Death After Death

As soaking wet and in pain as Simon was, he still didn’t just stumble through the next exit blind. Instead, he stood at the threshold and looked for some hint as to what might await him next for several minutes. There was nothing that stood out to him as dangerous, though. It was an idyllic scene full of birdsong, not battle cries, and that made part of him trust it less.

These are in chronological order, not order of difficulty, he reminded himself. “Maybe someone needs some wood chopped,” he said to himself with a chuckle. “Or maybe the orcs just haven’t attacked yet.”

In front of him was a hill, and behind it, a setting sun formed a picture-perfect backdrop that he would have loved to paint if he had any talent. The spacing of the trees indicated that this was an orchard, or perhaps was one in the past, though it wasn’t immediate what fruit they were growing because none was visible. There weren’t even any footprints to indicate men or monsters.

So, after hesitating for so long, Simon walked into the warm, balmy temperatures of what felt like a summer evening. Then, he staggered up the hill, so he could get a better view before he tried to engage in major surgery and rip this damn arrow out.

Along the way, he thought about picking up deadwood to build a small fire. It would be dark soon, and that would be the smart thing to do. He didn’t, though, because he feared that if he bent down, he might not rise again; every movement hurt, and the only reason he plodded forward was stubbornness. Every step to the top was one closer to making sure that no one would surprise him when he was writhing in pain in a few minutes.

“I’m getting too old for this shit,” he grumbled to himself as he limped, willing the imaginary laugh track to play in his head. The line was cliché but entirely justified in his case.

When Simon reached the crest of the hill, the sunset had gone gray, but he could see a verdant landscape filling the valley he was in. In the distance, the mountains were sharp and jagged, indicating to him that he was probably in the Kingdom of Chiara, though he supposed he could also be somewhere else he’d yet to see. That put him in the territory of high mountains, werewolves, and dangerous dinner parties, though he didn’t know too much else about it beyond the cheerful little farmstead at the foot of his hill.

“Maybe I’ll take it easy for the rest of this life,” he said to himself as he got down on his knees next to the tree and looked at the last dying rays of the setting sun. “It’s a big blank spot on my map. Maybe I’ll just relax here and fill it in for a while.”

It was a nice dream, but mostly, what Simon was doing was steeling himself for what he needed to do next, which was going to hurt like hell. He reached behind him with his left hand and tried to force the arrow all the way through so he could pull it out the other side. The jolt of pain that ran through him in that moment was awful.

Enduring pain had gotten to be almost easy for him. Inflicting it on himself, though? That was still very hard.

If he could have gotten a better grip, Simon was sure he could have done it, but his hand was blood-slick, and the angle was absolutely terrible. So, he could push hard enough to make it hurt but not enough to drive the thing deeper and deeper.

Simon swallowed hard and decided that he should use a word of lesser force to see if that would do the trick. He took a moment in the fading twilight to breathe deeply and slow his racing heart as he pictured the moment and exactly what he wanted to happen. The bolt had already speared his kidneys and would probably puncture his intestines and whatever else on the way out, but he didn’t think that there would be bone in the way. That meant that a few seconds after he got the thing out, he could heal it all up, nice and clean.

Easier said than done, he thought, swallowing again before he opened his eyes and whispered, “Aufvarum Oonbetit.”

The pain that followed those words as the arrow was shoved forward was instant and blinding but not as bad as he feared. A lesser word of force was less like magic and more like being kicked by a mule. As a result, the arrow surged forward, out of his stomach, and the ruins of his shirt were covered in blood before it clattered to the ground a couple feet in front of him. It was an ugly sight, but he was glad it was over with.

When the sharp pain passed and left him with the dull ache of that passing, he felt like he’d been stabbed all over again. All he wanted to do was curl up into a ball. The air was warm, but he was still shivering from being damp. He couldn’t do that yet, though. A kidney wound would bleed out if he fell asleep, and if he’d torn anything in his guts, which seemed very likely, it would get infected very quickly.

Instead, he slapped himself to maintain focus and forced himself to concentrate on what that wound track looked like and all the ways that he needed to fix it if he wanted to wake up in the morning with some semblance of health.

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“Hyakk,” he said when he was ready and opened his eyes to watch the wound close before them. Even if the blood remained, the wound itself had vanished with barely more than a scar.

Once that was done, though, even though the pain was gone, he gave in and passed out at the foot of the tree. Three words of power and a handful of lesser words had taken their toll. He was completely spent.

The sleep that followed was deep and dreamless, and for a time, he knew only oblivion. Sometime hours later, Simon was woken by the sound of footsteps feet from him. Despite feeling groggy, he considered springing to his feet, but he realized that might not be the best move. Instead, he cracked his eyes open ever so slightly but could only make out the finely tooled riding boots of a single man, only a few feet from his face.

“You don’t have to pretend to be asleep,” the stranger said in a confident voice moments after that. “I can tell when they fake it.”

Simon considered ignoring that line, but in the end, he opened his eyes and sat up. Whether the person that he was facing had any real insight into his state, he was weak enough that being cooperative was the correct play. If worst came to worst, he still had a magic blade that could slice through anything. With that, he only needed a moment of distraction to win most fights.

“Who are you, and what are you doing in these lands?” the dark man asked, regarding him coolly.

Simon looked up from where he sat on the ground and was surprised by what he saw. He’d expected a farmer or perhaps bandits, but this man appeared to be a noble rather than either of the other groups. He had fine clothes that matched his perfectly polished riding boots, and though the style was unfamiliar to Simon, it was easy to tell the man was young and wealthy. That made the contrast between the two of them that much more dramatic, given that, at this point, he was an old man in bloody rags. He wasn’t even entirely dry yet.

“I’m… I’m just passing through,” Simon said, trying and failing to think of a cover story under the piercing gaze of the stranger. “A night under this tree, and I’ll be gone in the morning with no harm done. I’m sorry that I picked your land, but as you can see, I—”

“I asked you a question; don’t make me repeat myself,” the man said, glaring hard. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

Simon wanted to tell the man that it was none of his business, but when he opened his mouth, that wasn’t what came out. Instead, he said, “I’m Simon Jackoby, and after I removed the arrow. I needed a place to rest. I’m not sure what I’m doing next.”

“An arrow, is it?” the man answered with a cruel smirk as he noticed the thing and bent to pick it up. “Yes, this would cause a nasty wound. I’m surprised you aren’t already dead.”

Simon barely heard him, though. Instead, he sat there in shock, trying to figure out what had just happened. Why would I say that? He wondered. Who is this guy?

What happened next shook him free of his reverie, though, as the man lifted the bloody arrow to his nose and smelled it. “But this is only one of the scents I smelled,” the noble mused. “I smell others… that’s actually why I sought you out. I smelled a feast of barbarity on the wind. Imagine my disappointment when I sought you out and found only a single scrawny human. How many did you kill, exactly?”

“Nearly a dozen,” Simon said. This time, he didn’t feel a compulsion. He just answered honestly to avoid that dread gaze again while his mind raced to figure out what he should do. “In a village not far from here. Bandits. It wasn’t my fault.” In the end, he chose violence.

“A scrawny, dried-up thing like you killed a dozen men?” the noble laughed, revealing a set of sharp fangs. “Were they asleep? I don’t see any other way that—”

For all his speed, he was only just turning when Simon started swinging, and it was obvious that he underestimated the blade. The vampire’s limbs blurred, but they made no move to avoid the enchanted edge of Simon’s saber. He lost his right arm for that and howled in pain even as he lifted Simon up with his left by the throat before slamming him against the tree so hard that he heard ribs crack, and the sword slipped free of his grasp.

“Faa! What is— a rune blade?” the man yelled, more in outrage than pain. “I do not think we shall be doing that again. Now tell me, Simon, where did you get such a weapon, and what is it you are doing in my mistress’s lands?”

Simon felt the weight of the gaze on him again, but he shut his eyes tight, and when he opened his mouth, it was to say, “Meiren!”

This time, the vampire’s screams were pure pain as he went up like a bonfire, dropping Simon to the ground. Simon gasped for breath while he watched the monster burn. Then he rolled over and started crawling toward his blade.

Before he could reach it, though, or even utter another word of power, the still-burning vampire was on him again. He reached forward with blinding speed and ripped out his throat.

“I don’t think we’ll be having any more of that,” the monster growled, looking briefly conflicted. His fine clothes were all but gone, and the burns on his face and chest continued to heal. Simon could see that the monster wanted to interrogate him further, but that desire warred with bloodlust as Simon’s lifeblood went everywhere. “We can’t be letting any more of this go to waste, though, can we?”

As he finished speaking, he sank his fangs into Simon’s neck and drank deeply. Simon gasped from the pain, but his struggles for the next few seconds were weak as his consciousness left him.

Please don’t let me be a vampire when I wake up, was his final thought before the darkness took him.