[This post is from Seamus’s point of view.]
The wind shifted and the rain came down in sheets. Thunder growled above their heads, more sullen than angry. Seamus swallowed the salt of sweat and the taste of the rain down with the bile that had slicked the back of his tongue for the past ten minutes, ever since Marin had dropped her bow. “Archers, hold,” he ordered, his voice abruptly hoarse. The explosion had left bright afterimages dancing through his vision. The ancient warrior and once-healer blinked in vain, trying to clear them.
“Did—did that do it?” Marin asked, her voice barely more than a whisper. “Are they—have they—”
A low, keening wail echoed off the walls. It scraped at Seamus’s ears, setting his teeth on edge and his head pounding. He pressed his hands over his ears, a moan escaping him.
No, no.
Deeper-throated calls joined the wail, which faded after only a few seconds—seconds that felt like they went on forever. Some shadows began to move away, their shapes visible as lightning crackled through the clouds.
Seamus exhaled. “I think so,” he said. “I think they are.”
“Good,” Rory said, his voice a little weak. He sat down hard on the edge of the wall, barely keeping himself from falling over backwards as he wavered for a moment. “I don’t know that I had another one of those in me. Maybe.”
“I’m glad we don’t have to find out,” Marin said. Her voice was a little shaky. Seamus didn’t dare look in her direction, not just yet.
“Hunters, keep the watch,” he called to the members of the Wild Hunt perched on the wall, most of them with ranged weapons at hand—most of them the archers he’d led through the battle. “Sound the alarm if something seems wrong.”
“Yes, sir,” someone said, the voice distorted by the wind and rain. Seamus almost winced at the solemn respectfulness of the tone.
You’re not their commander anymore.
He wanted to make sure it stayed that way, too.
