Page 93 of Hijack the Seas: Seismic

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Of course, it wasn’t that easy.

Damn incubus! I thought a short time later. Because Pritkin’s other half had had far less power than I’d expected. Regardless of what he said, he must have been helping his counterpart on the way here, and by the time I finished freeing them from Zeus’s curse and shifted us out of the damned cell, we’d used up most of that.

Which was a problem, as Bodil’s fey were everywhere, and it looked like they’d been warned that we might find some way out of our cage. They were on us before we’d gone ten yards. And I do mean on us.

One took me down in a flying leap before Pritkin pulled him off, and another dropped on top of us from a hidden perch we’d never even seen, all while bellowing for backup. And as soon as we took care of one group, another appeared. And Pritkin didn’t want to immolate them because these were the good guys!

Or as close as this place ever got.

So, that made shifting them necessary, or trapping them behind power-sucking wards, or doing Somnolence spells that, as it turned out, weren’t much easier on our power reserves. All while on a mad scramble through a maze of tunnels with more guards launching themselves at us at seemingly every turn. And I now understood why they wore those black outfits, as they were almost impossible to see in the dim lighting.

It was like fighting off a bunch of damned ninjas that appeared out of nowhere every time we looked. Another grabbed me on an incline, and Pritkin slammed him into the wall with a sticky, white, spider-silk-looking spell I’d seen him use a few times before. And then we were scrambling up an area that absolutely should have had stairs because it felt like my ankles were bent totally the wrong way.

And, of course, there were more guards at the top, firing down at us. And some we’d missed or new ones that had come up behind, doing the same. And us shielding like bastards in between while I shifted whoever I could see through the spell fire and thought about shifting us back to the room, but we could hear the trumpets echoing even down here, announcing the start of the next challenge. Pritkin said we were almost there, and so we kept going.

He lobbed sticky spell after sticky spell at the mob outside our shield, which the crazy bastards were grabbing the sides of and jumping on top, trying to slow us down with their weight alone. And it was working. Cursing fey ended up dotting the walls, floor, and, in one case, the ceiling, as Pritkin caught one halfway through a leap, yet still, they came.

You had to give them points for resilience, I thought, and shifted half a dozen into the canal.

But it was getting harder. We were battling a whole platoon on our own, and while it appeared to be working since we were still on our feet, it was draining us—fast. This needed to end!

Pritkin finally dropped the shield and we ran for it, having finally cleared the fey in front of us. But more were coming on little cat feet from behind, and they were barefoot. There were no boots to ring out here and give us any warning.

So, half the time, I didn’t hear them before some spell tripped me up and had me face-planting. Or a numbing curse clipped my shin on the way past and had me dragging that leg for what felt like half a mile. Or a web came spiraling out of the darkness and grabbed my hair instead of my body.

That last one had been fired too high because the fey weren’t used to aiming at someone my height. But it had enough momentum to rip me off my feet and drag me down the hall before affixing me to a protruding bit of stone overhead, like a circus performer dangling from her ponytail. Only I wasn’t one, and it freaking hurt, not to mention that I couldn’t get down!

Pritkin caught up with me, released me on the fly, and dragged me further up the corridor, my scalp aching, my deadened foot stumbling, and spell fire we could no longer shield against hitting the walls on all sides. The only good thing was that they didn’t seem to be trying to kill us, which was a nice change. But it was still infuriating!

And then we were out, stumbling from the dank, dimly lit tunnels through a door and into—

I couldn’t tell. I’d just been hit by a wall of heat, sound, and sunlight so bright that it completely blinded me. It felt like a slap to the face, and the roar accompanying it was like the follow-up punch.

My ears crackled, my eyes fought to adjust, and my translator spell gave the hell up and shut down, leaving me with no idea what anybody was saying, shrieking, singing, or laughing about.

But they were doing a lot of it.

I was momentarily stunned, but it didn’t affect Pritkin the same way. He yelled something at me that I couldn’t make out even this close, grasped my hand, and started forging a path through a crowd so thick that it felt like a solid wall of people. He also jerked the hood of my borrowed cape over my face even though his was still out in the open.

Only it wasn’t the one I was used to, I realized, as my vision slowly adjusted.

I found myself in a dazzlingly sunny day amid a smear of color, vibrancy, and life, surrounded by what looked like all the people in the world, and holding the hand of a pop-eyed fey with bright blue hair and a goatee. It took me a second to realize that Pritkin had flung a glamourie over himself but was conserving magic where I was concerned as I had a hood. I shrank back into it because there were a lot of guards in the colorful crowd, not to mention over the top of it.

The latter were perched on overhangs and rocky outcroppings above a great open space that reminded me of a canyon. The more or less level ground area ran through and around giant black rock fingers erupting from the soil and spearing six or more stories into the air. And the surrounding cliffs were even taller.

Patches of what looked like sailcloth had been stretched between some of the former to provide shade to the many merchants with stalls underneath, although that wouldn’t be the case for much longer. Some of the purple-haired guards were going around, cutting the ropes holding the sails in place, despite the protests from sellers and buyers alike. The guards ignored them because they weren’t interested in people’s comfort.

They were interested in us and wanted a clear field of vision.

And they were getting one.

A larger-than-average sail, maybe because it was anchored to some of the cliffs, collapsed without warning onto the crowd below, causing shouts of anger from the people trapped underneath. We edged around, staying in the traffic flow as hundreds fought their way free, and were pushed toward one of the black rock columns in the process, like a couple of leaves being born downstream in a gale. Fortunately, one of the leaves had some magic left and managed to forge a path for us back toward the line of stalls hugging the cliffs.

The crowd was thicker there, but the pace was slower as people waited in long lines to be served. I barely noticed, being too busy watching the watchers, which included four fey on top of the huge pillar we’d just missed, sitting under their own shelter. The wind was up and whipping the brown material of their tarpaulin around, along with their hair, causing one to pull his back into a ponytail.

They didn’t appear to have binoculars, but those were fey eyes; they didn’t need them if they were paying attention. And they were, their grim faces contrasting with the laughing, excited throng. Probably worried about what Feltin would do if they didn’t bring our heads back on a platter, I thought.

---