by P R Glazier
Chapter 45. Death in the Night.
Lying under the warm fur skin blankets on the floor of Deanola’s house Nar’Allia was restless. Once more her mind was too active to sleep no matter how hard she tried to rest it. She had a sudden thought. She could see Serinae’s old quiver hanging on a post by her side. She reached up and took it down. She also reached for one of the explosive arrows, only six remained now within her own quiver, not enough she thought if their plans came to fruition and the dark elves responded to their threat. She withdrew one and hesitated, then with a shrug she closed her eyes and inserted the arrow into Serinae’s quiver. She waited. Eventually she opened one eye, to her dismay, the arrow just sat there, alone. But then a shimmering appeared next to the lone arrow and she narrowed her eyes in the dim light from the dwindling embers in the hearth trying to focus. Sure enough other arrows were appearing within the quiver, ethereal arrows, all looked the same as the one she had placed within. Once she was sure that the arrows were there and she didn’t dream them, she reached out slowly half expecting her fingers to pass through the arrows, but she had found a confidence and a willingness to have faith, she knew within her that the arrows were real, well as real as they could be in this state, but she still gasped as she felt the flights. She withdrew an arrow from the quiver and within seconds there in her hands she held one of the arrows with the bulbous ends, it had materialised in a moment, she smiled and gave a small giggle, someone else giggled with her. She whispered, “thank you Seri.”
After this Nar’Allia drifted off to sleep, but no sooner it seemed had she closed her eyes when she heard the voice again. “Quiet Seri, I need some sleep tonight.” She tried to ignore the nagging small voice in her head. But some alarm was in the tone of the voice and Nar’Allia sat up in the darkened room. At first all she could hear was the noises of others asleep, but as her eyes became accustomed to the low light given off by what remained of the smouldering embers in the hearth she thought she perceived a dark shape, or at least the shadow of one moving across the far wall in the area where Nar’Allia knew Deanola lay. Silently Nar’Allia rose; she carefully picked up the two short swords from beside her where she had left them, she moved slowly not to make any noise. She did not want to wake the others for no reason, they needed their sleep to.