep it shut.'

With my right hand, I grab the content of the pouch I lodged between my chest plate and my breast, my broken arm struggling to move and sending searing pain through me. With a grunt, I fling the content onto the face of the approaching oaf.

"Fuck! Curse you, you fucking heathen son of a who-"

He screams and flails his greatsword with one hand and grabs his eyes with the other. I lunge at him, taking a hit to my chest plate from his sword and plunging mine into his gaping mouth.

"Nothin' comes from... your rattletrap... but curses and... filth."

I struggle to say between heavy breaths as I step back, I leave the sword in his mouth. Not because I have no more need for it, but because of the dagger stuck in my armpit, between my pauldron and my chest plate. The scrawny guy at the left was still cowering in his place, but the one whom I assumed was the kin of the first one I slayed, was standing just to my side, hands still tightly wrapped around the dagger, as he twisted it and pulled it back out.

'I should've kept my eyes on him.'

"YA KILLED MA FATHER!"

He jumped on me and we fell both to the ground. As I struck the dirt under me, I felt my broken ribs, from the flailing greatsword that hit me earlier, pierce through my lung. As blood spurted out of my mouth, my eyes met the eyes of what I now saw was a young lad in his teens, as he mounted me. His eyes were filled with tears, but the rage in them was unmistakable.

I saw those eyes once before. When a father looked at Ludovic as he forced himself on his wife, then on his daughter. That sick rat couldn't get it hard if he didn't see those eyes. After I killed the man to spare him the torture of what was going to be the first of many days of suffering for the women, he still kept that look in his wide eyes.

The same look on the eyes that are now trained on mine. I stared into them, as he kept plunging his dagger into the gaps of my armor. I could hear the gurgling of the dying oaf, the whimpering of the craven that still stands where he was at the start of the fight, probably how he survived the battle two days ago too. The caws of the ravens intensified, already feasting on the dead guy in the ditch, the intestines of the probably still alive pig, and the brains of the father, while his son is mounted over me and screaming revenge while he prepares their next meal.

I weakly reached to my neck with my left hand, my right too broken to move, and with the last of my strength pulled out the medallion of Garagos, the god I used to worship before his supposed fall to Tempus. While I silently prayed to him, I mused about how the loss to Tempus wasn't what shook my faith, but it was the loss of his temper. Or so said the bloodreaver I once met at a temple.

(A/N: Garagos is a demi-god of war and destruction. Bloodreavers are his most devout followers. Tempus is a god of War and is considered a usurper by the most devout followers of Garagos, as he defeated him. This info is not essential to the story, it's just world-building for a world that you won't see after this chapter, but that I might use for future fanfics / original novels. This is all from DnD's Forgotten Realms).

'Seems like in the face of defeat I lost my temper too and didn't keep my eyes on the kid. Ironic. Should've gotten rid of the medallion when I lost my faith. Bad luck, that is.'

'What is happening? Why am I thinking of this right now? Why are my thoughts so scattered? I feel heavy, my head hurts and I'm dizzy. Is this what death feels like? But why am I still awake? What is going on?'

My eyes focused again on the sound of a branch snapping. And looking around, I'm running through a forest, with rustling sounds around me, Ludovic is further ahead and putting more and more distance between us, until he disappeared into the thick bushes. I focus back on the task at hand and put more effort into avoiding thick branches and snaking roots while running. I know I have two days of running through this forest until the last stand, and the rush and nervewracking anticipation of battle keep me from questioning how I know that.

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Wordcount: 2399 (I added a lovely curse somewhere to round it to 2k4)

A/N:

Thank you for reading the first chapter of my work of passion.

This chapter was mostly for character design, you get to see how the MC thinks and sees the world. And some world-building for his original world to get you onboard his mental state, and view on the world.

The next Chapter is going to be his awakening in Planetos: "Lucidity" is the title. As you may have noticed, I like single-word titles that abstractly describe the general feel of the chapter.

I'm open to feedback, I tried my best to get rid of any grammatical mistakes and typos(reread the chapter 2 times and added the ' ' for his internal monologue on the second read, even though the whole chapter is basically him narrating). If you see any mistakes, still, feel free to correct them in a comment, I'm unlikely to go back to correct them all, but it still helps me improve.

Add the book to your library if you like it so far, or maybe wait till there are more than 10 chapters.

And lastly, this is my first 'published' fanfic, so stone me extra hard, I wanna know what the stones do, I'm usually the one doing the stoning. And vote if you'd like to.