Owlflight

There wasn’t much room in the tiny stable - and with the horses ready to kick anything that stood in their path -

The horses! Yes!

He darted along the center aisle, throwing open the doors to the stalls as he went. The horses hadn’t been tied, and once they felt space behind them, they kicked and backed out into the aisle, then proceeded to fight with each other, milling and squealing, and providing a barrier of large and angry bodies between Darian and the ladder. Just as he opened the last stall, he spotted the mage’s feet on the ladder, and he saw a pitchfork leaning against the back wall. He seized it, and darted into the last stall, dangerously close to the horse that was vacating it. Fortunately, the horse was more interested in getting a piece of one of his rivals than in stomping Darian into the straw.

This stall had no half-door at the back, and neither did the one opposite it. There would be no escape that way.

As he cowered in the back of the stall, pitchfork clutched in his trembling hands, he heard the mage’s voice roaring over the squealing and bugling of the fighting horses, and the thud of hooves on wood. He heard the louder sound of the stable doors slamming open, and then the noise of a riding whip on flesh and the thunder of hooves receding. The mage had opened the stable doors and was driving out the horses. Soon he would come looking for Darian.

I’ll only get one chance at this - Darian broke out into a cold sweat, shaking all over, but his mind seemed strangely sharp and clear, and as he watched the lighted space of the open stall door, he saw the last of the bulky shadows vanish, leaving only the long shadow of a man.

The mage-light’s behind him.

He watched the shadow, and listened to the footsteps, waiting for the moment when the mage would be’just around the corner of his stall.

The man was thorough; he checked every stall, while Darian’s heart pounded and his gut churned. He’s looking at the opposite ones first. When he first gets up here, I’ll have just that long while he checks the other one -

He saw the shadow’s legs, the body silhouetted on the wall; he braced himself, and with the next step, the mage himself appeared framed in the stall door.

Darian charged, screaming.

This time he caught the mage entirely by surprise, driving him into the wall and pinning him there. He looked terrible, with great gouges bleeding down into his face and his robe wet with his own blood - but he was obviously far from finished. One tine of the pitchfork held an arm pinned between it and the next tine, one pierced the man’s clothing at his side, although Darian couldn’t tell if it had caught flesh, and one was buried in the wood of the back of the stall.

But the mage wasn’t dead - and he wasn’t done with Darian yet.

There was an insane rage in the man’s eyes; he foamed at the mouth, and he clawed at Darian with his free hand. Failing to reach Darian, he grappled with the shaft of the pitchfork, and tried to wrench it away, while at the same time, he pushed away from the wall. There was blood seeping into the mage’s clothing, but this was obviously not a fatal wound.

If he could get off the wall, he could free himself.

Darian panted, bracing his feet in the dirt of the stall floor, and hung on with the strength of desperation. Why wouldn’t this man die?

Bit by bit, the mage pushed Darian back, struggling in eerie silence. Bit by bit, Darian’s feet slipped, and he scrambled to reestablish his hold.

If the mage got loose, he’d kill Darian - then he’d kill Snowfire and all the others. Then he’d go after Nightwind and Starfall and Kelvren. And all because Darian had failed.

“No!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. “Not - this - time! “

With a last burst of energy, he drove the mage back, and felt a surge of elation.

But the madness left the man’s eyes for a moment, and the mage screamed something guttural. The handle of the pitchfork burst into flame, splintered, then crumbled away, leaving Darian standing with a handful of kindling and ash. The mage plucked the metal tine out, and cast it to the ground contemptuously.

Darian stared, frozen.