Authors: Dean Murray
I finished
checking Ash's internal injuries, taped all of the gashes up to stop
them from seeping blood from hundreds of smaller blood vessels, and
checked over Kristin before staggering to the other chair.
It felt odd to
be sitting in something that put me four feet above the bottom of the
boat when Ash and Kristin were lying at my feet, but I put the
discomfort out of my mind, much like I'd done with the incessant
droning of the motor behind us, and looked around at our
surroundings.
It was more
than five minutes later that I happened to look up at Celeste just as
a gust of wind pushed her hair out of the way enough for me to see
the bright green earplugs in her ears.
I tapped her
shoulder and then pointed to the earplugs. "I want some too."
"Tough."
I'd noticed a
small black bag affixed to the bottom of her seat with Velcro when
I'd been working on Kristin and Ash. I hadn't heard her unzip it, but
that might just mean she'd waited to fish out her earplugs until
after the prop was spinning.
I waited until
she was focused on the water ahead of us again and then reached down
and pulled the bag away from her seat. She shot me another angry look
as I unzipped the bag and found that it did indeed contain additional
sets of earplugs along with clothes made out of stretchy, soft black
cloth.
I was pushing
her too hard, but she wasn't going to do anything about it until
after we were all out of danger. Once that was the case, I would
welcome the chance to see who was really dominant to whom.
I'd already
checked over my wounds and taped up the worst of them, but I was
still exhausted.
"How long
until we arrive in the lamias' territory?"
"An hour,
give or take. Why?"
"I haven't
slept in almost a day and a half. If there's any way to stretch out
the trip maybe I could get caught up on my sleep and have a chance at
winning that fight."
Her face
softened slightly. "You didn't say anything about being that
tired when I first told you we were headed towards the lamias. How
are you keeping control of your beast?"
I shrugged. "I
didn't mention anything because it doesn't matter. We would either
have time to rest before we got there or we wouldn't. Either way I'll
still go through with the fight and do my best to save Ash and
Kristin. As for the other, I can't really explain it. My beast has
been more difficult to control lately, not less. When you throw in
the way that you and I have been playing dominance-chicken, I should
be struggling a lot more than I am to keep him leashed."
"The
lamias aren't going to be fighting our kind of challenge match,
Isaac. This is for real; they will be trying to kill you."
"I know, I
gathered as much already. It doesn't matter though, I've been in
fights like that before. I'm not looking to die, even though that
sounds like the most likely outcome, but if it happens it happens.
I'll have given it my best shot and there are worse fates than dying
cleanly in battle."
"I think
you'll do better against the lamias than you think. I've never seen
anyone stand up against Nicolas even half as well as you did."
"That
wasn't anything to be impressed with. I got in a single lucky shot,
but other than that he controlled the entire fight."
"One lucky
shot is more than I've ever seen anyone else manage. Go ahead and
take a nap. I'll buy you an extra hour. Go on, I'll wake you up with
plenty of time to prepare for your match."
The abrupt
change in Celeste's manner, the sudden softening of her expression,
was dizzying. I got the feeling that we were still going to end up
fighting each other before all was said and done, but neither of us
was looking forward to it quite as much as we had been.
Isaac Nazir
Bayou Perot
Eastern Louisiana
I awoke to a
different world. We'd still been within sight of the ocean when I'd
closed my eyes, but now we were deep inside the bayou.
The Cyprus trees
looked like something out of a horror film. Their trunks branched out
as they disappeared into the water. It was almost like they'd become
confused and started growing roots above ground. As we slowly coasted
past a particularly large specimen I wondered if it was pulling more
of its nutrients from the water than was normal in other locations.
The water was a
muddy morass that was so full of algae that in some sections the
brown of the dirt had been overpowered by green.
In places the Spanish moss hanging down from the trees was long enough to touch the water,
creating an odd, barely moving veil of vegetation that made me
nervous for some reason. It wasn't until we'd been slowly gliding
forward for a couple of minutes that I realized what had me so on
edge.
I could smell
something out there in the water, something big and reptilian, and
the moss was making it so I couldn't locate whatever it was.
"Do you
smell that?"
Celeste nodded.
"It's an alligator, a big one."
"Should I
be worried?"
She shot me an
uncertain smile. "I don't know. In most parts of the bayou I'd
say no, but we're at the outer edge of the lamias' hunting territory.
Things get weirder and weirder the further in you get. All of the
predators get bigger. I've seen alligators almost twice as big as
what I've seen anywhere else, bull sharks the size of a great white,
and water moccasins that are bigger around than your arm."
"You're
pulling my leg, right?"
Celeste pointed
up ahead and I got my first look at a deep-bayou alligator. To say it
was huge would have been an understatement. It looked like it was
twenty feet long and pushing fifteen hundred pounds. Before seeing it
I wouldn't have thought there was anything in the bayou other than
the lamias that could threaten a full-grown hybrid. I would have been
wrong. Down in the water where the hybrid's mobility would be
hampered, there wasn't any guarantee that a hybrid could take down a
monster like that.
Its sheer size
would make it harder to get at anything vital and I had a suspicion
that its thick skin would be resistant even to my hybrid claws. As if
that wasn't enough, it weighed enough that I wouldn't be able to
manhandle it like I could have a smaller creature. Lifting something
like that, while it was thrashing and struggling would be like trying
to lift a ton and a half of dead weight.
"Do we
have to worry about one of those things attacking us when we're
inside the boat?"
"Possibly.
All of the big predators are going to view Ash and Kristin as
wounded, easy prey. The boat usually scares everything away, it's one
of the benefits of it being so loud, but some of those things are
bigger than the boat is."
"Just
great. No wonder nobody else has found the lamias. The native
wildlife eats them before they make it far enough in to see anything
they aren't supposed to see."
"You're
not wrong."
We both
laughed, but it was gallows humor.
Celeste turned
the boat in a long, slow arc around a large stand of trees and it was
as if we'd entered yet another world. The long, unmoving waterway had
given way to a series of low islands. Some were the result of the
ground sloping up out of the water, some were because several trees
had come together and established a spot above the water that was
just sufficient for other plants to have a chance at survival.
The effect was
astonishing. The ground and water seemed to merge together without
any real rhyme or reason. Celeste slowed the boat even more as the
terrain around us became more dangerous.
"I was
actually just about to wake you. I'll try to keep us out of reach of
anything dangerous, but if you can keep an eye out that would be
good. I'd hate to have a water moccasin come over the side of the
boat."
"Okay, is
this boat going to capsize if I suddenly put a few hundred extra
pounds on?"
"I hope
not, but I don't know for sure, I've never shifted forms on one. Try
to stay towards the center of the boat until you've actually changed,
if it comes to that, and you'll probably be okay."
We journeyed on
in near silence for another half hour, the giant propeller on the back of
the boat turned down to the point where I pulled out my earplugs so
I'd have a chance to hear if something tried to sneak up on us. I was
surprised when we didn't arrive at our destination within a few
minutes of my having woken up.
"How long
was I out for?"
"A tad
more than two hours. Why?"
"I was
just adding things up. You bought me more than just an hour if the
whole trip was only supposed to take an hour."
She looked…not
embarrassed exactly, but definitely uncomfortable. "You looked
like you needed the sleep so I took a less direct route. I figured it
couldn't hurt, it might even throw Onyx a bit further off of our
trail."
"Thanks. I
appreciate it."
"Yeah,
just try not to get yourself killed. I'd hate for all of that effort
to end up being wasted."
We hit another
stretch of water that was more open, so I risked looking away from
our surroundings to check on Ash and Kristin. They were both
unchanged, which was a good sign. If either of them had been
suffering from serious internal bleeding then they would have
probably died while I'd been asleep.
It didn't mean
that they were out of the woods yet, but they had a chance still
despite the fact that we were miles away from any medical help.
I looked back
up and nearly shifted forms out of sheer reflex when I saw more than
a dozen huge, simply-clothed forms standing in the water less than
thirty feet ahead of us. I hadn't been looking down for that long, it
shouldn't have been possible for them to have appeared in the middle
of the channel like that.
Even if I
hadn't been expecting to run into lamias I still would have known
that there was something off about the figures ahead of us. They were
tall. It was hard to say just how tall since I didn't know how deep
the water was, but it looked like they were somewhere between the
size of a hybrid and a werewolf.
That, combined
with the fact that none of them seemed worried about standing in the
middle of a bayou filled with giant snakes and alligators, would have
been enough to tell me that I'd just seen my first group of lamias,
but the real shocker was the way that their forms seemed to flicker
whenever I looked at them out of the corner of my eyes.
None of their
forms were quite right. On one the eyes were wrong—he had the
slit-like pupils of a snake. Another had skin that gave off the
smooth sheen of scales, and another opened his mouth and displayed
fangs like a rattlesnake.
Celeste cut the
engine back to almost nothing so that we approached the group at
something less than a walk. My beast was wide awake and pacing back
and forth inside of my mind. He hadn't liked the presence of the
monstrous alligator from before, but that had nothing on how he felt
about the lamias.
He knew they
were threats and he was throwing off energy in hissing, burning waves
that were being mirrored by Celeste. She cut the engine completely
and we coasted up to the middle lamia, one with fangs that were
visible even when his mouth was closed. He reached out and stopped
our forward motion without any apparent effort.
"Why are
you here?"
His voice could
have almost passed for human except for the undertone of dry scales
sliding across sand. They weren't snakes in the traditional sense,
they had two arms and two legs with no tails, but I could understand
why the ancient peoples had painted them as being half human and half
snake. It was the only way to depict something that was almost human
but reminded you of a snake at every turn.
I almost
responded, but Celeste beat me to it. "I've come to talk to your
queen, one queen to another."
The lamia
blinked at her before turning to look over Kristin, Ash and me. It
had happened too quickly for me to be sure, but I thought that his
eyelids had closed from the sides rather than from the tops and
bottoms.
"Your…people,
your…escort is small and sickly. What kind of queen travels
away from her enclave with so little protection?"
He held his s's
for the barest fraction of a second too long. It was unnerving, but
Celeste took it in stride. She'd probably had a good idea of what to
expect from her family's oral histories.
"A queen
who comes as a supplicant, one asking help from one greater than
herself. My champion is ready to face your champion and prove his
worth."
"No, not
his worth, the worth of you all. As a consort reflects the glory of
his queen, so too does the queen stand illuminated in the light of
her people. You risked much to come here with so few. You do us great
honor in displaying such trust in our honor… our hospitality.
You know more of the way than most of the energy ones…the sun
people. You will be granted the right of combat."
I half expected
him to attack me then and there, but he simply turned our boat
towards a nearby island and gave us a push towards it. Any scholar
would have been beside themselves at the idea of interacting with a
previously undiscovered culture. I was no exception. I already had
half a dozen questions that I was itching to ask the lamias.
He'd called us
'sun people', which almost sounded analogous to the dayborn, but we'd
always referred to the humans as dayborn. It hinted at a mythology
different than our own while still suggesting the possibility of some
kind of common origin. I'd already had plenty of reason to try and
survive the coming fight, but I figured that it couldn't hurt to add
one more reason into the mix.