With two all-out attacks at the same time, even if one is only a shrieking child, Lady Briarwood seems ever so briefly caught off guard.
Only briefly, though. The hand she stretches out isn't casting a killing spell, this time; it catches Cassandra in midair, lifting her off the floor like a struggling kitten in a mastiff's jaws.
"Cass!" screams Vesper, and "Stand down, all of you," shouts Lady Briarwood, "or --"
Phil never hears what comes after or this time around; it's lost in the blinding boom of Lord Briarwood's greatsword pommel meeting his temple.
It's so easy to die. Waking is harder.
There's cold damp stone under his cheek, and pain in his head and wrists and shoulders, and the smells of smoke and blood and vomit and worse, and the sound of exhausted sobbing somewhere nearby. And the sound of metal scraping on stone, if he tries to move.
His wrists are manacled together, weighted down too heavily to tell just yet if they're fastened to anything else. It may take him some time to realize that in addition, his wings have been hobbled: wrenched backward and chained together, cuffs somehow forced through the webbing of each wing to close around the limb.
cw: more injury/mild gore
Only briefly, though. The hand she stretches out isn't casting a killing spell, this time; it catches Cassandra in midair, lifting her off the floor like a struggling kitten in a mastiff's jaws.
"Cass!" screams Vesper, and "Stand down, all of you," shouts Lady Briarwood, "or --"
Phil never hears what comes after or this time around; it's lost in the blinding boom of Lord Briarwood's greatsword pommel meeting his temple.
It's so easy to die. Waking is harder.
There's cold damp stone under his cheek, and pain in his head and wrists and shoulders, and the smells of smoke and blood and vomit and worse, and the sound of exhausted sobbing somewhere nearby. And the sound of metal scraping on stone, if he tries to move.
His wrists are manacled together, weighted down too heavily to tell just yet if they're fastened to anything else. It may take him some time to realize that in addition, his wings have been hobbled: wrenched backward and chained together, cuffs somehow forced through the webbing of each wing to close around the limb.