‎Chapter 8: Battle in the Nexus

Norman's concentration on the next blow was suddenly interrupted by loud shouting from behind. After a few warning shouts, the battle noise had been limited to a few precise tactical instructions. The almost panicked screaming coming from behind him stood out all the more. It sounded like Jane. He did not take his eyes off his opponent. Where was that disgusting, cracking sound coming from? His gaze fell on his opponent's left hand, which had been hanging uselessly until a moment ago. Most of the broken bones had already shifted back into position and, before his astonished eyes, the cracks in the skin were closing up again as the bone splinters slid back into place. Did zombies regenerate their wounds? That probably made things a little more difficult. And what did Jane want from him now? She called out his name and something about zombies. Now she paused for a moment, probably took another deep breath and then he was finally able to understand her: "They're not zombies, they're corpse golems! They all start up from their resting mode! When they reach their full strength, they become much faster, stronger and..."

"And regenerate their wounds. Yes, I can see that now too."

He charged forward and struck. Even as his staff whistled through the air, the previously dull eyes suddenly lit up with an unhealthy green light. The already fully restored hand whipped to the side, grabbed his staff in mid-air and stopped it effortlessly. From all sides he heard the shouts of the equally surprised warriors of the clan. The corpse golem twisted the arm with which it had gripped Norman's fighting staff and turned its upper body. It was immediately clear from Norman's posture that his opponent would try to snatch his staff upwards in a high arc. And if he managed to disarm him, he was finished. Even with the staff he already looked pretty old, but unarmed the thing would pluck him to pieces. Instead of fighting the superior physical strength, he gripped the staff tighter and pushed himself upwards.

His opponent's momentum threw him behind the golem, hanging from the staff. From the top point, he swung his legs back down, throwing his opponent off balance. As soon as his feet hit the ground hard, he used all his momentum, his mass and his not inconsiderable physical strength to fling his staff over his shoulder. As he had hoped, his opponent did not react quickly enough and was already flying through the air by the time he managed to let go. He hit the ground heavily a good two meters in front of him. Norman wasted no time and immediately thundered the staff at his skull with full force. He didn't know whether this was any good against the undead, but it was worth a try. His opponent was just lifting his head out of the grass with both hands when the blow smashed his face into the ground again. The cracking of bone sounded very satisfying, but the dented area reformed almost immediately. He pushed himself back up and was hammered down again. And again. And again. Slowly, Norman began to sweat. The corpse golem didn't seem particularly impressed and his arms were starting to ache. He only achieved a real effect when he hit it with full force, and he couldn't do that indefinitely. Jane ran past him and bent down on one knee just a meter out of the creature's reach to get a good look at it. "Are you out of your mind? Get away from there! I can't hold him off forever!"

Another blow drove the undead face down again.

"You won't get anywhere like that. Let me take a closer look... I thought so! The focus for his reserves of soul energy is in his chest. Just above the diaphragm. If you destroy that..."

Norman didn't need any more information. He once again put all his reserves into a blow that drove his opponent's face even deeper into the ground, spun the staff around, changed his grip and leapt forward another step. While his arms pushed the golem towards him, he rammed the blunt end of the staff like a spear from behind, past the spine, through the back and into the chest. Pale green light flickered upwards along the staff from the wound. The creature pushed itself up once more, convulsing, then collapsed lifelessly and lay flat in the puny grass. Norman pulled the staff out of the gaping wound and had to lean on it for a moment to rest. Green elm fire flickered from the staff even now. For a moment the staff held, then bent slightly until Norman quickly took the weight off again. When he pressed it against the bow on a trial basis and braced it lightly with his foot, he bent the previously iron-hard weave effortlessly to one side. The magic in it had dissolved. Even as he tested his weapon, he had not taken his eyes off his lifeless opponent for a moment. He prodded him with his staff. No reaction. Jane's voice was completely calm and under control after she had taken a few deep breaths: "There's no life or magic in that body. It's finished. Would you mind paying a little more attention to your surroundings?"

"What's the point? If someone wanted to attack me, you would have warned me in time."

"What if I had also focused on mudskulls here?"

Norman understood that she was alluding to his opponent's head. Now that it was no longer held in shape by magic, the skull had collapsed beneath the leathery skin and wispy strands of hair like a broken jug in a leather case.

"Wouldn't have suited you. You always keep an eye on your surroundings, no matter what's going on somewhere interesting."

"You noticed that?"

"Already at university."

"It's a shame we don't have time to go into the subject in depth now." The two smiled briefly at each other, then became serious again. Jane nodded her head further back: "That was just the horn signal for the retreat. The others around us are already on their way. We should get out of here, not be left here alone." Norman nodded, gripped the now almost useless battle staff tighter and jogged off.

Around him, other fighters were doing the same. Some conjured up the last of their battle spells and sent an impressive wave of fire, lightning and magical shockwaves across the area. Lightning caused the golems to twitch and fall to the ground, but then they picked themselves up again without any visible damage and continued to advance towards their opponents. Fire caused the corpse golems to burn, and they then changed tactics and switched to wrestling. Looking frantically to the rear, Norman could see one of the vanguard warriors screeching to the ground beneath a burning golem. Far too far to be able to rush to the rescue. And more enemies were already approaching from further back. The last thing he could see, as he stopped briefly before the edge of the exit, was the golem rising from the now lifeless and flaming warrior and thumping its chest once. The flames on its body flickered briefly once more and then died out. Unimpressed, the golem came closer again. Only the skin, burnt black in places, showed signs of the inferno that had just raged.

The transition over the entrance to the Nexus was easier for him this time, so that he only had to catch himself slightly from the ground with one hand.

A few hundred meters back along the path, the clan stopped again and set up guard posts. The warriors gathered around their leader made a very depressed impression. Hardly any of them had returned without injury. Three had been taken in pairs under the arms and carried back across the battlefield. Ashabtigor retreated for a few hours with the group leaders to the floating disk with the guardians of memory. Scouts snuck to the entrance of the Nexus and then ran to report back to him. When he came out again, he looked depressed. Apart from the sentries, the injured and those who looked after them, everyone had already gathered in a large semicircle and were waiting for him. His voice was firm:

"The number of enemies in the entrance area has tripled in the last few hours. I've heard the reports and discussed them with the guardians. Our opponents were, as most people have probably already guessed, no ordinary zombies. They were so-called corpse golems. Stronger, faster, almost invulnerable. Fireproof. Practically immune to lightning strikes. Direct physical attacks on the center of their energy in the chest area seem to be one of the few ways to destroy them. At our first attempt, they were still in a kind of resting mode. However, the guardians suspect that they can maintain their current mode for weeks. We also do not believe that the wrath in this nexus will save us from our problem. The beings are clearly creatures of the Lightbringer! Three of our warriors were killed in the first onslaught. May their souls find a good kin!"

He folded his hands in front of his body and was silent for a few minutes. Not a sound could be heard. No one coughed, no one rustled their feet. Norman had to pull himself together to remain just as quiet. Then Ashabtigor continued: "Three of our warriors are so badly injured that they won't be able to fight for the next two weeks. Most of the others have suffered more or less serious wounds. Seven of our battle staffs were either broken by the golems during the battle or were left behind during the retreat."

There was a murmur of displeasure. Leaving a weapon behind was an almost inexcusable disgrace. "The Guardians, the squad leaders and I see no way to push through into the Nexus without unacceptable losses. In fact, it is likely that more enemies are being drawn from the other openings of the Nexus and are already on their way. It would make no sense if only one of the entrances was guarded. We can't win against that. We will rest a full cycle and then turn back. At the last junction, we will walk downhill until we come to another junction where we can pick up the trail again." Without further words, he turned away and began to organize tomorrow's departure. Guards continued to be assigned, the wounded were placed on one of the floating disks. Norman could well sympathize with them.

The visibly depressed clan set off after a full cycle. Nobody talked much and every hour on the hour they looked up to the vein where the flash of light met them for the first time. They had deviated from their path. The duty to always continue on their path in the direction of their god had been drilled into them from birth. And even if they continued on this path, no one knew how long they would still be on the road. Some of the old men and women vehemently called for a storming of the Nexus, but the warriors who had been there waved them off. Even well prepared, they had no chance against these creatures. In terms of numbers, their opponents were now almost on a par with them and even if they had been outnumbered four to one, it would still have been a tough, losing battle.

One hiking cycle and one work cycle passed. As the clan prepared to settle down, Norman noticed that the sentry using one of the floating disks as a lookout over the fairly vegetationless area suddenly shaded his eyes and looked intently down the path in the current direction of travel. He grabbed the spare battle staff he had been given and gathered his two fellow students. If anything were to happen again, he would feel safer if he could keep an eye on them. He felt a gentle, cool breeze blowing through the cave, which had been constantly warm until now. The constant gentle breeze didn't get any stronger, but it was noticeably cooler. Around him, the last members of the clan became aware and unwilling exclamations were raised.

Jane frowned worriedly: "That shouldn't happen. The environmental system in Carcerus is more than reliable from what I've been able to find out. The wind blows in the direction of the light pulses everywhere. There are only a few mentions of temperature changes in the stories. None of them pleasant."

A member of the vanguard became visible in the distance as he emerged at full speed from the cover of a bush. Due to the curvature of the path, he had not been in sight until now. Behind him, the path fell away relatively steeply. Three warriors ran towards him to support him if necessary, should he be pursued. The breakneck speed at which he was running made something like that quite likely. Jane flinched before he could recognize anything: "There on the ground behind him! The ground goes dark. As if shadows were following him or..."

A cloud of complete lightless blackness rose from the "horizon" of the path. No shape could be discerned, but it filled the entire width of the path. Like a wave on the shore of a coast, the cloud of darkness shot upwards and rushed forward. The three warriors were still several hundred meters away when the running scout was overrun. From one moment to the next, he was no longer visible. The three warriors stopped as if they had run into a wall. Barely a hundred meters in front of them, the darkness slowed down and billowed only slightly upwards at the edges. At the shorter distance, the upper edge no longer appeared sharply cut off, but somehow blurred. Like a black strip of fog until it faded into complete blackness. One of the scouts crept forward slowly, while the other two retreated just as cautiously. Norman turned to a worried-looking youth next to him: "Who's that up ahead? The one who keeps sneaking up on that creepy shadow?"

"Beelzejong. My uncle."

"Isn't that dangerous?"

"We still don't know exactly what it is. My uncle can transmit everything he sees to his father's eyes. It's a pretty complicated spell that only a few of us have mastered. Unfortunately, it only works as long as his father can see him."

"Which one is his father?"

The boy waved his thumb briefly at a man in his mid-fifties, who was looking ahead intently. Suddenly he flinched and widened his eyes in horror. Norman quickly looked back at the scout. Tiny black dots, indistinguishable at a distance, were moving away from the shadow and coming towards him at high speed. He whirled his staff around in a flash, dropped it carelessly and flapped his bare hands, tapping himself. Then he turned and ran back at breakneck speed. More dots, more like a light mist, approached him from the shadows. It had now grown to half the circumference of the cave. Where he came too close to the glowing blue vein, glistening lightning flashed out and drove him away again until the shadow stabilized at a certain distance from the vein.

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The scout stumbled, staggered and fell. A horrified cry arose from the crowd. He struggled to pick himself up again and ran on. A few dark spots danced around him. Then he was through and they were left behind. Norman could see how some of the people next to him struggled to hold back from running towards him. But they did. The discipline of the clan was strong.

Everyone watched breathlessly as the scout returned. He had no obvious injuries, but he trembled and staggered the last few steps as if in a trance. He held his hand clenched tightly in front of him. When he had almost reached the clan, the guards rushed forward a little and secured the rear. Group leader and Ashabtigor stepped up to the scout and nodded to him approvingly. He bowed and held up his closed hand. The skin had turned an unhealthy pale gray. As he opened it, Norman crept closer, like almost everyone around him, and tried to catch a glimpse. At first glance, he could see nothing. Just a dark little spot. Then he moved. A palm-sized shadow hovered shakily and swayed upwards and then back and forth a little. The shadow alternately became rounder and flatter. Whatever it was swallowed up the light and therefore could not be perceived properly in three dimensions. It continued to move around restlessly, apparently unable to decide on a destination or orient itself properly. It hovered, fluttered. The longer the spectators watched him, the more they could guess his shape.

Ashabtigor was the first to speak: "A butterfly made of shadows. It somehow draws light and warmth from its surroundings. You can really feel the aura of coldness around it."

The scout nodded and held out his palm for them all to see. It was full of frostbite, the skin white and partially dying: "It's unimaginably cold near the cloud. The air was barely breathable. No one can get closer than two hundred meters alive."

"What did the plants look like?" The question slipped out of Norman's mouth before he could stop himself. Judging by the incredulous looks on his neighbors' faces, it was extremely rude to interfere.

Ashabtigor just looked at him calmly and was about to turn away again when Norman started to speak again: "I hope you have a very good reason to disregard the customs of our clan like that. Since you are new here, I will refrain from punishing you. But no matter how new you are here, Freeborn, you should also have realized that this is a conversation among the leaders of the clan. And no one is interested in plants right now. We need to focus on finding a way to destroy the cloud of shadow butterflies, or at least clear a path through it."

Norman lowered his head for a moment, concerned, but then raised his hand slightly. A gesture that was also common here to signal that he wanted to say something. Ashabtigor gave him an icy look: "I hope this is important for you."

"I think so. It's about 80 days' journey to the next junction. And we can't make much faster progress by any stretch of the imagination, can we?"

"No, we can't do that."

"I've hardly seen any animals here on the Nexus and very few edible plants."

"Yes?" Norman's behavior earned him indignant looks from all sides. Jane put a hand on his arm in warning, but he ignored her and continued, albeit somewhat unsettled: "How long will the supplies we're carrying last?"

"Twenty days with strict rationing. Can we..."

Ashabtigor's voice broke as he suddenly understood what Norman was getting at. Jane's grip on his arm tightened. She had understood too. Ignoring the healer who had just approached to bandage the scout's arm, he turned back to him: "What did the plants look like?"

"I..." He thought hard for a moment. "There was a Harvastrath bush right in front of the Shadowcloud. I remember harvesting the Harvas fruit on the way here. There were hardly any leaves left and all the unripe fruit was frozen and cracked. The grass... it glistened in the light of the vein. Nephazar threw a throwing stick forward to see if the cloud reacted. That was when the shadow butterflies moved out of the cloud and attacked us. I think the grass shattered under the throwing stick. As if frozen. I hadn't been paying attention, the sudden cold..." He exhaled sharply as the healer removed a piece of the dead skin and began a healing spell.

Ashabtigor looked around. The bystanders now also understood the problem Norman had recognized. Even if they managed to destroy or cross the deadly cloud, they would have to walk for eighty days along a route that offered no food at all. The cloud did not allow any animals to escape, it was too fast and came as too much of a surprise. Otherwise, the clan would have been warned long ago by a herd of panicked animals. Plants had died, fruit had burst. By the time they arrived, everything would be spoiled. This path offered no food. They couldn't possibly make it. Silence spread like a wave as even the quiet whispers died away and one by one they began to think.

*

Brubal had been the great magus' house servant for as long as he could remember. As soon as he could walk, he was taught to fetch things that his father then handed over to the master. By the time he was ten, he had already done other simple chores. At twelve, he was officially apprenticed to his father. Thirty great cycles ago, he had taken an afternoon off to pay his last respects to his father, who had long since retired. All the servants and some of the guards had gathered in the cellar where the old house servant had been laid to rest. Scattered dried flower petals dispelled the slight corpse odor that had already spread. Like everyone in the Nexus, he wore the soul yoke around his neck. A mystical collar made from the rune-embellished leather of gruach beasts that prevented his soul from leaving his body after death and racing through Carcerus to be reborn. The Nexus was a secret that could not simply be spread everywhere by the memories of the reborn. A place where the Lightbringer's wrath was ineffective. A place where one could settle down. Where the magus' tower and the small village around it could be built. No one knew about it. No one was allowed to know about it. Because then the Lightbringer would eventually become aware of the island of contentment and tranquillity hidden in his realm. That is why everyone was given the soul yoke on their third life cycle. The inhabitants of the Nexus were not reborn. They continued to serve their master.

Brubal still remembered well how the wise magus came in and, without saying a word, walked over to his father's corpse. He placed his hand on the collar and quietly murmured his formulae. Then light flashed through the room and the old man's eyes opened again. His mind, his character and his memories were gone and would only live on in the memories of his children and friends. But his body rose and swayed, still somewhat unsteadily, out of the room under the magus' softly murmured instructions to stand guard at one of the entrances to the Nexus. Or to cultivate one of the remote fields. Or to carry out one of the many tasks that the Exalted performed far from the eyes of the living.

The noise of battle echoed through the tower and the house servant came across wounded men, damaged doors and nervous guards everywhere. It was said that a gargoyle had entered from the roof. The magus had lured him into his room and incapacitated him there, some said. The magus had been killed and the gargoyle had fled, others said. Still others believed that the magus had finally mastered his arts to such an extent that he was able to transfer his spirit into the body of the winged one and now watched over his devoted subjects from the air.

He paused for a moment, undecided, in front of the door to his master's private chambers. They were almost closed, but the lock was not fully engaged. Very unusual. When he pushed lightly against it, it swung open quietly on the hinges, which he had oiled well as always. There was a double row of scratches on the otherwise immaculate marble floor. As his gaze followed them, he saw his master lying on the floor in front of his desk. Already drying blood caked his upper body and formed a reddish-brown pool around him. The wise magus' eyes stared upwards, glassy and uncomprehending, and an expression more of surprise than pain had etched itself on his face. The house servant ran over to him and frantically felt for a pulse. The magus' skin was cold and clammy. Not the slightest heartbeat could be felt. He was dead.

The moment Hausdiener realized this, the runes on the soul yoke glowed for the first time since he had been wearing it. Magic surged through his mind and extinguished his will like a tidal wave extinguishes a candle. The spell that the mage had hidden in all his artifacts for this very eventuality became active and cast an irresistible geas on the wearer. His pupils dilated until they almost filled his eyes. Magic guided his steps, with magic he saw. His hands moved as if automatically, opening the dead man's shirt and finding the necklace with the amulet he always wore. Day and night. Hidden by magic from the eyes of his subordinates, at least as long as he lived. A material from another world, of which Brubal would have claimed in good conscience that he had never seen anything like it. Gold and red and filled with a phosphorescent yellow glow from within. Suddenly clumsy fingers nested the chain over his head. Then he stood up and strode purposefully back through the door. His zombie-like gait and staring eyes would normally have attracted more than a little attention from the other inhabitants of the tower he crossed paths with. But wherever he turned, the runes on the collars lit up and the wearers sank to their knees, staring dumbly and blindly. Waiting.

The house servant staggered down the stairs into his master's laboratory. Where magical locks in the stone doors blocked his way, he spoke the watchwords his ears had never heard. Unchallenged by traps, corpse golems and zombies, he reached the inner sanctum, the magus' most secret laboratory. Three man-sized cylinders of pure rock crystal stood against the wall. In each one, a blurred figure was visible through the semi-transparent material. He walked to the first pillar and pressed the amulet firmly into a recess that fitted it perfectly. Golden-orange mist billowed out of the amulet and flowed through the crystal like a cloud of light and fire. The liquid in which the figure floated was filled with sparkling threads that were drawn to it like moths to a flame. The entire liquid flashed with golden light. Fine lines ran through the crystal, then cracks. Less than thirty heartbeats after the amulet had found its place, the pillar burst and sparkling luminous liquid spilled over the floor. The servant took a few steps back with still somnambulistic slowness. Too slowly to avoid all the splinters. A small one dug into his left arm, a much larger piece grazed his neck and left a deep, bleeding scratch. He didn't even flinch. The figure in the crystal was still hovering in the position in which it had held the liquid, which was now slowly seeping into small barred holes in the floor. A shockwave emanated from it, sweeping away splinters and shards in all directions. The servant, who had almost reached the wall walking backwards, was lifted up and thrown the last bit against it. The shock seemed to bring him back to his senses. Confused and disoriented, Brubal straightened up and rubbed her throbbing skull. As it followed another pain, his hand found the crack on his neck. He didn't know where he was or how he had gotten here. Nor what the floor full of crystal shards, still wet with a sparkling liquid, meant. However, he recognized the figure hovering above the now empty base of the crystal column: "Master! What has happened? I just found you in your rooms, I thought you were dead!" The figure did not react. Its eyes remained closed, its face expressionless.

"Master?" He approached him hesitantly and gently reached out to tap him lightly. As soon as his finger touched the floating body, the soul yoke on his neck flashed again. Energy flowed from his body in glistening arcs into his master's body. The energy of his soul and his life. The last thing he perceived before he died was the gasping sound of his master's new body taking its first breath.

The reborn Lord Mage floated gently down onto the pedestal and opened his eyes. He swayed briefly and almost fell as his mind took control of his new body's motor functions. He walked indifferently past the corpse of his faithful servant and took a warm robe made of bear sheep's wool and comfortable slippers from the nearby closet. Then he examined the two remaining crystal cylinders and made sure that they were still undamaged. The last two clones he had made of himself were floating inside them in a magically preserving liquid. He was slightly annoyed that he now had to set to work again several years earlier to create a new clone. He also had to grow a new crystal cylinder. Just the time it would take him to grow enough crystals, assemble them and shape them into the right form... Not to mention all the rituals and necessary enchantments. It was bad enough having to go through all the fuss every fifty years when his current body was starting to fail. And now he was losing one of his replacement clones to a damn gargoyle. Only now did he take a closer look at the dead servant for the first time. Brubal. A tinge of pity tried to develop in him, but was lost along the way in the mage's completely stunted emotional life. Why did he have to find Brubal of all people? He had always liked him very much. But only life could give life. Whoever brought down his amulet therefore had to die in order to fully activate his clone. He bent down to his former servant and picked up the amulet to put it back on. By now, the gargoyle would have safely left the tower. He went to a large crystal-inlaid symbol on the wall and placed his hand on it. It lit up slightly for a moment. All of his servants would now awaken and be able to move. At least there was no high probability that anything else important had happened while he was out of action.

*

The war council was well organized and systematically went through all the options in a short space of time. Suggestions were made and rejected again. Norman kept a low profile for the most part and just listened. After he had been the first to recognize the small problem with the lack of food behind the swarm of shadow butterflies, his judgment had been given considerable respect. He had no intention of spoiling this with a nonsensical interjection. And he still had very limited knowledge of the local conditions or the possibilities of the clan mages. He listened carefully to what was being discussed and extracted the information he needed.

The shadow butterflies were attracted by heat. The body heat of a human was enough to attract them. Fire or magically heated rocks worked even better. One plan was to distract the swarm in order to get past it. If that was what you wanted. The details were a little complicated. Whoever had created this world was safeguarding it against the fairly obvious danger of wildfires. Living plants didn't burn as long as they were still rooted. No matter how much heat and fire they were exposed to. The discussion focused more on whether they wanted to get past the swarm at all or whether they should break through into the nexus. In the meantime, he had worked out a plan that he thought would work and that no one had come up with yet. He waited a while longer and scanned his strategy for errors. It wasn't perfect, but it was still better than all previous plans. He wanted to steer the shadow cloud around the clan with heat sources and lure it into the nexus. There it would freeze the corpse golems. Jane had confirmed to him that the kind of cold the swarm caused could also immobilize the undead bodies. Then, before the swarm could disperse into the Nexus, the clan would use fireballs to lure it back into the path. While the clan would re-enter the nexus and cross it as quickly as possible and leave by another route, some of the mages would continue to keep the swarm busy with heat sources. It was to be feared that the shadow butterflies would multiply rapidly as soon as they were provided with an excess of their food, i.e. heat. It was therefore important to extinguish the heat sources before the swarm reached them. In this way, they were attracted without being fed. He had also thought about this. When he raised his hand to say something, he was given the floor almost immediately. Now he just couldn't make a mistake. He stood up slowly and began: "Well, I think I have a plan that might work. Here's what we should try..."

He bent down to draw his plan with a stick on the exposed and flattened piece of ground where other clan members had already carved sketches of their proposals into the earth. He was pleased to see that he really had the undivided attention of the others. They were finally taking him seriously! Only a low, unintelligible murmur sounded somewhere in the background. He looked up inconspicuously from his drawing and tried to locate the source. But somehow he couldn't really judge the direction. It was as if it was coming from all directions at once. An unfamiliar, youthful voice, croaking slightly from a poorly survived voice break, mumbling something. It kind of sounded like someone was quoting Shakespeare, except he couldn't really understand the words. He tried to ignore the noise and bent over his drawing again: "So, this is the entrance to the Nexus, this is where the Shadow Cloud is, and this is where we are right now. I would now suggest that we make our way over here as far to the side of the path as possible until the bend becomes so steep that we can't get any further. Then..."

The stick fell out of his hands, he broke off in mid-sentence, toppled over and crashed unchecked with his face into the dirt.

The clan members waited anxiously for a moment to see if the interesting maneuver was part of the demonstration of the plan. Then Jane could hold back no longer. She pushed her way through the crowd, turned him onto his back with some difficulty and placed her hand on Norman's neck: "Weak, barely perceptible pulse. And much too slow. He's unconscious! How did this happen?"

A clansman with hands elongated into long, sharp claws also bent down and muttered an incantation. As he moved his hand over his body, a faint blue aura became visible: "He was robbed."