Author's Note: Pleasedon'tkillmepleasedon'tkillmepleasedon'tkillme.

21.

April come she will
When streams are ripe and swelled with rain;
May, she will stay,
Resting in my arms again.
June, shell change her tune,
In restless walks she'll prowl the night;
July, she will fly
And give no warning to her flight.

August, die she must,
The autumn winds blow chilly and cold.

- Simon and Garfunkel, "April Come She Will"

Something woke me. I didn't know what.

For a while, I looked at the sky and tried to clear the tattered rags and remnants of sleep from my head.

I'd been dreaming of the cloaked man. That had been happening a lot lately – ever since I'd started thinking of him again.

Sometimes, in my dreams, we were in the park, and I relived that night over and over again.

Other times, we were on a mountain peak somewhere, stone at our backs and empty air in front of us. He seemed to want to say something to me, but his voice sounded just like the howl of the wind, and I couldn't understand him.

Not that I wanted to hear what he had to say, mind you. The son of a bitch had already done enough damage. He could take his words and shove them up his ass, as far as I was concerned.

I stared up at the unfamiliar stars and listened to the rustle of leaves in the wind.

Strange, I thought. Shouldn't there be crickets? And birds? And…stuff?

I wasn't much of a zoologist. I couldn't have said what kind of wildlife was usually responsible for all of the noise I'd been hearing at night. I just had this weird sensation that there should have been more of it.

I heard the crunching footsteps of the caravan guards and turned my head.

Two silhouettes were outlined by the light of a dying campfire. "All's quiet?" one of them asked.

The other one grunted. "Too quiet," he said. "I mislike it."

The first one chuckled. "Shar love you, you bloody doomsayer," he said. "Lighten up. The wizard's-"

I heard a click, and a strange buzzing noise.

Whatever the guard was going to say next was replaced by a gurgle.

I saw him clutch at his throat. Something fountained out from between his fingers. He tried to say something, but only a choked, bubbling sound came out.

Then he fell to his knees, and from there he toppled forward onto his face.

He twitched a few times, flopping like a landed fish. Then he lay all too still.

The other guard stared down at him. He clawed for his sword. "Beshaba's Tits!" he bellowed. "To arms, lads! The wards are down!"

I heard that click again. Something thwipped through the air. A clod of dirt sprayed up not far from my feet.

"It's those fucking bandits!" Hana shouted. "Up, you louts! Up! Form a perimeter, damn your eyes! Form!"

More buzzing things zipped through the air. They were arrows, or bullets, or something.

Some of them hit the ground, or tents, or trees. Others hit men, and some of those men went down.

Harry was already up and moving. I hadn't seen him, but I think he must have been up since the first shot. As I watched, he reached up into the air and caught one of those flying missiles on his wrist, knocking it harmlessly off to the side.

He turned and saw me. Before I could react, he took a running leap, grabbed me by the collar, and pulled me into the shadow of a tree trunk. Then he made a stay there, stay quiet motion and ran back into the fray.

The monk jumped into the middle of an ongoing fight, landing a spinning kick on a bandit's head and then knocking another one of those missiles out of the air. Then he yanked one of the guards out of the way of an incoming sword strike and punched another bandit in the throat with his free hand.

The bandit fell like a stone, and I thought I think he's dead I think he just died and I wanted to look away, but I couldn't. He'd been attacking the camp, so he was a bad guy, but dead is dead and bad versus good doesn't seem so important when a living person turns into a corpse before your very eyes.

Lightning crackled overheard. "Break my wards, will you?!" Teddy shouted shrilly. "You villain! You fink! You verminous rapscallion!" Blueish light whoomphed, somewhere off in the trees. "Ha! Now there's a taste of your own medicine! How's that for a dispelling, eh?"

Chaos unfolded around me, filled with shouts and screams and the clash of metal against metal.

I stared at it all, huddled there clutching at my blanket and gaping in open-mouthed shock.

I wanted to go and help, do something, but every time I thought of getting up I heard the sound of someone getting shot and the sounds they made as they fell, and my blood froze.

I'd never seen people getting hurt and dying like this before. All I seemed capable of doing was to sit there and watch in numb horror.

Maybe that's why my brain was so far behind in processing what happened next.

I saw a hail of missiles, and saw Harry turn to dodge or deflect them or whatever he did.

I heard a whistle and a thunk. I saw Harry jerk, and I wondered what kind of strange new maneuver he was doing now.

Then I saw the spreading stain on the front of his shirt. The moonlight turned it black. I almost didn't recognize it for what it was.

Then I understood what it was, and, just as the understanding hit me, he collapsed.

I didn't realize that I'd shed my blanket and crawled across the campground to him until I got over to him.

He was curled up on his side, and the dark stain had spread. It covered the front of his chest.

I rolled him over. His eyes were open, but he didn't seem to see me.

I didn't understand what was wrong with him. "Come on, Harry," I pleaded with him. I struggled to get my arm under his shoulders, tried to get him to sit up. "Get up. Don't do this, get up, come on, look at me, look at me, come on-"

That seemed to get some reaction. His eyes rolled and fixed on me. He smiled, faintly, and his hand lifted towards me, like he wanted to reassure me, tell me not to worry so much.

Then his eyes went fixed, and I knew with terrible certainty that he wasn't seeing me anymore.

************************************************************************************

Eventually, some hands grabbed my arms and tried to pull me away.

Fuck you, I thought, and thrashed against the hands that held me.

I'd been pounding on Harry's chest and yelling at him to wake the fuck up, but for some reason, he wasn't listening, wasn't even moving.

The hands wouldn't let me go. I lashed out. My fist connected with what felt like someone's face, and I fought my way back to my friend's side.

I can't just leave him here, I thought incoherently. He'll be lonely. I can't just leave him.

Then someone was saying those spidery words that went straight through my skull, and my vision was swallowed by a violet light.

Then, for a while, I saw nothing at all.