"See, now this is why us humble dwarves stay underground." Dundern, the first dwarf Apollo and I had met at his gren, had ended up in our squadron. Rain sluiced over the curve of his bulbous nose and he squinted up unhappily at the sky. "No batty weather taking out her grumblings on us."
"I don't think I could stand that." A slim, blonde werewolf - Terrance, I think his name was - commented good naturedly. His straw coloured hair stuck to his head, and his blue eyes blinked against the downpour as he looked up. "No sun, no breeze, no nice summer skies. I guess it would be different if I'd been born in a gren."
"You bet it'd be different!" Dundern boomed, but he looked fractionally satisfied at Terrance's words. The red haired dwarf looked toward Helios, who was picking his way along with the rest of us, his thick hooded gear protecting him perfectly from the rain. "I thought you lot could control the weather! Is it too much to ask for some sun and warmth, now?"
I slanted a look at the solstae in surprise. Now that was news to me.
"It's harder with reduced numbers." His voice was muffled through the thick material. "Also, the people are probably too worried to notice the weather right now. A good portion of our population is down fighting here."
It occurred to me that I had never heard the murderer speak, not once. Helios' muffled voice sounded almost wrong coming from behind those black panels that revealed nothing. Clever, I thought nastily, less for me to identify him with.
Dundern grumbled to himself. We passed under a formation with a ledge that jutted out almost an awning, and we had to move slightly to the left to avoid being drenched in the waterfall pouring off of it. It really was a lot of rain.
"They seem to be doing rather well up there." An elf named Ilen peered up, sheltering her pretty face with a slender hand. Her dark hair still looked marvellous as it draped down the back of her silver armour. "The first line of defence is doing its job."
A sultry vampire sighed dramatically. His name was something foreign and attractive, although I'd forgotten it already. He was absolutely beautiful, in an exotic, exciting kind of way. He looked like a sultan prince, all dark smooth skin and deep, hooded eyes with long fanning lashes. Although he was as drenched as the rest of us, he still looked like a model.
"Perhaps." His voice was accented and musical, and he directed the comment to Ilen. "Or perhaps a few have already slipped through and are waiting for the perfect moment to strike us."
She didn't reply, but everyone looked around suspiciously. I looked around twice. I was in fact the resident watcher, after all.
"None of that thinking, please." It was the coldest I'd ever heard Laen's voice. The vampire smiled back demurely. "We are well prepared and well trained. No one will get through us."
Everyone nodded professionally at his words, but I could tell the klaae had a comforting effect on all of them. It was hard not to around the giant, fierce looking klaae man. Soft violet eyes or not, this man was a weathered warrior. I was glad he was on our side.
I walked a little closer to Apollo, my freezing fingers seeking his blazing warmth. They weren't disappointed.
"Isn't this kind of spooky?" My voice was low, and the rain thundered off every surface furiously, but I knew he could hear me. "The faeries came down over half an hour ago. At least some of them must have made it through."
He smiled down at me. Like the exotic vampire, his exterior stubbornly refused to dishevel. "Have more faith, love. The commanders are clever; they put every able person up there that they could manage. Also, the rain will slow them down; with this weather it'll be difficult to fly. I'm not afraid."
Of course he wasn't afraid. He was Apollo! He wasn't afraid of anything.
I glanced around again before settling with examining our company. Despite the rain - and Dundern's grumbling - every still seemed in good spirits. Weapons were held aloft in the drumming rain, and steps were still energetic and confident. These people were built for battle. I had nothing to be afraid of.
The river, usually at a fast but calm pace, had doubled in width and was roaring past angrily. The grey and white water swelled and splashed on by us and I was careful not to step too close. The mermen could probably handle the current beautifully, but I wasn't sure about me, the lowly human.
As thoughts of the mermen crossed my mind, a flash of orange lit the dull water. I took a better look. Okello popped up, his huge body soaked and dripping, and his large blue eyes met mine. Neither of us spoke a word. I waved at him encouragingly, and he nodded and granted me a small smile. With another splash, he disappeared beneath the surface again. I watched for a while after, but I didn't glimpse his tail again. The mermen sure knew how to conceal themselves in the water.
"Jed probably asked him to tail us." Apollo told me casually. He was twirling his sword lazily again.
"Why?"
Apollo shrugged. "Just to keep an eye out in case we need help. I would have done the same thing."
My hand went up to touch the turtle pendent that rested beneath the hard packed leather of my armour. What had Jed said it symbolized again? I completely forgot. My thoughts wandered to the playful merman; I wondered what he was doing, and if he'd had the chance to commit a "heinous act."
The fact that he thought of this war as heinous just made me like him more.
Preoccupied as I was, I almost missed the flash of white just across the river. I looked again, concentrating, but it didn't appear again. I glanced sidelong at Apollo but he carried on, his eyes forward and relatively calm. How had I seen that and not him? I looked around again, nervously.
Everything was washed out and grey, the white didn't belong. My eyes narrowed as I scanned around me. I hadn't imagined that; even I wasn't that paranoid. Or was I? Maybe the stress of the last several days or so was getting to me. I couldn't wait till I got home, where my huge soft bed and that perfect house in its sunny clearing was waiting for me.
My mind was drifting off again when I saw them.
"Look out!" I screamed.
They were like a cloud of devastatingly beautiful angels. Their faces were beautiful and determined, even in the incessant rain, and despite what Apollo said earlier their wings were moving as blurringly fast as ever. Sharp, cruel looking weapons were gripped like extensions of their arms. One man, with red hair and blue eyes - he could've been my brother - hefted up a delicate looking bow and trained an arrow on me.
Apollo stepped gracefully in front of me, and the arrow bounced off like a toy. "Look alive, men!" He called, his face grim. "They've broken through!"
Our squadron didn't need telling twice. They let out a roar that almost sounded jubilant as the faeries descended on us. Apollo stayed firmly in front of me, barely blinking as two more arrows bounced off his forehead. If he'd been mortal the arrows would've buried themselves between his eyes. The red haired faerie, baring his teeth in frustration, trained another arrow over Apollo's shoulder. He knew who the vulnerable one was.
Apollo shifted again, but I didn't miss what happened next. He loosened his bow, but the arrow went off high over me and Apollo. His angelic face was frozen in surprise, as if something had suddenly occurred to him. A millisecond passed, and his head suddenly slid off in a clean line. I cried out in horror and watched as his wings slowly stopped moving and white clad body dropped to the ground like a boulder. Behind the decapitated body, the dark skinned vampire smiled in amusement at me. His lips were silver with faerie blood. I hadn't even seen him move.
Apollo barely seemed fazed. "Stay close to me, alright, Lilah?"
I nodded frantically. As If I would ever leave his protection willingly.
All around us, the carnage was similar.
Dundern almost looked comical as he hopped from one foot to the other, stabbing the air with his broadsword, as a gorgeous faerie flew above him just out of reach. She was down cruelly in amusement. She was still smiling when the dwarf grew impatient and threw his sword with surprising strength and dexterity. The blade landed deep in her throat, blood spurting in a mist of silver, and her body dropped to the rain slicked ground.
Terrence had ripped a wing clean off from a faerie. His silver furred body was ginormous and his lips were pulled back into a snarl. The faerie in question barely seemed aware of him; she zig-zagged a few feet off the ground, her remaining wing flapping fervently. Her face was twisting in agony - the air was ripped apart by her sobs - and her sword lay forgotten on the ground. I looked away as Terrence leaped onto her back with a howl.
Ilen's opponent had landed on his feet, and the two of them were carrying out a swordfight that was so fast their swords were just silver blurs through the rain. The fight almost looked like a dance; the elf and the faerie moved that gracefully around each other. It was clear the pretty elf was enjoying herself - her face was locked in gloating amusement. I took that to mean she was better than her opponent. The faerie suddenly hissed in pain, and there was a silver slash on his cheek that hadn't been there before. Ilen laughed loudly; she was playing with him.
Apollo's free hand was on my wrist as he turned quickly this way and that in a circle as he looked around apprehensively. Everyone seemed preoccupied though; the entire squadron had their own opponent. I caught a flash of Laen's bronze skin over Apollo's shoulder, his shiny skin rippling over his hard muscles, and another flash of Terrence moving on from the body of the wingless faerie to help Dundern with another.
There was another flash of white.
"Apollo!" I cried out, but he'd already seen him. However, I don't think he expected the buff faerie to dive at him. He was knocked off his feet, his sword flying from his hand, and he and the faerie landed several feet away from me. They wrestled in the mud, half in the river, and I fluttered helplessly where I'd been left. Apollo's sword glittered on the ground, and I picked it up. The weight was unfamiliar in my hand, and it felt jarringly wrong.
I looked in terror between Apollo's grappling figure and the ongoing fight around me. The air was a cacophony of furious splashes as the rain relentlessly poured down, and the yells of battle around me. They were mixed with screams of pain, but as I looked around in panic, I couldn't tell which side was suffering more damage. An elf lay still on the riverbank, the rain washing the blood away from a fatal wound in his head. A few feet away from him, a dwarf lay on his back, his eyes unblinking in the unforgiving rain. However, the faeries had their fair share of losses.
As hard as I tried though, I couldn't bring myself to feel any triumph in those still, winged bodies. War was a truly terrible thing.
I was turning in a circle, hyperventilating at the thought of a faerie going after me - it would be a short fight, with the faerie coming out unscathed - when I saw him. He was downriver from me, several feet away from the battle. He was just standing there too, just watching everything unfold, his body quiet and still. He looked like a ghost - in his smoke coloured gear and pointed hat, he almost seemed to shimmer in the curtain of rain. As if sensing my eyes on him, his head turned to look at me. His free hand - the one that wasn't holding the wickedly curved sword - lifted and beckoned to me almost lazily. I hadn't seen him holding the blade earlier, but that was beside the point.
I looked back at Apollo; he was still underneath the faerie. I looked back at the murderer. He didn't fly toward me or do anything, for that matter. He was just still, just watching. I hesitated and looked back at the fight. No one was paying any attention to me. They were all too busy with their own battles. I turned to look at the Helios again.
If I could somehow prove it was him, and bring him to the faeries, I could find some way to get them to stop this horrendous war. I could end it. Helios had made it clear that he wanted me and only me; if I somehow survived, I could save all the people I loved. Prenjaw and Jed and Mognem and Ildor - and especially, Apollo. Dear, heartbreakingly sweet Apollo. He could take care of himself - he'd said himself he wasn't afraid - but it wasn't physical pain he secretly feared. It was the emotional. The pain and scars that no one could see, wounds that were inflicted by dead friends and mothers and sisters.
And a dead me, but I pushed that from my mind. I wanted this to end, and from how Helios had targeted me, I was somehow the key to it.
I only looked back once as I followed Helios away from the battle.
---
"Jed!"
He turned in the water at the sound of his name. Okello looked frustrated.
"They're not staying in the water, I don't know how they're doing it - "
"Beeswax." Jed called back, disgruntled. It was so ingenious. He pulled at the helmet at his head impatiently. "They coated their wings with it. The water just slides right off instead of being absorbed."
Okello cursed loudly, and as if to punish him, an arrow bounced off his helmet. Jed watched his older brother turn to scowl in the general direction of the offender. "What do we do then?"
Jed didn't answer immediately, frowning as he looked toward the shore. It was a mess of clashing bodies and whirring wings and blurs of silver weapons. The only reason they hadn't been plucked off like sitting ducks was because the faeries were preoccupied with the earth walkers. Jed winced as a faerie clubbed a witch in the head with the handle of his sword. The merman looked away as she collapsed.
He looked up just as a faerie swooped down low over him. Somehow, she didn't even see him in the water - Jed realized with a start that his shell helmet somehow blended with the water. He sent up a silent thanks to the scholar who had designed it.
"Stay low in the water!" Jed called to his older brother. The other merwarriors turned to listen. "Our helmets blend in with the river. Wait till they fly over them, and spear them! It'll be like fishing!"
Everyone nodded understandingly at his grim analogy. His head hurt at the thought of all this unnecessary death. Mermen had no quarrel with the sky flyers, yet here they were, readying to pluck them out of the air. Jed was going to pay a visit to the fool who started this forsaken war, and spend plenty of quality time with him once this was over.
The water was soon churning with bodies, both half fish and faerie. Jed watched as tridents, harpoons and spears stabbed the air like arrows. The air above the water was full of surprised shouts of pain from the unwary faeries. Wounded, they didn't have enough strength to fight as mermen held them beneath the surface. Jed's comrades had dark faces that he knew were twisted with guilt, not malice. Their weapons had been crafted for sharks and other underwater predators - never earth walkers or sky flyers. This battle would weigh heavy on their hearts for as long as they lived.
Jed was readying his trident, his eyes following the trajectory of another faerie flying close - her face was confused as she watched her comrades flail under the water - when a stabbing pain exploded in his left shoulder. He roared in agony, and turned just in time to watch Natori pull his harpoon from his shoulder with a look of utter glee on his face.
"Cousin!" Jed cried out in shock. "What in ocean are you doing??"
"Winning." Natori sneered at Jed, lowering his harpoon so that the river washed Jed's inky blue blood away. "It's clear the earth walkers will not win this war. I'm simply insuring my future."
"You dare turn from the will of the king!" Jed's face flushed in anger. "You dare turn from the will of your father?"
"My father is weak." Natori snarled. His handsome face looked ugly in its hate. "He joined the wrong side of the war simply because that snivelling bat Apollo Ambrosia came running to him - "
"You are wrong, Natori!" Jed boomed, his grip tightening on his trident. He knew his cousin was unpleasant, but he didn't realize he was so treacherous till now. "Apollo has decades of wisdom - he dissected this war before it even truly started. King Kavait is right in trusting in Apollo's insight."
"That bloodsucker is a grovelling, pathetic little - "
Jed's eyes narrowed, and he swam closer to Natori. He felt a faint flash of smugness to see his cousin back up hastily, but it disappeared almost immediately. It broke his heart so see such a white eel in his family - his uncle would be devastated when he learned of Natori's treason.
"You little tadpole." Jed hissed. Natori flinched at the familiar schoolboy taunt. "You're still angry that Apollo stopped you from violating that poor mergirl, aren't you?"
Natori blanched. "She was asking for it, I wasn't forcing her at all - "
"Lies!" Jed boomed. "You hide behind lies and deal in treachery, cousin. You're heart is as black as the depths of the sea."
His cousin's face suddenly darkened in rage. "You'll regret your words, you fool. When the faeries have won, they will spare me, and I will have the honour of spitting on your dead body."
Jed cried out in rage, and Natori suddenly beckoned behind him, and a large group of mermen surged towards them against the current. Jed's heart sank. His cousin had rounded up a rebel group - and from the looks of it, it was fairly sizeable.
"Okello!" He called over his shoulder.
His brother immediately looked up. His eyes darkened when he saw Natori and his rebel band, and Jed knew that his brother had pieced the situation together in a matter of seconds. Okello let the lifeless body of a faerie float away.
"Treason!" He roared, so loudly even a few earth walkers glanced over.
The rest of the mermen paused what they were doing. There was an eerie silence as everyone eyed each other; the king's army versus the prince's rebels. Jed took one look at his cousin's dead eyes and knew he was too far gone. Natori's heart was no just a shrivelled black pit.
"I'm sorry, cousin." Jed said quietly.
Jed rose his trident and stabbed it deep into Natori's chest in one movement. Natori made no sound, his eyes simply widening, but Jed let out a cry of anguish. He was sure his heart had been broken in two and then ground to a fine dust. This was his cousin, a boy he'd grown up with and loved despite his sour demeanour. Natori was his family, and he'd betrayed Jed and everyone in it.
Okello and the rest of the army surged forward with shattering war cries. The river began to turn dark blue with mermen blood.
---
Apollo was inconsolable.
The rain threw him jarringly off course. One moment, he was sure he smelled her scent, but then it would disappear and turn up in a completely different direction. It didn't help that his chest was on fire with the sharp smell of blood permeating the air. The scent was shooting tendrils of fire straight down his throat and deep into his lungs.
Anxious faces peered up at him as he whirled around. There was no clue, no hint as to where Lilah had gone. The rain still pounded down, the air as gloomy and dark as his heart was feeling. The ground was strewn with faerie bodies and the bodies of elves and werewolves and dwarves. They'd lost at least a third of their squadron, and the rest looked shaken but fine. As far as he could tell, none of them were gravely injured. Laen watched him sombrely, knowing better to approach Apollo when he was this distraught. A slash along the length of his arm bled slowly, but the klaae didn't seem to notice it.
"No one saw anything?" He shouted, looking around in disbelief at the faces. He growled in frustration at their dubious faces. He hadn't seen anything either, but he tried not to think of that. He was her protector, and he'd failed her.
He saw Youssef Al - Ajeeb eying the body of an elf. The poor lad was bleeding profusely from his head, and Apollo felt a rush of disgust at the vampire. They were all the same.
Apollo was at the vampire's side in half a second. He pushed his face into the darker one's. "Do you smell her blood?" He asked through gritted teeth.
Youssef looked back at him impassively, barely bothered by Apollo's proximity. "Why don't you go sniffing for it yourself? She's your pet, not mine."
Apollo growled, but reigned in his anger. "I'm too distracted, Youssef."
Youssef sighed dramatically and looked heavenward as if he was dealing with a child. Technically he was; the vampire was a good five hundred years older than Apollo. However, Apollo persisted, glaring within every inch of his life.
Youssef examined him. "You look quite a lot like your sister right now, do you know that?"
Apollo was silent.
"Fine, fine." The vampire sighed. He turned slowly in a full circle, his keen eyes searching the ground and his nose flaring gently as he smelled the air. He turned back to Apollo. "She never bled. I can't tell you which way she went, though."
Apollo turned away abruptly, his anger fading to panic again. "Oh, Lilah. Where have you gone?" He suddenly paused in realization. "Where's Helios?"
The squadron blinked back at him like a pack of mules.
"Find him!" Apollo commanded. He looked terrifying in that moment, so it was no surprise when everyone jumped into action.
"Apollo!" Terrence, the young werewolf, waved Apollo over to a mound of bodies by the river. Apollo was beside him immediately, his gaze on the ground. Helios' hooded figure was still, his gauntleted hand brushing the hand of a dead faerie's almost like a lover's would. Apollo leaned down and gruffly removed the solstae's hood.
He could tell immediately that the solstae prince was alive. His glow was duller than it usually was, but that was probably because of the small slash to his forehead. Helios was unconscious, but his blood still pumped weakly through his veins.
"He's hurt." Apollo announced curtly. "Someone bring him below."
As two elves hurried forward, Apollo rose slowly. He looked around at the towering Tsingy spires and the faces of his uncertain comrades. He rose a hand to pinch his nose. Lilah had been so sure it was Helios.
Since it clearly wasn't him, who on earth could it be?
Comment, vote, fan! (:
Gasp! It's not Helios! Who could it be??