With Daud’s hearing stopped up, he doesn’t even have the noise to warn him — although he’d expected something as much to happen. Things that looked half dead weren’t necessarily so. Claws hook and prick into the back of his hood, and the flash of light at the corner of his vision give him enough presence of mind to pivot a leg out of the way of heat-charged teeth.

“Stubborn to the last,” he rasps out. Too loudly.

Keeping his grip tight on his sword, he turns to aim to slam his back — and Deirdre clinging on him with it — against the wall, hoping to stun the tern, or spook it into letting go.