Page 67 of Prince of Tides
Other dragons were arriving at the shores, shifting as they went before diving into the water and moving to aid their fellows. Slowly but surely, the attack was pushed back and eventually bottled up at the mouth of the bay.
“Wow,” I whispered. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”
The ferocity of the dragons, young and old, left me both awed and scared.
“And most of them would prefer you didn’t,” Gisele said. “But it is a way of life with us. Our younger years are spent fighting in the trenches of the sea, a never-ending war. It brings out the worst in us. A feral beast that we only learn to tame later in life when we’re told we are no longer good enough to lead the fight out there. It is not an easy lesson and one that many of us lose.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, unsure what else to say as I digested her words. “It sounds … horrible.”
“It is,” she agreed. “And amazing. It brings out the best in each of us and binds us tighter than any other clan could ever be. But it comes at a cost.”
I nodded.
“Be gentle with him today,” Gisele said. “He will be hurting and will need you. It will ask a lot of you.”
“How?” I asked, but she only shook her head.
I turned to stare out at the mouth of the bay. Rip was still alive, but what would he be like when he came home?
For the first time, I wondered if I was strong enough to live that life or if it would tear us apart.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Rip
With the barges and heavily pregnant women safe, I sped back toward the mouth of the bay, powered by rage. That had been too close. A few more seconds and the enemy would have claimed one of our young and its mother, robbing everyone of that precious gift of life.
With a belly full of fury and rage, I arrived back at the swirling battle. My spear, glowing blue-green under the water, led the way, spitting and stabbing, slicing and killing. I was remorseless, a machine leaving nothing but inky corpses in my wake. The enemy came at me, and I returned them in pieces. My claws rent holes and took life while my wings pumped, driving me through the water with speed and accuracy.
At one point, I found myself on the ocean’s edge of the battle, right in front of a stream of reinforcements coming from the depths. Setting myself, I sent a vicious sonar ping at the enemy, attracting their attention.
Come and get me, I basically announced, holding my spear low to the left, its point forward. As the stream of shadowy beasts altered course and swam at me like eels, I thrust the spear forward and unleashed a sonic wave that tore through the water, shredding rank upon rank into inky nothingness.
That was for Crest.
I swept in on the heels of the attack, determined to drive them back. After that, it was nothing but a blur of fighting. Stab. Block. Slash. Cut. Kill. Over and over again. At some point, other dragons reached my side, and the enemy was stopped cold. Then we started to drive them back. Recognizing that they’d been beaten, they disappeared into the depths of the sea.
It was over.
I rose to the surface, my exhausted wings pulling me free of the water’s grip as I soared up to the edge of the Bastion to stare down at the water.
“Damn them all,” I growled as Suh joined me, his left side a mess of shattered and destroyed scales. His right eye was swollen closed thanks to a vicious cut running from his hairline down to his collarbone.
“They’re getting smarter,” he said.
“We got predictable. Any time they attacked in force, we responded by sending out the Royal Guard immediately. They just had to wait for it to get far enough away before attacking.”
“We took casualties,” Suh said. “A lot. The defenses at the Bastion are weakened. Evenwithyou here.”
“And I can’t always be here,” I said angrily. “There needs to be more of me.”
Suh didn’t respond while I continued to think.
Damn. Between the attack on Crest’s area of responsibility and the losses there and the departure of the Royal Guard, the Bastion was fairly vulnerable. If I stayed put, then it would be okay, most likely, but the problem was that I doubted I could remain there for long.
Someone had to go out to the northeast, survey the damage, and help bolster the troops. The Royal Guard would ensure that the manpower was there in the meantime, but I would have to swap with them at some point soon.
Damn, damn, damn. If I did that, then I would have to leave Laurie behind. Alone.
