The whistle stirred somewhere deep in Erik’s subconscious but it was the stranger’s voice that actually woke him up. His eyes opened slowly and he immediately shielded them from the sun. The silhouette of the stranger alarmed him when he saw curling horns and piercing, unnatural eyes staring down at him. The smell of death baking in the sun all around him certainly did not help either.
With a half-hearted kick at the stranger’s ankles, Erik managed press himself against the wagon in to a more upright, sitting position. When a cloud drifted in front of the sun, though he could see that it was not some sort of demon or voidling from his nightmares but just a man.
With the cobwebs cleared, Erik recalled the events of last night and he was dismayed all over again. Yet when he looked up at this man, his cynicism trumped his despair and he managed a sneer. “Are you from the guild?”