Chapter 22 #2
She picked her way along the animal path that had led the stormers up to the cave.
It would be easier and safer to return to the beach where they’d arrived, but people would look there first for her.
Instead she went in the opposite direction, hoping to find an open spot along the bluff where a dragon might land.
Igliana, Syla tried calling, in case her power might reach to where the orange dragon had nested for the night. I’ve escaped from the stormers and am badly in need of a ride. Are you out there? Can you hear me?
Only the wailing wind and the roar of the sea answered her.
Soon sodden from the rain, the amphora slipping in her grip, Syla bumped against a log and fell over it, almost losing everything. Weary and miserable, she wanted to stop to rest, but… she sensed someone out there with her. A person with power.
Jhiton?
It might be that Vorik had noticed she’d left and come to look for her, but her instincts told her it was Jhiton even before she could identify him for certain. She pushed herself to her feet and turned in the direction of the sea.
Igliana, she called again. If you can hear me, I’m angling for the bluff. I’ll try to find a spot where you can reach me.
No dragons will fly in this weather, spoke a cold telepathic voice from nearby.
Jhiton.
Fear blasted her, and her heart slammed against her ribcage. Jhiton had never spoken into her mind before—and she’d never wanted him to.
Syla picked up her pace. Had it grown slightly lighter? Was dawn approaching? With the heavy cloud cover, it was hard to tell, but she had to hope daylight would come, that the storm would abate, and Igliana would be able to reach her. But she worried all that would take hours, and Jhiton…
Where was he? She’d first sensed him behind her, but he’d disappeared from her awareness. Could he mask his presence somehow? Was he even now creeping closer?
Syla glanced back but didn’t see anyone.
Ahead, the trees were less dense. She went in that direction until she could make out the ocean in the distance, beyond an open rocky space on the top of the bluff.
The cliff underneath dropped away a hundred feet or more before reaching the sea, and she stopped instead of going out onto the bare rock.
She remembered Captain Lesva falling off a cliff after lightning struck and didn’t want to tempt fate.
She would never survive plummeting that far.
Igliana is searching for you, Wreylith spoke into Syla’s mind.
Thank the gods. Syla peered into the dark sky over the sea, hoping the dragon would fly into view soon. Before Jhiton crept up and plunged a dagger into her back.
You may thank me. She was sleeping, but I woke her with the promise of your upcoming horn-hog compound.
Excellent, and I do thank you.
Syla looked behind her again, certain she hadn’t imagined sensing the general. She definitely hadn’t imagined his voice in her head.
Vorik? She tried to call back to him. They’d never spoken telepathically, but he’d seemed to sense her when she’d shouted a silent warning when he’d been swimming away from the weapons platform.
Vorik has not left the cave. Jhiton’s voice came from behind her and to the right, and she spun in that direction. He stood between two trees, the wind whipping his cloak and riffling his short dark hair.
She could again sense his power. His magic.
He gripped a longsword in each hand and stared at her with steady cold eyes. What did you do to my people?
They’re fine. Just sleeping.
Sleeping.
Yeah.
As silent and inevitable as death, Jhiton strode toward her.
Not wanting to be maneuvered toward the edge of the bluff, Syla tried to shift sideways through the trees.
But when she went left, he leaped lightly over ferns and logs to block her route.
When she attempted to go in the other direction, he did the same, hardly expending any effort, though he moved as fast as a cheetah to intercept her.
To deliberately try to maneuver her out onto the bare rock near the edge of the bluff.
She had little choice but to back in that direction and hope Igliana would swoop down and grab her before Jhiton reached her. But, if he wanted, he could reach her in an instant. It wasn’t as if she could run as fast as he, especially not with her arms full.
“Let me guess.” Syla glanced back to check her distance to the edge—and the gray sky for dragons. “If you cut my throat with a sword, you’ll have to explain yourself to Vorik, but if I fall off the cliff, accidents happen, now, don’t they?”
Vorik answers to me.
Yeah, and that was the problem, wasn’t it?
I would not prevaricate with him. Put down the shielder components.
Ah, maybe that was the only reason he hadn’t attacked.
For whatever reason, Jhiton wanted them for his people.
If she stumbled and dropped the amphora, it might break, and the moss-bulb powder could be ruined by the storm.
If she fell off the cliff and into the ocean, all three components might be lost.
“No, thanks. I’d like to keep them.”
Jhiton kept walking closer, slowly now, like a stalking predator, and she was drawing precariously close to the edge. She had to delay him somehow, long enough for Igliana to find her.
“Why don’t you take a break from being dreadful and go back to your camp?
I haven’t done anything to you.” Frustration crept into Syla, and she ended up shouting over the wind with more passion than she’d intended.
“I haven’t even done anything to your people except defend my Kingdom.
Meanwhile, you’ve taken almost everyone from me.
Everyone I loved. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.
” She caught herself, the emotions too raw, too real.
She wanted to buy time but not by exposing her vulnerabilities to Jhiton.
His face remained cold and dispassionate, and she had little doubt that he would do it all again. As he strode closer, scant feet away now, she believed he would take this opportunity to kill her, to end the source of the friction between him and his brother.
A glance back revealed that she could go no farther. She’d reached the edge of the cliff, and stormy white water frothed and churned below, battering rock formations that thrust up from the sea like fingers. If she jumped—or was pushed and fell—she wouldn’t survive the drop.
On impulse, she spun and held the amphora out over the edge. Jhiton halted.
The components might not mean as much to the stormers as to her people, but he had ordered them collected, and he’d been protecting them.
He’d likely realized that destroying the islands’ protection completely would leave them exposed to the elements and winged predators.
After his people took over, he might want the shields to be returned to duty.
Syla bared her teeth at the thought of that.
You won’t drop it, Jhiton said, but he had paused his advance. You need that more than I do.
“Yes, I do, but if the Kingdom can’t have a shield, then neither can you.
Bastard.” So many raindrops spattered her spectacles that she struggled to read his expression, but she didn’t have a hand free to wipe the lenses.
She almost didn’t notice his head turning back in the direction of the cave.
Then she sensed what had drawn his attention.
Vorik sprinted out of the trees with his sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. Without hesitation, he ran straight at Jhiton.
Jhiton had time to spring away from Syla and the edge of the bluff, raising his blades to defend himself. Then Vorik was upon him.
Their gargoyle-bone swords clanged like metal, throwing blue sparks when they met. And they met too swiftly for her to track. Those sparks rained in all directions, landing on the damp rock at their feet.
As fast as the cheetahs she’d likened Jhiton to earlier, the men sprang about, dancing in and out, dodging and parrying. They never lost their balance on the wet and uneven ground. They were far too sure-footed for that.
Aside from the clangs of their weapons, they didn’t make a sound, neither shouting at the other nor even grunting or groaning as their blows were deflected. If they conversed at all, it had to be telepathically, but maybe they each knew where the other stood, and there was no need to speak.
Syla needed to creep away, to get as far from them as she could in case Jhiton won the confrontation.
But they were mesmerizing, so nimble and athletic, so powerful; it was almost impossible to look away.
Besides, if Vorik lost, he might need a healer.
Would Jhiton allow her to help him before he returned to killing her?
She wished she could tell who was more likely to win.
Before, Vorik had said his brother had trained him and that he wouldn’t want to fight him, implying Jhiton would win.
But Jhiton had flecks of gray in his black hair.
Vorik was still young and in the prime of his life. Wouldn’t he have a slight advantage?
Unfortunately, Jhiton didn’t look aged or slow in the least. Never had she seen someone wield two longswords, and it was incredible that he did so without bumping them against each other, without any hint of awkwardness, each hand as gifted as the other.
But Vorik also used his sword and dagger without any hint that one side was less capable than the other.
As they leaped about, their dragon bonds giving them the power to somersault over each other’s heads and leap up to swing from tree branches to avoid attacks, Syla couldn’t tell if they were holding back.
She didn’t believe either of them wanted to kill the other, but they didn’t hesitate to slash with those deadly blades.
If all they’d wanted to do was settle an argument, they would have used fists, not swords.