Chapter Fifteen #2
Einar turned immediately to herd the crowd back to safety as Naia planted her feet and raised her hands. The very ground beneath them began to rumble, and even taller dunes of sand began to rise behind her, cutting off the fight from the rest of the beach.
Some of their attacker’s wickedly sharp spikes buried themselves harmlessly in the sand. Others would have hit either Naia or Aleksi, only solid crags of stone erupted from the rocky beach in front of them, shielding them from the impacts before seeming to melt back into the ground.
The moment the rock shield in front of Aleksi dropped, he closed in, already swinging the staff.
The hit connected with the side of the man’s head, and he staggered as blood began to drip from his hair and down his face.
Blindly, he threw out his hands to release more spikes, and Aleksi used both ends of the staff to knock the man’s hands down so the shots would find only the sand at his feet.
With a bellow of rage, the man slammed his forehead against Aleksi’s, driving him back. Aleksi blinked the pain from his vision just in time to see Einar charge back over the now massive dunes.
A rock the size of a small cauldron flew past Aleksi and hit the enraged man in the head. Naia glared at him as she launched another rock, this time at his gut. A flurry followed, and though the man managed to dodge a few, the majority found their mark.
The look on Naia’s face was one that Aleksi had never seen before, not even when they had stood and fought against Sorin’s armies. It was more than righteous fury. It was sheer protective determination, so intense that Aleksi could see it, a halo of red and gold hanging over the small battlefield.
Their attacker was bleeding profusely now, whipping the spikes from his palms with little accuracy but even greater numbers.
Einar snatched up a piece of driftwood and dove in front of Naia, and half a dozen spikes sank into the wood with a chorus of dull thuds.
Quick as lightning, Einar pried three of the spikes free with one hand and hurled them back at the man.
One spike hit, lodging itself in his side.
Aleksi’s frisson of triumph turned into horror as the shard of metal slowly sank deeper, and deeper still, until it had disappeared into the man’s flesh.
A primal, throaty scream rent the air, and a huge blur darted out of the tree line and leapt at the bleeding man.
It was a cat, easily the size of a small horse.
It dug its claws into flesh, and its giant, curving teeth raked the man’s face.
He screamed and flung the cat away. He pressed his hands to his eyes, desperately trying to clear them of blood.
Aleksi and Einar both moved in to press their advantage and end the fight. But Aleksi stopped short, his gut roiling with dread. The man’s aura was changing. Brightening. Each sickly color now blazed, incandescent.
Then he threw back his head and screamed again. Only this time, it didn’t sound like pain or rage. It didn’t even sound human, but rather like a closed, steaming pot about to explode.
“Run!” Aleksi was already turning, frantic to get Naia and Einar away before it was too late.
Except it already was. The man’s scream reached an ear-splitting crescendo, and Einar spun both Aleksi and Naia away and wrapped his arms around them, shielding them. As he did, his arms grew larger, the bare skin tough but soft. Familiar.
An explosion shook the beach, and a strange whistling filled the sudden, concussed silence. Einar grunted just as searing pain raked across Aleksi’s side. He tucked Naia closer as he spied hundreds of wicked little shards of metal zinging through the air.
Then it was over.
Einar released them and straightened. He had taken on his other form, the one that seemed a cross between a human and a creature of the deep.
His skin was a metallic, silvered-purple hue, its texture ridged with something almost like scales, and his hair was much longer.
He was bigger, as well, taller and wider, enough so that his shirt and pants were nearly shredded.
Naia gasped Einar’s name and tugged at the torn fabric. “Are you hurt? Why did you do that?”
“Because I could.” He rubbed her arms. “It’s all right, Naia. My skin in this form is tough enough to withstand the pressures of the deepest oceans. It is not easily violated.”
The spot where the man had been standing was empty now, save for an unspeakable amount of carnage. He had exploded, propelling bits of metal shrapnel from his body along with the gore.
“Who was he?” Naia asked, stunned. “What was he?”
“If I had to guess?” Aleksi sighed heavily. “Another newly awakened guest from the mainland.”
The giant cat crested a dune. It moved with absolute grace, despite its large, stocky body and relatively short legs. Its fur was patterned with a strange mixture of spots and stripes, and it had a shock of black fur around its face, making its cheeks look almost comically full and round.
Then it yawned, baring sharp, curved teeth that were larger and longer than Aleksi’s fingers, and any amusement he might have briefly entertained vanished like smoke.
It walked over to Naia and rubbed against her legs, like a house cat seeking attention. She reached down—not far, as the cat’s shoulders were even with her hip—and petted it. A sound that could only be described as a purr rumbled out of its wide chest.
Einar stared, his mouth working soundlessly. Finally, he breathed, “Is that . . . ?”
“A lowland wild cat.” Naia beamed as she knelt in front of it, her eyes shining.
Aleksi had to quell the urge to snatch her up and away from those massive teeth. The inclination intensified when Naia grasped the cat’s face, her fingers sinking into its thick black fur. But the damn thing tilted its head into her touch as she rubbed the top of its head between its ears.
“I’ve heard of them,” Einar whispered. “But I’ve obviously never seen one. They’ve been extinct forever.”
Naia cooed a soft denial, her attention still focused on the cat. “But you’re here now, aren’t you?”
The cat dropped and rolled over, baring its belly for a few moments. Then it finished the roll, curled up, and eyed Naia expectantly.
“I know,” she murmured. Then, instead of rising, she sank her fingers into the stony sand beneath her, just as she had with the cat’s fur.
Power flowed out from her as she soothed the land like a mother quieting an upset child.
She stroked her fingers through the sand, and the landscape shifted, gliding back into place.
The dunes subsided like a traveler shrugging off a heavy burden, and soon even the blood and metal shards on the beach had been swallowed.
In a handful of heartbeats, no evidence of the violence remained, and the cat chuffed in approval.
Aleksi touched his side and just managed to suppress a wince. He was grateful, at least, that the dark-black velvet of his vest obscured the fact that he was bleeding. “Come. We need to let Gwynira know what happened.”
And that whoever wanted them dead—or worse—had not given up.
Inga was an undeniably skilled healer. But she tended to save her best bedside manner for those who truly needed gentle words and a tender touch—the badly wounded, the incredibly sick. The young and the old.
As she probed at the wound on his side, Aleksi very nearly reminded her that he did fall into that last category.
Technically.
Instead, he hissed in a breath and held his tongue.
“The wound is already showing signs of infection,” she muttered, her eyebrows drawn down in a frown.
It was the least shocking thing she could have told him.
Aleksi glanced down at his bare side, where Inga was still prodding the inflamed edges of the cut.
It had been a glancing blow, one that might have already healed on its own .
. . had the spike not been covered in bloody remnants of their attacker’s insides.
Of course, it could just as easily have been magic. The hungry rage that had filled that man, given tangible form at the moment of his death. Aleksi had seen that man’s soul; any way he could destroy even after he was gone would have pleased him greatly.
Still, there was one thing he could say in all honesty. “I’ve had worse. Quite recently, in fact.”
That earned him a dark look before she returned her attention to the wound. “How is the pain?”
“Bearable.”
“Hardly a comfort, knowing how much you can bear.” She sighed and sat back. “I want to heal it.”
The process she used to heal another was abhorrent to Aleksi. It involved her pulling the injury—both the pain and the physical damage—into herself, taking it on as one would shoulder a burden. Some wounds healed quickly, while others lingered until her body could purify itself from the inside out.
He did not like it on the best of days, and this was far from the best of days. Whether Aleksi’s laceration had been fouled by evil magic or plain old viscera, it was nasty business. He would not visit that on anyone, much less a friend.
“While I appreciate the offer,” he told her firmly, “I’m afraid I must decline.”
“Oh, you must, must you?” She flashed him a pointed, unimpressed look and laid a hand on his arm.
“It already looks as if it has been festering for a week. If you told me you’d been poisoned by one of my apprentices, I would believe you.
I don’t want to see how much worse this can get. Please, Aleksi.”
“Just give me a poultice.” He shrugged one shoulder. “It will heal eventually, and I won’t even mind the scar.”
“I will,” she replied softly. “Don’t make me watch you hurt. Nothing this wound could do to me would be worse than that.”
It was the one and only thing that could possibly change his mind—and she knew that, damn her. “Fine. But only because arguing with you is even worse than watching you hurt yourself on my account.”
She laughed, generous in her victory. “You sound just like Ash. Are you ready?”
“Not remotely.”