Free Merek's Ascendance by Andrew Lashway Page A

own. A black goatee covered a brown face while his black hair was pulled back into a short ponytail. His left nostril was bleeding, and his upper lip was split. He was dressed in a deep purple robe with a picture of a tiger sewn into it.
    Merek recognized it as the seal of the Royal Family of Wentana, the kingdom of which Merek was technically a citizen.
    In a moment of weakness that Merek immediately hated himself for, he wondered if he should run away from this man while he still had the chance, lest the man turn him in and force him to go back to his parents.
    Merek dispelled the thought as quickly as it had come. This man was in terrible danger, not to mention a great deal of pain, and Merek wouldn’t leave him in such a state.
    “I’m Merek. What’s your name?”
    “I… I am Thorald.”
    “Pleasure to meet you, sir. Now, can you tell me what hurts?”
    Thorald laughed, a pained laugh full of anguish that Merek recognized for completely different reasons.
    “I’d say my heart, more than anything,” was the response.
    “These were your friends?” Merek guessed, instinctively glancing over them again and immediately regretting doing so.
    “They were. They were assigned… to escort me. I was… on a diplomatic mission… to Grevoria.”
    Merek had no idea who, what or where Grevoria was, but he didn’t interrupt. Maybe speaking the words aloud would help Thorald.
    “But on… on our return we… there was this huge storm,” he said, his eyes glassy as he thought back. Merek nodded, trying to keep his face as blank as possible. He had been in some kind of shelter when the storm had struck, but out here… exposed with no cover…
    “We saw the trees, off in the distance. It could mean safety if we could … if we could just get there. There was a bridge we had to cross. We never should have stepped on it. We weren’t halfway across it when it… it…”
    “It snapped,” Merek supplied, bowing his head.
    “And we fell. Grevin, he grabbed hold of me. He turned as we fell… and took… took the force of it.” Thorald was having trouble speaking now, his voice cracking from more than just physical pain. Merek put a hand gently on his shoulder, at a loss for what to say.
    “These were good men. Good women. They… they deserved better.”
    Merek looked around, trying to figure out what to do. Should he bury them? He didn’t have a shovel, and digging five graves by hand sounded very unappealing.
    Then Merek caught a glance of the sky, and the fallen soldiers took second priority.
    The sky was billowing black, a storm coming from nowhere. Merek looked down at Thorald, whose eyes still hadn’t shifted from their position in a terrible memory.
    “Listen, are you hurt?”
    “Not… not terribly, I don’t think. Grevin… Grevin took it the worst, and I think… I think I was spared. But… it’s very hard to… to breathe.”
    “You probably have a bruised or cracked rib, and it’s hurting your lung. A mule kicked me once, hurt like it was on fire for weeks. But it shoul d heal if we get you to a medic soon. However, we have to get you out of here right now. A storm’s coming, one that’s just as bad as last night’s.”
    “You should… you should just go. We’ll never make it… if I can’t even breathe .”
    “Quiet now,” Merek replied, looking around for the supposed bridge. If it was anything like what he imagined it would be, rope should be lying around…
    “There!”
    The bridge had snapped from the other side of the ravine, the one farthest from the forest. The ropes stretched to the bottom, and Merek could, theoretically, use them to climb up. How he hadn’t noticed them before was a question Merek couldn’t answer, though it annoyed him thoroughly.
    How to get Thorald up, however, was a much larger problem.
    “Can you walk?”
    Thorald tried moving his legs, but Merek realized Thorald was having problems staying conscious.
    “Thorald, I need you to focus now. Come on.”
    The