The dark-haired woman sniffed.
Daena thought from above the rocks.
Bannor looked out to the trees that formed a ruff around the depression. He saw nothing—not even an animal trail.
the Baronian responded.
He concentrated on Megan, forming the valkyrie’s life sigil in his mind and pressing that symbol into the shaladen.
It was perhaps a few heartbeats before the lead Shael Dal responded.
Azir, Wren, and Ziedra all closed ranks directly over the middle of the slope. He, Daena, and Senalloy came shoulder to shoulder bodies braced as they looked for origin of the growls.
Daena murmured.
More blue-haired figures shimmered into being around them, males and females, all of them leaned their heads back and bayed, raising clawed hands as if to curse them.
His whole body felt like ice.
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* * *
Chapter Thirteen
In all my days I had never been hated so
powerfully by something that had only
instants before just set eyes on me…
—Ziedra Skyedoom Felspar,
Magestrix Prodigal
Growling creatures all around them, Bannor felt his heart start galloping. Even though they were some twenty paces up from the floor of the shrine, he did not feel safe as the blue-haired humanoids glared up at them with glowing gold eyes and bayed like animals. Clawed hands clenching and unclenching, fanged jaws set in hungry grimaces their forms wavered and shimmered like heat images.
“Holy frell,” Azir murmured, spinning around. “They came out of no-where. They’re all over the place!”
“This is not good,” Wren breathed. “Up. Don’t move fast… go straight up.”
As a group they started to rise. Their motion only agitated the creatures further making them howl and scream.
“Ah spit, I don’t like the looks of that!” Daena pointed.
Bannor snatched around. Four of the male creatures stood together with their clawed hands linked. While another that must be a female sprinted back twenty paces, slid to a stop, dug her hands and toes into the dirt and launched herself forward.
“Go! Go! Go!” He hollered, willing himself up.
The female moved so fast she became a streak, she hit those bunched hands and they launched her like a catapult.
Climbing faster than a horse could gallop, he thought for an instant he was safe, until the reality sent icy shrieks of panic racing through him. “Ahhh, frell!” Wailing like a banshee, the female creature was suddenly above him, coming down.
He swung shaladen up to meet her, willing it into a shield. The powerful weapon solidified, just as her claws whistled down and hit the metal with an ear-numbing rasp and tore through.
Pain exploded from his arm, shoulder, and side as white-hot talons carved through him in a spray of blood that blotted out the sky. He roared in agony as the thing hung its claws in his thigh and thrashed away like a living meat grinder, tearing through his Kriar battle carapace as though it were rusty pot metal.
Incredible torment and desperation gave him the strength to drive his fist into her face and knock the female beast loose in a rip of tearing flesh. “Arrrgh!”
He heard his name yelled several times but he couldn’t see. He only knew he must get out of the range of another of those attacks.
In the middle of his blind climb, someone took his wrist and pulled him. “I got you,” he heard Senalloy say. “Keep flying.”
They finally stopped when it grew hard to breathe.
He couldn’t see but he heard everyone gathered around breathing hard.
“Spit,” Ziedra gasped.
“Damn, damn, damn,” he heard Wren muttering, her voice was shaking. “Bannor, you with us?”
He groaned and concentrated on holding his guts in. “Can’t see.”
“What is with Gaea!” Azir yelled. “A coven dreadnought is a weeping prissy compared to one of those things!”
“Shut up, Az,” Wren ordered. “Daena, you and Zee get a hand on his belt. Sen, when they get a hold of him, see what you can do.”
He felt hands take hold of his belt.
“Oh ow,” Daena moaned. “He’s bleeding so much.”
“Lords,” Ziedra muttered in a shaky voice. “It hacked right through the shaladen.”
“Bannor,” Wren said to him. “Tilt your head back.”
Grimacing, against the pain he did as she asked.
“I’m going to pour some water on your face and wipe away the blood so you can see.”
A cold splash across his eyes made him flinch. Wren rubbed at his face. The world came back in a blur of colors. He blinked away the water and tears and caught a sketchy view of the blonde savant’s concerned expression.
The pain in his stomach lessened somewhat as Senalloy applied some healing magic. “I need get him on the ground,” she said. “He’s bleeding internally. I need to get the blood out of those cavities before sealing him up. He’ll go into septic shock if I don’t do some repairs first.” Grimacing, she leaned over his leg and pushed bleeding flaps of torn flesh back into place.
“Rrrr,” he moaned through gritted teeth.
“Oh, Bannor,” Daena said, rubbing the back of his head.
“Hold on, let me get the rest of this bleeding stopped,” Senalloy said. “Tell your shaladen not to shock me.”
“Urrrhm, how?”
“It’s smart, just tell it… think it.”
It’s okay, let her touch you, he telepathed into the weapon.
“Okay, this is going to smart, I have to get this thing off.”
He closed his eyes and braced. Even prepared,
it felt like his arm was being ripped off. His cheeks puffed out and he made choked sounds as he tried to hold in a scream.
She got the shaladen shield off and stared at the four gouges raked down through the middle of what he thought was impervious metal.
“How in all the stars?” Ziedra breathed. “That’s frelling impossible. That’s krill-ishtite alloy.”
“Apparently nobody told those blue-hairs,” Wren murmured.
Senalloy looped the shield over her shoulder, then started working on his arm. She worked with care moving torn bits of flesh into place and sealing them with healing magic. “That was fast thinking, Bannor,” she said as she worked. “She aimed for your heart.”
“Can’t have it.” He struggled to force a smile. “It’s Sarai’s.”
Ziedra patted his shoulder. “Damn near ripped in half and you can still make a joke. You’re one tough guy.”
“Promise,” he grunted. “Don’t tell Sarai—she’ll have—have a fit.”
“Bannor, you dope, you were linked with Megan when you were hit. There’s no way they don’t know you were clobbered.”
“If she knows already—I can’t stop it… but… if she doesn’t.”
“You worry about living,” Wren growled scrubbing the top of his head. “She’ll get over it.”
“Okay,” Senalloy determined. “That’s the best I can do while we’re in the middle of the sky.”
“Frell. Where do we land?” Azir said, looking around. “We can’t even see the damn things until they’re on top of us.”
“I don’t understand,” Daena said. “It wasn’t random, they went straight after Bannor.”
“Just my—” He coughed, sending a wracking pain through his torso. “My wonderful luck.”
“No,” Senalloy said with a shake of her head. “Your amateur telepathy.”
“Huh?” Wren said.
“He’s still learning to use the shaladen,” she informed her. “When he sends person-to-person there’s still a lot of ‘noise’. Those blue-hairs went berserk the instant he linked up with Megan.”
“We were linked and they didn’t do anything.”
“You don’t use much power to send to someone a pace away, and savant-to-savant mindspeak is on a different spectrum as well.”
“They went insane because he used telepathy?”
“She’s right,” he agreed. “They got more crazy each—” He winced. “Each time I sent a thought.”
“It’s possible I suppose. Some animals go weird over certain sounds,” Wren said.
“It might explain why they attacked the Kriar,” Senalloy said. “Telepathy is their primary means of communication. If these things didn’t like it when he tried off-site telepathy, imagine how they would respond if you tried to communicate with them using it.”
Wren clicked her teeth. She pointed to a rise in the landscape far below them. “See that hill on the far side of the lake away from the shrine? Let’s head there.”
“Isn’t that kinda close to where they are?”
“It’s more than a league away with a dozen furlongs of water between them to boot,” she answered. “Zee, you can make a shield to keep them out, right?”
“Against those things?” the ascendant of magic said. “I have no idea what they can do.”
“Just give it a try,” Wren said. “We only need to be there long enough for Senalloy to patch Bannor up.”
“You aren’t seriously thinking we should still try and go in there?”
“Of course I am,” she answered with a growl. “They won the first clash, scared the spit out of us, but now we know better.”
“It doesn’t sound like we know better,” Daena murmured. “It sounds like we’re crazy.”
“Dane, they’re scary, they’re strong—” She thumped the younger woman on the shoulder. “Guess what—so are we. We are in the cradle of the place that gives us our power.”
“I’m,” he coughed. “…With you—uhhh—once I’m patched up that is.”
“Bannor, you jest,” Ziedra said. “That thing gutted you like a fish. You want to go back? We should call for help and let the elders handle this!”
He grimaced. “It’s not their job. It’s ours.”
“Come on, let’s go,” Wren angled back toward the ground.
Daena and Ziedra helped him as they followed her.
Wren swooped down on the hilltop, pausing only a few moments to look around before dropping to the surface. Senalloy landed next to her, weapon drawn. Azir landed a moment after, looking uneasy.
Daena and Ziedra eased him to the ground.
“Lay him down,” Senalloy directed, still gazing around and alert for possible attack.
He groaned and winced as they put him down. He could only think of how wise it had been for Sarai to have Wysteri enhance his body. As tough as this form was, another few instants and that beast would have finished him.
Once he was secure, Ziedra patted him on the shoulder and rose. She raised her hands and chanted some guttural sounding words. A hemisphere of translucent colors that reminded him of a bubble of soap surrounded them.
“Do you know how to do a phase shield?” Senalloy asked. “I think those Lokori phase shift.”
Ziedra shook her head.
“Okay,” Senalloy clapped her hands and went into a complicated ritual, hands moving and voice rising and falling as she uttered the cadences of the spell. A long breath later, shadows spread out from her and merged with the sphere created by Ziedra. “There, that should prevent any phasing unpleasantness.”
She knelt down by him. “Sorry to take so long,” she said. “I know that has to be hurting something fierce.” Brushing her hair back, she pulled a pouch off her belt and pulled out some kind of leather bound case. She flipped it open revealing an array of tools and vials.
“Hey,” Wren said in a flat tone to Azir and the others. “Don’t watch her, keep your eyes up.”
Senalloy pulled the straps on his carapace and removed it.
She explained as she worked, her hands moving with familiar expertise. “When you have a punctured intestine there’s bile and other bad stuff that can get mixed up with your blood.” He felt something sharp jab in his side. A numbness spread through his torso. It made his vision go blurry. “Okay, we’ll wait a few moments for that to take effect.”
He swallowed, it was getting a little hard to breathe. “Dumb question, you do know—” “—what I’m doing?” she finished. She ran a hand across his brow. “Yes, Bannor.” She pulled another pouch from her side, reached inside and began assembling some objects. She emptied the contents of a flask on a cloth she produced and swabbed his skin and cleaned around the wound.
He felt her hands distantly, and experienced a strange tugging. He started to look down and she put a hand on his forehead and pushed him back. “Study the sky. You don’t need to see this. Just lay still.” She went back to work. “Now,” she continued her explanation. “If you didn’t have an immort body you’d go into toxic shock, if the shock didn’t kill you right off, the septic infection would.” He heard some disturbing sucking and sloshing sounds. Daena made a weird sound. He looked toward the girl who had turned pale. Eyes wide she put her hands to her face and cringed away. He noticed Wren grimacing and focusing her attention toward the lake.
He swallowed as the woman held up something that looked like a needle and thread. “Uhhh,” he murmured.
“I have to suture the bowel and intestines that were slashed. We have to prevent adhesions. If I don’t sew them up, things will heal together and you’ll tear inside. Healing fast makes it worse because you keep healing and tearing, healing and tearing… You don’t want that… trust me.”
Bannor grimaced. “I trust you.”
“Damn, I’m gonna be sick,” Azir muttered.
“You should do like your sister says,” Senalloy said, needle and thread occasionally emerging in Bannor’s view, her hands crimson with his blood. “Wren, I should have mention
ed it before, I need some water to irrigate this wound. The little bit of septic I have isn’t enough.”
“That’s okay, I’ll go—” The woman stiffened her eyes going wide. “Ohhh, spit!”
“Wren?” Ziedra whirled around and gasped.
Bannor looked where they were staring.
Hunched down inside Ziedra’s magic shield, a male Lokori leaned toward them sniffing and turning its head, clawed hands clenching and unclenching. It focused glowing gold eyes on them and growled…
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* * *
Chapter Fourteen
I have seen a great deal in my life, and
death doesn’t frighten me. Still, something
about those creatures just managed to
squeeze a shiver out of me…
—Senalloy Moirae Corresont,
Commander Nightslash Elite Detached
Since gaining his savant powers, Bannor had been in all manner of danger and faced everything from demons to gods. Still, he could not think of a more compromised position to be in than lying on the ground with some healer’s hands wrist deep in his guts when one of the most dangerous entities they had ever encountered decided to pay a visit. He sucked a breath and dug his fingers into the grass.
“Don’t—move,” Senalloy rasped in a low voice.
Around him the others tensed as the blue-haired Lokori let out a low growl, the bunched muscles of its lean body quivering with explosive strength. Glowing gold eyes narrowed, it gazed around at them, fanged jaws clicking. It raised its nose and sniffed again.
“Spit,” Ziedra murmured in a quiet voice. “What do we do!?”
“Do not hack it off,” Wren whispered, she squatted down and put her hands in the grass.
Her movement made the Lokori jerk and make low grunt. It stared at her, tilted its head and bared its fangs with different sounding snarl.
“Crouch down,” she ordered. “Get your head lower than his.”
Daena gasped. “What?”
“Just do it!” she snapped.
Azir crouched down beside her and placed his hands on the grass. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Do what she says,” Senalloy hissed. “Don’t argue.”
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