He could see Douglas's widened eyes and his body lunging toward him. He could see the other man's lips moving, his voice coming from far away, the blast muffling half the ends of his words until only the contours of the final syllables remained discernible.
He collapsed onto a half-ruined stone slab wall and looked down at his right shoulder—he could not see the wound itself, only the fabric there being pushed up by blood before collapsing again. Along the edges of the cloth were the angular bulges of bone fragments, dull gray-white beneath the moonlight.
The ground beneath him was rapidly soaking through with blood. Muddy water in the cracks between the stones mixed with the blood from that area and seeped toward the lower ground, its edges spreading outward without pause. His back rested against the base of the wall, while the fingertips of his left hand dug into a crack in the stone as he struggled to keep himself steady. His vision began narrowing from the edges inward, as though someone were slowly switching off the lights around his field of view.
He blinked, forcing himself to remain conscious. The act of blinking itself seemed to take several delayed seconds—he thought of the power of the weapons wielded by those rogue dark wizards. They truly were standard-issue weapons. The Death Eaters had indeed spared no expense to rescue someone.
He turned his head and glanced toward Douglas. His lips moved, and his voice carried through a lull in the explosions. "Captain... are you alright?"
"Take a deep breath. Stay awake. You'll be fine." Douglas crouched beside him, one hand pressed above the bleeding wound on his shoulder as he cast a suppressive Hemostasis Charm. His lips were pressed into a thin line, and the hand applying pressure