Chapter 19
“Thane!” I scream.
“No!” Algar roars.
“Zaira! Get back!” Rynthea grabs my arm and tugs me aside just as another tentacle comes flying out of the darkness. She cuts it in half with her scythesword before locking eyes on Algar. “Take her and hide!” She stomps past us and runs into the fog after Thane.
Algar catches my wrist and runs, guiding us between a thick cluster of trees and boulders. He aims for the middle path where Pearl and Zephra are, but something slams into the tree in front of us. I scream, and Algar ducks as another tentacle blocks our way.
“This way!” Algar releases me, running in the opposite direction. The ground starts to turn to mush beneath my feet the farther we run. When we reach a large boulder, Algar tugs me aside so we can hide behind it.
“What the shadows is that thing?” My breaths come out swift and heavy as my heart hammers against my rib cage.
“I don’t know!” Algar scans the perimeter with frantic eyes. “Gods—see, this is why I hate this death forest!”
In the distance, Rynthea unleashes a battle cry. As the fog begins to clear, I peer around the edge of the boulder to see if I can spot Thane and Rynthea. I shouldn’t have, though, because what I see causes fear to swallow me whole.
Sickly, glowing yellow eyes burn through the remaining wisps of fog.
Attached to those eyes is a monster that emerges from the cloudy waters of what appears to be a marsh or swamp stretching beyond it.
Its skin is a thick, blotchy, grayish green.
With broad shoulders, it’s built like a giant, and its arms are the size of tree trunks.
Worst of all, it has tentacles coming from all areas of its body, even its head.
Some of the tentacles end with claws. Others don’t.
One of the clawless tentacles has Thane wrapped up tight by the midsection.
He dangles upside down, grunting as he continuously swipes his sword at the tentacle but misses each time.
The monster gnashes its overly sharp teeth at Thane’s face, but Thane prevents the incoming bite by hurling a blazing gold sphere at its head. With a deafening screech, the monster drops him, sending him plummeting into the swampy water.
While the monster is distracted, Rynthea lunges into the air and cuts several tentacles off with her scythesword. The monster roars as the severed tentacles create loud splashes and sink into the water. She darts around the border of the swamp, slicing at several more.
Breaking through the water’s surface, Thane swims toward the nearest edge and catches his breath.
When he manages to climb out, he’s covered in swamp weeds and slime.
He shoots to his feet, then snatches out his other sword with a scowl.
The monster attempts to grab him again, but he dodges each tentacle, cuts at the ones in his way, and doesn’t stop until he mounts a boulder and flies toward the beast with a whisper of gold and shadows guiding him.
He lands on top of the creature’s shoulder.
One of the monster’s tentacles slaps down on the boulder Algar and I are near, and as if it can sense us, it reaches in my direction. I scream as the tentacle unfurls, revealing bumpy, undulating suction cups. Algar grunts as he stabs it with a dagger, and the monster screeches again.
I jump over the gushing tentacle, fleeing with Algar.
There aren’t many places to hide, though.
The swamp extends in all directions, each path blocked by random tentacles, and the other boulders are much smaller.
The tree trunks are too thin to hide behind, but something tells me if we keep running in random directions, we’ll encounter monsters much worse than this one.
How the shadows do we get back to the main path from here?
We stop behind a tree that barely hides us and listen to the unnerving sounds of the monster squawking, Rynthea hollering, and Thane yelling as he fights.
“We have to help them.” I focus on Algar, my heart racing madly. “They aren’t going to beat that thing on their own. Do you have any grenades on you?”
“Grenades? Have you lost it?” he yells. “No one carries grenades on their person unless they want to die.”
“I mean, I just assumed, since you’re a thief who likes to break into things and all…”
He cocks a brow. “I don’t use grenades to steal, Zaira. Much too obnoxious. Besides, the sorcerers who spell them charge way too much.”
“Right. Okay, um…” I peer around the tree, gripping the damp bark as Thane struggles to gouge one of the monster’s eyes out.
Rynthea’s lower half is now wrapped up in a tentacle, while another with a claw tries taking snaps at her head.
She punches the claw away each time, but I’m not sure how long she’ll be able to keep it up with the lower one squeezing tighter and tighter around her midsection.
I look at the monster again…and that’s when I see it.
Just below the right side of the swamp creature’s head are gills. From what I studied—no matter if it was a fish, beastial, or even a monster—the gills are a sure way to weaken a water creature.
“There!” I point. “The gills! They need to puncture the gills!”
“What?” Algar turns his head, utterly confused.
“The gills! They have to— Ugh! Never mind! Just follow me!” I grip the handle of my new dagger and pray for Orvena to protect me so I can, with her favor, save Rynthea and Thane.
I dash around the tree, and Algar shouts my name, demanding that I come back. I ignore him. If I don’t save them, they’ll die a horrible death because of me. And on top of that, there’s no way I’m making it to Elphar without the minotaur and the assassin. I need them.
I climb over jagged rocks and slide down a short, mossy embankment.
My feet land in a deep, slushy puddle and nearly get stuck in the muck.
As I grunt with frustration, struggling to free my boots from the mud with each step, I notice the monster is so much uglier up close. And it smells like pure shit.
“Thane!” I yell once I’m on stable ground again.
Thane whips his gaze in my direction. “What the shadows are you doing?” he shouts. “Get back to safety!”
“The gills!” I yell. “Stab it in the gills!”
His face warps with confusion. Either he can’t hear me, or he doesn’t understand what I’m going on about.
“Damn it,” I hiss.
I look in Rynthea’s direction. She’s now bound in two tentacles. She bites one of them with a growl, but that does nothing to the monster. Rushing her way, I clumsily dodge and duck tentacles until I stumble across her scythesword lying next to one of the trees and grab it.
It’s heavier than I expected.
Rynthea grunts, trying to break free, but the monster only squeezes her tighter. Her agonized cry makes my heart sink. One of the tentacles rises behind me, but I hold the handle of the scythesword in a firm grasp and use all my strength to swing. To my surprise, I chop the thing in half.
“Oh shit.” I pant, astonished.
The monster screeches once again, just as Algar appears in front of me.
He sticks his hand out. “Give me that damn thing before you cut your leg off!”
I place it in his hands, and he teleports to the other side of the tentacles that are death-gripping Rynthea. With a mighty holler, Algar swings the scythesword and cuts through both of them, sending black blood spraying toward the trees as Rynthea collapses on the ground.
“Rynthea.” I dash her way, trying to help her stand.
“I’m fine, I’m fine.” She presses her knuckles into the mud and pushes herself up.
We look for Algar. His clothes are now stained with inky blood. “Fucking disgusting!” he shouts.
“Give me my scythesword,” Rynthea demands.
Algar tosses it to her, and she catches it with one hand just as another tentacle aims straight for us. She whips the scythesword by the handle and slashes through it before it can strike.
“You both are meant to be hiding!” she barks at us.
“Well, if we’d kept on hiding, your precious guts would be spread all over this swamp right now, wouldn’t they?” Algar fires back.
Her nostrils flare as she glares at him, shaking her head.
“Rynthea, listen to me.” I grab her arm and force her attention on me. “You need to aim for the gills. A monster that size must have lots of them, and they’re probably close to its hearts. If you can strike some of the gills, you can weaken it even more and finish it off.”
She stares at me for a fleeting second. When my words sink in, determination settles on her face, and she nods.
Stomping past Algar, she charges toward the beast and leaps into the air.
Her scythesword swings downward, and the tip lands close to the monster’s ribs, piercing right through one of its gills.
The monster belts out a scream that seems to shake the entire forest.
Tentacles flail as blood oozes down its side.
Algar wrenches me toward him, and there is a sudden drop in my stomach as he teleports us away from the battle area. The ground feels unsteady beneath me as we wind up next to another boulder, this one smaller than the previous.
“Whoa.” I throw my hands out to steady myself again, blinking several times to clear the short spell of dizziness. “I didn’t know people could teleport with you.”
“Yeah,” he replies, panting. “Wears me out, though, so I don’t do it often.”
“But you kept telling Thane constantly to use his whispershade in Ruvain, even though you knew it would wear him out. That’s a bit hypocritical, don’t you think?”
“Excuse me. If I hadn’t insisted that he use it, those Ruvainers would be fucking you in a dungeon right now! To death!”
“Orvena help me,” I groan.
The monster howls again, drawing my attention back to the onslaught.
I look in its direction. Thane has caught on to what Rynthea is doing as she runs along one of the thicker tentacles before it can descend and penetrates another gill.
He swings one of his swords at an angle to stab the set of gills on the other side of its neck.
The monster roars in agony.