The abduction was sudden, swift, and silent. There was no warning, except the little tug at his groin where instinct kicked in – too late – and whispered in his ear to listen to the abrupt hush of sweet chirpings and squirrel chatter. A rustle in the leaves said Beware, but he did not heed the caveat, did not even notice all the signs of another presence until it was too late.
He saw only a shadow of darkness, slinking toward him, out of the corner of his eye. His stallion reared up nervously, the whites of his eyes showing around the riotous brown irises. Something iridescent silver gleamed at the edge of his vision, dancing, teasing, like a hoary-winged fairy mocking him playfully, cruelly. An icy long-fingered hand enclosed around his neck and squeezed it, forcing the last of his precious oxygen from his lungs and permitting none to return. Metallic steel pressed against the tender flesh of his throat and he growled deep in his throat with terror and indignation. He felt the blade of knife or dagger or sword delicately pierce the soft tissue, and he felt trickles of blood ooze languidly down his throat and seep into his collar. He convulsed spasmodically – he was never one to laugh at the feel and sight of his own crimson blood – and felt darkness like creeping spirits sneak into his sight. And then, to end it all, the butt of something solid and blunt struck his head, and he wondered briefly if it would result in a concussion before he slipped into an abyss of gracious, merciful darkness.
Around the unconscious noble the wind stirred with summoned magic, shuddering through the branches of trees and causing the earth to flinch like an approaching earthquake. The magic roared forth from ancient nodes, meekly obeying the white hand that beckoned it forth. It changed the air to glittering kaleidoscopic colors, shimmering flimsily like it was bending, like it was a shattered rainbow being constructed to meet its creator's needs.
While the colors turned and twisted in silent beauty, white light and a flash of searing agony – felt even by the young squire, cataleptic though he was – engulfed the blackly cloaked figure who held him in his grasp like a sack of old wormy flour. Fire, an inferno of scorching might, flared from the blinding white to char and singe the healthy green needles of the pines and the budding emerald leaves of other trees. It left the earth around it black and smoking, sizzling and painful to the touch, obvious that it was fire that burnt bare soil.
The assassin and the squire were nowhere to be found.