Evie looked curious and allowed the blond haired mermaid to continue without interrupting her. Shefar continued, "When the ocean boiled and water was replaced by land in places while other islands disappeared, our people looked for a place to be safe. Dark monsters drove them from their old homes and eventually those who remained to lead us, chose these islands.
"When the earth and sea stopped shaking, they rested here. Many of our people had become afraid of the ocean, since monsters still waited for them to return. Since those creatures couldn't walk on land, the tribe waited and waited here. While they waited, they found food and shelter.
"They learned to feed themselves, build homes from the wood of the trees and make roofs from the leaves. The sun could hurt their skin, so they learned how to make clothing from the plants and soon they had become used to the land. Some returned to the ocean after a time, but there were many who decided to give these islands a chance to provide for our people."
"I'd never seen the ocean before or waves like the ones striking the sand," Evie said with a smile. "I can't imagine living beneath the ocean. I don't even know how to swim," she added with a giggle.
Shefar's eyes widened with surprise and asked, "How can someone not know how to swim?"
Shrugging at her new friend's surprise, Evie replied, "There was a lake where I was born, but it was the water we drank as well. My mother warned me to avoid swimming there because other children had tried in the past and drowned."
"Well, if you can't swim, that can happen," Shefar nodded.
Shaking her head, Evie clarified, "No, the lake was dangerous because there was... what did she call it? The water could pull you under and if it happened in the wrong place, a river would pull you under the stone and away from the lake."
"Ah, that sounds like undertow," Shefar said with another nod. "If you can't breathe under water, that can be deadly; but it would sweep you under stone? How is that possible?"
"The lake is inside of a giant cave." Seeing the mermaid had no idea of such a reference, the wilder tried again, "The cave was inside of a mountain far inland. The city where my people lived was made inside that mountain.
"A mountain is like your island but hundreds of feet above the rest of the land."
Shefar tried to comprehend the last bit and said pointing to the ground, "An island is like a mountain. The top of it sticks out from the water, but the rest of it slopes down and some stand on hundreds of feet of stones. There are sometimes holes in them, but there is no air to breathe if you aren't merfolk."
Evie began nodding as she was pretty sure that they had the same things in mind now. She added, "Well a mountain is like an island that is very tall, but it stands on land, so the cave is open enough to let in air. Inside our cave we have water too, but it is just in part of the cave. Water comes in from above or maybe from streams beneath the stone and goes out again.
"The problem with following the streams under the mountain is no one knows where they will find air again or if the water will ever come out either."
Shefar shivered at the concept. "That does sound scary. Even a mermaid might die trapped beneath the stone, even if they are capable of breathing through their gills."
Their talk had led them to the lookouts watching from within the tree line. The men noted the girls walking towards the inlet, but said nothing as they passed by.
"You're sure that you can change into a mermaid?" Shefar asked as she started to step into the water. "We use these amulets to change."
"I can turn into other animals, so maybe I can look at the change as that and make the differences in my body similar to yours. Maybe if you change again I can watch and figure it out?"
The blonde haired girl nodded and began mumbling the words of power. Friend or not, she wasn't supposed to teach anyone the words until she was ready to pass on the amulet to her successor. Singing the magic song of the siren would injure her throat after a time. Once she could not sing the song properly, the girl would be replaced.
Shefar was still quite young, so she knew that such a time should be far in the future. If she didn't sing, the change into a mermaid did no harm at all. Without the pirates pushing them to lure unsuspecting sailors into the reefs or into the water to drown, the girl might never have to give up her necklace and the ability to change. She had heard that some of their relatives who had returned from hiding in the sea had amulets to change, but they couldn't sing the siren songs at all. At least if that was true, Shefar thought she could be happy swimming as a mermaid after her voice could no longer sing.
Her tail grew out green like her skirt and top. The skirt had been tied simply at the hip, but it had covered her well enough. Evie liked the idea of such a skirt since it would be easy to slip out of if she needed to change into something small.
Swimming close by the redhead, Shefar asked, "Does this help to see it?"
The young wilder looked at the mermaid trying to get a feel for what she had become for a moment before squinting her eyes as if that would help her see what she needed. Evie felt for the animal, or fish, or whatever mermaids shared with human. Stepping into the water after dropping her shoes onto the sand of the inner beach, the girl tried to make her body feel like the creature in front of her. The wizard could do virtually any animal that she had time to see, but this change felt more difficult than most. Perhaps the separation of girl and fish was the biggest thing to achieve, she thought.
Molding a change to her body, Evie concentrated on the tail and the gills just behind Shefar's ears. Her lungs would be slightly different to pull the air from the gills. All of this, the shape changer put into her spell to become her version of a mermaid.
Her balance shifted and her legs began to fuse together changing color. With a little cry, Evie fell forward into the water. Her hair wet, the changeling reached out finding only liquid. The air disappeared, but she could feel the first draw of breath through her new gills.
Righting herself, Evie flipped to her back looking down to see her legs replaced by a long blue tail. It was actually a little longer than Shefar's, and looked both more delicate and graceful at the same time.
"You did it!" Shefar proclaimed with surprise and glee.
Evie laughed as she came to the same conclusion. "It was difficult, but I think it worked."
The scouts sitting in the shade cried out seeing the new mermaid. At first surprised, the men quickly moved forward to express their congratulations. While it might be a magic unique to their people, they couldn't help being impressed with the young girl's ability to change with her first try.
Unfortunately the praise was short lived as a pair of explosions knocked the men to the ground. Nets came from the jungle to the north wrapping around Shefar and Evie pulling tight as several men guided by a pair of wizards drew the two mermaids towards the north shore. Fighting her instinct to change into a mouse, which would have been rather tragic in the middle of the inlet, Evie let herself be dragged to the beach with Shefar. The real mermaid could change between fully human and her fish tail form, but that would still leave her bound in the net.
While the mermaid cried out in panic, Evie remained calm. She had been quick to start in the past, but the girl had slowly been growing in confidence and Sebastian had warned her that there was a time and place to change. With Rilena, Cheleya, and Katya all helping her to fight against giving in so easily to her fears, she had begun to understand how to be strong. They were all strong young women. Men like Arrimus might try to tease them, but they gave it back equally well. Those girls often made those who liked to bully them back down and often run away to hide.
The redhead's big green eyes resembled those of the women serving as sirens. Eyes that could see better than average in the dark translated into better vision under water as well, though Evie had little experience in the latter. Her eyes were also good at taking in the situation.
Who these men were, she didn't know at the time; but the girl spotted the two wizards guiding eight pirates. Two
women hurried to pull the amulet from Shefar's hands. They moved to Evie and called out to the wizards, "Is this girl new? She has dark red hair, Gerfon. Where did this one come from?"
"Shut up, Porlen. Just gag them so they can't use their siren song. There have been sightings of a few other natives on these islands. They were just too good at hiding to be found. If they knew Captain Corradine had lost control of the fort, they might have come out of hiding since we left.
"You other lot grab those look outs so we don't have them returning to the fort for reinforcements."
Four of the pirates swam across the channel with ropes to tie around the arms and chests of the scouts to drag them back. By the time the two men were pulled up onto the sand, one of the pirates checked them only to shake his head, "This one's dead and the other one isn't doing well."
The second wizard pushed the man away and looked at the dead scout with disgust. "I should leave him to die. I remember this slave being quite happy with himself and kicking our comrades when they were down."
"Just revive him, Konnar," the older wizard, a balding man with a thick brown beard ordered the younger man. Konnar was shorter and looked younger since his face was clean shaven. A wizard didn't need a razor, so even stuck hiding in the jungle he still looked fairly civilized in his look.
A small chant preceded placing his hand on the scout's chest. Coughing up water and shaking in his bonds, the native man began sucking in air loudly.
The wizard, Konnar, checked the other scout and said, "He's likely to die without a healer. I can push water from a man's lungs and start his heart with electricity from a spell, but I can't heal wounds like this."
"Leave him in the brush, so his body won't be so easily seen then," the older wizard replied. "The rest of you pick up these sirens and drag the scouts with us out of sight."
No one argued with the older wizard. His power was enough to cow all but the younger wizard, Evie thought. He was also smart enough to lead as well. The others followed his orders and left the dying scout covered by a bush a dozen feet into the jungle.
Carried between two pirates in the net, Evie looked over to Shefar who was crying even as she tried to stifle her tears. She wanted to be strong, the wilder thought, but the mermaid believed that her freedom was gone forever. If they could leave her people to die, then surely they might kill the rest of them as well.
Evie knew better and felt no fear. Her mouth was bound along with her hands, while the net confined the rest of her. It was uncomfortable, but the wilder could tolerate it for now. She couldn't hope to escape the netting with all of the pirates so close to her. They were in charge for now, but once their guard was lowered, she could work to save the others.
If it took too long, she knew Sebastian and her other friends would come looking for them. Rilena wouldn't leave without her. At least those were her hopes. She was a wilder and capable of saving herself no matter what else she believed, but Evie wanted to save Shefar and the man whose name she didn't know.
Biding her time, the girl waited for the pirates to take them back to a makeshift camp hidden deep within the jungle of the northernmost island.
Sebastian knelt before the water's edge noting the foot prints and the more unusual evidence left on the sand. There were signs of explosions and the lingering feel of magic. Four sets of footprints had come from the jungle to the south. The bare feet of the two girls were smaller than those of the lookouts they had passed earlier and Evie's shoes lay on the damp ground above the water line.
The soft boots of the scouts had left the cover of the brush as well, but the explosions had been very close to where the men's feet had stopped. They were also close to the water where four more sets of feet marked the sand. Knees from kneeling beside the scouts and the larger marks of two bodies lying on the sand after being thrown to the ground painted a picture for the mage.
Standing up, he looked across at the jungle and said, "Maybe Rilena should head back to the fort to alert them. I think we found the pirates, or at least some of them. They've grabbed the lookouts and girls."
"I'm not leaving Evie to some pirates!" the dark haired mage stated and pulled her hair back into a tail as she readied to fight whatever they might find.
Ashleen shook her head taking his hand. The woman hated when he left her behind because he feared for her safety. Sebastian never seemed to worry over himself, but the wilder was dear to him and, like Yara before her, she was a wizard with limited fighting capability.
"Keep an eye on the jungle while we cross. They might have left behind lookouts as well," the owl said giving in knowing that waiting gave the enemy pirates more time to strengthen their position. The girls' lives and those of the men taken with them were in the balance and time was too short when dealing with such a situation.
Rilena and Bas used shields to cross the channel quickly. Ashleen continued to hold his hand letting him make the shields. The wizard could create her own, but she was nowhere near as comfortable with them as a mage who had been trained to think of them as his lifeline from his first week of training.
Once across it took his hound spell no time to find the first man. His breathing was ragged and he was bleeding from a nasty wound to his side for awhile.
Dropping to his knees, Sebastian called on his magic without pause, "Heal."
The magic led his mind into the scout, who looked at him with sweat on his forehead. His eyes revealed pain and he didn't even speak as the three tended to him. Ashleen placed her hand against his back sharing her energy with the mage. She knew that in a fight, his power would be more important than hers. His pool of magic seemed greater than half a year ago, but hers was greater still. There were times where the wilder had noted his new strength was like folded steel. Each fold held more power within it, but Sebastian had also toyed with a new set of runes recently. There was magic pooling in the three diamond shaped runes he had hidden from the wilder. He wasn't sure if his improvised tattoos were safe, so the owl had tested them on himself in secret. Ashleen knew him too well to be deceived at all times, but the wilder would need to look deeper than just with her eyes.
He had already learned to draw off his magic when the mage wasn't using his magic to create pools of power that could be retrieved when needed. It meant that Sebastian had figured out a new way to increase his pool of magic to make more powerful spells without needing to draw energy from the earth. If Ashleen wanted to share her energy with him, the owl was willing to keep them in reserve so he didn't bother to stop her contribution.
As he healed with Ashleen's help, Rilena drew her sword waiting with little patience. The mage watched the jungle letting her senses reach out feeling for the enemy. Her battle magic could do what Sebastian's had and she used both hound and a vision spell to keep watch over the jungle.
It took only a few minutes to heal the scout, who thanked him gratefully as he finished.
"Do you think you can return to the fort to warn them about the pirates?" Sebastian asked looking from the man to Rilena wanting to be on his way again, but fearful that the freshly healed man might be found by the pirates again or get hurt trying to cross the inlet.
"I will be fine, but you can't be thinking about taking all of them on with just the three of you?" the man questioned their sanity. "They have two powerful wizards and at least eight other pirates with them."
"Well, that might make it fairer for them then," Sebastian stated grimly. It wasn't just his hubris trying to comfort the scout. A battle mage could easily handle eight trained soldiers while using reflex and quite a few more enemies at the same time most likely. The wizards might be a little more powerful, but they could use the darkness shields. These pirate wizards had been unable to defend themselves against night magic the first time they had fought him. The three of them should be more than enough.
Realizing that his peoples' savior would hardly be cowed by so few, the man nodded saying, "I can get back, I think. Just go rescue the others. I'll be fine either way."
Ashleen followed at his heels, while Rilena could walk beside him in the freshly blazed path.
"What do you think that they hope to gain from grabbing the girls?" Rilena asked quietly as they followed the trail. They could tell that there was still a lot of distance between them and the pirates, since they had stopped to heal the guard.
"They could be used for hostages, though to what extent I'm not sure. Maybe they hope to use Shefar's siren call to draw the warriors away from the fort. The only true recourse I can see for them is to kill enough locals to be able to hold the fort and wait for another ship to come.
"Their captain and most of the other pirates were taken away to Talos. They might not know that, but I would be more surprised if they didn't."
"Will they kill her?" Rilena worried. "She's just a girl, but the wizards might fear her magic power. Controlling another wizard like her might not be worth it to them."
"We'll just have to hurry and make sure that they don't start to consider it," Sebastian stated trying to avoid feeling that worry as he focused on finding the girls.
Evie was surprised to see the encampment of the pirates. Consisting of three stone caves shaped too perfectly than something found in nature, the wilder could tell that some magic had been used here. Brush walls fenced in the area with three more wood huts built up against the camouflaging outer wall. More pirates were there as well, but only a few.
The girl had missed the story of the escaped pirates, but the number who had escaped had been relatively few. This was the extent of those who had managed to free themselves from their former slaves. Their numbers were too few to safely go up against the natives in their fort, especially with the additional tribesmen joining their cousins on land. With the magic of the sirens which could be used against them, they were also afraid that the men would drown themselves in the face of the mermaids. Only two women had made it out of the cages, their protection wouldn't be enough if the situation was to happen.
Battle Mage: Winds of Change (The High King: A Tale of Alus Book 11) Page 33