[This post is from Cameron’s point of view.]
They went for a few miles before he gave the reins a tug, dropping his horse back into a trot. The dark clouds had shifted, the storm he’d spotted moving in over the lake. Absently, he patted his mount’s neck, eying the clouds with no small measure of trepidation.
I assumed they were something other than what they were, he thought, smiling grimly to himself. Not everything is some kind of supernatural threat. Sometimes it’s just normal weather patterns. It’s getting to be summer, after all. These sorts of things will happen.
“Would be nice to make it home without getting caught in the rain, eh, boy?” Cameron patted the stallion’s neck. The horse whooshed out a breath and Cameron smiled wryly, shaking his head. “Somehow, I don’t think we’ll be that lucky.”
“Oh, you never can know these things for certain,” a voice said from somewhere to his left. “You might be unexpectedly and unavoidably delayed in your otherwise imminent return.”
Cameron went rigid, abruptly hauling on the reins and reeling his mount toward the sound of the voice. His horse reared slightly, letting out a whinny of protest. Cameron kept him firmly in hand, though the stallion danced sideways, a bit skittish.
He couldn’t see who had spoken, but he knew the voice.
“Come out,” Cameron demanded, his eyes narrowing slightly. The reins wrapped around one hand, he slowly reached for his sidearm. He would defend himself with deadly force if it came to that.
A man emerged from the shadows of trees and brush along the side of the broken roadway, dressed in jeans and a slate blue hoodie-style sweatshirt. His eyes were dark, nearly black, and when Cameron met his gaze, it felt as if he’d been sucked down into a maelstrom to drown.
“Leviathan,” Cameron said, his voice low, nearly a growl.
“Very good, Dragon,” the figure said. “I had hoped I would find you along this road. We shall have a chat, you and I, and you will carry my message home to those you love. They have been granted at least a momentary reprieve—but it shall not last. These things never last forever. How could they, after all?”
Leviathan smiled and Cameron shuddered.
Whatever his message was, Cameron had already decided that he had a bad feeling about this.
Cameron is Han Solo: “I have a bad feeling about this.”
Heh.