was like a megaphone in her ears and she shook her head trying to escape from the noise. Opening her eyes all she could see was fabric inches from her face, and as she tried to orientate herself she realized she must be being carried upside down on someone’s back like a sack of potatoes thrown over a shoulder. Immediately she began to beat the back with her fists.
“Let me down,” she cried out her voice muffled by clothing. In rising panic, she punched even more and began to kick out with her feet.
“Let me down,” she cried out again.
She felt the movement stop and her body being swung round and planted on her feet. As she gained her balance and her eyes adjusted to the moonlight she found herself staring into fierce blue eyes set in a rough, angular face, the same face she had briefly seen in a clearing during a battle she was sure must have been a dream.
“We do not have time for this,” he said in a harsh voice.
“Time for what?” asked Nicola angrily, her voice sounding alarmingly loud. “And while you’re at it tell me who the hell you are and what is happening to me.” As she spoke she realized that she was still naked although the mud and darkness covered her. Her body was buzzing. Feint breaths of wind felt like a hurricane against her skin, sending waves of goose pimples up and down her limbs, and she shivered. Even with the moonlight she could see everything in such clarity and detail she was amazed, and after a few moments of standing she could hardly keep still such was the energy flooding through her.
“Forgive me, my name is Falk,” he said in reply, his eyes never leaving her face. “I am a Warrior of the Light. I served Gwen, last Warder of the Emerald Forest.”
Nicola stared at him dumbfounded. Her senses were still reeling from the events of the past hour, only now beginning to send signals to her brain that she was standing naked in the middle of nowhere in front of a complete stranger who claimed to be some kind of warrior, and that she was quite possibly in grave danger.
Falk noticed the change in her bearing and composure. “Please, I know this is all unbelievable to you but I am not going to harm you. I am here to protect you.”
Nicola began to back away, desperate to run, but to where? A few hundred meters behind him, on the near horizon, an orange glow signalled streetlamps and hopefully a village or at least some houses, but how she would reach them she had no idea.
“I don’t know who you are or where this is but you better not take one step closer or I will make so much noise the police will be here before you know it.”
He raised his hands in surrender.
“You were there. You saw the Rider, saw his power. It is you he wants.”
“What are you talking about? What do you mean?” asked Nicola continuing to back away. “An hour ago I was having dinner with a friend and now he is gone and my body feels like it is on fire and my head is full of something really weird. Then I feel like I am not in control of myself and am in this woodland and there is some kind of battle going on with swords and arrows like some fantasy film. Then I wake up on the back of some man I have never seen before who, for all I know, is going to murder me in the middle of nowhere and all for what?” Nicola fought back the sobs that threatened to overwhelm her, while all the time the man just stood there watching her but not making any moves towards her.
“What is your name?” he called to her.
“Why should I tell you?” she replied almost hysterical.
“Please, Gwen died saving you.”
Nicola registered the pain in his eyes and it was like a switch hitting her, all her rational defenses breaking down to be replaced by a realization that this was real, that everything Paul had said in the hotel dining room, as the dusk bled light from the sky, had to be true.
“Nicola,” she said. “My name is Nicola.”
“Then listen to me Nicola,” said Falk across the void between them.
“This is no fantasy. When a Warder’s human life ends their place is taken by another who becomes the bridge between this world