The word was barely a whisper. His fingers clawed at his shirt. His heart — his heart was doing something wrong. Something it had never done. It was being squeezed. Not from the outside. From the inside. As if a hand had reached through his ribs, through his flesh, through his bones, and was 'compressing' his heart with the slow, deliberate, 'I-am-not-rushing' pressure of absolute power.
He couldn't breathe.
"Wh — what is—"
The commanders felt it. All of them. Simultaneously. Ten men — rugged, experienced, war-hardened men who had faced cavalry charges and arrow barrages without flinching — grabbed their chests. Their wine cups shattered. Their chicken plates scattered. The table — moments ago a scene of casual, conqueror's indulgence — became a tableau of suffocating, clawing, gasping men.
"OUTSIDE!" someone screamed. Varmen — the strategist, the man who had never held a sword — was already running. His glasses fell from his face. He didn't stop.
