Martha grinned. “Ye saw me on the roof, did ye no’? I’ll be just grand, and I’m the one best prepared to meet whatever Aegir throws at us. It’s ye must be careful out there.”
She hurried away and left Ivy stunned. Christie appeared at her side. “Come along, lassie.”
“What are we going to do?” she asked. “Why don’t you want to fight with the others?”
“Whatever’s coming for us,” he replied, “it’ll come after ye. It’ll follow wherever ye lead it. If ye go left, they’ll go left. We have seen that afore. They’re no’ the smartest fighters in the world, are they? They couldnae be, if they do Aegir’s bidding. They’ll follow blind, so ye must stay mobile to lead them where we want them to go.”
“I don’t understand what you want me to do.”
“I want to keep ye in reserve,” Christie replied. “I want ye to stand aside, and when the battle turns against us—which it’s bound to do—ye use your presence to draw the forces away. Understand?”
“How am I supposed to know when that happens or where to draw them?” she asked.
“That’s why you’re with me,” he replied. “I’ll tell ye when and where to go. Ye just listen to me, and we can win this thing.”
She peered into his face. A curious fire burned in his eyes. His features gleamed with that undaunted power just waiting for the right time to show itself. She didn’t even have to ask, “Are you sure?” He was never more sure of anything in his life.
He didn’t answer. He walked out of the dining room, and Ivy followed. Only Kincaid remained behind. He still stared out the window at something beyond sight.
Christie led Ivy to the entrance hall. Men packed the place from wall to wall. They checked their weapons. They buckled and adjusted their belts. They jostled and talked and clapped each other on the back.
Martha moved through the throng. She greeted everyone and exchanged words about their weapons and what formation she wanted them to take when they opened that door.
Ivy watched her friend. In the space of a few short days, Martha changed before her eyes—not from changing form. Martha came into a power Ivy never guessed she had. How could Lachlan choose little old Ivy Tennant from middle America over Martha?
Martha had it all. She had power, grace and confidence. What did Ivy have to compare with that? Ivy’s principle contribution to this battle was being the bait to lure the enemy one way or the other. She couldn’t even fight with the pathetic weapons she had.
Just then, the ground shook underfoot. The room fell silent, and people looked around at each other and the walls and ceiling.
Martha whispered, “It’s started.”
The next instant, the room erupted in loud talking. The men shoved and bumped each other. Ivy and Christie stood back out of the way. Martha made her way to the door. She raised her voice over the commotion. “Stand ye ready, lads. Dinnae strike ’til ye see them in range.”
The men shoved in closed to the door. They lined up in tight-packed ranks. Tension crackled in the air, and they held their weapons ready. Another tremor shook the castle. Martha rested her hand on the door latch.
Just then, Martha whipped around. She fought her way through the crowd to Christie and hissed in his face. “Take the front, Christie. I have an idea.”
Before he could argue, she raced away. “Martha!” Ivy cried, but it was too late. Martha disappeared down the hall leading to the kitchen.
Ivy and Christie exchanged glances. Christie muttered a curse. “That’s just bloody splendid.” He pushed his way to the door. “All right, lads. It’s ye and me now.”
“What about me?” Ivy asked.
At that moment, an almighty blow struck the castle. It shivered the building to its roots. With one catastrophic impact, the top floor ripped away. Half the Tower House vanished over their heads, and the open sky shone down on their heads.
Ivy stared up at the deep sky growing dark with the onset of night. Enough light remained to see a massive sea creature towering over what remained of Moy Castle. Its huge amorphous body blocked out the stars, and a dozen great limbs twirled in all directions. It smashed back and forth at the Tower House and rained boulders and beams on the heads of the Highlanders inside.
Christie pushed the door open and bolted outside. “Now, lads!” he yelled.
The men charged into the open with Ivy on their tail. She couldn’t stay in the castle any longer. Whatever strategy Christie planned went right out the window when Martha ran off, who knew where.
Ivy’s hands flew to her weapons. She would fight and die with these men…and Martha, wherever she was. If the McLeans had to fight Aegir, she didn’t want to be anywhere else. She didn’t want to watch anymore, not when they needed every blade they could get. She might not be the most experienced fighter on the field, but she would do her worst on her way down.
She ran behind Colin and Clyde. The door slapped back, and the party ran as far out into the field as they could get. That monster still towered over the castle, but that was only one creature. Others dotted the field. The pastel colors of dusk outlined their black forms.
Ivy barely had time to register what they were. She didn’t care. She pulled her blade with one hand and her axe with the other. They gave her comfort, but when she halted halfway down the field, she realized they wouldn’t do much good. All the creatures surrounding her were far too big. She couldn’t reach them.
That interlude gave her a chance to see what she was up against. The creatures possessed no legs. One huge mass of flesh sat on the ground. To move, they heaved their bulk off the ground, hopped, and their weight slammed down on the stones.
Long whip arms snaked all over the place. They snatched men off the ground to rip them apart. Screams chilled Ivy’s blood in her veins. She had to do something. One of the creatures got hold of Colin. It lifted him kicking and screaming into the air.
He got twenty feet above Ivy’s head when he swung his saber around and severed the arm holding him. The monster whipped around with a grumbling roar. Colin landed on his feet. He never had a chance to unwind the tentacle from around his waist before another one slithered in and caught him by the leg. Another seized him around the neck.
Adrenaline shot through Ivy’s guts. Without thinking, she leapt forward and chopped her axe at the arm around his neck. It flopped off, but another whipped in and grabbed his other leg. The two appendages lifted him off the ground.
Colin twisted and writhed to get free. He heaved himself up and cut at one arm, but he didn’t sever it. The arms yanked him apart, and his screams pierced the heavens. How Ivy found the strength to do what she did next, she never understood. She jumped off the ground and caught him around the wrist. Her own weight towed him down against the creature’s power.
Her feet touched the ground one more time. She had to act fast. She gave another vicious chop with her axe. One of the arms came free, but the monster reacted to the pain by jerking Colin upward again. This time, it carried Ivy with it, but she didn’t notice.
Blood and gore and death consumed her mind. She made a dive and grabbed hold of the arm wrapped around Colin’s ankle. She must have accidentally kicked him in the face, because he bellowed like mad. She snatched the thing’s loose tip and swung wide on it.
Her momentum unwound the thing from his leg, and Colin disappeared. The monster whipped its arm back, but she held on tight. It carried her high into the night’s sky. She dared not cut the thing for fear it would drop her to her death.
From that apogee, she surveyed the battle scene spread out below. All around her, Highlanders fought these sea creatures to their utmost. Everyone on the battlefield faced the same danger. Some double-teamed the creatures, while others fought alone.
One of the monsters backed Christie against the castle wall. He slashed and stabbed as fast as he could with his saber, but he couldn’t drive the thing off. One arm after another darted in. They beat his limbs and body. They knocked stones loose from the castle walls t
o rain down on his head. They wrapped themselves around his wrists so he couldn’t move his weapons.
Kincaid stood back to back with Arch not far away. Arch wielded two sabers, one in each hand. They spun around his head to form a silver blur. Arch chopped arms and legs in all directions, but that only attracted more creatures to attack him.
Kincaid pointed at three creatures lined up in front of him. A sparkling trail of light flowed out of his finger, but when it touched the creatures’ arms, it cut the same as a blade. He wove his two hands back and forth in a pantomime dance of mystical power, but he still couldn’t keep up with all those things coming at him at once.
Every instinct told Ivy to do something, but she couldn’t do a thing. She couldn’t save herself, much less these people. She started to think of them as her friends. She cared about them long before she ever met them. She shared their struggles and their defeats when she watched them under the ocean. Now she was one of them, and she couldn’t help them. She couldn’t even save her own life.
The monster waved her in mid-air. It would drop her or rip her to pieces any second now, and that would be it. She would never be able to help anybody again.
At that moment, a thunderous bellow echoed across the plane. The Highlanders not too preoccupied with their own survival looked toward the sound, but the monsters didn’t notice it. The second time it sounded, they paused in their attack, but they didn’t turn. They had no heads nor eyes nor ears to turn, but they sensed it.
Ivy looked around. At first, her senses wouldn’t acknowledge what she was seeing. Martha ran alone over the rocky landscape. She ran from the direction of the coast, heading north toward the Tower House. She ran up behind the monsters, and as she ran, she changed.
Martha’s body blinked once or twice as she ran. Then she blurred. Ivy’s mind couldn’t fathom what was happening, not even after she saw Martha change earlier. Ivy’s brain couldn’t accept something without a shape.
The blurry space where Martha used to be grew bigger. In front of Ivy’s eyes, it got larger and larger. It never stopped. It expanded until it swallowed up the whole landscape. It swelled until it got as tall as these many-armed creatures attacking the castle.
As it lifted off the ground to match their size, the blurry outline became more distinct. The mysterious entity that used to be Martha copied the monsters. She took on their massive body and their myriad flailing arms. She came up behind them and her arms lashed right and left. She bowled the creatures out of the way until she saved everyone on the field.
Martha approached the monster holding Ivy. Ivy’s heart thrilled at the sight of Martha fighting Aegir’s forces. She used her shapeshifter power to defend the castle and help her friends in their hour of need.
Ivy burst into action. She twisted in the monster’s grip and pulled her short blade. With one ferocious chop, she hacked the tentacle holding her. Gravity seized her and dragged her to the ground. She would have crashed to her death, but at that moment, Martha plucked her out of the sky. She set Ivy on her feet unhurt.
Chapter 18
Lachlan bent over the fountain and peered into the water. What was going on here? He never meant to travel into the tidal pool, and now he found himself in Ivy’s world. What was he doing here? He knew he had to find something here, but what was it? Nothing made sense.
Ever since his conversation with Kincaid, water held a strange power over him. He didn’t understand it. He only felt its irresistible draw. It pulled him to it and pushed him away at the same time. He didn’t know how to act around it.
He never meant to put his hand into that pool. The water made him do it. Those words sounded so idiotic in his mind, but no other explanation worked. He had to do it, and now that he came here, he had to find out why.
Why did the pool bring him here, of all places? In the depths of his being, he already knew the answer. It brought him here because he was thinking about Ivy when he put his hand in the pool. He was thinking how he wanted to understand her. He couldn’t do that if he never saw her world with his own eyes.
Now that he saw it, now that he met Nora, he understood. He didn’t know how he understood. He would probably never be able to articulate exactly what he learned by coming here, but he knew it now. He could look Ivy in the eye and honesty say he understood, even when he didn’t.
A thousand questions floated through space. They flicked into his mind and out again. The answers to all of them were just more questions. Even Nora had a place in all this, though he had no idea what it was. Meeting her on the jetty fit into the overarching pattern somehow.
He propped his knee on the fountain. This water didn’t hold the same power for him as the sea, but it still called to him, too. Why did he have to come to this tame fountain to discover what he came here to find?
The instant he formulated a question, the answer dropped out of the sky into his mind. He had to use this fountain because it was tame. The ocean was too strong. It was too close to Aegir. Lachlan had to use some other water with less power in it to practice his….
He couldn’t think that. He still couldn’t believe Kincaid’s message. Lachlan couldn’t have Aegir’s power—not even a scrap of it. He didn’t want it. He wanted to go back to being a wolf of Duart. He didn’t want to be any water fairy.
He put out his hand, but he hesitated to touch the surface. What if the same thing happened? What if he got whisked back to Mull before he found what he was looking for?
The answer came to him. He wouldn’t. He was paying attention. He claimed his power. The fountain wouldn’t do anything to him he didn’t want it to do. He could control it. He didn’t know how he got the ability to control it. He only knew he could now.
Kincaid unlocked a door in Lachlan’s being. Lachlan would never go back to being a wolf of Duart. Lachlan hated Kincaid for that. He could kill the man for robbing him of his identity and throwing him off the deep end into this insanity.
Lachlan put out his hand to claim Ivy, to love her and make her his own. Kincaid had to come along and ruin that, too. Ivy wouldn’t want to have anything to do with him now. She would shrink from anything associated with Aegir.
His fingers still hovered inches above the surface. While he watched, the fountain’s splashing water changed. The shimmering colors smeared and came together to form an image.
He stared down at the field in front of the Tower House. He knew every rock and hummock on that field. The image zoomed in to focus on one person standing there in the dim light. Nora came up behind him and leaned over to see what he was looking at. She gasped out loud. “Ivy!”
“Ye ken her?” Lachlan asked.
“She’s my old roommate, but she disappeared months ago. What’s she doing there?”
Lachlan didn’t answer. He gazed down at Ivy’s face. Emotions conflicted in her face. One moment, she burst into a brilliant smile. The next, she plunged into the depths of despair.
Lachlan’s heart twisted at the sight of her. If only he could be with her right now, he would help her through this. That’s all he ever wanted to do. The fountain erected an impassable barrier holding them apart.
He didn’t want to be here, surrounded by strangers who didn’t know him and didn’t understand him. He wanted to go back. He wanted to fall on his knees and tell her straight how he felt about her.
While he watched, the image expanded. He saw all the terrain around the castle. Huge creatures attacked on all sides. His brothers and cousins fought with Kincaid to drive them back. Even Ivy fought to her utmost to save them from the inevitable.
Another creature lumbered over the landscape. It waded into the battle, but instead of attacking the McLeans, it used its power to clear the other sea creatures off. It thrashed them with its limbs and gave the Highlanders a reprieve in their struggle to survive.
Lachlan passed his hand across the image. He didn’t touch the water this time. He didn’t have to. The picture wavered, and a clear outline of Martha’s face superimposed on the ne
wcomer. The shape didn’t change. The thing looked just as grotesque as ever, but he understood now.
“Who is that?” Nora asked. “Who is that woman?”
He never got a chance to answer. The ocean behind the battlefield seethed out of its bed. It groaned high into the evening sky until it stood taller than a mountain. Faster than thought, it rushed across the field. It raced over rock and scrub and bush. It rose high over the Highlanders’ heads on a collision course for the Tower House.
Lachlan’s hand shot out, but he wasn’t quick enough to stop it. Lights flickered in that wall of water. Fish and whales and dolphins lived in its vast reaches. It swallowed everything in its path.
The wave barreled over the plane. Even the attacking sea creatures floundered in confusion to get away from it. It struck Martha from behind and headed toward Colin and Ivy. Christie charged forward. He cried out once, “No!”
The wave never stopped moving. Lachlan didn’t know what came over him. He slammed his hand down into the fountain. He chopped into the water and planted his hand between that black mass and his friends and his home.
The wave hit his hand and came to a halt. For one agonizing moment, Lachlan held it there. It pressed against his palm in its effort to overtake its targets, but it couldn’t move beyond his hand. Then he slowly pushed it back. He forced it back across the field the way it came until he shoved it into the sea bed where it came from.
Ivy, Christie, and the others stared at the monstrous entity moving away. They didn’t see Lachlan’s hand. They only saw the menace stop in its deadly tracks, pause, and retreat.
The dark water swayed in a gentle swell, but it didn’t come out of its bed again. Lachlan caressed his hand over the satiny ripple. He gave it an affectionate pat. It wouldn’t bother him or his friends again. Then he turned his attention back to the field.
Martha lay dripping wet on the ground. Her hair fanned out from her head, and her arms and legs crooked at odd angles. She stared up into the sky with a fixed, glassy expression. She didn’t blink.
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