[This post is from Phelan’s point of view.]
Something wasn’t right.
He realized that a heartbeat before it happened.
Every muscle seized up. Even breathing was suddenly hard. He stopped dead in his tracks, trying to control the sudden panic welling up inside.
Leinth reached for his arm, her eyes growing wide. “Phelan?”
“Run,” he breathed, barely able to get the word out.
Run, Leinth. Run.
If I can be reached here…
…run.
“No,” she snarled, her gaze darting from him to the ravine, to the open ground around them. “Don’t be a bleeding fool. I’m not leaving you.”
His eyes stung, in no small part form frustration. He couldn’t speak. Whatever had him in its clutches—and he suspected he knew in part what that was—wouldn’t let him.
Leinth’s fingers tightened on his shoulder. Breath hissed from his lungs.
Damnation, Leinth, just run.
A chill washed through him. He was able to move his fingers, to breathe easier for the briefest of moments. It took a second for him to realize why.
Leinth.
“Whatever this is doesn’t get to take you today, Wanderer,” she said. “Now summon up that strength of will I know you have and move.”
He gasped in a breath, then another. Muscles loosened. One stumbling step sent him forward. Leinth caught him as his fell, his muscles locking again.
“Damnation, Phelan,” she hissed. “What is this? Who’s doing this to you?”
“Old enemies,” he whispered, the words coming as gasps as she hauled him to his feet, started to half-carry, half-drag him toward the center of their village. “New enemies. Someone hanging onto something. Someone—someone who—”
Darkness nibbled at the edges of his vision. He squeezed his eyes shut, gritting his teeth.
Then he reached deep and damned the consequences.
In the distance, a woman screamed.
Green light shot skyward beyond the walls to the north and west.
For a moment, the drums faltered.
Then they began again, louder, faster.
Phelan’s world went dark.
