He was dying again.

Or rather, reliving death.

Reylan had used his ring on him numerous times before, sometimes when he'd failed to heed his command, other times-- for twisted fun. But the agony seizing his very soul now was beyond any pain he'd ever experienced.

His senses were on fire, every bone in his body aching as though mauled by a spiked mace, head about to burst open from an immense pressure that throbbed in his nerves, and oh, the never-healing arrow wound near his heart. An invisible, serrated blade thrust into it and with every twist, blood gushed, soaking his shirt and seeping through armour.

On hands and knees, leaving a trail of sorcery-corrupt blood in his wake, Pertheran crawled away from the avenue, away from the carts and possibly, out of sight of the cursed tower looming over them all like a malevolent phantom.

Yet at the back of his mind, the certainty of doom sat firm and unyielding like the glaciers of the northern mountains. He knew, from the moment he'd unlocked the Midaelian's cell, this would not end well for him. Sooner or later, he'd be apprehended for what his fellow undead would deem as a heinous crime-- treason.

Pertheran's mind was made, even as his vision blurred from the savage onslaught of pain. He would hide in the bushes for the rest of the day. A search would commence, no doubt, and by the time disarray churned up the castle in pursuit of the traitor, the old man would be well beyond these castle walls.

Cheek pressed against the dusty ground, he felt the wagons set into motion again, slowly wheeling away out of the main entrance, one by one. A slow smile crept across his face.

I have no regrets.

His pain rose, intensified to a new level he never knew existed. A thousand branding irons seared his skin, red-hot blades plunging into his arrow wound, and ice-cold chains twisted around his throat. An involuntary scream left his lungs, inhuman and alien to his own ears. All attempts to stay hidden falling away, Pertheran screamed and flailed.

Chains shot out of thin air and dragged him out of his hiding spot, through the back gardens and threw him across the avenue, at the shade of the sorceress's tower.

The ground was trembling beneath him again, but this time it was not the cart wheels, but scores of heavy boots moving in sync, rushing up to where he lay in a pool of blood, not too far from the wagons. Pertheran rolled onto his back, and found himself staring up a dozen, gleaming spears. Castle guards-- his fellow Vasaen folk, towered over him.

Yet over all their noises, thundered another pair of footsteps.

"Out of the way!" bellowed General Reylan's voice. The guards parted to either side as the man strode forward, blue-grey eyes ablaze. He seized his collar, yanking the young man to his feet, trembling in a silent rage.

The Royal Sorceress stood afar, arms crossed and expression stoney.

"What have you done?" he asked through gritted teeth.

Pertheran simply stared up at him, the pain becoming a distant roll of thunder he didn't pay heed to any more. The general and the sorceress knew he had committed an act of betrayal.

Yet they did not know what exactly it was.

"So sorcery has its limits after all, right General?"

Behind them, the carts were moving. Pertheran needed to buy time.

"What have you done?" Reylan's grip tightened, so much so he found it difficult to breathe.

"Why ask me? Doesn't that foul magic get more specific than just a reminder?" Pertheran laughed at the man's face even as he struggled to catch his breath-- the man who had denied him the swift release of death, used him as a weapon at times, and plaything the others, by inflicting pain, reminded him time and again to whom he owed this blessed second chance at life.

"Learn a lesson from this wretch, my friends!" the private glanced at the other surrounding guards. "There is no heaven for you, no peace after death-- even if you remain loyal till the last drop of your cursed blood."

Surprisingly, Reylan's grip on Pertheran's blood-soaked shirt slackened. He let him slowly fall and land on his knees.

"Of course, Perth. This...this is how you repay me." The general reared back a step, hands clutching his silver-blond hair, mouth stretched into a mad, mirthless grin. "It's me who should learn a lesson-- one I should have already learned from the mistakes of my father!"

Pertheran had awakened something in Reylan through his actions-- something repressed and shoved far to the back of his mind until now, though he couldn't place a finger on what it truly was. Whatever it had been, a memory, a vision-- it was resurfacing its grotesque head.

Royal Sorceress Avalyn looked alarmed, and so did the guards, yet no one chanced a step forward. General Reylan looked the embodiment of insanity. The cobbles around his boots shattered with loud cracks, the Chains wriggling out of them like great black maggots. His raw fury converged with the dark magic in his ring, amplifying the sorcery tenfold. A harsh wind whipped his pale hair this way and that.

Pertheran watched with dead eyes the Chains coil around his wrists and ankles. He made no effort to resist, knowing how futile it was.

General Reylan smiled wistfully down at him. "Want to hear a nice little story, Perth?"

One of the Chains wrapped around his neck and forced him to look him in the eye.

"My father...once rescued a young man from the verge of death, you know? Brought him to his home, fed him from his plate, let him stay beneath his roof," he said. "Know how he was rewarded for his kindness?"

The guards shrank further as the circle of broken cobbles spread outwards.

"Burned to death at a stake," said the general.

The queue of carts had halted, to Pertheran's dismay. Castle guards, soldiers, servants and peasants stood perplexed, as dark sorcery filled the air like poisonous smoke.

"I always thought my father was a good man. There was a time I strived to be like him. But now I realize he was nothing but a damned fool. And so am I."

Reylan took a heavy step forward.

"I dug you up from the pile of rotting corpses on the shores of the southern isles-- carried you in my arms, I seeked out the only sorceress in this land who could bring you back to life!" he shouted in fluent Midaelian, his usual elegant voice turning hoarse and uncouth. "Set the stage for a well-earned betrayal, didn't I?"

"I didn't ask for it," said Pertheran simply and firmly.

"What did you just say, scum?"

"I didn't ask you to bring me back from the dead, just as I didn't beg anyone to heal me when I was dying--no, it was your choice to trap me in this damned existence!" Pertheran shouted, his parched throat hurting.

The next moment, a studded boot collided into his cheek, sending him rolling across the dust.

Bitter truth hurts. It cuts through flesh and bone, better than any tempered, poison-tipped blade. Reylan's eyes said it all.

"I did not beg you for the money you offered--" Pertheran did not shut up. "You forced it on me."

The Chains bit into his skin, drawing blood.

"Emric!" rang the Royal Sorceress's voice, the only voice of reason amidst this madness. "That is enough. Leave him be. We must find what he has done to trigger the Chains in the first place."

Pertheran didn't think the general heard her. He looked lost, like a child who had been told his imaginary world where he saw himself as a mighty hero was not real.

"Snap out of your delusion, General! It's me who's bleeding out on the dust--" he gestured to the undead guards, "--it's us who suffer this fate worse than death..."

A pause.

"Despite whatever you try to convince yourself," said Pertheran, a bloodied, trembling finger pointed at him, "you are not the victim here. We are."

Reylan staggered back, as though struck by an invisible warhammer. The bindings fell away slowly, retracted into the earth they sprouted from. The acrid sorcery riding the air thinned.

He stared, eyes unfocused, down at his scarred hands, then at the sorceress, who had no words of comfort to offer-- for Pertheran spoke true.

Brows knitted, the general seemed to try to gather his thoughts from a churning sea of his mind. His eyes took in his surroundings, a glint of intelligence flickered out of insanity.

"Search the wagons," he said.

And Pertheran knew what little luck he possessed had seeped out, like sand from a cracked hourglass, counting the moments of doom.

✦✧✦✧

A group of guards dashed forward at his command, boots thundering, the peasants scurrying away from the wagons at once. While some seized the empty boxes and crates and tossed off to the ground, others drove their spears and swords right through the sacks. Pertheran half-expected the sword tips to emerge crimson, but only grains of wheat spilled out and skittered across the cobbles.

Reylan snatched a sword from a nearby soldier and slashed at the burlap bags, a mad grin spread from ear-to-ear as he watched the pure dread in Pertheran's eyes.

"Got you!" he giggled like a child. "It's the Midaelian, isn't it? You're helping him escape."

Pertheran defied all the guards holding him down, and seized Reylan's ankle with a grip of steel, nails digging through leather and into flesh.

Spears rained down on him at once, pinning him to the ground-- but to little effect. The black-bleeding wounds mended themselves. Pertheran gave a struggling Reylan a broad grin, teeth stained black with blood.

"I'll be honest about this one, General. I am indeed grateful. You made me so strong."

"Sorceress," Reylan spoke over his shoulder, his voice cool. "Severe his Chain. Let him taste the chaos of the Realm of the Dead until he begs to be brought back to life."

A Chain slithered around Pertherans leg, a dozen others plucking off the spears stabbed into him. Avalyn dragged him away from the general's reach.

"I'll do no such thing. You are not yourself at this moment," she said simply.

"I'm more myself than I've ever been!" snapped Reylan, summoning the Chains himself with his ring, and readying his sword.

But before he could so much as swing his blade, an anguished cry issued from one of the men who were searching the wagons.

A pitchfork thrusted into his gut, the man fell. This one was an ordinary guard, it appeared, for the blood that spilled was red.

Commander Karyk stepped down from where he'd been sitting at the driver's seat, blood trickling down the prongs of his weapon. Despite being at the end of his strength, the Midaelian warrior carried himself majestically.

"Leave the boy alone," he said, "he remains loyal. He tried to stop me from leaving this godforsaken place, that's all."

Pertheran struck his fist to the ground, cobbles breaking from the impact.

All this pain and suffering-- all for naught. Calbridge Castle was inescapable-- the statement stood undefied. He had failed his mission.

Seeing through Commander Karyk's paper-thin lie, Reylan laughed, head thrown back. Cracking his neck at a rather odd angle that gave Pertheran's stomach a sick lurch, he looked from Commander Karyk, then back at him. "What are you two, eh? Long lost father and son?"

The general laughed at the jest only he himself found amusing. Petrified faces surrounded him, tense with anticipation.

"Commanding such loyalty from an enemy soldier..." He swung to face Commander Karyk. "My, I'm jealous. How do you do it, really? This lad right here-- I've shown him naught but benevolence, and he stabs me in the back the first chance he gets."

Pertheran spat blood at his feet.

Slowly, Karyk brought the pitchfork down on the ground and leaned tiredly against its shaft. Even the Vasaen guards seemed to give him a respectful distance where he stood. He raised his yellowed eyes to Reylan. "Ask yourself, young man. Why is there fear in the eyes of your soldiers, rather than respect?"

The answer was in his hands, in the form of the sorcerous ring that ever inflicted pain.

For a moment, a look of realization crossed his face. If there was something human still left within him, it flickered, like the flame of a dying lamp right before it went out. He tossed back the notion with a sneer, for it was always easier than admitting one was in the wrong.

He gave Pertheran an amused look over his shoulder. "Really, Perth? You took such blows for an outsider you barely know?"

"My masters are also outsiders I barely know," said Pertheran, narrow eyes travelling over both Reylan and Avalyn.

Reylan sighed. "You've learned to talk too much, Private. I'll make sure you pay for each of those bold words." He gestured to his undead guards. "Well, what are you waiting for?"

Pertheran let himself be dragged away, no strength left in his aching limbs, his surroundings a blur of helmed heads and the sorceress's tower a black smudge against the sky. Sounds of struggle, of Karyk putting up a last, desperate fight filled the compound-- Pertheran didn't bother to glance back.

Until an eerie silence fell over them all.

The young private stared. So did the guards, the general, the sorceress and their Midaelian captive.

The ravens above the cemetery had ceased their descent into inevitable death. The dark cloud of birds heaved and billowed and changed shape.

The next moment, pitch-black shapes swooped down into the compound in a sweeping blow. The ravens pounced upon them, talons bared and beaks parted, savage cries rising in a chorus.

"Draedona protect us!" cried several voices.

She can't. You've shut and bolted that door yourselves, fools.

Pertheran watched with numb indifference as the ravens lunged at the guards, at the soldiers-- sinking talons into their skin and tearing off chunks, thrusting their beaks through flesh, pecking out eyes. Shrill cries pierced the air-- of men and of birds, the wind churning with heavy wingbeats. The harbingers of death wished to avenge their mistress with their dying breath.

Not one bird landed a scratch on him, and looking back-- neither on Karyk, who was now crouching amidst the massacre in awe, glazed eyes skyward. The ravens, even as they died by the score from the wild swings of swords and well-aimed arrows, managed to injure the Vasaen soldiers-- and their wounds did not heal themselves.

The next few minutes were simply a series of sounds-- of the Royal Sorceress summoning a great sphere of fire with a billowing crackle to ward off the ravens, of the still unharmed soldiers rushing to take hold of the prisoners, and above all, General Reylan's shout.

Face twisted in a grimace, hand pressed to one empty and bleeding eye socket, he still commanded his men.

"Take the two to the Royal Palace of Glasswolf. Leave at once!" he bellowed. A sick grin stretched his mouth, bared teeth gleaming.

"On the morning of the Spring Fest, they will hang from the high gallows-- together, for all Drisia to see."