The creature crumpled like a length of rough cloth.
Miach dropped to his knees, feeling half dead himself.
"Miach!"
He could only manage to shake his head. He felt Morgan's hands on his shoulders and found himself wrenched upright.
"Are you wounded?" she asked.
Miach knelt there, sucking in breath in an alarming fashion. He shook his head again, the only answer he could make. He was almost certain Morgan looked worried. Or he could have just been imagining that. He couldn't actually see her face anymore for all the spots dancing in front of his eyes.
"You don't appear to be bleeding," she said with a frown.
"I'm not," he managed. "Just spent."
"Miach, there weren't that many of them," she chided. "And look you there; it would appear that many of them simply died on their own."
Miach would have snorted out a laugh at the irony of that, but he was too busy trying to catch his breath.
She took hold of the sword at his side. "Where did you find this? Is it yours?"
"Nay," he gasped. "Leave it behind."
She rose easily and jammed it into the ground. "Have you ever been in a battle before, Miach?"
"Once or twice."
"Do you always react this way?" She looked down at him narrowly. "You aren't going to puke, are you?"
He shook his head.
"Good. Don't. Or if you're going to, don't do it on me."
"Won't," he agreed.
"Don't move."
"If you say so," he said faintly.
She shot him another look of thinly veiled concern, then cleaned her sword and resheathed it. She walked around the glade for several moments, looking down at the creatures slain there and shaking her head slowly.
Miach understood completely. He knelt there, wheezing, and managed to get his head upright where he could at least see what he'd killed. He wasn't surprised to see spells hanging in tatters around the trolls. Miach renewed his determination to have a closer look at Adhémar's sword. He suspected he might find the same thing there.
Morgan came to the last troll, the one he had felled with his magic. She stopped, looked at the creature for a moment or two in silence, then turned and strode over to Miach.
"Come," she said, hauling him to his feet. "I do not like this at all. "
"Did you see something?" he asked.
"That creature," she said, shivering. "He is much like the one that came at Adhémar. If his sword hadn't come to life?" She stopped speaking. She looked at Miach with wide eyes. "I mean?"
"I already know," Miach said, struggling to get his feet under him.
"Who told you?" she demanded.
"Fletcher," Miach said. "Accidentally. Kill him later."
"I just might," she said, reaching out to steady him. "I suppose I will have to trust you with that secret as well. After the past two days, I daresay there are few still left between us."
