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Brugh was no sapling, not anymore.
He had lived apart from the Grove for years, now, taking to the jungle just as easy. He was no stranger to danger, facing close encounters with the Risen and worse on a daily basis. He could fight, to protect himself and to protect others. He had face injury, as well, and distance from those he felt the closest to. Emotions from the worst to the best and everything in between; sadness and loss, happiness and love.
But only now did he realise what true, genuine fear was.
Fear was losing control over his own body, unable to move or speak or blink; unable to scream for help. Fear was being surrounded by darkness, night having long fallen and the moon with her back on the world. Fear was the distance between himself and his only hope, the muffled sounds of his fellow wardens fighting barely reaching him. Fear was claustrophobic. Sharp fingers gripping his armour. The click-clacking of bones. A shadow moving with too much form. A blade on his neck. A whiff of death. Poison. A whisper. A threat. His name in a voice too familiar and too not. A pair of pupilless green eyes so close to his own. A breath on his bark. Warm. Intimate.
“Totara…” His voice cracked; faltered on the last syllable and dropped to a whisper. Brugh curled his fingers, searching for purchase on the arm holding him down, searching for leverage to replace the leaves of his armour between those fingers with his own hand.
“Last chance, Brugh.”
The courtier’s voice was a hot whisper on the corner of the warden’s lips. The hold on armour eased, their fingers brushing. He was still trapped, though, Totara’s larger build looming over him on one knee, a foot by his head blocking his view of the skirmish he could hear. The distance between them closed a little. Brugh almost lifted his own head to close it entirely. The blade pressed in tighter against the side of his neck, the tip threatening to pierce through bark.
“I’m not asking.”
The warden’s eyes flutter closed with a stuttering exhale. “Pl… ease…” he begged, voice shaking on every breath, barely enough strength to blow a blade of grass. “Stop…”
The sharp screech of a bird overhead went ignored; a yell of the courtier’s name in warning, unheard. Totara’s eyes narrowed and his lips drew back in a snarl. A deadlock of silence and stillness ignoring the world around them.
The courtier’s name, louder, more desperate, closer. His sister. Close enough to finally draw away attention with a turn of Totara’s head back over his shoulder. Brugh knew a chance when he saw it, and he knew to take it.
One hand reached to his hip to grab for his dagger while the other shoved at the weight above him. Surprise gave him the upper hand just long enough to roll them over and to bury his blade to the hilt in Totara’s thigh. But desperation often leads to carelessness, and the favour was returned within moments, blinding Brugh’s vision with a sharp, hot flash of white.
The weight on top of him was forcibly removed with a gust of wind above him, but it was all the warden could care to take notice of. He couldn’t see, blinded, unable to open his eyes. He writhed, fingers grasping at his neck then his face and shoulders and arms and further as the pain spread like boiling water through his body. Screaming. There was screaming, distant. Further than the fight, but right beside him. Echoing in his own ears. A desperate call of his name, familiar against the sound of clashing blades. A sudden chill, a pall passing over his body for the briefest of moments.
Death, come to ease his suffering.
“Coward, shrouding away like that.” It was easier to hear in wake of the end of the fight; the lowering of blades and the pain ebbing from his body into the ground beneath him. “How is he, Hara?”
“Stable enough. Numb, I hope.”
A murmur. A hand on his shoulder. A hand not on his shoulder. Brugh tried to turn his head to look, unable to decide if the contact was there or not, but found no strength in his body. Paralysed, again. Trapped in his own body and the darkness of the back of his eyelids and voices growing more and more distant by the second.
“Mahu, help me lift him. We need to get him to the menders, immediately.”
“I can’t believe he’d kill Brugh of all people… Especially after Trahearne...”
“Perhaps it is for the best that Totara believes him dead…”