Forty-two – 03

[This post is from Phelan’s point of view.]

It began as a series of pops, soft and seemingly distant.  The hairs on Phelan’s arms and the back of his neck stirred and he swallowed the bile that suddenly rose in his throat, starting not out over the field as he perhaps should have been, but at Matt as the other man held Hecate tightly against his chest, his nose buried in her hair.

I don’t know what he’s doing.  I don’t think I want to know.  I just want it to work.

He could sense them now, the lampades skittering across the upper arc of the wards, waiting for a crack to open so the underworld nymphs could slip in and seek their former mistress physically.  They weren’t wraiths, weren’t truly ghosts—they were something else, something that was enough to send ice sluicing down his spine.

“What’s happening?” Marin asked in a bare whisper, glancing between the field and her brother and Hecate.  “I can feel him doing something but I don’t know what it is.”

“I don’t know,” Phelan said, the words coming a bit more sharply than he intended.  “Keep your eyes on the field.  Those bastards are still coming.”

“I noticed.”  She grimaced, tearing her gaze away and training it on the field.  Seamus had taken over directing the archers.  Above them, the clouds twisted and the rain kept coming down in sheets; Thordin’s control of the storm was nearly absolute, but Phelan knew it had to be coming at some sort of price.

A rumble started to build, like the beginnings of rolling thunder that never quite reached its apex.  A chill swept through Phelan and his throat constricted.  He groped for the edge of the wall and the fingers of his other hand tightened around the haft of his staff, seeking comfort in the solidity and strength of both.  He stared at Matt, not quite able to sense what was going on but knowing his friend was up to something—something big, as seemed to be the norm.

“Nothing by half measures,” he breathed, the words lost to the wind and rain.

The pops grew closer, sounding like explosions underwater.  The ground shivered.

Phelan held his breath.

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