.
After pondering her answer, Nam chose to simply state,”They cannot sense whether they have a shot, Jack.”
He looked down at her with a frown. “Why would they be unable to sense us when I can sense them?”
“Jack… what you are doing is not something just anyone can learn. The squad leader can probably sense our positions, but it’s a rare artist who can also sense every tree between, through all this brush. The fact that you’ve mastered as much as you have in one day… it’s next to impossible. Frankly, most do not have the potential to master this much at all. They would have to train in exotic techniques that few even know about, to cultivate to such a level.”
A vague moment of confusion passed through her, and then she blinked as she noticed the guardsman was shaking her.
“Stay with me, lady. They’re moving again.”
Several seconds had just gone missing from her awareness, she realized. She had nodded off. She shook her head to clear it.
“Right. Sorry.”
The enemy worked in wiser fashion now. The squad leader and two remaining troops had begun advancing, one soldier moving at a time as the other two fired from cover. At first, Jack didn’t move when they fired. She remembered him holding his ground rather than ducking during the previous attack as well.
After several rounds though, he at last pulled her behind a tree as a blast from the squad leader’s weapon narrowly missed them.
A wild idea occurred to her. “Are you seeing where their shots will land?”
“Yeah. Or at least, I know if they won’t hit me.”
She took back her analysis. This level of flux-sense actually was impossible, even for a fairly experienced artist. Or ought to be.
He glanced down at her. “What?”
“Perhaps you have something built into that strange ethen helping you. You can’t have learned such an outrageous technique in one day.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Maybe. But it doesn’t feel like something else is telling me.”
She looked at the revolver in his hands. “Can you be as accurate with that weapon?”
He barked a short laugh. “With a snubnose 44 special? Not a chance in hell. But they’re getting close now, so… Okay, we have one trying to flank us. Can you do one more?”
She pulled in a breath to summon a bit more energy, and instead felt her head spin and her world bend into gray.
A blast like the bellow of a thunder god brought her back. The guardsman had an arm wrapped around her shoulders as he half-carried, half-dragged her through the underbrush. She gripped his arm and got her feet under her to carry some of her own weight.
The commotion and confusion came from all directions around them. Rogan’s voice was mixed into it. She didn’t hear his handgun so she had no doubt he was trying to fight his way in to reach her, wielding twin swords against soldiers with infantry weapons.
“Old fool,” she whispered at the man.
Jack pulled her back down into the brush as a bolt struck a nearby tree. He raised his weapon to fire at the source.
Her ears rang from the titanic sound, far louder than his other weapon. It was the same blast that had woke her a short while ago. She demanded, “What in Heaven is that monstrous thing?”
He didn’t answer her question. “More troops about to arrive. On horses, maybe?”
She pushed herself as hard as she could to find them. They must have been cloaked, but whatever was suppressing the sound of their hoofbeats didn’t stop the vibrations in the earth. Her eyes flew open and she squeezed his arm.
“Don’t shoot!…”
Her head swum again, then she lost to the swarming gray.
