Disclaimers - Copyright reserved to their respective bodies (BG2 and its characters to BioWare/Black Isle and WotC) Original characters I reserve copyright to.

Warning: Some disturbing content - be warned.

Marcus ran as fast as his legs would carry him down the ancient hallway, feet dodging around the chunks and bits of broken masonry that hunted for his feet. He kept tossing quick glances over his shoulder, looking for the pursuers behind him whom he thought he could already hear. They would come for him as well – in fact, they already hunted him, and he knew he couldn't fight them off.

As he entered a cross-passage, a sound off to the left brought him to a sudden stop. Twisting around, he tried to peer into the gloom for the sound's source. His right hand instinctively tightened around his sword hilt, seeking a better grip. The blood seeping down his right arm saturated his gauntlet and made the leather grips slippery, no matter how tightly he cranked his hand closed. Risking another precious second to look for a threat, he took off running again.

He could not get caught. He had to make it to the outside. He had to make it to the light.

He could hear the blood pumping in his ears as he ran, but barely above his mailed feet as they scraped and smashed against the stone floor. It was near impossible to hear his pursuers over the noise he was making, but that didn't keep him from desperately trying to stretch his senses, to pinpoint the pursuit his instincts screamed was drawing closer. If they caught him, they wouldn't let him go, even though they had his companions, his friends. After all, he was the one they wanted.

He could not get caught. He had to make it to the outside. To the light….

Rounding a bend in the corridor, he tripped, flying headlong into the black gloom. Mid-flight, his precarious grip on his sword slipped and he heard the magic hardened steel clatter and skitter away into the pitch-black distance. At the same time he heard the sickening crunch of steel and flesh colliding as he landed face down. His left knee found a jagged edge of stone and he felt the steel of his armor drive effortlessly into his knee. A new blossom of pain exploded behind his eyes as he tried to bend the damaged leg.

Cursing as he fought down the pain, he pushed himself up off the ground. Swearing profusely, he reached down and pulled free the bent piece of metal. He was no healer, but he could tell that it was badly damaged. At least it's not broken. Then I would be doomed, he thought. The incongruous absurdity of the thought made him laugh, but it was not a pleasant laugh. Doomed? If my knee was broken? I think my fate is already sealed and simply awaits delivery. Part of him just wanted to sit there and wait for his doom that hunted him in these ancient passageways, anxious to finish the work that had already begun long before he had ventured into the dark passages. However, his inner voice, that last bit of indomitable will, screamed at him to get up and keep moving, to marshal that last reserve of strength and keep moving.

He could not get caught. He had to make it to the outside. To the light…

Grabbing onto a strange stone outcropping, he levered himself up, trying to silence the cacophony of pain that sounded from his torn knee. As he regained his footing, he recognized what had tripped him. The cracked arm of a stone golem lay at his feet, unmoving. The arm from one that felled by their efforts just a few short hours before. He knew he was almost out. Almost out. Just a little bit farther and he would be free from this tomb, this charnel house of death and pain.

A moment of groping and he located his errant blade, resting against the shattered chest of another golem. Smiling a slight, half crazed smile, he lifted the weapon and looked into the darkness. They would be coming. He had to keep moving.

He could not get caught. He had to make it outside. To the light.

Again, he set off running, at least as much of a hobbled run as he could manage with one wrenched, bloody knee. Each time his left foot met the floor, a fresh jarring jet of agony shot through his leg and assailed his senses. Despite the pain, he continued to push the leg down, as each step he took brought him closer to freedom. Each step was closer to the outside. Closer to the light.

Lumbering at a half run, he crossed the ancient, crumbling lintel spanning the temple's entrance and staggered into the cavern by which they had entered. He strained his eyes and he could see dappled rays of sunlight beckoning him from the far end. The barest stirrings of hope, warmed by the inviting sunshine, pulled at him as he pushed harder and harder towards the opening to the outside. The pain pounded a perverse drumbeat as he marched onward to freedom. It was so close. He could see it. Freedom was at hand.

He could not get caught. Outside… Light…

Halfway across the cavern, Marcus staggered under a new piercing pain, this one from his shoulder. Looking over, he saw the shaft of an arrow sticking between two dented plates of his left pauldron. He stopped abruptly and stared, wondering how an arrow somehow found its way into his arm. He began to lift his sword up to inspect the offending protrusion when another glanced off his helmet with a resounding 'clang'.

The ringing woke him from his daze to see a pack of hobgoblins firing arrows at him in an attempt to stop him. They were trying to stop his escape. They wanted to keep him from the precious light. He glared at them and brought his sword into a guard position and his shield up. Another arrow found refuge in the dented metal of the battered shield and heard another whiz by his head. Lips curled into a maddened snarl, Marcus charged, loosing a bloodcurdling scream at the band of filthy beasts. The craggy walls of the cavern amplified and distorted his rabid cry and echoed it back to him as twisted symphony of pure rage.

Despite the injuries to his legs, Marcus's mailed feet rapidly ate up the distance to his enemies. Still screaming, he fell on the first hob, bringing his long sword sharply down on the hob's ugly head before it could parry. Gray matter and an eyeball erupted from the wound as he quickly ripped the blade free, adding more red and gray splatter to the thick patina of gore that caked his armor. Two more charged with weapons high as he heard chanting begin. Bringing his shield up to block the downswing of the first, he turned and thrust his sword at the second, its point finding a seam in the hob's armor. With the strength borne of madness and despair, he twisted the hilts and wrenched the blade free, spinning the fatally wounded hobgoblin into his comrade, knocking them both to the stone floor in a bloody heap.

The low, guttural chanting stopped, and he felt magical energy dance across his tired muscles. But the spell could not take hold. Sword and mail dripping blood, he advanced purposefully on the shaman. He could see the panic swelling in the shaman's eyes as he fumbled helplessly for his weapon. He was too slow to defend himself as Marcus's calculated swing deprived the hob of his weapon arm, sending the limb spinning into the cavern wall. The blade's vicious backswing deprived the unfortunate hob of his head, the ugly thing following a similar arc and thudding damply into the opposite wall.

He howled as he felt a blade slide through his mail and slice across his ribs. Shaken, he staggered back, turning to face his hobgoblin attacker. By this one's armor and blade, it was clear that this was the hob leader.

"Master not like intruders. Gragh bring him you head!" he spat, slashing in again. Marcus barely lifted his shield up in time, and the hob deflected his weak counterstrike with insulting ease. Their blades clashed again, the steel resounding with an echoing crash. The hob captain began pushing his blade back, both blades edging dangerously close to his face.

As he saw the points draw even closer, he screamed desperately, "No! I will not go back! I need the light!" and slammed his shield into the hob.

The surge of violence knocked the hob off balance, and with a primal scream, Marcus pressed the attack. His first strike ripped through the leader's armor and tore a bloody hole in his enemy's stomach. Blood and entrails burst from the hole in flesh and muscle. Marcus's second blow sheared through muscle and bone, neatly severing one leg. He didn't even feel the hob's blade score on his hip as his blood roared with adrenaline and pain. Again and again and again he swung, scoring and spraying blood and bits of hob across the rough stone floor. It was a full minute before he fully realized the beast was dead and stopped. His labored breathing echoed softly throughout the cave as he resting on his blade. Glaring down at dismembered remains of the leader's body, he spat and in a raspy voice shouted, "I.. WILL… HAVE… THE LIGHT!!" The words resounded again and again between the cave's walls.

Marcus painfully hobbled over to the dead shaman and unceremoniously ripped the spellcaster's belt from the corpse. The two healing potions he found were not much, but they would ease a little of the pain. He swallowed them quickly, thinking he should look for more, but he couldn't wait for his pursuers to catch up to him. The battle with the hobgoblins already took up too much time. With a quick glance at the mangled bodies, he set off again, his stride a little easier. Each step took him closer to the light. With each step he was closer to freedom and farther from them and death.

He could not get caught. He had to make it to the outside. To the light.