Halun's mind swum around like a lost fish floating in a vast ocean of pitch black nothingness. He couldn't smell, feel, or see anything. Incessant whisperings and murmurings grew louder. Tones and pitches of voices differentiated into those of men.
They spoke the Xirong language with its harsh guttural sounds and rolling tongues. He could only comprehend a little. Scattered words among the unfamiliar made no sense.
Ignorance could be bliss. His body shut down to clear the poison running through his veins. He felt the burning sensation in his slash wounds earlier and figured out he needed to leave Yinyue.
Halun experienced this accursed sensation before, but he didn't expect the poison to act so fast. Or the situation to turn so fast.
The disconnection between his mind and body left him vulnerable. Anyone could come by and stab him or slit his throat with ease.
Then the calm voice of Yinyue explaining the situation. How did Yinyue know he was poisoned? He recalled her words about the life of his men and him before blacking out.
A man's voice, with a strong Xirong accent, asked questions, designed to trap both Halun and her in a misunderstanding.
Halun thought he recognised that voice of the man. His instincts screamed at him to get away from that man.
Last person Halun saw was Yinyue before he blacked out. Her brows knitted with lines, her teeth clenched, and her outstretched hand etched into his memory at the very moment. She could express emotions through her face, too. Interesting.
A sharp stab pierced through the top of his head. A sudden jolt of pain shot through his body. Like a million daggers running through his veins.
Despite the overwhelming weight of drowsiness, his eyelids snapped open to the blinding light. A throbbing gouging pain stabbed behind his eyeballs. Fragmented visions and the bright light made him nauseated.
A disorienting spin followed, throwing his mind into a dizziness. He felt his stomach turn.
Two different colored orbs floated in front of Halun's blurred sight. Someone pulled his hair to lift his face up. Halun felt a warm stream of breath brushing past his cheeks in the frigid air, causing goosebumps.
His eyelashes fluttered. The blurry orbs sharpened into a man's different colored eyes. Halun cussed in silence.
He knew the owner of those eyes staring above the signature wolf's snout half mask. That crazy and volatile Xirong man was one of the Simurg leaders and too dangerous to be trifled with.
The tall masked man with the silver wolf's snout mask and the same accursed pair of eyes is part of the ruling Xirong Imperial clan. That much Halun knew. The Simurg's purpose of creating a misunderstanding is to stir a divide.
If not for his body trying to clear the poison, Halun stood some chance at beating him. In terms of martial arts, both of them had equal skill level and strength.
They exchanged blows a few times in the past whenever he ran into the leader in the Black Mountains. Halun suspected he wanted to test his skills because the leader always broke off the fight before leaving.
But he didn't know why.
"Looks like he isn't in any danger of dying," The Simurg leader spoke in a frosty monotone, devoid of feeling.
A sharp, gleaming light entered the corner of his sight. Halun groaned. Not a real groan, but an act. An act of suffering in pain may help lower their guard.
His mind calculated several ways of escape. His eyes searched under his drooping lids, counting the feet on the ground. Dread crept in — the Simurg men surrounded him, closing any route of escape.
He stole a glance at the gleaming object in the hand of one Simurg man. The image of the object sharpened into a fine long needle with a blackened tip, the definitive sign of being poisoned.
"He's poisoned," the voice of Yinyue replied.
Halun felt an underwhelming sense of achievement. Perhaps they bought his act.
Something grew inside of him, pressing against his stomach walls. He felt bloated, a sensation akin to overeating or over-drinking. A burning pressure crept up his throat.
Acidic bitterness of bile crawling up his throat, burning his tract. His sore lungs pushed him to cough, and he gasped for breath. A tangy metallic taste overran the bitter bile and gushed out from his mouth.
Halun cursed his luck at the bad timing. The symptoms signalled his body's gruesome process of forcing out the poison.
Halun spewed blackish blood like a cascading waterfall on the trampled snow. The darker his blood vomitus, the more poison forced out. The black splotches on the snow gave Halun an idea of the poison's deadliness.
If the Simurg leader didn't jump out of the way in time, the blackish blood would layer his dark brown leather boots with a coat of black.
"BASTARD!" The Simurg leader swore and raised his fist at Halun, who didn't flinch.
Halun clutched his head in pretence, in case the punch landed on him. With a moan, he flexed his neck to the left and then right to warm up while pretending to suffer from a terrible headache.
Halun concentrated on channeling his internal strength, gathering it into the central meridian point of his body. He needed to time his escape. A quick burst of internal strength would buy him enough time to fight through the men and make a run for it.
The Simurg leader grabbed his collar and lifted him up.
Now or never.
Halun's hand shot out for the leader's neck. The leader flipped back. His leg missed Halun's chest by a small distance. Halun's hand pushed his leg. The move sent the leader rolling into a twist.
Enraged by the audacity of Halun, the Simurg leader lunged towards him. Halun dodged and darted. He weaved around the other Simurg men before they could react.
His eyes caught sight of Yinyue and her men. Salvation beckoned.
Better them than the Simurg.
"RUN!" Halun yelled at the top of his voice.
They didn't hesitate to wait for him. All ran in the direction of their waiting horses. Someone whistled. Several horses ran forward. Yinyue's men jumped onto the backs of their horses.
Halun's hand reached out. None of them grabbed him. The men on horses galloped past him. Snow and mud flew in the moving air. No one stopped for him.
"GET HIM!" Yinyue shouted.
Halun couldn't see where she was among the hazy air of snow flying around.
In the chaos filled with the moving bodies of both men and horses, Halun realised he risked being trampled.
Someone grabbed his collar and threw him on top of the horse. He felt a hand land on his neck, and he blacked out again.