Grubs felt his mind sharpened.
This was a battlefield. His commander was and in danger. His comrades were fighting for their lives and losing.

This was a situation he understood and could act.
His grip on the mace tightened. He wasn’t helpless.
Aldren was the key. He had to be. His sanctity could drive back this madness.

Grubs’ first step out of the tent nearly made him fall. A bit of something dark red and undistinguishable brought him to a knee. But, he stood. His purpose was more important than trying to distinguish what – or rather who – he had stepped in.

Grubs’ blue eyes focused on a tent some ten yards away. It was a little bigger than the others and made of a once-white material. It had turned gray over the course of traveling. But, shining like a star among in the darkness. the tent was oddly untouched. The invaders had somehow not reached or ignored it.

The tents surrounding it, however, were in various states of collapse. Sides had been removed. A small part of his mind wondered why. The devastation in the camp was growing and gruesome in its totality. Why was Aldren’s tent spared?

But, the thought was fleeting and the smell of smoked flesh and spilled blood filled his nose.
Grubs charged forward, ignoring the carnage and screams around him.

—

Aldren awoke, he felt, almost lazily.

He could feel the tension from his men and in the air.
Screams and the sounds of ripping flesh filled his ears. The heat from the burning camp was making the air in his tent stifling.

He opened his eyes.

The air above his head was hazy.
The outside noises became louder. Still, he didn’t move.
Not a finger twitched.

Aldren breathed deeply. He exhaled slowly and closed his eyes.

He reached inside himself. Passing through a thin layer of panic and the thickness of disinterest, he felt for a solid light. To his inner eye, it was a formless mass. Small but bright, it held the potential his instructors and masters saw in him. With his mind’s eye hands, he reached for it.

Taking care not to let any of it slip through his spectral fingers, he began to roll the massless shape between two hands. It became a ball and started to increase in size. The more attention and care he provided, the stronger the light. It started to become laced with silver streaks as the concentration of the ball could no longer handle the power inside.

With great care and effort, Aldren pulled the ball from the incorporeal plane. Through the nothingness, into his soul, and then his body, the ball of energy held firm. Aldren coaxed it into his stomach and rested.

Carefully relaxing his mental grasp, he allowed the energy to unfurl. It radiated out, through his bones and organs. It entered his blood. With each beat of his heart, it supplied warmth and protection until, eventually, it became part of his sweat.

Only then did Aldren open his eyes and sit up.