Chapter 19
Zeidon
The water was cool but not icy, which was good when I had to take my mate into it.
She would not seize up from the cold, and it would remind her less of the water that had covered her as she slumbered beneath the lake.
The tunnel was long and narrow but kept clearance for our heads for a long time.
When the swim did force me to submerge completely, I knew it wasn’t far, I could sense it in the water’s temperature, the taste of it.
I surfaced after a short swim on the outside of the mountain with a triumphant grin.
This was very doable, even with my fragile female.
At only a quick glance, I even knew where were and now I wondered why I’d never decided to explore where this river came from.
There was no time to have more than a quick glance, urgency and worry still rode me hard and I needed to return to Farah as quickly as possible.
It still felt to me like danger hovered just beyond the edge of my vision, and I’d felt certain that going back toward the direction of my den was the wrong choice.
The sense of impending doom was only growing stronger, and I forced my body to swim faster against the current to make it back to Farah.
I did not think she was in immediate danger right now, so maybe it was the rescue party that Zathar had sent after her.
We had not run into them, but they must have made it into the passageways.
As soon as I swam out of the tunnel, I lifted my head and scanned for my mate.
She stood right at the edge of the water, her back turned to me, and Srazz and Buzz huddled against her.
I could tell she had her eyes focused on something, but it took me a moment to figure out what it was she was staring at.
It was not a danger I recognized, though I had seen such sights before, or at least very similar.
But Farah was tense, and that was all I needed.
My instincts roaring, I leaped from the water and rose on my tail at her side, my trident already aimed at the unseen threat.
“What is happening?” I asked of her, my eyes landing on the row of glowing screens on the far side of the room.
They had not been on when we came in, I had barely spared them a glance because I had not been here to scavenge for parts.
We were here to escape these dark tunnels and that was it.
My scales twitched along my back and I was already moving her behind me, into my coils so she was shielded.
Mindful of the water and her fear of it, I also slithered further into the room.
That put some distance between us, and the raging river, enough to make sure my female wouldn’t fall in by accident.
“The cameras turned on,” she said quietly, using a strange foreign word that did not translate to my ears.
Cameras were these small black half-spheres that dotted the wall at intervals and were stuck in high corners.
She pointed them out to me and when she did, I could see a hint of a light beneath their black surface.
I had seen those things before, but never thought more of them than that they were odd decorations.
It was clear that my female knew their purpose.
“Someone is watching us. It can’t be the robot, can it?
” she asked, her hand touching the pouch she’d sewn into her leg-coverings.
Robot was another of her strange words but I knew she meant the revenant with it.
She had tucked a piece of that machine into that pocket, I was certain it would not work without it.
She was right though, my senses tingled with awareness.
There were eyes on us. I shook my head at her in answer and turned my gaze around the large room and the machines that filled it.
They stood over the water and in the water, with slowly spinning blades that would be dangerous to swim near.
There was no sign of an intruder and when I flicked out my tongue and sifted through the scents, I could not smell one either.
“Come on, we should check it before we leave.” She pointed to the screens that now glowed with life, but I had her legs tangled in my coils, she could not move forward.
Filled with distrust for the entire situation, I picked her up in my one arm and cradled her against my chest. I was not going to let her out of my sight now, even if my instincts still told me the danger was near but not in this chamber; even with the feeling of being watched.
I moved slowly, holding my trident at the ready, my senses honed to even the slightest hint of danger.
If anything stirred, I was taking my mate and our animal friends into the water, we were not sticking around for another fight.
Not unless we absolutely had to, my priority was my female, nobody else.
“Do you see that?” Farah asked me as we got closer, she indicated a screen to my left which had moving images across them.
It made me even tenser when I realized I was looking at ourselves, us, in front of the screens.
When I moved my head, the image of me on the screen did the same.
It was like a mirror but different. I hissed at the sight, bared my fangs, and then shot the nearest ‘camera’ a fierce glare. “That’s us, but where is this?”
She drew my attention to another such screen where more images showed a room with machines and a waterway just like the one here.
I did not even know that screens could display images it took directly from the world.
When I’d seen them in use, it was in places like the medical room of a Shaman, or sometimes with flickering symbols inside the wreck of a skyship.
But if the image of us in such a room was real, and it looked that way, then that other image must be of another room right now.
My mate gasped when a third screen flickered and black symbols started scrolling across the surface. They were the kind of symbols that I had some vague knowledge of, though not as much as the Shamans did. Just enough that I could decipher their threatening meaning. “You will pay,” I read out loud.
The words had only just left my mouth or a sense of renewed urgency struck me; we had to move, now!
Farah clasped my arm, her blunt little nails digging harmlessly into my scales.
“Oh no, who are they?” It was the other room on the screen, the room almost identical to the one we were in, with only some minor differences in the layout, the colors, and the scratches on some of the machines.
People were entering it through the one doorway, weapons in hand, light sources dangling from belts, and ready eyes glancing around warily.
It was the rescue party that Zathar had sent.
I recognized the red scales of a large Bitter Storm male in the lead, at his side Ekkire’s dark green glittering.
There were many of them, and that included a human female just like my Farah.
One with lush dark skin and a warrior look in her eyes as she strode next to a dark blue Thunder Rock male.
She held a long metal stick thing in her arms as if it were a weapon, and the many Naga males that followed behind her gave her a respectful distance.
Or maybe that had to do with her huge Thunder Rock mate.
The dread that had filled me all this time changed into a real threat then.
The screens flashed with red, a loud noise blared through our room, and it made those on the other screen jump too.
I threw Farah over my shoulder and spun away from the distraction the screens had proven to be.
With my tail, I snatched Srazz up and threw him onto my shoulder, right as I dove into the water.
Farah screamed but though my heart went out to her and her fear, I could not stop.
The door had already slammed shut to this room, but the hatches that were lowering to shut off the river on either end could not move nearly as fast. They battled the raging water to slide in place and we had to move fast or we’d be locked up, just as that malicious voice on the screen wanted.
Buzz screeched when he circled my head, and I whipped out my tail once more to grab him and tuck him close.
“Hold your breath,” I warned my precious Farah, which was all the warning I could afford to give.
I had to dive, and I held her tight as I fought the increasing current to get us where we needed to go.
The hatch was already halfway, we weren’t going to make it through, not all of us.
There was only one option left, I had to stop the hatch from closing.
Farah was going to have to swim beneath it on her own.
She slipped from my arms with a look of betrayal on her face that tugged painfully at my heart.
That look morphed into horror when she started drifting up while I dove down and aimed my trident.
The metal rod and prongs wedged beneath the hatch and arrested its slide down.
Go! I urged my mate but the currents were too much for her.
I pushed Srazz and Buzz through the gap, certain that even if the Sleara struggled, Srazz could pull him to safety.
Tail free, I caught Farah around her middle and tried to pull her to me. And then my trident snapped.
***
Farah
Water closed over my head, it filled my nose, my throat, my eyes.
I couldn’t see anything but the frothing of the wild river, hear anything but the roaring in my ears.
Zeidon had thrown us in the water, I knew that meant there was a danger I didn’t know about, didn’t see.
This was the one moment that I needed to keep my head clear, and my focus sharp.
But the fear was stronger, it filled me with a black terror that covered every sensible thought until I saw nothing but the water and how it was killing me.
There was a hand holding me though, an arm that surrounded me; I was not alone.
Right as that thought struck me, I found his face there with me under the wild water’s surface.
Our eyes met and realization shivered through me.
Zeidon. He was there with me and he would never let me come to harm in the water.
He was my mate, my lover, and my protector.
I could trust him to get me through this. Then he let me go.
I was struck with absolute terror all over again when I was on my own, untethered and adrift. The water dragged at me, pulling, pushing; I was completely lost and now utterly alone. I couldn’t breathe, the air was running out and caused blackness to ring my vision.
There was only one direction I could go; one option.
Up, for more air. With instincts and panic fighting for superiority inside my head, I clawed with my arms to gain clumsy control over my position.
The currents were too much, they swept me along.
I saw the metal of the hatch fill up my vision as I was thrown toward it; the water was stronger than I was.
A hint of emerald light reached me from the corners of my eyes and it called to me, even as my vision started to fade, I knew that it was Zeidon.
See, I was not alone, even when he let me go, he was still there.
I was flung another way when something banded around my middle.
My fingers touched scales, and they helped me focus my oxygen-starved brain one last time.
Zeidon held me with his tail, there was no sign of either Srazz or Buzz, but my mate was braced beneath the hatch to hold it up.
My eyes focused just in time to see the pieces of his broken trident getting swept beneath the still-lowering metal door by the current.
He was trying to stop it so we could escape but that gap was rapidly closing.
I wanted to yell at him in that split second of realization.
No, get out of there! It was going to crush him. Then it was too late. The hatch slammed down and pinned Zeidon face down beneath it. Most of his body was on my side but his arms and much of his upper body were on the other. He was going to drown!