Nyden twitched beneath me and lay still.
The terrible hush stretched. Then the ground began to shake, the threatening rumble of an approaching earthquake. Intense pressure built, lying heavy upon me like a physical weight and choking the air from my lungs. I curled around Nyden and Pense curled around me and we lay, hunched and shaking, waiting.
When the explosion came, it rocked the island in a terrific blast of energy. The ground bucked and shuddered and rolled, and debris rained down upon us in a deadly hail of stone and glass and metal. The noise was unbearable. I thought the tumult would go on forever but at last the noise lessened, the ground stopped shaking and the sickening, pulsing waves of expelled energy slowed and finally ceased altogether.
Pense and I sat up slowly. We were
