Blood Moon

Chapter 15 - Too late?

Chapter 15

Too late?

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Leira POV

   Had I been gone too long? The raining hail and sound of explosions had comforted me. It had meant they were still fighting, that there was still hope.

  I was racing back as fast as I could, but the slippery stones made it hard to stay upright.

  Sofi should not be able to do all this. The rain; yes, hail; yes, but the lightning? She has never had that kind of ability.

    I stumbled as I passed through the abandoned gateway, falling heavily on one knee. I heard the squeal of protest and felt the siring pain, ignoring both as I leap up and kept going.

  Back when we had first entered the square I had tried to enter her mind to reason with her but it had felt like the presence was feeding both her power and her rage. Twisting around her mind till she wasn't Sofi anymore.

 Placing my palm on the rough surface of the broken wall I catapult myself the last few yards into a scene from Hell.

    It is too chaotic to take in all at once.

            Sofi’s head whipping back to face a defenceless, sagging Jarad.

            The deafening crack reverberating through the gorge as lighting struck rock.

            Ariel huddled and trapped waiting quietly to be crushed.

            Rocks tumbling, falling, about to crush my sister while I am powerless to stop them.

            At the last moment they stop in mid air before falling around her.

            Jared laying vulnerable on the cold floor unmoving.

A cold calculating facsimile of my friend stepping closer to examine him before she begins to raise her hand once more.

 This is what jolts me back into action; sprinting up behind her I throw the furious Kachiri onto Sofi's back before diving off to the side for cover.

  Sofi’s tormented screams can be heard above the cacophony, as Kachiri digs her long claws into her skin as she climbs up her back. Sporadic belts of lightning strike the ground as Kachiri wraps her long tail tightly around Sofi’s neck before sinking her sharp teeth in deep.

  Sofi convulses once, twice, before her eyes rolled up in her head and she collapses unconscious.

  The moment she fell the sky clears.

  I crawl to Jared checking his weak but steady pulse. Ariel soon scrambles out of her prison to cradle his head in her lap.

   Pulling myself up, I turn to Kachiri and bow my head in gratitude.

  ‘Thank you.’

  She cocks her regal head to the side and nods back, ‘A barrel of eels, Human.’

  I limply follow her over to Sofi’s unconscious body. She sniffs it once, maybe to ascertain if it was eatable. As much as I love her you can never fully trust a Kassalik.

     Turning up her nose she starts to lop off. ‘Run Human. If you wish to live. Run far. Run fast.’