The Sapphire Manticore (The Lost Ancients Book 4)

by Marie Andreas

Which told me he’d let Glorinal go out without him and he had somewhere else to be. That was good and bad—good that he wasn’t here. The rakasa were terrifying and I didn’t even have the history with them the elves did. Their leader was beyond that. Way beyond that. The bad part was that if he wasn’t here, where was he?

  The rakasa who spoke peered down into the Glorinal-shaped hole, then muttered something unintelligible and two of his companions dropped down inside it. Then he nodded to the rest of them. “Kill them. Except her. Save the bodies. ”

  The rocks we were standing on were high, and not something an elf or human-dryad mix could have climbed. The way the rakasa were swarming, I had a bad feeling it wasn’t a big issue for them. The syclarions all held still, except for the zombie who shuffled after the rakasa.

  “Prepare for battle.” The captain returned to his position at the front, but I was certain that if we survived this, my whole crazy shoving elves into the ground issue would be addressed with great prejudice.

  The knights silently formed a line along the edge of the rocks. The corner Alric and I were in was left unguarded. They could still be afraid of me, but I preferred to think they figured Alric, and I—if I recovered fast enough—could hold our own. I’d just keep telling myself that.

  The first rakasa was upon us. While they could climb the rocks, their process was slow.

  Alric looked ready to cast a spell, but the monster was coming up in the middle of the knights’ area, so he dropped his hand.

  Two of the knights almost collided slaughtering the creature.

  “Not trying to question tactics here.” At least I was feeling better enough to complain. “But wouldn’t it make more sense to shoot them? You do have a few bows.” Two of the knights carried small bows, but I’d only seen them used to bring down game. However, picking off the rakasa before they got to the top made a hell of a lot more sense than waiting for them to come up. I looked to Alric. He didn’t have a bow, but there was no reason he couldn’t be using magic to pluck them off the rocks.

  “That is not the way of the knight. Bows are for lesser fighters.” The captain looked like I’d suggested his mother had mated with a troll.

  Alric shook his head. “There’s no reasoning with them. And I won’t take their honor away.”

  I dropped my voice. “But you will defend us, right?”

  “Of course.” He winked and gave a florid bow.

  I screamed as a rakasa came up on our side and leapt for Alric’s turned back. I needn’t have worried; Alric spun on one heel and stabbed the rakasa through the heart. He pushed the dead rakasa to the edge of the rocks and kicked the body off.

  “Show off.” I looked down as the dead rakasa took out two living ones that had been trying to climb up. The rakasa were all on the rocks now, including the one who had been acting as spokes-thing. There were fewer syclarions than there had been originally. The remaining ones all still appeared to be tied up and the zombie was trying to figure out how to climb the rocks. “Where did the others go?”

  Alric peered over the edge just as a pair of faery wings suddenly appeared in front of his face. They were orange and attached to a very fierce-looking Garbage Blossom.

  “You try do. No. We do.” She was in full war feathers instead of her standard overalls, had her war stick, and now had added war paint. Two huge horizontal stripes covered most of her face, leaving pretty much only her mouth un-marked. Purple was probably the worst color for an orange faery, but maybe that was part of the plan.

  Alric had spun back a bit at her arrival but recovered. The knights were still focusing on their slow battle with the rakasa. Meanwhile, a small swarm, of maybe twelve bright faeries in feathers and war paint were taking turns landing on the syclarions down below. Whenever at least three were on a syclarion, they raised their war sticks, and then they and the syclarion in question vanished.

  Alric was busy trying to talk to Garbage, so he missed it. I wasn’t sure what I’d seen the first time, but then after a second one vanished right before my eyes, I knew I needed to tell him. My faeries had rediscovered an old trick of theirs recently—they could land on a sitting being and make them invisible.

  However, with that trick, the being they were on didn’t vanish. They were still there, but no one could see them. I had a feeling these faeries were somehow moving the syclarions. That was reinforced when the syclarion closest to the empty space of the most recent abductee fell over trying to get away from Crusty Bucket and two other faeries. He landed right where the other one would have been if he were still there but invisible.

  “What are you guys doing?” I said.

  Garbage shook her head and flew away from Alric who looked as perplexed and confused as I felt. “I tell. We make prisoners.”

  Alric threw his hand in the air. “You didn’t say prisoners. You told me yummies.”

  Garbage got a sly look. “Could be yummy.”

  “You’re taking the syclarions to eat them?” Had I only been gone a few days? What had the girls done?

  “You silly,” she said to me. “You no listen,” she said to Alric. “They bring money, means yummies.” Satisfied that she’d told us what we needed to know, she did a back-flip in the air and swooped down on the syclarion who’d fallen over. Leaf Grub and Penqow joined her and immediately they all vanished.

  “Whatever your pets are doing will be dealt with later. You have a battle to fight.” The captain hadn’t even looked over that I could tell, and he’d taken out two more rakasa. He also wasn’t close enough to the edge to clearly see what my “pets” were doing to the syclarion prisoners. I almost told him, then decided that he should have asked. I had no idea what the girls were doing with the bound syclarions, but I’d take their side over that egotistical elf any day. If all the elves in his home were like these knights, no wonder Alric wanted to stay away.

  The rakasa numbers were dwindling, but that didn’t seem to faze them at all. The last three made their way to the top of the rocks, and the one who had been speaking for them finally looked back to the last two syclarion prisoners. He also saw three faeries take one and vanish.

  “No!” With a massive leap, he spun from the knight he was fighting and landed atop the remaining, non-zombie syclarion. He viciously batted away two of the faeries who were about to land on it, slamming them into nearby trees. Garbage Blossom had looked to see that the other two were okay, when the rakasa’s hand closed on her and he shoved her in his mouth.

  I screamed and tried to figure out if I could throw myself down there in time to save her. Before I could even come up with a spell to get down the rocks without killing myself, the rakasa’s throat bulged and twisted. He put his clawed hands up as if to stop what was happening, but his eyes were huge, and if it had been anything but a rakasa I would have thought he looked terrified.

  His eyes got bigger and he moved his hands to his mouth. Slowly his jaws were being forced open. Then a very slimy Garbage Blossom flew out. The tip of her left wing was a bit folded, but other than that she looked fine—and very, very pissed.

  “You. No. Do.” She raised her war stick, and twelve faeries surrounded her. She shook it higher, and suddenly a mass of what looked to be wild faeries flooded the clearing. All the faeries looked to Garbage, but she didn’t say anything. Her appearance was enough.

  With a high-pitched yell, the mass of faeries spun in a faster and faster circle around the rakasa. Apparently, that wasn’t only how they got rid of sceanra anam.

  A minute later, the circle had broken up, the wild faeries vanished, and a few scraps of rakasa drifted to the trampled dirt.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Garbage Blossom shook herself off and carefully unbent her wing. With a majestic flourish, she motioned the remaining two faeries forward and they all vanished with the last syclarion.

  Well, except for the zombie.

  I peered over the rock edge to see the perplexed zombie syclarion mindlessly chewing on the leg of one of the dead rakasa. He real
ly didn’t appear to know what else to do. Glorinal’s hopefully final spell hadn’t been well done. Obviously, whatever the faeries were up to, they didn’t want to deal with it. Which was too bad, because that meant we had to.

  “Maybe it takes longer to cook a zombie than he gave it.” I hadn’t meant to mutter it out loud, and had the fighting still been going on, no one but possibly Alric would have heard me. Sadly, the rock outcropping was silent and my words were very clear to sharp elven ears.

  “You cook zombies? What kind of creature are you?” The knight captain had said a spell over his dead companion, cut off the head to prevent zombification, and done whatever he did to banish the body. The look he gave me said that I was far worse than either Glorinal or the rakasa.

  “I was just saying that the spell used on this one doesn’t seem to have been completely done.” I pointed at the drooling syclarion below us who had now sat and looked ready to fall over.

  “And how would you know what zombies are supposed to be like?” The captain was still spoiling for a fight—that calm-and-in-charge façade was finally cracking. That was great. It was nice to see there was someone more than just an honor-bound puppet inside there. I just hoped he didn’t decide to focus his anger and frustration on me.

  “She fought off a zombie troll.” Alric stepped forward, breaking the stare down the captain and I were having. “She destroyed it armed only with her faeries and her brains. You’d do well not to underestimate her.” Alric might technically still be their prisoner, but it was clear his brief time of acting like it was over.

  Before the captain could answer, the zombie syclarion let out a blood-curdling yell. He looked a bit feistier than he had been a moment ago, but he also looked to be in horrible pain.

  I had a thing against syclarions. I’d never liked them and the events of the last few months had reinforced that. But the thing before me needed to be put out of his misery. Not to mention we couldn’t leave it there to harass passersby.

  I looked to Alric. “Could you? The girls are gone again, and I don’t think I could do anything about that thing right now.” I’d kept my voice low, and Alric was close enough that this time no one else heard us.

  “Let me.” He raised his voice as if I was doing him a favor, then nodded to the captain and flung a spell at the zombie before the captain could respond. The zombie didn’t burn, or explode, he simply vanished.

  Life would have been so much easier had Alric been around when we were fighting off the zombie troll back in the pub. Of course, he’d been busy getting his magic pulled out of him by Glorinal at the time.

  Speaking of which… “Shouldn’t we do something about Glorinal?”

  The captain continued to look a lovely cross of annoyed, freaked out, and slightly constipated. “That dark elf creature? I’m sure he’s not coming up from wherever you sent him.”

  Alric and I shared a look. “He’s come back from worse,” Alric said as he started down the path around the back of the rocks. One of the knights moved to block him.

  “I can go down there, and do what I can to keep that bastard from coming back up, or you can wait until he’s tearing through your men.” Alric didn’t turn to speak to the captain but it was clear who he spoke to. The knights did nothing without his command.

  The knight in front of Alric didn’t move and a second one came forward to join him.

  “Seriously?” I was feeling a lot less shaky, mostly because anger was a great adrenaline rush. I stomped forward, dodging my own pair of knights that stepped forward to block me. “If either of us wanted to leave, we could. We’re with you for now for our own reasons, but in case you didn’t notice, both he and I have some serious skills.” I pointed down to the clearing. “That bastard down there had an entire mine cave in on him and still survived. You need to let us check.” Unlike Alric, I did turn to the captain when I spoke.

  The captain showed a new emotion and I almost passed out from shock. He looked thoughtful. I hoped it was the start of a long and wonderful life-changing trend for him.

  “Stand down. I believe they are correct. They have knowledge and a history with that thing. I believe they know best how to deal with it.”

  He didn’t even have the slightest snarky look aimed my way as he spoke, so I refrained from snarling at him as the knights moved and Alric and I passed them and wound our way down through the path to the clearing.

  We’d only been up on the rocks for an hour or less, but it had seemed so long that the clearing looked foreign.

  It took a minute to realize it wasn’t just the exhaustion of battle, it was different. The ground tilted toward the right now. Instead of a flat patch of grass and dirt, the ground had cracks that radiated from the hole. Cracks I hadn’t seen from up top.

  “Did I do that when I slammed him into the ground?”

  Alric had been watching the woods around us but looked down when I spoke.

  He stayed silent but bent down to fuss with one of the cracks. I really didn’t like the crease that formed between his brows. One disadvantage of his glamour being broken—his non-glamoured, but extremely handsome, elven face lacked the ability of his human glamour to hide things. Interesting that the same person, but different features, could make or break a liar. I think I’d refrain from telling him for a bit.

  “This is still growing.” He reached toward another crack and laid his hand flat over it. “They all are.”

  Growing? I didn’t feel any trembling, but I dropped down to the ground in case it was too subtle. Nope. Put my hand right on a crack but felt nothing. I reached around to a larger one to see if Alric was losing it or not. I was sitting on the ground, my hand sitting on a crack in the earth. I’d think if the cracks were widening—aka the ground was still moving—I’d feel it.

  Another thing I’d been wrong about.

  I’d gone so far as to stick a few fingers in the wider end to see if I could tell it was moving. I’d not been expecting something to grab my fingers.

  The hand, if it could be called that, was slimy and the fingers more like tentacles. I screamed and rolled back to free my hand and the long gray fingers followed me. Okay, they weren’t like tentacles—they were tentacles. I wasn’t big on sea-life in general. I had a horrific fear of open water, partially due to the fact that my parents had died while boating. This weird thing didn’t look like a sea creature, though. It just had tentacles.

  Alric grabbed me and pulled me away from the crack and the grasping gray strands. My sword had taken off again almost as soon as we stepped off the rocks. I really needed to figure out how to make it stay put. There were three gray things reaching for me, and if I looked closely—which to be honest, I really didn’t want to—I could see what almost looked like a fingernail at the end of each one.

  “What is that thing?” The captain yelled exactly what I was thinking. His voice didn’t have the appropriate amount of fear and revulsion though. Clearly, elven eyes weren’t as sharp as I’d thought.

  Alric didn’t answer but swung with his sword at the grasping tentacles.

  He was fast. However, the fingers were faster and vanished back into the ground.

  This time I felt the rumbling and the ground moving about.

  “Get off those rocks, now!” Alric yelled at the captain and pulled me away into the trees opposite the rock outcropping.

  “Shouldn’t we be running toward the rocks? They look a lot more stable than the ground.” Being a digger, I had a healthy appreciation for rocks—especially the kind you don’t even bother to deal with if you find them on a dig. The real old ones that go down so far nothing is moving them. I’d bet my next ale at the Shimmering Dewdrop that the rock outcropping in front of us was one of those.

  “That may be true, but the ground around them isn’t.” Alric kept pulling us back, but instead of running away completely, he continued staring at the shaking clearing before us.

  “I am telling you,” he yelled again to the captain, “get your men off those roc
ks, or you won’t live.”

  The captain scowled, most likely thinking like I was—the rocks seemed a safer bet than the increasingly shaking ground. “You’re being ridiculous. You both need to get back up here.” He didn’t sound as sure as before though.

  “It’s a kraken spell. That bastard is still alive and coming up from underneath,” Alric said.

  “We’re nowhere near water. Don’t you need water for a kraken?” I wasn’t saying I wanted to be around water, but I would think that a water monster would need some. The ground was bouncing around like a drunken minotaur, and standing was becoming harder. Alric pulled us back a bit farther but the damage didn’t seem to be going under the tree line.

  “Not for this one. The trees are fighting the spell so he can’t come among them. But he can swallow the rocks.” Alric raised the last bit into a yell. One that felt like it had a bit of a compulsion spell behind it.

  I wasn’t sure how much magic any of the knights had, they very studiously never used any around me. The captain at least, had enough to feel the spell in the words. The scowl on his face showed he wasn’t happy, and most likely wasn’t really coerced, but he yelled for his men to get down from the rocks and head for the trees.

  The knights questioned nothing, but disappeared to the back where the path was, then appeared in the clearing.

  They’d waited too long.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The rock outcropping exploded. The ground around it opened, and a gray, mutated monster that looked as if Glorinal had been stretched and distorted, burst out of the ground. The long bloated body was still mostly Glorinal, but the arms ended in extra appendages—ones that looked like the arms and legs from a few rakasa.

  I didn’t want to think about what happened to the rest of the two rakasa who had followed Glorinal down the hole I’d shoved him into. I also didn’t want to think about how in the hell he’d become whatever this was.

  But mostly I didn’t want to think about the two knights who hadn’t moved fast enough, and got grabbed by the twisted, tree trunk-sized tentacles. They were both ripped in half before they could even scream.