They bound him to a tree, strung him up like a deer waiting to be gutted. The rope bit into his skin, rough and uncaring. He couldn't breathe. He could feel the pangs of pain travel from his leg all through his body. The poison was slowly consuming him. Taking all his senses from his ears, to his eyes. Now he could barely make them out. He could only barely see them eating. He hoped that they put him out of his misery as quickly as possible, but these men had made it clear that they wanted him to suffer.
He could barely talk now, between the cleaving pain in his skull and the numbness in his tongue, he could barely form a sentence.
"He's still conscious?" One of them said, his face nothing but a blur
"Resilient boy he is." This one had an accent, he wasn't from here.
Korvus was taking too long. Cassian had been begging, pleading with him to send some form of blessing. A passerby, even a gust of wind. Anything to pull him down this tree
'Korvus works in mysterious ways'
He remembered a verse from the tomes
He didn't have enough strength to fight the thoughts that crept in, the thoughts whispering to him, that he was alone. That korvus had abandoned him, left him alone to face these trials alone.
One of the men got up
"I think he's had enough"
He walked towards Cassian, a piece of meat in hand.
"He looks hungry" he put the meat in front of Cassian, inches from his face.
Cassian didn't react, he couldn't.
"Looks like he don't want it"
"Stop playing around Bojack. Get him down from there so we can wrap this up"
The rope gave way, but he didn't feel himself fall. He only knew it when the ground slammed into his chest. His face hit the dirt without the shock of pain he expected, just a dull, distant thud somewhere outside himself. Mud covered his eyelids, but he couldn't even feel the urge to blink. The iron taste of earth filled his mouth, flat and lifeless on a tongue that was quickly turning to stone.
"And you're sure this poison isn't contagious Bo? He looks rabid"
"It's not contagious. Deadly, but not contagious. They called it the reaper's hand. Very dangerous, very rare."
"Spare us the lesson Bo. Pull him over to the cliff."
The rocks pierced his skin as they dragged him, like small shards of glass scattered across the ground. He could barely feel them now.
The sound of water filled his ears. It was a waterfall. They laid him down so his back was to the water.
"So, do we like chop him up or?"
"We already concluded not to do that. It's too vile" one of them said
"Then we cremate him" Bojack suggested
"By Korvus, Bo we already decided to lop off his head. Stop making stupid suggestions"
As Cassian laid there, his consciousness fading in and out. One word stood out. Korvus.
He kept repeating it in his head. But now he didn't even have the strength to. Why was he even doing it? What was going to happen?
He was here, now, with these men who had no respect for him. Not Korvus. This had nothing to do with Korvus.
One of the men grabbed his hair, pulling him over to the side of the waterfall. His body was the only thing keeping him from falling over.
He picked something up, his sword.
Then he started reciting something. A silent prayer. Like the executioner. As if it made what he was about to do any more acceptable.
He wasn't supposed to die like this. He had so much he still needed to do. And these men, these people, had taken it all away from him. The man stepped closer, and closer. Cassian tried to move his arm, but he couldn't.
"How does the headsman even do this" Bojack spoke
He turned Cassian over, his head faced the side now. So he was looking at Bojack's leg. He wouldn't die, not like this. Not without taking something from this man. He mustered all the strength he could and bit down. Hard. On Bojack's leg.
The taste of blood filled his mouth. He could hear him scream, feel the panic in his body as he kicked around like a whining child. His sword fell to the ground. The other men were coming closer, running to aid their comrade.
"Get this downed beast off my leg"
One of them kicked Cassian, then another, and some more. The last one with more force than the other because the world around Cassian rolled.
He was falling, and he had no control over his body. What difference would it even make if he did
Cassian's eye shot open. He didn't remember anything. How he got there, or why he was so cold
After a second, everything came back.
The numbness that shielded him was gone. Pain coursed through him like a water fall, drowning him in noise and white heat. A ragged, strangling sound caught in his chest straining against dead vocal cords unable to force the scream past his lips.
It seemed like an eternity before his body calmed down. Finally resting, somewhere between pain and distant comfort. He could think now, see how hopeless he was
He was at the bottom of a nameless cliff. Bleeding to death with no help in sight. How ironic. He lost all semblance of a normal life at a very young age, but he didn't despair. He devoted the rest of his life to Korvus, to God and yet here he was, dying.
After a life of devotion you'd think maybe Korvus would send someone.
A man,
One of angels,
Any downed person.
Or maybe even protect him so he didn't end up in this situation in the first place, but no. He got nothing. No one came.
No one. Why? He was devoted, he was.
Maybe he'd done something wrong. Maybe this was punishment for almost missing the hymns. Or for that time he doubted Korvus. No, that wasn't it.
The world had betrayed him and he was a child again. Alone. Surrounded by water that threatened to swallow him whole with no strength to get himself out.
He tried to move his body, to do anything but he couldn't. He felt the cold seep into his stinging wounds every time water from the waterfall managed to reach him.
This was the end. He never imagined it would happen this way, or at this time. After he finally got what he wanted. His way to strength. To revenge
Vengeance. He was going to kill all the demon spawns he could and fight so other people never felt the way he felt again. His mind travelled back to his childhood. He remembered his mother's face as she put him in the boat, leaving his fate to the open ocean. She was scared. For herself. For him.
'I'm sorry mother'
He remembered how weak he felt. It was the same as this. Just the same.
The world was quiet now. He couldn't hear the waterfall or the trees swaying, or the animals around him. Korvus wasn't coming. The bastard. The Crook. What god abandoned his most loyal subject.
He felt something seep into his veins. Emotions he didn't know he was bottling.
Rage; at himself first being so weak, at the world for being so cruel.
Disgust, pain, anguish.
After all he'd been through, he didn't deserve this. He deserved happiness right?
He remembered a verse from a scripture
'And the lord korvus is fair'
Is this fair? Is this just? He was bleeding out, dying in some forsaken forest and Korvus, the fair and just creator that he is, just watches?
No. No.
He didn't want to die like this, he refused it.
Not before letting the world know how Just their god was. How faithless he was to the faithful.
A voice whispered in his head ethereal and beguiling
"I can help you, but know boy that it will cost you"
Cassian didn't know if he was hallucinating. Cost him?
What did he have? What more could he possibly have to lose.