Finally, the larger syclarion swung his pike up and sent Flarinen out of the circle. There was no damage I could see, but he landed in a crumpled heap and didn’t move.
With two now fighting him, Alric succumbed quickly. I screamed as he was flung near my feet but I couldn’t move to help him. The ragged way his chest moved told me he was alive, but injured.
Kelm and Covey were freed next. I didn’t know if it was a spell, or honor, but neither of them even paused to try to escape.
The same two ancient-looking syclarions faced them—along with a third. Two went against Covey. She fought well, so did Kelm, but this time it was moments before both Kelm and Covey lay at our feet.
I couldn’t turn my head, but surely I would be next. Instead, Lorcan, Padraig, and I suddenly stumbled as we were free. But a shield of some kind had gone up instead, unfortunately, and our unconscious friends were on the other side. The faeries and Bunky and the gargoyle couldn’t move, but the three of us could. The syclarion fighters and the arena faded but were still visible.
“Do either of you have dragon bane?” I kept my voice low. There was no reason for whoever was doing this to release us.
Padraig had been studying the shield but looked up sharply. “Is this really a time to get drunk?”
“I need to go a little out of control right now.”
“If you think it will help, I have some in my wagon. Padraig, could you get it?” Lorcan nodded. “The scrolls mention other uses; the drink is from the time of the Ancients. It was rumored that they controlled great beasts with it. Beasts like the true dragons who were lost when the Ancients were destroyed.”
Padraig came out with a small brown bottle. “There’s not much, but hopefully it will help.”
I took it and smiled. That was one of the many differences between Alric and Padraig. If I asked for something from Padraig, he got it for me. Had I done the same with Alric he would have cross-examined me like crazy to find out why I wanted it.
I uncapped the bottle and started pouring it on myself. Not the best feeling in the world as the smell was nasty. But I made sure I drained the small bottle.
Both elves stared at me with looks ranging from confusion to outright concern.
“Weren’t you going to drink it?”
“That helps in one way,” I said as I saw Covey rise for another round, then collapse into a heap. “I need the other way.”
Lorcan and Padraig were pulled inside the shield without me.
Nothing more than a dull tingling hit me where the dragon bane had splattered and my movements were slowing down, not speeding up. We’d never really understood how or why the dragon bane did what it did, so maybe it had stopped working.
I continued to fight my sluggishness as I watched both Padraig and Lorcan succumb to the syclarions. The faeries, Bunky, and the gargoyle were pulled in next, but they crashed to the ground almost immediately.
The pressure around me dropped and the shield fell. I could run away if I wanted, but there was no way in hell I was abandoning my friends. Not to mention finding a boyfriend who wasn’t trying to kill me was rare enough that I wasn’t about to leave Alric behind.
My body burst into flame as soon as I crossed the line where the shield had been. At least everywhere that the dragon bane had struck felt on fire. My jaws ached and a haze covered my eyes. I needed to destroy these things.
There were now five of the syclarions, and we came so close in battle I could tell all of their attire was a few centuries old—or older.
My body moved on its own blocking pike thrusts and getting in more than a few strikes. Two of the syclarions had vanished after multiple strikes, and then I was trapped between the remaining three. A burst came from within and I moved faster than I’d ever done. All three took enough hits to vanish.
My body felt stretched and achy, as if there was too much energy to be contained in something so small as myself. A tiny voice said I needed to drag my friends to safety. I moved toward Alric, my hand appearing claw-like as it reached to him, then everything went dark.
8
My first thought upon waking up was that I’d been run over by a fleet of armored war chariots. My second thought was wondering how was I having thoughts when clearly my head was shattered. The third thought was that I was going to kill a bunch of yelling faeries, providing I really wasn’t dying with a shattered skull.
“Mine! Is mine!” That was Leaf Grub and she was hitting a pitch that rattled the ends of my toes.
I forced open my eyes to see all twenty-three faeries bouncing around on a pile of clothing. Closer inspection, aka I squinted, revealed there was a body under those clothes. “I need you to all shut up.”
That got their attention, but it didn’t convince them to obey. All of them, with the exception of Leaf, flew over and landed on me with enough force to crush my feeble attempt at rolling up on one elbow.
“You did good!” Garbage yelled as she stood on my chest.
I closed my eyes as the stabbing pain that followed that exceptionally loud pronouncement ran through my head.
After making sure my head wasn’t going to shatter anew at the sound, I opened my eyes. “I really need you, all of you, to be quiet. Very quiet.”
Crusty tumbled closer to my face and opened her mouth, but Garbage jumped on her and covered her mouth. “We quiet.”
That was a couple of firsts. Garbage actually respecting what I asked—the look of admiration that she gave me was almost as terrifying as her singing. And that even Crusty immediately settled down.
The rest of the faeries remained standing on me, but not a peep was heard and they didn’t move a muscle.
I wasn’t going to try and figure out the weirdness of faeries right now. Bits and pieces of what happened before this started crawling around in my mind.
“Where are we, where are the others, and who was it you were jumping on?” The last one wasn’t crucial, but I did want to know. Leaf was still on him and her eyes were almost crossed with the look of adoration on her face.
Crusty started to answer, with what I knew was going to be a loud, rambling response. Garbage shut her down with a glare.
“You save us all. Bring here. Here good.” She waved around us and I focused a bit more. We were on a packed dirt floor of a large empty storage room. A pile of moldy potatoes languished in the far corner, along with a few empty and busted crates. There was a short stairway and a heavy wooden door—the kind with metal bars in it. Now that the girls were quiet, I heard the sounds of a street beyond the door.
“Girls? Where is the light coming from?” A closed-up storage room, no windows, yet I could see everything.
“Is him,” Leaf finally paid attention to me, and pulled back part of the fabric on the hopefully not dead man she was cuddling. He gave off a soft glow and it echoed around the room.
“How is…Never mind,” I said. “Where are the others?”
“Think there,” one of the extra faeries said and pointed toward the door to the street. Penqow was a black and white faery and had been with us for a few months, but like most of the newer ones, rarely spoke to me. How much of that was their decision and how much was because of Garbage, I had no idea.
“They’re out there somewhere and we’re in here? Any ideas how we got in here?”
All of the faeries pointed as one to the pile of rags Leaf was standing on.
“So the man over there brought us here?”
Garbage laughed and the rest giggled. “No, silly. YOU bring here. He bring here.” As she said the first here, her arms went wide. As she said the second, she pointed to the packed dirt I was lying on.
Somehow I brought us to a town, even though the last thing I recalled was the world fading before my eyes. Then this unconscious man a few feet from me brought me in here, and collapsed.
“Did he bring you all in here too?”
“Is no. We follow you,” Crusty said as she wiggled free of Garbage. I didn’t even think Garbage remembered
she’d been sitting on her.
I struggled to roll up on my elbow again. I immediately felt a bunch of tiny hands at my back pushing. Garbage stood on my shoulder giving commands.
I would have been annoyed, but they actually helped. The body near me was close enough that getting up on my hands and knees could get me to him, so I didn’t bother standing up.
There seemed to be more clothing piled on him beyond what he was wearing. I pushed some aside. The breath I drew in was completely involuntary. He was gorgeous.
“Is mine.” Leaf rolled off the clothes she’d been standing on as I pulled them away but she stayed on him.
“Okay, he’s yours. What is he?”
“He faery. Boys always trouble.”
I took a closer look. His features were almost too pretty, as if someone had taken an elf and glammed him up into almost looking like a woman. But enough sharper lines in his face gave indication he was male. His skin was a toasted brown, like the bark of one of the lighter trees at the edge of a forest. His long hair was also brown, but much darker. He looked nothing like any faery I’d ever seen, and he was giving off a soft glow.
“Seriously? I didn’t think there were male faeries. How can he be the same as you lot? In case you didn’t notice, he’s my size.” Actually, judging by his legs, he was closer to Alric’s height. Regardless, he was definitely not someone who would be related to a four-inch high faery.
He groaned at that moment and all of the faeries flew over to him. Only Leaf stood on him, but the others hovered over him. His glowing faded.
“Burnt out,” Crusty said. She flew down and patted him. His glow flared briefly, and then faded again.
“Boys stupid too.” Garbage flew to the far side of him and started pushing him. He didn’t react at all.
“Yep, is done.” A few of the faeries muttered that.
Leaf marched over to his face and peered down. “You no do. Go now.” She flapped her wings as his body flared once, then vanished.
Like that damn minkie had. I rubbed my eyes.
“You all saw him, right? He was here, you said he was a boy faery, he glowed, then he disappeared?”
Garbage had been gathering her faery horde around her, but froze and tilted her head. “Yes, was here. Too much, then go poof.”
At least she didn’t say boom. I had so many questions that I had no idea where to start. At least, unlike the minkie, we all agreed he had been here. That was going to have to hold me until we dealt with a few other things.
Like where we were and how we got here.
I tried questioning the faeries, but got even worse answers than usual. Apparently, we were here, and I brought us here so it must be good.
At least with the vanishing boy faery and our debate of where we were I’d regained some strength. My muscles all hurt and I had faint bruising where the injuries I’d taken in the fight that I now remembered were. And I had the start of a massive headache. Which was completely unfair since I hadn’t used any magic in the fight, just whatever my body did while under the influence of dragon bane. Of course, who knew if magic was used getting us here.
I managed to stumble to my feet and use my memory of the room to slowly make my way to the stairs. When our faery boy night-light went out, so did almost all the light. A small crack from under the door was all that was left.
A thought hit me—if I had somehow transported us, where would I have gone? I’d been thinking of my friends in Beccia before the mess with the vanishing canyons started. I stubbed my toe in my enthusiasm to get to the door, but didn’t care.
Pulling open the heavy door made my toe hurt worse. The dingy alley before me would have looked out of place in the meanest of areas in Beccia. And the low slung yet still managing to look horribly unstable building across from us definitely wasn’t up to Beccian standards. And that was truly something I never thought I’d say.
“Girls? Think hard, do you know where we are? Where are our friends?” A feeling of panic was rising, but I squished it into a corner for the moment.
Twenty-three faeries all talking at once was almost as bad as their singing. Especially if your brain was trying to crawl out of your ears to go find a peaceful place to hide.
“Just one of you. Garbage? Where and where?”
“Here where you go. Others that way.” She pulled free of the pack and pointed down the worse end of the alley. All of it wasn’t nice, but toward the left was viler.
There was no way I was going to get where we were out of them. Names were vague and changeable in their view anyway, so even if they found one, it would probably be wrong. First thing then was to find my friends, let those with more functioning brains figure out what the hell happened.
The alley bent sharply as if something catastrophic impaired it from moving in a normal manner. Mostly we were facing the backs of buildings. They formed one continuous line and I could only tell there were multiple buildings because ages ago someone had painted them. The colors were faded and muddy now. The alley itself was poorly paved and covered in mud. Not only fresh mud, but old mud that had been splattered up the walls of the buildings for years and never washed off.
If I actually sent us here I must have been drinking more than Crusty.
A slight drizzle started as I rounded the corner—just what this place needed was more mud. The alley opened up to a street at that point, but it wasn’t much of an improvement that I could tell. The buildings were almost as ugly from the front as they had been from behind. The road was a little better paved and rose a bit in the center to help rain and mud slide off. Of course, that meant that while the road was wide enough for two wagons to pass, when both wanted to stay in the center things got a bit close.
There weren’t many people out, and those that were had heavy cloaks with hoods pulled tight over their heads. The only thing I knew for certain was that we were not in Beccia. And that wherever we were, I would never have sent us here.
After pointing the direction that I needed to go, the faeries stayed close to me, keeping low, as if the atmosphere of the place was getting to them as well.
They weren’t keeping low enough though. The hooded and cloaked citizens of the town were paying attention to me as I walked down the street. Rather, to the bright bits of color flying above me.
“Girls? Where are Bunky and the gargoyle?” I slowed down my pace but didn’t stop.
“They hidden. Watching others.”
That was good.
“I need all of you to go find them and stay hidden.”
Garbage flew down to my eye line and scowled. “No leave you. I promise.”
Apparently remembering that she’d promised the elven king and queen to protect me hadn’t been needed while in the canyons. I almost shook her off, then nodded.
“I need you to stay with the others and keep them out of trouble. This isn’t Beccia, the people here might try to hurt you.” She puffed out her chest in pride, but I cut her off before she could mention her fighting prowess. “They could hurt others while trying. I need you to stay out of sight until we’re all together and we figure out what’s going on.” I left out where we were since she seemed to believe I did this on purpose and was proud of it.
“I’ll keep Leaf with me,” I said. “If I have any problem finding everyone I’ll have her get help. Where are the others?”
Garbage nodded and Leaf flew over with Crusty trailing behind. “That way. Take longer two legs, but we wait. You trouble—need two.” After she pointed roughly the same direction we were already headed, she and the pack zipped high into the air and vanished.
Leaving me with Leaf and Crusty.
Both seemed alert and focused, at least for them, as they hovered in front of me. I opened my cape and they both flew in and settled in a pocket. “Okay, I need you both to settle in for now. No singing, drinking, anything. You got it?”
Two cheeps were their response. I looked inside the pocket at two artfully innocent faery faces. Not reassuring, but I n
eeded to find my friends.
A few of the locals continued to watch me, but when nothing exciting happened they went upon their way. Everyone kept their heads down and I had a feeling it was more than simply the weather.
I rounded yet another corner and came to a stop. A gallows stood before me, and one that looked permanent judging by the age of the wood and the rust from cheap nails bleeding down. It also had two males hanging from it. They had cloth sacks over their faces, but long hair extended past both. One blond and one black.
9
My heart froze. There was no way those two were Alric and Padraig. Even Garbage would have noticed them being dead. That logic didn’t stop my throat from tightening or my stomach from curling into a tight ball.
“Leaf? I need you to check and make sure those aren’t our friends.” I was proud that my voice only shook a little.
Leaf climbed out of the pocket, with Crusty right behind. But neither of them flew over.
“Nope. Not them.” She started to push Crusty back into the pocket.
“How can you be sure?” She’d barely looked at them before climbing back in.
“Smell wrong.”
I was about to insist they fly over anyway when a hooded man bumped into me and grabbed my elbow.
“We’ve been looking for you for days, where have you been?”
I dashed away a tear before he could see it, but hearing Alric’s voice when I thought I might be looking at his body was a justifiable reason for a tear or two.
“I was lying in a storage room…wait, days?” I’d been unconscious when I’d been brought in there, but it didn’t feel like it had been days. I hadn’t felt stiff enough to have been there for days.
“Four days, but I’d rather wait until we’re someplace less exposed before I tell you everything.” He looked down and pushed back my own hood. “You are all right?”
The Golden Basilisk (The Lost Ancients Book 5) Page 5