Taking stock of his injuries was the more difficult of the tasks he was faced with, at that instant. Eragos could feel the blasted pain in his side that wouldn't go away without exercise. What was worse, he could feel the place in his chest that had been pierced by wood. Not a small amount of wood, but a cataclysmic amount. Whoever the healer was... they had saved his life. Eragos could remember lying on the ground and bleeding his last within spitting distance of the lives he'd ended. Most of his questions had been answered. Those that weren't answered could wait. For now all he could think of was his father's hand on his shoulder. Just like the story he'd told to Vera all those years ago.
Come broken bones or ruined spirits, his father shook him by the arm with vigor.
"Get up, boy," his father's hard voice had proclaimed in his ear.
Valos Feareborne had regretted his first son's fall into darkness. Eragos never doubted that. In fact, the only thing which Valos Feareborne probably regretted more than Eragos' slide into darkness was the fact that his first son had ever been born at all. So while he stared at the ceiling he thought of the hatred that had forced him into once. The disdain, and the revulsion, that every memory of his father had carried for him. Disdain and revulsion were useful tools in the hands of a man who was not sure that his feet alone were enough to support him against the terrible irresistible force of gravity. He could use them.
Use them, he did.
Eragos didn't speak as he sat up in the bed, swinging his legs over the side.
A thousand pinches in his chest, in his sides, in his shoulders and even his face nearly doubled him over with pain. If they had, he never would have climbed out of that bed. He would burn there, along with every living soul in Gali that could not outrun a man on horseback. There was only one choice. They had to go now, before the enemy could regroup. And he had to start by showing that he could stand. Even if he couldn't, and the thought of it alone was enough to make him want to vomit onto the floor.
"We don't have a choice. Waiting another day gives them time to surround this village again. And if they do that, we'll have to fight another battle just like the last. How many more of those battles do you think we can win?"
He had an answer, in case she decided to be flippant, but he doubted she would. There were lives at play and at stake. The Lady Vera would never be flip with them. Eragos couldn't conceal the sour grimace spreading across his face like a disease as he stood up. But at least he managed the feat, even if his knees were clattering against one another.