Chapter Twenty-Nine
T he shrimp saved me. To be precise, the spill of firecracker red shrimp that I hadn’t finished because they were too hot for me. But not, it seemed, for Galygos.
After tossing his head in outrage over anyone daring to try to control him, and lifting me about four feet off the ground in the process, he abruptly stopped. And sniffed. And started nuzzling me all over before zeroing in on the spill of shrimpy goodness that I was somehow still clutching in one sweaty palm.
“Get on!” I yelled at a frozen Enid, who had been watching this display with something approaching horror.
I guessed she expected to be eaten next.
But I made some shooing motions with the arm that wasn’t halfway down a seahorse’s gullet, and she snapped back into action, mounting the great creature as several guards ran at us, thankfully part of the peacock brigade. Maybe because the last of Feltin’s guys had just disappeared after Pritkin. Damn it!
“She’s with me,” I told them breathlessly, and they just stared as if they couldn’t believe we were planning to ride the giant bastard.
“What about me?” the former rider demanded, clambering back to his feet, with his wetsuit barely concealing a sizeable paunch.
It matched his ego if he’d demanded Galygos for a ride, I thought, finding my feet again. And grabbing the forearm that Enid extended before scrambling up the horny hide. And even though the great beast was mostly submerged, it wasn’t easy because he was still as tall as a house!
But I felt a subtle force field under my foot, helping me, and I managed to clamber up behind her.
“Did you hear me?” the paunchy fey demanded, his lard jiggling with outrage. It made all the bling on his wetsuit flash in the sunlight, but bling didn’t matter here, only skill. And I thought he should be grateful.
Galygos would have killed him.
Of course, there was a better-than-average chance that the same thing would happen to us as soon as the shrimp ran out, but it was a chance I had to take.
“You can have that one,” I yelled, gesturing at the nag the palace had seen fit to give me. Then we were off, not bothering with the pretty prancing-around-the-drain thing that everybody else had been doing but diving straight into a vortex of bubbles that was going to drown me any second now if it didn’t pull me apart first!
It did neither because I’d picked the right racing partner. Enid wrapped a ward around Galygos’s middle, covering the area around the seat and shielding us from some of the turbulence, although I still got battered about like a stone inside a maraca. Probably because she wasn’t exactly flush with power right now, either.
And then the drain, or whatever was down there, caught us and felt like it was launching us at approximately the speed of sound, only I couldn’t see where. There was nothing but thrashing water, frothing bubbles, and whirring fins. I concentrated on holding on for dear life, clutching the horny hide until I lost feeling in my fingers, my cheek pressed hard against Enid’s back, and my legs already crying out for mercy because the saddle was all but useless.
And then we were through and out into something different but no better. No better at all, I thought, as we found ourselves racing down a “track” with transparent sides, like the one the merfolk had been working on and which I had very bad memories of. Especially now, as the tubes were flooded, with water filling the inside as completely as the ocean we were racing through.
I didn’t see the point of having a track if the entire thing was just a water-filled tube! And then I did, watching a competitor get thrown into one of the walls and be zapped as if hit by a lightning bolt. Wards, then, and punishing ones.
Okay.
I couldn’t tell if the guy was dead or not, but he was definitely out of the race, with his body going limp and he and his seahorse getting all but mowed down by several more riders. He vanished into the darkness, and Enid steered us into the center of the course, which, yeah. Good job, Enid!
Or it would have been, only Galygos had finished his shrimp and had it register that there were freaking seahorses in the water ahead of him.
And how very dare they?
He shot ahead, and I mean that literally. I now know what a bullet feels like, I thought, trying to scream but not being able to as hitting the back of Enid’s shield forced all of the air out of my lungs. And then I hit it again and again as we dodged this competitor and that one, trying to get ahead, where Galygos clearly believed he belonged.
“Do up the straps!” Enid was yelling, and for a moment, I didn’t know what she meant—and then I realized that I hadn’t strapped my legs into the thigh-high stirrups. And sure, I was going to be able to manage that now!
But I tried anyway because this was unsustainable, and she couldn’t help me. She looked how I felt, with her face white, her eyes huge, and her glamourie glitzing, showing glimpses of the ruined flesh beneath the perfect veneer. Maybe because it was taking every ounce of concentration she had to steer with Galygos not caring if he ran over the competition.
In fact, he seemed to prefer it.
And then, so did I when we started getting attacked on all sides. Some guards had noticed that we’d joined the race and reined in to allow us to catch up, only to start trying to force us into the walls as soon as we did so. Only, yeah, I thought dizzily.
Have you met our ride?
Apparently not.
The next moment, one guard and the pretty gray-green seahorse it was riding were flung into electric hell, courtesy of Galygos’ mighty tail, and another mount disappeared in a sea of red after getting a sizeable piece torn out of its neck by those vicious teeth. And then Galygos demonstrated another way in which Faerie’s children differed from their Earthly counterparts, by opening some bony plates covering his stomach.
And launching a bunch of knife-like spikes into the guard right in front of us, who had been attempting to slow us down.
They popped his shield like it wasn’t there and then tore apart what was inside. And that was enough for the remaining guards’ mounts, who scattered in a storm of panicked fins and churning bubbles while we tore through the bloody remains. Just in time to see Pritkin up ahead, battling with the remaining guards, who were also targeting—
“What the hell ?” I asked Enid breathlessly. “What is she doing here?”
She didn’t bother asking who I meant. “Bodil can’t compete!” she yelled back, to be heard over the water rushing on all sides.
“I know!”
“So, she must have a champion—”
“I know!”
“—who she doesn’t trust to take this! She must have joined his entourage to win it for him!” A lot of weird fey curses followed this pronouncement because Bodil ran the stables and had for basically ever.
What chance did we have against her?
Maybe better than I’d thought. Because the purple-haired guards seemed to be splitting their time between trying to kill Pritkin and trying to knock Bodil out of the race. Probably to help Feltin’s champion get ahead, whoever that was.
But while the beautiful black and silver seahorse she rode had the delicate features of a female, it fought like a male—and a vicious one at that—matching its rider’s skill and aggression. As a result, the two of them were holding their own, even though there had to be a dozen guards boiling around her and Pritkin, like vultures around a carcass. Until he broke open a hole in the line by expanding his shield and scraping a guard along the wards of death until there was nothing left but a smear of red, even though the fey in question had been warded and clad in dragonscale.
I stared at the wards and vowed to stay very far away from them, which was what everyone else was doing. Except for Pritkin, who skimmed along the surface of one, what must have been a millimeter away, enough that the deadly thing started sending little tendrils of lightning outward, trying to rope him in. Until he’d bypassed the remaining guards, then he broke for open water, with Bodil right behind him, along with the guards, peeling off from their formation and shooting spells through their shields.
One of the curses set another champion on fire, and even though we were all submerged, he kept right on burning. The guards seemed to have forgotten that Feltin had said to capture Pritkin, not to kill him! But it looked like he’d really managed to piss them off.
The man had a talent.
And right then, they wanted payback for all the people they’d lost in the kitchen fight more than they wanted rewards. He needed additional power, but he’d removed Lover’s Knot as soon as we’d escaped Bodil’s trap, so I couldn’t send him any. And that was assuming I had any to spare, which I didn’t!
But they did, I thought, noticing a couple of royal guards who were lagging behind slightly to allow them to lob spells from a safe distance. And just like Enid on the merpeople’s unfinished track, they’d released a cloud of magic around their heads to speed that process up. A cloud that looked like every meal I’d been missing for the last week.
“Get me closer,” I urged her, pointing at them, and got a wild look over her shoulder in return, but it didn’t matter. Because it appeared that there was something Galygos liked better than shrimp, and she was straight ahead and being attacked.
And, okay, forget the bullet; now I knew what a missile felt like. I hit the back of the ward again, and this time, I didn’t climb back up against Enid. Because she’d just slammed into me after our sudden surge broke the straps on her stirrups.
For a moment, there was nothing but thrashing limbs, a twisted saddle, and pressure, like an extra atmosphere or two. And the knowledge that now no one was driving—except for the dangerous, half-crazed monster we were trying to cling to, who had an agenda all his own. And who was hunting guards all by himself.
A second later, he caught them, racing up beside his lady, only I might have been wrong about which one that was. Bodil’s beautiful black and silver mount was bleeding, with a haze of red spreading in the water around her, and she looked up at Galgygos with desperate, pleading eyes. And we suddenly had a furious savage on our hands, going to town on the guards and their mounts surrounding her.
Which would have been great, except that Pritkin was speeding away with half a dozen guards on his magically bottomed-out ass!
It was something that Bodil seemed to realize, and the next moment, a furious demigod had somehow stepped through Enid’s shield and—
“What are you doing ?” I demanded as she grabbed Galygos’ reigns.
“Stealing your mount,” I was told savagely right before she elbowed me in the gut.
And not on my watch, bitch!
But before I could retaliate or even remember how to breathe, we were off, although less, I suspected, because of Bodil’s skill and more because the guards and half their mounts were now dead, and Galygos and his lady friend were chasing down the rest. Seahorses seemed to be vengeful little bastards. Or make that vengeful, two-story bastards, or closer to three in Galygos’ case.
And if I’d thought he was tearing through the water before, it was nothing next to this. It seemed that his little seahorse mind had figured out that the guards were bad, m’kay? And decided that what he really wanted to snack on right now wasn’t more shrimp, but rather a whole boatload of Queen’s Guard ass.
And since that was what I also wanted, I decided to forego revenge on the bitch who had jailed and now assaulted me and find a perch. Get ready , I mouthed at Enid because after Galygos finished his main course, we needed to retake control of our mount. All I got back was a terrifying “Are you kidding me?” look that said that fighting demigods wasn’t in our agreement.
But I didn’t have time to argue because we were already crashing into the guards hammering Pritkin.
Galygos swerved to take out the closest competition, and I screamed at Enid to “Drop your shield!”
For once, she didn’t argue, or else it popped on its own as we were already getting strafed by the spell fire zipping around. I felt a bubble slam into place around my head, and then a wave of water hit me, rushing in to fill the void where the shield had been. It would have knocked me off my seat, except that I didn’t have one, and at the same time, I grabbed hold of the sparkling clouds around the nearest two fey.
And jerked.
And, oh, what a difference that made!
Their power tasted thin, like Enid’s, because I was comparing it to a god’s. But while it might not have had the heady rush of Zeus’s energy, it still packed a punch—and could hopefully deal one as a bunch more riders had just crashed into us, turning the race into a free-for-all.
Bodil shot a barrage of spell bolts at our attackers, Galygos savaged three mounts at once, and Enid screamed at me from inside her bubble. And I shifted the nearest guard outside the track and reached over to grab his mount. Because Galygos wanted to fight more than he wanted to race, and Pritkin and his personal gaggle of guards were getting away!
I dragged myself over there less than gracefully, grabbing the dropped reins and just holding on until I could crawl up the horny hide. But I got the job done. My new mount wasn’t on Galygos’s level, but it wasn’t crap, either. An immense, black beauty with flashing red eyes that matched Bodil’s right now, as Enid joined me, and we left the stable mistress behind.
She and Galygos didn’t look like they needed the help.
Pritkin did.
And this time, he was damned well going to get some.
“Take the reins!” I yelled at Enid, who clambered onto the higher-level driving position without even pausing her rant at me. It was almost Pritkin-worthy, but I’d heard all that before, and—
There!
“What are we doing?” she demanded as we shot ahead.
“Island hopping.”
“What?”
“Get me close to every damned guard you see!”
She had a lot to say about that, but again, it didn’t matter. Because our latest purloined ride was trying its best to get back to its pack, or whatever you call a family of seahorses, all of which were being ridden by other guards. Which was why the next few minutes were a heady mix of panic and exhilaration.
Panic because Enid and I were doing the equivalent of Pritkin’s Han Solo run from earlier. Exhilaration because every time we caught up to someone, I got fed by another cloud of magic. I ripped them off of fey after fey, like stealing a bunch of glittering cloaks, and by the time I reached numbers six and seven, I had practically a whole wardrobe.
That fight didn’t last long as a result, and Enid and I quickly left them behind, one seahorse bleeding out in the water, the other hauling ass back the way it had come, and the two fey floating in our wake and looking stunned. Maybe because a glimmering golden whip had uncurled from my hand, causing the water to bubble and hiss and their wards to give up the ghost. And, suddenly, things got a little easier.
Make that a lot easier, I thought, as we sped through the middle of a sizeable group of guards. It should have been a death sentence, as no one had instructed them to bother with capturing me. But I was lashing the ones on my right-hand side before they realized what had happened and draining those on the left so that I didn’t lose power in the process, and Enid was cursing those in front of us to clear a path.
Allowing us to plow through a dozen of Nimue’s elite troops as if they weren’t even there. I laughed; I couldn’t help it. Power was singing in my veins, my movements had evened out and become fluid, and I could breathe for what felt like the first time in days.
No wonder everyone had feared the gods so much!
Including me, when I glanced behind us and saw the red-eyed fury right on our tails.
Well . . . shit.
“Hurry up!” I told Enid, whose head jerked around to tell me off, only to see the same thing I just had.
“Aggghhhh!” she screamed, because if I’d ever seen death on anybody’s face, it was on Bodil’s. Guess that whip had brought back memories, I thought, but I didn’t reabsorb it, even though it was boiling the water to our right and obscuring our view. I had a feeling I would need it again in a second.
And I did, but not for Bodil.
We suddenly surfaced again, breaking into the air without warning, leaving me confused and seriously battered. Because what we’d surfaced into was an all-out gladiatorial match. One that was quickly spreading red all over the churned-up surface of the water.
The same water we’d left from, I realized through the steam my whip was sending up. The track must have looped back here. This would explain the roaring crowd, the blaring music, and the announcement from someone’s enhanced voice that my translator decided to wake up and feed back to me.
“—yes, indeed! It’s anyone’s race, lords and ladies, anyone’s at all, as we wait to see which of our bold challengers will cross the finish line first—”
“What finish line?” I asked Enid, who was cursing the crap out of someone. I didn’t get an answer as she was pulled under a second later, until I shot my whip into the churning waves after her captor and dragged her back out.
“My thanks,” she spluttered as I shook her hard enough to get her attention.
“What finish line?”
“That one,” she said, looking off to the right, and then she threw up.
But for once, I didn’t join her. For once, I had my eyes on the prize and the silver-haired son of a bitch who was about to cross the line ahead of us. ?subrand had lost his mount, parts of his armor, and a good chunk of his hair, which appeared to have been burnt off, probably by someone’s spell. But he was wading that way and not a chance in hell!
My whip reached out and curled around one armored leg, and I jerked. And forgot that the power I was momentarily wielding made everything easier. ?subrand came flying into me from halfway across the pond, and we both went under; my whip went out because that sort of thing eats power like nobody’s business and I was bottoming out; and then we surfaced and the bastard got me in a neck lock, trying to murder me.
Bodil pulled him off, possibly because she wanted that pleasure for herself, which was how the three of us were watching when Pritkin and his mount tore away from the snarling pack and darted across the finish line.
The crowd went crazy, and I screamed and yelled along with the rest, caught up in the adrenaline of the moment. That and being half-strangled is my excuse, anyway, for not seeing what happened next. Although, in retrospect, I don’t know how I could have possibly predicted it.
There was a crack like thunder; there was a fat, familiar face; there was an eye-widening second of recognition—
Then a time spell grabbed me . . .
And it wasn’t mine.