Total pages in book: 204
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
There’s no way he can defend us, and they’re all closing in, the monsters bickering back and forth, their jaws snapping in a fanged argument over who gets first bite. And behind the lineup, there are countless others ready to strike.
I go back to throwing myself at the slick stones, and a scream gets trapped in my throat when I notice that there are a similar series of pawings, long stripes of something—or someone—desperately trying to extricate themselves in a losing battle, the kind of epitaph that terrifies me—
Out of the corner of my eye, I see one of the balas rushing in on me from the side. It’s decided not to take the common frontal approach, and it’s going to get me and Merc as a reward for its thinking.
To hell with the guards on the parapet. I start to scream—
That’s when the snake lands on my head.
Twenty-One
The Snake and the Grave.
Furious at the unfairness of a reptilian counterstrike, I bat at the snake, but it’s tenacious, wrapping around my head and falling down my shoulders. I look to Merc for help, but he’s got his own problems—and they’re all about protecting me. He’s put himself between me and what’s now a ring of balas, his arms spread wide, that broadsword at the ready as he treads water to stay afloat. The countdown to the attack has started, and the predators are focused now, no longer biting at each other.
As the one coming at me from the right opens its jaws into an evil smile, full of filthy yellow teeth, I grab at the snake and yank it off me—
What’s in my hand makes no sense.
While the rope comes into focus, a male voice from above says, “I shall pull you out! Hold on!”
In the back of my mind, I know I’ve heard the man before, but I’m too confused to make the connection. All that matters is that maybe this is a way out.
“Merc! A rope!”
I grab a length of his hair and yank back. He doesn’t shift his position, but he as glares over his shoulder, I shove the rope in his face.
“Start pulling!” I holler at our savior.
Taking the loose length, I wrap it around myself, well aware that I haven’t the strength required to hold on. Instantly, I’m rising out of the water, and the scum, green and brown and viscous as old treacle, clings to my hair and body as if the moat is possessive—or at the very least on the side of the balas.
“Take the rope!” I yell at Merc as he turns back to our attackers. “Merc!”
Higher and higher up I go, but now I’m fighting the rescue, trying to backpedal against the slippery stones.
“Merc!”
Just as I reach the lip of the walling, the first of the balas goes for him.
Hard hands grab me and yank me up onto the embankment, and the instant I flop onto the dry ground, I crawl back, throwing myself over the lip.
Just as the biggest of the balas lunges forward with a foul splash, jaws wide open and trained on my mercenary’s head.
“Merc!” I fight against whoever’s holding me in place. “Merc—”
“You must stop,” someone says crossly. “This is no good. At least you are safe—”
The balas strikes with deadly accuracy, the teeth clapping together on the arm he raises to cover his face with—and then the feral beast goes under the surface and takes its prey with him.
Merc is gone.
The horror of it silences me, and in desperation, I search the churning water for anything, well aware that what I will see could certainly break me: A leg. A hand. Fates preserve us … a head, where I can finally meet those mismatched eyes because death has already taken the most extraordinary man I’ve ever met—
I fall into the moat, my body tumbling forward.
Instantly, I’m yanked back up again and shaken as a rag doll. “Stop it! He’s not worth your life!”
The golden aura imprints on me first, and then the handsome, virtuous face and the royal insignia come into focus. “Julion? What are you doing here?”
“You are all right,” he says in a gentle way.
I have a thought that I’d love to hear that tone from Merc. And this snaps me back to attention.
“Not without him, I’m not.” Freeing myself from the rope I wrapped around my body, I throw the length back over the lip and lean out once more. “Merc, the rope! Take … the rope…”
My voice trails off. So far below me—an impossible distance down from where I lie, coated with scum, soddened and saddened—the moat water is restless, but the water bubbles are ceasing. No matter how desperately I look for those black braids and that harsh face, the broadsword and broader shoulders, all I get is an occasional balas tail that slices up and curls back into the murky depths.