by Grace Draven
The spear pierced the thing’s emaciated chest, punching it backwards with the force of impact. The shrieking cut off abruptly as the obluda sank, still clawing at the shaft and thrashing in the water. Zigana pitched into the surf on the other side of Gitta as the mare, no longer forced to hold still, threw her and Odon off with a fast pivot.
Water closed over Zigana’s head, and her bottom hit the seabed, swirling up sand to blind her completely. An arm wrapped around her middle and heaved her out of the water.
“Swim back,” Odon bellowed in her ear. “Swim back.”
An equine scream, unlike anything she’d ever heard before lanced Zigana’s eardrum. Gitta reared above her, a towering, one-ton mountain of enraged horse. Waterfalls cascaded off her fetlocks and hooves as they pawed the air before crashing down on the surfacing obluda. The harpoon’s shaft snapped like a piece of kindling. Gitta rose again, whinnying her challenge as she brought those huge feet down into the waves over and over. Another whinny matched hers—Andras’s bay calling encouragement as the furious trawler mare smashed the obluda until there was nothing left but teeth and bone fragments floating on a slick of yellow blood.
“Where is Andras?” Zigana cried, clutching her father as the waves tumbled around and over them. “Where is Lord Frantisek?”
“Here,” a voice answered. Andras leaned against his bay’s shoulder, blood streaming down his chest to be washed away by the sea, only to stream again. “I can’t mount Bui, but we have to get out of the water. Whatever hunters the obluda chased off before will return. Not only because it’s safe again but because they’re smelling a lot of blood.”
He was right, and a new panic set in as she sensed a different hunger surging around them, one familiar but no less dangerous than the obluda. She and Odon helped Andras mount his horse before retrieving Gitta.
Odon used the mare’s mane and the rise of the waves to swing onto her back and pulled Zigana up behind them. Like their human riders, the horses seemed to sense the predators headed their way and wasted no time trotting out of the surf for the safety of the shore.
People spilled over the dunes to greet them. Odon leapt off Gitta and braced to catch Frishi as she threw herself into his arms, laughing and crying at the same time. She dragged a dripping Zigana into her embrace as well, and the three held each other and cried. There was cheering and hugging and an inordinate number of women volunteering to take Lord Frantisek to their home and dress his wounds.
Zigana caught him before they dragged him off to the village. The blood from the slashes inflicted by the obluda had slowed to a trickle, but Andras’s face was still pale, and he swayed a little on his feet.
“You saved us,” she said, capturing one of his hands to bring it to her forehead in thanks. “Were it not for you, my father and I would have died out there. And Gitta also.”
He was more bedraggled than a drowned rat and white as a corpse, but his gray gaze was warm. “You returned the favor. I’m alive because of you. There is no debt, Mistress Imre.”
She squeezed his hand, as sun-browned as hers and far more elegant. “You called me Ziga in the sea. You still can. We’re family after all.” It was an acknowledgement spoken with both joy and regret.
He raised her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers. “Ziga,” he said, and he murmured her name as if he invoked it in prayer. “We’ll meet again soon.” He indicated Gitta with a thrust of his chin. “Take care of your child of earth. She is exceptional.”
The moon waxed bright above the dunes and the salt grass whispered incoherent secrets to any with the patience to listen.
Zigana sat astride Gitta and stared at the night tide as it tumbled back and forth along the shoreline. Frishi no longer questioned her as to why she rode to the beach each night now. Zigana wasn’t sure she could explain it herself. A need to hear the surf and only the surf; to see the waves roll and feel the steady breathing of her heroic, stalwart mare under her—these things reassured her in some way, allowed her to sleep at night.
The shadow of a dorsal fin cleaved the water, running parallel to the shore before sinking beneath the waves. While there had been no more nightmares or sea spiders singing villagers to their death for a good six weeks, the Gray was still no place for a land creature at night, and she was content to listen to the surf from the safe distance of dry ground. Shrimping season was over for the year, and soon she’d turn Gitta’s strength toward another labor as winter set in and the air froze a person’s a lungs every time they inhaled.
She looked forward to a time away from the water. But not too long. Seawater coursed in her veins along with blood, just as it did with Gitta. A flicker of light drew her gaze to the bluff and the castle perched atop its crown. Golden luminescence, either from a hearth or a lamp, filled a window. Somewhere behind those stone walls, a courageous man possessing a bewitching smile waited out his exile for his father’s sins. Zigana tried not to think of him too often and did her best to avoid him when she could. One did not moon over another’s husband, especially the husband of a sister. She forced herself to look away from the beckoning glow.
Gitta whuffled and shifted her weight from one hoof to the other. Zigana took the hint. “Ready for home, love?” The mare nickered her agreement, and Zigana clicked the command to turn their backs on the Gray.
Behind them, the surf tumbled and murmured, and far in the distance—where only the deep water ships might hear—something sang and wove dark dreams.
~END~
Dear Reader,
I hope you enjoyed this short novella set in the world of the Wraith Kings. In the WK series timeline, Night Tide sits between Radiance and Eidolon. Andras, Zigana, and the fearless Gitta will reappear as principle characters in the future novel-length story, The Parias King (Wraith Kings, Book #5). I look forward to revisiting them.
Best,
Grace
About the Author
Grace Draven is a Louisiana native living in Texas with her husband, kids and a big, doofus dog. She has loved storytelling since forever and is a fan of the fictional bad boy. She is the winner of the Romantic Times Reviewers Choice for Best Fantasy Romance of 2014 and 2016 and a USA Today Bestselling author.
Meet Grace on Facebook!
Titles by Grace Draven
THE WRAITH KINGS
Radiance
Eidolon
The Ippos King (2018)
THE FALLEN EMPIRE TRILOGY (Penguin/Ace)
Phoenix Unbound
FROM THE MASTER OF CROWS WORLD
Master of Crows
The Brush of Black Wings
The Lightning God’s Wife
The Light Within
OTHER STORIES
Entreat Me
All the Stars Look Down (Sunday’s Child)
Beneath a Waning Moon
For Crown and Kingdom
Sunday’s Child / The King of Hel
Wyvern
The Undying King
Lover of Thorns and Holy Gods
Connect with me:
website: gracedraven.com
Facebook: facebook.com/grace.draven