Warhammer-Angelika Fleischer 03-Honour of the Grave by Robin D. Laws

Author:Robin D. Laws
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Warhammer
Publisher: The Black Library
Published: 2010-11-05T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

The bloody welts on Angelika’s face glistened in the bright moonlight, as she loomed over Franziskus. Starry pinpoints surrounded her in the dark sky. He was flat on his back. His image of her blinked in and out as his eyelids trembled shut, then open, then shut. Everything hurt.

He could barely recognise her. Gummy, drying blood matted her hair. Her left eye was puffy, protruded, sealed shut, and purple. The skin of her cheekbones had parted to reveal tributaries of exposed red flesh. Her lips were split. She brought a hand to his forehead, to move aside his long, blond locks; its fingers had curled into a crooked ball.

‘Franziskus,’ she choked.

‘Unh,’ he said.

‘Franziskus,’ she gasped.

‘Unh,’ he said again.

‘Franziskus.’

‘Unh,’ was all he could manage.

‘It’s nuh-night. We – we–’ She stopped to breathe. ‘Have to find shelter. Wolves.’

He listened for wolves. He didn’t hear any.

‘I can’t move,’ he said.

‘Wolves,’ she said.

‘Unh.’

Sun shone in his eyes. He dragged himself into the shade. It hurt to move. He put his head against something and hoped sleep would take him. The angle strained his neck. He leaned up. Only one of his eyes could open: the left one. He was down in the pit, propped against a charred beam. Angelika lay across from him, her eyes open. As he wakened, pain crept up on him. At first, he felt the agony in undifferentiated form: each part of him was just as wracked as any other. Gradually, his awareness gained exactitude: his hands throbbed worst, then his shoulders, then his legs, then his gut. The head floated above this, buzzing, drunk and detached. Franziskus was no medic, but he knew enough to reckon that this was probably the worst sign of all.

‘Oh, gods – please, in Shallya’s name...’ he said, invoking the mercy goddess. It even hurt to talk. In order to speak, he had to move the muscles of his chest and neck, and this sent ripples of ache through his back and torso, and he shuddered and groaned.

He surveyed Angelika’s injuries. Her face was swollen, unrecognisable. She showed barely an inch of skin that wasn’t either purple with bruises, or etched red with cuts. She lay awkwardly against the same blackened beam that propped him up. Her right thigh was folded under her leg; her torso jutted up from her waist at an angle of forty-five degrees. ‘Your back,’ he said. ‘Did they break it?’

‘No. I don’t think so.’ She spoke so quietly, Franziskus could barely hear her, above the rushing in his ears. ‘Just moved. Like this.’ A jolt ran through her. Franziskus felt a jarring twinge, in sympathy. ‘Because it hurts less. This way.’

Franziskus thought about nodding.

For a long time, neither spoke. Franziskus closed his one good eye, hoping to persuade his body to go back into unconsciousness. It would not go. Now that he was awake, the pain was too strong to release him.

He examined his new surroundings. The pit was about thirty feet deep. Its sides were lined with timber that had suffered nothing worse than superficial scorching.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.