Maenat’s troops advanced from her left. The two armies would meet at the point where their enemy was helpless, back against a very long drop into the liquid that seemed to be ubiquitous in this miserable world. There was simply nowhere else to run. The armies would meet, they would destroy these pitifully weak animals that populated this world, and they would move on to conquer the entire world.
She saw an opening in the things—what had Khrazhti called them? Trees? Plants?—up ahead and rushed forward. Maenat was there, just coming out into the open as well, first among his troops. As she cleared the last of the plants, she finally saw her prey with her own eyes. He was standing, the weapons in his hands glowing like the rest of this place. He had life in him, as it seemed everything did here, but in him it seemed as bright as that thing in the sky. Next to him, surprisingly, another glowed brightly, too. No matter, though. Koixus had eyes only for the Gneisprumay. She growled and launched herself at him.
“Go!” Aeden yelled at Fahtin over his shoulder as he drew his swords. “There is no time to debate. Jump or I will knock you off the cliff.”
The damn girl was just standing there. No, not just standing there. She had drawn her knives, though she seemed to be moving sluggishly. Why didn’t she just jump?
Aeden looked around at his friends. None of them had taken the leap off the cliff yet. He understood apprehension about dropping from so great a height, but couldn’t they see it was certain death to stay where they were and face the animaru coming at them? There were thousands of them, more than they could ever withstand, even if he were able to make that explosion he had created with his magic that one time.
The enemies were close. He could hear them crashing through the trees around them, bellowing in their excitement. They would tear the party apart. Aeden, for one, did not want to die that way. Truth be told, he didn’t want to die at all, but especially in that way.
“Tere!” he shouted, “Get everyone else into that river. Now! We can’t survive this assault.”
The old tracker nodded and began chivvying Raki and Fahtin toward the edge. She still moved listlessly, but Raki seemed to know what was required of him. He looked down at the river and gulped. Then he closed his eyes, took a breath, opened them again, and stepped off the edge. Good boy.
Aeden appreciated that Tere didn’t take an arrow from his quiver, didn’t argue about staying. He was experienced enough to know that there was no way they’d survive the forces coming at them. He moved Fahtin toward the cliff, and Aeden had no doubt he would step off after the others had gone.
“Go,” Aeden said to Urun. The priest was standing next to him, muttering to himself. Preparing a spell or prayers for power? For that matter, it could just be his normal ravings.
“I’ll go when you do,” the man said. “My power is potent against these creatures. We can hold them off for a moment until the others are safely away. We jump together, Aeden.”
So be it. There was no time to argue. Aeden laced his weapons with magic just as the first of the creatures broke through the underbrush and were only a few dozen feet away.
Out of the corner of his eye, Fahtin dropped out of sight. Tere looked at him once, nodded, and stepped into nothingness himself. It was only him and Urun now.
Three creatures reached them simultaneously. They looked the same: thin, wiry, and very fast. Urun caught one mid-leap with his power, and it flashed with the magic, screaming in pain. Aeden lost sight of it as he spun to dodge the attacks of the other two, ducking under sharp claws to open the belly of one of them with both his swords. The power of his magic burned along both blades and as they cut, fire lanced out from them, blasting the hapless creature apart.
The other animaru, just a step behind, had both legs severed by the savage slashes of Aeden’s sword and then met its end when he circled the blades around and stabbed downward, pinning the creature to the ground. Aeden thought that he really needed to learn more about using his magic. Infusing weapons with the power was not the most effective use, he figured. It was something, though. Better than using non-magic weapons.
As Aeden turned to step off the cliff, a lighter-colored animaru was suddenly there in front of him. It held two swords of its own and flowed so smoothly from a run into an attack, he was barely able to deflect the blades. He caught sight of another foe, this one covered in hair, waving its arms toward him. Urun said something, almost a command, and Aeden felt the hair on his arms try to lift up. He couldn’t pay close attention—the battle with this pale animaru took all his focus—but he knew a magical battle was being waged. It was all the more eerie because of the lack of sound from either of the two wielding it.
He had to finish this foe quickly. The two had reached him faster than the other creatures, but it would only be seconds until two dozen more were upon him. He lunged in to strike and his opponent seemed to elongate, stretching around the blows to avoid them. It counterattacked, faster than anything he had ever fought, and he was only able to block one of the swords, slipping just outside the range of the other. No, not outside of range. He got a slash along his side for his miscalculation.
“We have to go, Aeden,” Urun panted. “Now. I can’t hold this other one back much longer.”
He knew it was true. He also knew that at best, he was evenly matched with his current foe. He launched a flurry of strikes at the thing, quick slashes from every conceivable direction, so fast that even he could not see his blades moving. The thing evaded, blocked, or parried all of them. A small smile came onto the creature’s face as she attacked him even as she was defending.
“Go,” Aeden said, sweeping his foot out to strike at his opponent’s leg while thrusting in with his swords. One of his weapons was parried, the other landed a glancing blow—a very minor cut—along one of the creature’s arms. He got a gash along his thigh in trade.
But he was already in motion, heading for the lip of the cliff. He was so caught up in the adrenaline of the fight, he didn’t even feel his new wound, but he thought about it. His opponent had sacrificed a slash to its arm so it could deliver a more serious wound to his leg. That didn’t bode well. That type of calculated sacrifice demonstrated a keen intelligence. If there were more like this one, they would be in very deep trouble. If they survived the next few moments at all.
Aeden didn’t know if Urun had jumped or not. He hoped so. As he left the solid ground, pushing off with his uninjured leg, he felt a red hot line of fire travel across his lower back, just below his crossed scabbards and his pack, and he grunted. The creature had taken advantage of his inattention and landed another strike. He hoped it wasn’t too deep.
The last thing he could think to do was to quickly flick his swords into their scabbards as he fell. He put his legs together, windmilled his arms to stay upright, and then crossed them to hold onto his swords and pack as he plunged into the water fifty feet below.
Koixus looked down at that flowing liquid so far below, growling low in her throat. She had almost had the Gneisprumay. Damn him and his cowardice. If he had stood and fought, he would be dead now, dead at her hands.
He was skilled in combat, this one. That had surprised her. From the prophecies, it seemed that he would be a spell-caster, one who relied on magic to fight for him. Like Maenat. Yet he had crossed swords with her. She had sensed the magic in him, felt it when he had struck her. She looked down at the scratch he had given her. It burned as nothing she had ever felt. She enjoyed a certain resistance to magic, but if a small cut like this burned so greatly because of this life energy, what would happen if she received a serious wound? She knew then that it was true. This one could actually destroy that which should be eternal. A sobering thought.
Yet, there she had learned something in her encounter. It almost seemed as if he was hesitant to use his magic. Utilizing it to coat his weapons was the least effective way he could bring it to bear. Why did he not just strike her from afar, as Maenat did when they fought? It was strange, and confusing. She did not like thing
s she could not understand.
“The one who engaged me was powerful,” Maenat said. She hadn’t realized he stood next to her. His normal place in a battle was far away from his foe so he could cast magic out of range of their weapons. Like a coward.
“Was he?” She was in no mood to have a conversation.
“Yes. I struck at the Gneisprumay with powerful spells. That other one was able to largely block my magic. His was infused with something that I have not encountered before.”
“It is life,” she said. “This world is full of it, and so is some of their magic.”
“Yes,” he said, looking over the cliff into the liquid.
She scanned the current below as well. They had no such things in her world, these moving torrents of liquid or the large bodies of it she had seen in her travels here. When they had first encountered one of them, a few of her troops attempted to go across. It swept them away. She did not know what happened to them, but it was obvious that they could not navigate the liquid as the denizens of this world could. Should they try? Did the liquid include a component of this life? Would submersion destroy them or only weaken them without eliminating their essence? It was too much of a risk to find out.
“Can these ones survive plunging into that?” Maenat pointed downward.
“I do not know. It seems to be moving that way, so we must follow it and see if we can locate them again. I only saw the One as he entered it, and then as he disappeared as it turned the bend.”
“We will have them next time, Koixus,” Maenat said, almost as if he was consoling her. “We will hunt them down and attack them where there will be no escape.”
“Yes,” she said. “We will.” As they went back to their respective forces, she wondered if it would be that easy. She had no doubt that they could find their enemy, but there was power there in the One, power even he did not realize. She prayed to S’ru, her dark god, that he didn’t discover what he was capable of, or next time she would not escape with only one stinging cut.
Chapter 44
The black water closed around Aeden’s body as he plunged into the river. The coldness ripped the breath from his lungs as he sank deeper into the water. His descent slowed and he started kicking to the surface, pulling up with his arms. While he did so, the current tore at him, moving him rapidly downstream, threatening to turn him end over end.
Aeden was a good swimmer. He had been forced to swim in the highland lakes as part of his training. It developed muscles that were not easily developed in other ways, his trainers told him, and he believed it. In any case, he was confident he could swim strongly enough to make it to the shore. If he wasn’t thrown into a rock by the current and crushed.
His head broke the surface and he looked around. There was no one else in sight. Did the others make it safely from the water? Did Urun jump when he did? He hoped so. He liked the eccentric priest, had grown to regard him as family. And wasn’t that what their group was now, a family? Funny how he never thought of such things when he was in the highlands.
The clan was family.
The clan was all.
He had found, though, that family could mean many things. The Gypta had taught him that. He was glad they had.
First order of business was to survive the river. The other things could wait. As if in answer to his thought, the current spun him, drew him under, and threw him against something hard bobbing in the water next to him. A large tree branch.
He grabbed at the branch, but it was ripped from his grip as he spun again. He gulped water as he tried to take a breath and started coughing. Clawing his way to the surface to take a full breath—and coughing half of it out—he tried to fix his eyes on the shore. The river was at least thirty feet wide, the current swift. On the side of the river closest to him, there were some boulders and a sheer cliff, no shore to speak of. Getting to the side there would do him no good.
The other side was more promising. Though the water had cut a cliff into the surrounding soil, there appeared to be locations where he could climb out. If he could get to them. He lost his view as he bobbed under the water again.
Fighting to stay afloat was already exhausting him. He could only faintly feel the wounds he had gotten in his battle. That was one advantage to the cold water that had numbed him. But the cold seeped into his core. If he didn’t get out of the river soon, he would freeze to death and slip beneath the surface, unconscious. And that would be all there was to his life.
Not now. Not yet. Aeden kicked toward the other side of the river. He did not like that it was the same side from which he jumped. The land had dropped away and come closer to the level of the water while the opposite side had risen up to sheer, impassable cliffs. That meant that once he left the water and found his companions—and he would find them!—they would still have a river crossing to deal with.
The current took him around a bend, jostling him and spinning him again. He went under and fought to come up, able to break the surface long enough to catch one small breath before being dragged under again. The battle only lasted a moment, but it was a long moment.
As the river straightened out, the turbulence lessened and Aeden took the opportunity to kick with all his might, pulling himself with his arms, aiming for a narrow beach downstream. His motions pulled at his wounds, and the pain shocked him. It felt like when he stretched, the wound opened up and the water forced its way under his skin, flapping it up and threatening to tear it from his body. He tried to grit his teeth while still taking in the necessary air, but he only succeeded in hissing through his partly opened mouth.
The combination of the cold water and the lack of breath caused little flashes of light to hover around in his vision. It scared him to think that he might actually pass out. If he did so, he would die. He had no doubt about that. Stopping his thrashing long enough to stretch his neck out and gulp in as full a breath as he could, he resumed his battle with the current, that lifesaving beach the only thing in his world.
And then he watched as his target passed by. Rather, as he rocketed past it, just so much debris in the current. There were still a dozen feet of river to cross before he made it to the side. Such a short distance but so very far away. He cursed, but only in his mind. He couldn’t spare the breath to do so out loud.
The dizziness seemed to be overwhelming him. His thoughts were slow, and he couldn’t seem to make sense of anything. He rushed by a large rock, scraping it and narrowly missing a dangerous collision with it. Aeden shook his head to try to clear the fog and cast his eyes downstream once more. His path was dotted with rocks poking up through the surface of the water up ahead, but there was another strip of shore that he could use to climb out of the river. If he could get to it. The rocks concerned him. How many more lurked below the surface?
Aeden redoubled his efforts, kicking with the last of his strength, paddling with arms made of wood, but not nearly as buoyant. His breathing came in ragged gasps, and the world seemed to narrow into a tunnel, blackness filling the edges. He locked his eyes on the beach, putting his entire body into making it there, ignoring the rocks that could crush his body if he struck one at the speed he was moving.
Almost. He was almost there.
For every foot he went toward the safety of the shore, the river dragged him five feet downstream. But he kept trying. Pulling. Kicking.
Aeden’s hand struck something painfully as he plunged it into the water for another pull. He cried out but quickly plunged the other hand into the water for another stroke. It also scraped against rock. He grabbed at one, and it turned over in his hand and started rolling, but he had already reached out with the other hand.
His torso slowed as he grasped at handholds. His legs moved with the current, pulling him parallel with the shore, feet pointing downstream. He had made it, but he still had to get out of the water before it snatched him back into the deeper part of the river. As he kicked, his knee struck a rock and pain shot up his leg. He ignored it, too close to completion and to
o exhausted by his ordeal to react.
The Croagh was finally able to crawl from the water, hands and knees scraping the loose stones edging the water. He dragged himself up onto the gravel of the beach until he was completely out of the water, and then he collapsed. He would rest for a moment. Just a moment. His eyes fluttered and finally closed as the sound of the rushing water lulled him to sleep.
Aeden’s eyes snapped open. Where was he? What happened? Something had roused him from his slumber. A sharp pain like someone touching a red hot piece of metal to his back made him gasp. The warm day had thawed him enough that the numbing effect of the cold water had worn off.
How long had he been asleep? He checked the sun’s position in the sky. It was getting near the horizon on the other side of the river. The west side. It was late afternoon. Where were his friends?
He looked around, but didn’t see anyone else. His small beach was only twenty feet long and less than half that wide. There was a cut in the land above it as if the river had receded recently, but it was passable. The other side of the water faced a dirt cliff twenty feet high. Even if he was on that side, he doubted he could get up from the river bed there. He’d just have to search for his friends on this side of the river. Hopefully they weren’t split up, some on one side and some on the other.
Aeden groaned as he stumbled to his feet. Putting both hands over his shoulders, he was glad to find his swords still in their scabbards. At least he would have his weapons. His belt pouch was still there, as was his pack. All in all, things could be worse.
Magic After Dark: A Collection of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels Page 137
