The pain in his ribs was nothing short of fire. Angraron's left hand clasped the wound there, the blood seeping slowly through the tattered remains of his jerkin. He shook his head to clear his vision for a moment, narrowly avoiding running into another tree.
This hadn't been the plan at all. A routine scouting trip, then quietly back to the camp. Seeing someone from his past, a past long since buried, had changed it all. For years he had been thought dead in Connlaoth, his entire unit killed by some great, demonic magic. Even the Modecai within the unit had been slaughtered. Angraron remembered nothing of the battle after the injury he had obtained. He was later told by a demon what happened, who laid the blame for the catastrophe at his feet.
The hand holding his dagger raised, and Angraron brushed the sweat and blood from his eyes. He could hear the crashing behind him, the hunters that had stumbled on him and recognized the crest on his sword. It had been pride that had kept it on him, but... it was all that he held of his past.
Pupils wide he let them absorb all of the light around him, finding each tree, each branch that slashed across his face. A misstep in the dark, he'd break his leg... and then the men behind him could catch him, and if he was lucky, kill him instead of dragging him in front of the Grand Duke. Desertion was a crime, and using magic, magic that killed even the Mordecai... he was beyond redemption.
A short hop, and Angraron landed in a creek, splashing though before scrambling up the otherside. Mud mixed with blood as he climbed, the one handed movements slower than he usually managed. He began to push to his feet, and a searing pain struck his right shoulder. His eyes flickered over, and the head of a bolt had pierced it.
"Gods..." The word was thick on his dried mouth as he spoke it, feeling the air punched out of him.
He dropped to his knees, even as he heard the pursuers closing in. One of them yelled at him in Connlaothian, identifying himself as one of the Grand Duke's personal Mordecai. He demanded surrender, and promised the mercy of Ansgar.
Dropping his dagger, Angraron reached for the bolt in his shoulder, and meeting the eyes of the Mordecai, pulled it forward and clear with a grunt of pain. As the end of the bold cleared, the wound began to throb with a dark glow. Angraron's eyes closed as pain and power flowed through him with a thunderous crack.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Angraron's eyes opened, laying on the cold ground in the rain. The wreckage of 4 men lay in the ash about him, their armor identifying them as Connlaothian, but their features melted and destroyed. Angraron rolled to his back, feeling the ache from the fresh wounds, already turning to scar tissue on his body as wet drops fell on his exhausted body.
Without the strength to stand, he tried crawling, dragging a trail of ash through the new clearing in the forest. Pulling himself against a tree, he closed his eyes again, breath shuddering as he passed out.
OOC - feel free to come in, help him, be shocked or unimpressed by the carnage, but if you try to 'heal' him note the following... holy magic HURTS him, regular magic healing is nowhere near as effective (think like 1/100th of your usual ability).
