"May I ask where we're going, m'lord?" Shane asked yet again, trying very hard to keep the anxious whine from his voice. It didn't work. The elderly knight sighed in annoyance now only half-feigned.
"I told you, boy, we're making our way to the Icarian Peaks, to end the threat of the Dragonfane kobolds. Now still your tongue, else lose it!" Shane clamped down abruptly on his tongue, stilling it halfway to a snarky retort aimed at his mentor; he satisfied himself instead with an irritable tug at the mule's reins. The mule, a mare who Shane suspected may have been older than Sir Enrich, grunted in response and head-butted Shane reproachfully. The previous month's travel had left the entire party in a miserable state. The less familiar sections of the Mistwoods had covered everyone in a fine layer of scratches, which were then coated in turn by the distinctively odiferous mud of the Mistmarsh. Now past the southern coast of Lake Hauber and into the foothills north of Hauberville, a bone-deep weariness and seeped into the trio. The following month's travel promised to be only marginally better; the terrain would be easier, but darkly brooding thunderclouds hung low on the horizon, advancing with the steady, heedless progression of a dire buffalo.
That night, Shane huddled in the meager protection of his small, one-man tent. The canvas sides buckled under the heavy downpour of rain and angrily gusting winds, leaving Shane to wonder if the whole tent would simply collapse or pick up and blow away with him. Quietly, a small portion of him prayed for just such a fate. Though death by terminal windstorm was certainly not much better than death by some kobld's spear, at that moment it seemed that tumbling to his death in that maelstrom would be preferable than the interminable travel in between. He flipped his short sword, the only protection Sir Enrich allowed him to carry, with practiced ease in his left hand, being careful not to let it get so far away that it might puncture the tenuous material of the tent.
It was certainly not as though Shane felt no gratitude or warmness for Sir Enrich; Shane was told that he had parents, somewhere, but that they had been too poor to raise him properly. Sir Enrich had offered to take the boy as his squire when Shane was still too small to be of any use to the knight. Now, it was the only life Shane knew.
Perhaps it is the only life I shall ever know, he thought bitterly as he spun the short sword with increasing agitation. It is not as though the Marquis de Thorndale shall ever knight me. He scolded himself for these thoughts, but even self-flagellation could not lift his spirits. The Marquis, a minor lord by anyone's standards (only a dozen knights under his banner), certainly made no secret of his dislike for the gangly squire. He often joked at his dinner table, his chin stack wobbling as he laughed at his own wit, that Sir Enrich would certainly die before Shane were fit to be a knight. It was true enough that Sir Enrich was advanced in years, but Shane certainly thought that he'd be able to hold out for at least another three years, at which time Shane could petition for his own title of knighthood. Even with Sir Enrich's support, however, Shane would need to win over at least two of the other knights before the Marquis would be forced to accept him as a knight. The assignment they had been sent on seemed proof enough to Shane that the Marquis did not think highly enough of Enrich to knight Shane on his say-so alone.
"Dragonfane kobolds," Shane muttered to himself, internalization no longer sufficient for the slowly boiling frustration within him. "Who ever heard of anything so damned stupid? Sun's blood, he must be desperate to be rid of us." From just outside his tent, he heard the low bray of the mule, Muriel, as though sympathizing with him. Sure that the night could get no better from there, Shane laid down and shut his eyes, trying to ignore the sound of the pounding rain.
The Icarian Peaks rose steadily out of the ground over the course of the next month, giant fangs of stone growing unchecked from the rocky ground of the foothills. Shane was unreasonable jumpy in the days leading up to entering the mountain range proper, certain that any moment a host of kobolds would leap out and overwhelm him before his mentor could save him. He slept little; often, when he did sleep, he would awake with a startled cry, gripping the braided leather of his short sword's hilt so tightly that his knuckles turned white. If Sir Enrich noticed this gradual decay, he said nothing. Instead, as they approached the mountain range, he seemed to get more stern in all of his morning drills, pushing Shane a little harder each day. Combining this with the lack of sleep, Shane was wearing thinner each day.
"I mean no disrespect, m'lord," Shane told Enrich one afternoon, "but I cannot keep this up! It's too much! What are you even trying to accomplish?" Enrich opened his mouth to begin speaking, but Shane didn't seem to notice; he just kept talking over Enrich's objection. "I mean, I know all of the drills! Doing this every morning is killing me! How do you expect me to keep up when I'm so nervous that I cannot sleep at night? Night and shadow, I suppose I shouldn't even be nervous! After all, it's been nearly a month since we entered the foothills, and still no--"
"Shut up!" Enrich shouted abruptly, rushing Shane. Shane leapt out of the way with a yelp just as a short spear flew through the space he had just been occupying. He stared in dumbfound amazement as Enrich let the spear deflect off his shield and charge through, cutting down the offending kobold as he drew his sword. Four more appeared as Shane struggled to his feet, fumbling to free his sword from its sheath. Only of the kobolds came for Shane, the other three surrounding Enrich and trying to poke their primitive spears past his guard. Enrich kept whirling about, snarling at them and deflecting their spears, but never gaining enough of an advantage to strike.
The kobold that had detached from the others approached Shane, the obsidian edge of the spearhead gleaming obscenely. It stabbed twice as it approached, forcing Shane to shuffle out of the way of the attacks. Shane waited for it to get closer, then lashed out with his own short sword with two clumsy, guileless attacks. The kobold ignored the strikes and lunged boldly for Shane; the spear only missed his heart by virtue of the fact that he had been reeling, trying to maintain his balance after his own poorly executed attack. The proximity of the little ratling's spear forced Shane back another graceless step. As he brought his back foot down, it struck a rock and failed to find proper purchase. He flailed hopelessly, trying to keep his balance, as he fell backward. He lashed out wildly with his sword, losing his grip as he did so. His head struck the stony ground with a sick crack, and everything went black.
The sudden influx of light as Shane's eyelids creaked open was dizzying. Hoping to fend off the wave of nausea, he snapped his eyes shut again, but it was no use. He managed to roll over on to his side before vomiting. He opened his eyes very slowly and carefully this time, letting his addled brain adjust to the light level before opening his eyes a little further. Enrich sat on a low, nearby hill, presumably keeping watch. His eyes were, at the moment, firmly fixed on Shane. He said nothing until Shane had managed to pull himself into a sitting position.
"Alright, boy?" he asked tersely. Shane tried to speak, found his throat could manage no more than a sour gurgling, and instead turned gradually to survey his surroundings. The kobolds lay dead to a one, spears and limbs flung about seemingly at random. One kobold lay still largely intact with Shane's short sword sticking out of its eye, blade buried almost to the hilt. Shane turned back toward the old knight, wonder written across his face.
"Yes, you got one," the knight said simply. "Quite by accident, but you got him. Try to keep your head next time."
"Of course, m'lord," Shane finally managed to croak. Enrich chuckled.
"Good boy. Now, take a few minutes to get your wits about you. We have a whole lair of these things to kill." He stood up and walked down the hill, to where the largely intact kobold lay. With practiced ease, he pulled the sword from its skull, dragging up bits of bone and brain with a wet, sucking sound. He cleaned the blade casually on the grass, passed it to Shane, and made his way to the mule.
The cave entrance stood before the party, a black, yawning maw that might belong on the face of a truly enormous earth elemental.
"Did they really have to pick a cave so... large? And intimidating?" Shane asked uncertainly, shifting from foot to foot. "I mean, they really only stand about three feet high. Picking such a cavern seems wasteful."
"Be grateful for it," Enrich advised, not entirely able to control his smirk. "I once had to crawl down a tunnel not much more than three feet across to get to a cabal of necromancers. Any time I can enter a lair such as this standing, I consider it a victory." Shane eyed him askance, frowning slightly. Figuring that any further conversation couldn't improve things, he set about tying up Muriel at the entrance.
Enrich strode into the cave a few paces, striking a sunrod against the nearest wall as he walked. Shadows withered away in the sudden presence of the dazzling white light. The clammy gray rock of the cave descended deeper down into the mountain before Enrich and his squire, but was fortunately vacated. Enrich passed the sunrod to Shane and unslung his shield, gripping it against his left arm. Shane already had his sword out, and held the sunrod aloft in the other hand. With Enrich leading the way, the two descended into the mountain.
The path wove generally down as it curved back and forth on itself in such amanner that Shane quickly lost his bearings. Dripping water and the occasional breeze from above swirled into a persistent, maddening whisper. The inky darkness before the pair shied away from the light, only to circle back around and close off the area behind them, trapping them forever in the black subterranean prison.
"I don't like this."
"Hush."
The time passed by with no interruptions from yipping kobolds. Shane had just finally started to let the tension out of his shoulders when Enrich threw out an arm, stopping him abruptly.
"What? What is it? Do you hear kobolds?"
"How can I hear anything over your yammering? Quiet, boy, and look for once." Shane peered about hopelessly, not understanding the point of Enrich's ire.
"No, down there, you blasted fool." Shane followed the knight's finger to a thin wire, strung between two stalagmites sticking up from the rough ground.
"Traps. Kobolds love them. Looks like this one would have dropped this tunnel on us."
"Would they really close off this tunnel just to get at us?" Shane tried his damnedest to come off as cool as the knight had, but his voice squeaked quite involuntarily on the final syllable. Enrich gave him a sidelong look.
"Absolutely. They have a hundred other tunnels like this. Besides, they'll do almost anything to avoid a direct confrontation." The scorn in his voice was approaching levels that Shane had only heard him reserve for evil spellcasters and abusive nobility. He lifted one metal-clad boot carefully over the wire, then the other, gesturing for Shane to do the same.
Suddenly, the distance between the wire and the ground seemed to extend itself almost to waist level. Shane set his jaw firmly and did his best to control his breathing as he raised one trembling leg. Little by little, the shuddering muscles in his leg gave in to his will and pulled his foot over the unfathomable ravine below the wire. He carefully swung that foot aside, inhaling sharply as he was sure that he had caught the wire.
Eternity yawned.
Finally he had the courage to let his foot fall slowly back to the pock-marked slope of the cave floor. Slowly, he let his weight come down on the ball of his foot, then let it roll back to his heel. Halfway there now, Shane. He bounced the weight off of his foot on the far side of the wire, testing his foothold on the nearer side. Once he was finally convinced that he wouldn't slip to his death as soon as he lifted his foot proper, he started the arduous process of shifting his tenuous balance to the foot that had already made the journey. Just as his foot was about to clear the wire, he was pulled abruptly from his feet by his shirt collar. He cried out in alarm and curled up into a defensive ball, certain that the weight of the earth was about to come down on him.
"Gods' touch, relax, boy! I've got you! I just didn't want to pass on before you'd finished making it over." Enrich shoved him roughly away from the wire, grumbling to himself as he started down the slope again. The pair hadn't even rounded the next bend when two kobolds leapt out in front of them, catching the boy and his master unaware.
The knight let out a shout of alarm as he struggled to drag his sword free of its sheath. About halfway from getting it out, he doubled over, his shield arm clutching near his heart. He let out a cry of agony, startling the kobolds badly enough that they forgot completely to attack with their crude spears. In a panic, Shane groped wildly for the sword at his belt. He had just finished clearing it as Enrich collapsed in a boneless heap. Shane lashed out with two barbaric swings, losing control of the sword with the second slash and letting it loose from his grip. He rushed to his master's side, heedless of the draconic beasts nearby.
The elderly knight's face was waxen and glossy with sweat. His breathing was coming in short, ragged bursts. Shane groped gracelessly, trying to remember what he was taught about detecting the heart's pulses in his master's neck. He could feel Enrich's blood pulsing languidly, erratically through the veins beneath his fingers. The world fell out from beneath Shane's knees, leaving him plummeting dizzily through nothing. The last time he'd seen someone collapse like this was five years ago; the smith, Derrick, had collapsed one day at his forge. He'd managed to cling to life for another hour before he'd finally succumbed. So far from home and healers, Shane had no idea how to save Enrich's life.
Shane was brought rushing headlong back to the world as he felt a spear drive itself into his arm, just below the shoulder joint. He snarled, half from the pain and half from the rising, bilious rage that threatened to consume him, and spun on his assailant. Apparently, his first sword swing had injured one of the kobolds badly; he now lay on the ground, bright red blood pulsing from a deep cut along the inside of one of his bony little legs. The other kobold must have been struck by the hilt of the sword as it flew, leaving some of the scales on his face damaged. He had recovered fairly quickly and now stood, hands dumbly gripping the spear which stuck into Shane's flesh.
Shane lashed out at the kobold with his bare hands, heedless of the barbed point in his arm. The kobold yelped and leapt back, pulling the spear with him. The kobold was now out of Shane's reach, but the spear was not. Shane grabbed the spear with one hand and pulled it past him, dragging the kobold with it into his reach. As the kobold came so close that Shane could smell his fetid breath, Shane reared back and lashed out with his head, smashing the heavy bones of his forehead into the kobold's serpentine snout. The kobold cried out and fell back, blood gushing from its face. It wept quietly as Shane stood, picked up the spear, and stood by it.
Softly, the kobold whimpered in a sibilant tongue. Shane didn't speak the language, but the meaning was clear to him none the less; spare me, please, do not kill me. Shane gripped the spear firmly in his good hand and drove the point home. The whimpering faded into agonized gurgles, then ceased altogether. He strode swiftly to the other form on the ground; it was now barely conscious and clearly delirious with the loss of blood. The sounds it made sounded no more like words than the mewling of a lost cat. Shane's booted foot came up and drove into the kobold's skull before he even had time to register that he'd moved. Even once he'd realized what he was doing, he did not stop. He stomped the kobold in the head and neck, gritting his teeth to keep from screaming as he let the fury boil out through the coiled muscles in his legs.
Finally he stepped back, the red haze receding from his eyes. He collected his sword and returned to Enrich's side. The knight's breathing had become shallower, his face paler and his eyelids fluttered like the wings of a butterfly. Shane took up one of the knight's hands between his own and pressed the bony, wrinkled knuckles against his forehead. He whispered prayers and pleaded to Pelor, offering ecclesiastical platitudes and heartfelt sobs to the sun god. As he whispered, Enrich's breaths grew quieter yet, his face less troubled and pained. As Shane finished the third repetition of "By the Sun's Life-Giving Light," Enrich exhaled once, heavily, then breathed no more.
No great cry left Shane. No more tears fell from his eyes, no more rage and sorrow threatened to tear their way from his wiry, hairless chest. He sighed slowly, almost as though he were relieved, set the knight's hand carefully upon his chest, and stood from his side. Shane dried his eyes against his sleeve, sniffed, and looked around. He knew the way down led only to more kobolds; whether or not he could brave these tunnels alone, he was unsure. He sat down against one wall and closed his eyes, still praying; the object of his prayers now, however, had changed. He prayed to Kord for strength and for courage, for all that he would need to see the coming battle through. He prayed to Heironeous for the ability to see justice done and for the valor necessary to avenge his master. He even prayed to Olidammara, the Laughing Rogue, for the discretion and cunning that would keep him alive within these caverns.
Eventually he stood and opened his eyes, letting the steely determination that he'd been building up within his mind guide him. He unbuckled Enrich's armor and set about strapping it to himself. The full plate was too heavy for Enrich to wear, so he took the leather from beneath and strapped the breastplate over it, hoping that he could avoid the worst of it this way. He picked up Enrich's bastard sword and strapped it to his hip, opposite the short sword. Carefully, he double-checked all of his equipment; two sunrods, plus the one that Enrich had lit at the cave entrance, about 20 feet of loose hempen rope, a crowbar, enough rations for three days (Six days now, Shane thought grimly) and a climber's kit: six pitons and a grappling hook with more rope on it. It wasn't much for staging an assault, but it would have to suffice.
As an afterthought, Shane picked out one of the spare sunrods, struck it, and left it on Enrich's corpse. He began his descent again, quicker now than when he had been traveling with Sir Enrich. He'd only descended about a hundred feet when the sunrod's light began to fade as the alchemical devices that powered it began to burn themselves out. As the darkness crept in from the outside, Shane felt an icy certainty begin to spread out from within, starting at his heart and expanding to embrace him entirely. It was unlike anything he'd ever experienced; he knew that now, without Enrich, the mission was his alone. He could not cower in fear, he could not whine and complain and hope that someone else knew the way. This time, the job was his, and he intended to see it through.
By the time he'd come across the dimly lit cavern where squatted a miserable host of kobolds, the sunrod had died completely. It was just as well; the light from the rod would have given him away to his new opponents. He slid as quietly as he could against the cavern wall, keeping a wary eye on the kobolds who knelt in attendance of their leader. The kobold chieftain, who did not look more regal so much as less scrawny, stood before his silent audience on a rocky dais. It looked as though this cave had not been carved out for use so much as picked for this purpose because it had naturally formed to it.
A pedestal rose out of the ground, smaller across than a man laying down and about knee high, uneven and pockmarked at the top of it. The chieftain stood atop this pedestal, his voice carried out by the long, ovular chamber. Behind him rose a concave, pointed structure, which seemed to have formed for the express purpose of funneling the voice of whoever stood on this pedestal into the rest of the cavern. A few torches were stuck into the rocky ground in pairs to form a wide aisle leading away from the dais; here, a dozen or so kobolds knelt, eyes cast toward the ground as their leader yelped and howled his pontifications over their heads.
Shane looked grimly around the cavern. The edges of it faded off into the gloom indistinctly, giving it the distinct impression that it had no real ends. Above him, he saw the faintest hint of the cave ceiling, stalactites hanging down precariously like the far-off teeth of some beast.
And directly above the chieftain hung the largest of them.
Shane's pulse quickened ever so slightly as the first wisps of an idea drifted across his mind. He moved as quickly and quietly as he could around the edge of the cave, behind the great concave formation; his eyes darted about wildly, snatching all of the scattered fragments of thought and weaving them together. As he reached the opposite side of the curved rock face behind the kobold chieftain, the pace of his chant increased. Shane thought he heard more taloned feet shuffling into the cavern, banging staves or sticks or something similar against the ground, in time with the chant. It seemed Olidammara had heard him after all. He began to dig through his pack, looking for the crowbar and the pitons.
With each pound of staves and spears on the ground, Shane swung into the pitons, driving them firmly into the rock. He would test each carefully before hauling himself up and driving the next piton in above him. With only three pitons, he was able to mount the structure and balance precariously next to the stalactite. He pulled another piton from his pack and placed it as high as he could reach into the pointed structure. He repeated his pattern, pounding the piton in time with the kobolds below. As he drove the piton deeper, he could see cracks form around the piton and spread through the rock.
As he drove the piton as far is it would go into the stalactite, it occurred to him that the sound of the crowbar on the piton was the only sound in the cavern. Slowly, he looked down and saw the host of kobolds staring up at him, dumbfounded. The bewildered chieftain looked around at his subjects, clearly not understanding the source of their bemusement. Shane took the crowbar into both hands suddenly and swung with all of his weight into the lines of cracks that wove through the stalctite.
The rock made a cracking sound not unlike ice shattering and gave way; it did not give all at once, but in stages. The side closest to Shane began to fall first, tearing the rest of the supporting rock away. Small pieces dropped to the ground, and Shane saw the chief finally look up and realize what had just happened. As the stalactite finally lost purchase on the ceiling, Shane leapt off of the rock on which he had perched, bouncing a little off of the back of the falling rocks. The awed silence gave way now to panicked screaming and scrabbling of talons on rock, so that when Shane landed heavily (and clumsily, rolling his ankle underneath his own weight) on the cavern floor, it was not in a neatly ordered army of kobolds, but a frantic mob.
Shane spun toward the chieftain's raised platform just in time to see the pile of rocks settle with a heavy finality over the pedestal. A single clawed hand stuck out, motionless and desperate from time pile. Shane did his best not to smile. He began to limp toward the entrance to this cavern, knocking aside dumbstruck kobolds as he went. he was halfway to the exit before a few of the armed kobolds realized that he was still there and turned their spears on him.
With two jerky, graceless motions, Shane dragged his own sword and Sir Enrich's borrowed sword free from their sheathes. He began whirling them in front of himself, not aiming the blows so much as hoping they would connect if he threw enough of them around. Though the kobolds could doubtlessly have found dozens of openings in this clumsy, witless assault, they seemed so utterly agape from the series of events that had just transpired that Shane may as well have been some inexorable, bladed golem of legend and nightmares. Two of them tried poking their spears at Shane, but his whirling swords knocked them aside and severed the spears' hafts.
Finally, the largest of them leapt forward and thrust his spear boldly under Shane's guard, straight up toward his heart. Shane saw the blow coming and only barely managed to twist his torso enough that the blow glanced off of his breastplate. He responded with a backhand stroke from the bastard sword that left the kobold's throat open to the air, pouring his life out between his scales.
Despite the failure of their comrade, his audacity seemed to inspire the other kobolds. A few of the stragglers that had backed up almost to the wall when faced with Shane's dervish impression now began to advance again, emboldened by their brethren and the smell of fresh blood. Growing desperate, Shane spun the short sword about so that he held the blade near the hilt and hurled it with his left hand at the furthest kobold. Before the blade had finished its tumbling flight, he had already gripped the bastard sword in both hands and rushed the nearest of them.
The two blades found their marks nearly simultaneously; the short sword lodged itself sloppily in one kobold's chest, just below the throat, while the bastard sword cut one of his brothers almost completely in half. Shane carried the momentum through to the next monster, spinning on his good ankle and smashing the blade into the beast's skull. The kobold wore a helmet that protected him from the edge of Shane's sword, but not the weight. With a visceral cracking sound, he collapsed to the cold ground, abruptly boneless. Shane's renewed vigor caused the other kobolds to hesitate just long enough that he was able to rush past them. He came to the side of the far kobold, his short sword stuck in its chest and was surprised to find that it had lived. Without flinching, he stamped down on its chest, bent at the waist, and dragged the sword from it with only a single cry of protest from the beast. Shane turned again, readying himself as the kobold guard finally regrouped in the cavern proper. No fewer than two dozen spears pointed toward him now.
Shane could see the futility of fighting against these numbers, but he had no faith in the mercy of the beasts, either. A few tense moments crawled by as he considered what his master would have done in this situation. Yielding was not an option, fighting was not an option... a show of strength, then would have to do. He drew up and shouted wildly, his voice rising to a bloodcurdling note; he bulged his eyes and gnashed his teeth, making as great a spectacle of his fury as he could. He could see a number of the kobolds waver; they glanced uneasily at each other, dropping the points of their spears just enough. It would have to do.
Madly, Shane dashed at the line before him. Those at the ends shrieked and bolted away from the charging barbarian. The rest drew up their spears and did their best to seem strong. Shane knocked a few spears aside and broke through the line, throwing the scaly dogs underfoot. The light of the cave quickly disappeared behind him as he ran. His legs burned, his lungs ached, but he knew he could not stop running. He could hear them behind him.
As it was, Shane knew he could run faster them on the ground, but in the twisty, darkened caverns, he was not sure he would be able to lose them. His hope lay ahead, burning in the dark....
As he rounded a corner, he saw the reflections of light being thrown on the tunnel wall opposite him. He couldn't help but sneer triumphantly, knowing what was to come. With all the speed that his legs could lend him, he vaulted the body, planted one foot on the ground, and leaped again, sailing over the tripwire. Quietly, he whispered a prayer that not all of his pursuers would remember it.
Behind him, he heard at least two kobolds squeak and stop running abruptly, their claws skittering across the uneven ground. One more, however, did not seem to be catch on, and plowed bullishly into his comrades. The tripwire snapped, and Shane picked up his speed as he heard the tunnel come down behind him, sealing off this exit.
Shane sat just at the edge of the cave, directly on the border between the darkness below and the night above. Somehow, the idea of entering either fully terrified Shane; as though if he were to step out from the cave mouth, he might drown in the shadows. Muriel stood outside, near the mouth of the cave, chewing contentedly on the bits of plant life she could find poking up through the rocky ground.
"It doesn't even bother you, does it?" Shane demanded of the old mule. "Our master is dead, we can never go home again, but you're not even fazed." Muriel stared levelly back at Shane, chewing a mouthful of grass with slow deliberation. Shane gazed into the beast's glassy eyes for a long moment, hoping to find some answer or comfort. Muriel's sneeze broke his trance. "Stupid animal," Shane grumbled. Out of spite, he snatched a carrot from his bag and ate it in front of her.
"Don't get snappy with me. You're the one who ran off on this fool quest," Muriel responded in someone else's voice. Shane choked briefly on a bit of carrot, coughed it out and bolted upright. He demanded "What was that?" of Muriel; but of course she did not respond, she had not said anything in the first place.
"What about your responsibilities at home, Shane?" the voice in his mind continued. "What about our--"
"Enough! Stop!" he raged, flying from his seat. With blood pounding in his temples, he spun on the empty darkness. "What was I to do? At my age? With no trade to call mine?"
"You're a squire, Shay. You're to be a knight some day! That's better than any craft!"
"This quest was part of that. And now it's ruined my chances at being a knight! The marquis will never knight me now!"
"Won't someone?" she asked gently, the last syllable echoing sadly in his mind.
"What do you mean?" he whispered. But the phantom was gone already, its job done. Shane sat down again, heavily, exhaling as he did. The meager fire crackled and flickered against the darkness in the mouth of the cave.
"Well, Muriel," he finally managed, "it's time to go become a knight."
Muriel simply sneezed.
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