For a frozen moment, the world was silent except for the pounding in Ren's ears. Five pairs of unseen eyes were locked on his position. He was trapped, outnumbered, and his one great attack had left his magical reserves feeling scraped raw.
The silence was shattered as the lead robed figure pointed a long, pale finger at his hiding place. "Seize the river-mage!" the voice shrieked, thin and sharp like scraping bone.
A bolt of sickening violet energy shot from the figure's fingertip. Ren reacted on pure instinct, throwing himself sideways as the bolt slammed into the boulder he'd been hiding behind. The rock didn't just break; it sizzled, dark veins of corruption spreading across its surface like webs of black ice.
He couldn't stay put. Bolting from cover, he thrust a hand towards the river, pulling up a thick, churning wall of black water. It wouldn't hold for long, but it would give him a precious second. As the next volley of purple bolts smashed into his temporary shield, causing it to explode in a spray of foul water, Ren was already sprinting downstream, slipping and sliding on the blighted sludge that passed for ground.
His lungs burned. The very air in the gorge felt toxic, heavy and draining. He risked a glance over his shoulder and his blood ran cold. The grey-robed men were unnervingly fast, gliding over the treacherous terrain with an unnatural ease. They fanned out, their movements coordinated, intending to flank him and cut off his escape. More energy bolts seared the air around him, forcing him to weave and dodge.
He needed to get to the river. It was his only hope.
He sent a sheet of water from the river onto the rocks in front of one of his pursuers. The figure slipped, its arms pinwheeling for balance, momentarily breaking its stride. It was a small victory, but it bought him another heartbeat. As he neared a sharp bend in the gorge, another robed figure appeared on the rocks above him, cutting off his path.
Trapped.
The figure above raised its hands, and the blighted ground at Ren's feet began to tremble. Gnarled, thorny vines, black as tar, erupted from the sludge, lashing out to ensnare his legs. He cried out as one of the thorns sliced deep into his calf before he could throw himself back. The pain was sharp, but it was the cold that accompanied it that was truly terrifying—a venomous chill that seemed to sap his strength.
Desperation fueled him. He saw the river just a few feet away. It was his only path. With a defiant yell, he channeled the last dregs of his power, not into an attack, but into a single, powerful push. A jet of water erupted from the river's surface, propelling him off his feet and over the lashing vines. He flew through the air in a clumsy arc and landed with a bone-jarring splash in the deep, frigid channel of the river.
The shock of the cold was immense, but the water felt like a sanctuary. He was submerged in his element. His pursuers stopped at the river's edge, hesitating. The silver pulse he had unleashed moments before seemed to have made the water itself anathema to them. They shrieked in frustration, their voices echoing off the gorge walls.
Ren didn't wait. He forced his exhausted body to obey, commanding the current to aid him. The river, sluggish for everyone else, responded to its master. It gripped him, pulling him downstream with incredible speed. He was a leaf caught in a rapid, tumbling through the dark water, the gorge walls a blur above him. One of the robed figures, in a final act of fury, launched a bolt of energy that struck the water behind him, but he was already moving too fast.
He was swept along for what felt like miles, battered and bruised, until the gorge finally widened and the cliffs receded. He fought his way out of the main current and dragged himself onto a muddy bank, collapsing onto the wet earth, gasping for air, his body trembling with cold and exhaustion.
He had escaped. He was alive.
He lay there for a long time, the grey sky swirling above him. When he finally found the strength to sit up, he assessed the damage. He was covered in scrapes and bruises, but it was the gash on his calf that drew his attention. The cut itself wasn't deep, but surrounding it, spreading out from the wound, was a dark, spidery network of thin purple lines, like a sickness seeping into his very veins. The area was numb and cold to the touch, a stark contrast to the warm, steady pulse of his Serpent's Mark. The blight's poison was inside him.
As he stared at the foul mark, another image surfaced from the chaos of the chase. In the moment he had slipped on the water-slicked rock, the hood of one of his pursuers had been thrown back for a split second. What he had seen was not some demon or monster. It was the face of a man—gaunt, with waxy, pale skin and sunken eyes that burned with a terrifying, fanatical light.
He shivered, and this time it had nothing to do with the cold. His enemies were not mindless beasts. They were men, mortals who had chosen this path of corruption. And now, one of them had wounded him, leaving a creeping piece of their darkness inside him. The fight had become terrifyingly personal.