"Ahhh, the youth with the cleverness," Francis said. "How delightful that you managed to speak up. So clever you think yourself to be, and yet you weren't able to see through the traps that I left you? Tut, tut. A fool in a lecturer's hat. I might leave you – but not for your sake."
"For who's, then?" Nolan asked.
The voice cackled, this laugh more maddening than the last. "I'll leave that for you to figure out, foolish ONE."
The last word of that sentence contained within it a power that wasn't purely verbal. It was a power that seemed to resonate with the wind itself. As the sound travelled, it violently shook the branches with it, and when it finally met their ears, it sent a whole mass of three hundred men hurtling backwards, Vol included.
