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Creatures, unlike anything he had ever seen, emerged from the swirling mess. A flock of them covered in iridescent jewel coloured that reflected all available light.
Each had elaborate flank plumes, six flag-tipped long lustrous barbs projecting back from their heads, and glowing head streamers with an enamelled appearance.
Although glossy, their forms were so large, beaks and talons chromed with menace and eyes parsing with radiance. They were a macabre fusion of beauty and feral intensity.
They were chasing something.
Nada. Someone.
His breath hitched.
It was a girl. Although she was in transmuted form, she had a similar multi-pronged krest.
She ran hard and fast toward him, stumbling, wailing, and screaming for help as her pursuers dived for her. In her hand were three koyas, long, lean and shaped into sleek swords, each shimmering with ancient runes that danced and shifted like living embers.
The air around the lass, and indeed up into the prismatic sky, was charged. With gold and sable cinders and end trails of flames, the latter swallowed by the former in a beautiful war of elements and light.
The flock of wild-coloured creatures roared, drowning out the winds, charging at the maiden, who was still advancing toward him.
With a cry, he leapt into the firmament, his feet leaving the ground as he soared towards the colossal birds. It was a desperate move, but he had no other choice.
The girl’s life and his safety depended on it.
She, too, raised the three koya into the sky, where they began to spin in perfect harmony. The swords whirled and shimmered, dancing light and shadow as the monstrous creatures dove toward them.
Then she turned, and his core lurched as her facial features shifted from a stranger’s face to one he recognised with a jolt.
With a smile, she launched the rune-covered daggers.
At him.
Killen woke with a start, heart pounding.
He rubbed his glazed eyes, which were still lost in his nightmare.
One achingly familiar, for he’d seen it many times in the past few years.
It was the same vision: a desperate chase in a lonely place with a young woman and a score of iridescent, freakish creatures.
He recalled it all: the girl’s pleading eyes, koya swords, and the blades of light and shadow.
As dawn’s illumination filtered through the holes of the misshapen prison tent, he freed his mind to drift.
Letting himself wonder about the maiden and the source of the mysterious swirling sandstorm that haunted his dreams.
A commotion at the entrance to the marquee cut through his mental meandering.
A burly winged Kärd stood framed in the doorway, speaking with the watch.
They both turned in his direction, the latter pointing at Killen as he levered onto one elbow.
‘Move. Now. It seems you have friends in high places. Commander Kaxim sends for you,’ the prison guard called out.
Fokk, finally.
Kaxim had kept him waiting a few days now. He and Killen had agreed to this tactic, in part to quell any suspicion that the commander had been seen with or spirited the usurper into Katáne.
His incarceration hadn’t been all that bad.
