Rojuun (28 page)

The Rojuun woman gasped in alarm as the
sstejj scurried toward Liselle’s cousin. It stopped where Tathan
was, only to discover that the rogue had somersaulted onto its back
and sat down behind the first set of legs. The creature just stood
there, vibrating, unsure what to do. Apparently, it did not have
the ability to react to anything on top of it.

Tathan squeezed his knees as one would on a
horse, causing it to scream in response. He looked back at Liselle
with his arms spread. She just shrugged in return. Tathan plunged
his sword down into the creature, causing it to collapse and die
instantly. He sprang off, looking for his next kill.

Liselle looked back at Sir Danth to see that
the knight had killed four more monsters. He was laughing at the
creatures that were still attacking him. Both ladies turned to look
at Vevin, who was studying a charging sstejj. They both gasped when
the creature’s snout came forward to bite down on Vevin.

Their purple friend caught the creature’s
jaws in his hands, forcing them open. It screamed horribly, trying
to get away. The sstejj put its forefeet against Vevin, pushing to
no avail. Vevin stared down its gullet. After a moment of study,
Vevin lifted the creature into the air by the jaws and slammed it
down. Then he picked it up and slammed it down to the other side.
Four more times he did this until the creature’s neck snapped and
it was dead.

At that point, everyone stopped in their
tracks. The sstejj stopped because of the large vibrations. Tathan
and Sir Danth stopped to watch the display of strength.

Vevin rammed his hand into where the heart
might be. He pulled a mess of goo out and sniffed it. Then he
licked it. A sour look crossed his face.

Vevin turned to everyone else and held up
the goo. “I don’t know how they can be cannibals. They taste
absolutely horrible!” He shook the goo off his hand.

Liselle, Sir Danth and Tathan all burst into
laughter while Marrraa just stared, completely in shock at that
point. Then the remaining sstejj continued their attack.

Sir Danth took out most, but Tathan was
fortunate enough to kill two more, both with gill shots. Vevin
changed tactics, waiting for the next one that came toward him. He
raised his right hand, which began to glow. When the creature
reached him, purple lightning shot out of his hand to run along the
body of the sstejj. It shuddered and died instantly.

“He . . . he used no incantation, no
gestures . . .” Marrraa said, both of her voices filled with awe.
“He does not appear tired.”

A moment later, all twenty sstejj were dead.
Vevin surveyed the battlefield and shook his head. Sir Danth was
standing on top of one with sword raised in the air. “The Knights
of Morhain once again know glory!” he yelled to the top of the
cavern, and then burst into wild laughter. Tathan joined him in the
laughter from atop another of the creatures.

“Men!” exclaimed Liselle. “They do seem to
enjoy their fights!” Then she laughed with them as well. She
laughed even harder when she saw the obvious look of disbelief on
the Rojuun woman’s face.

She stopped laughing when a sstejj that had
circled behind them lunged forward and bit Marrraa. The creature
latched onto one of the feju’s arms causing her to shriek in
agony.

Chapter
25

Liselle mentally kicked herself for being so
caught up in the boy’s activities that she didn’t protect their
rear. She stood and a stream of blue fire from her arm hit the
sstejj. The monster jerked back, releasing the feju before quickly
dying.

Marrraa stared at her mangled arm and fell
to her knees, still screaming in pain. Liselle grabbed hold of the
injured arm and placed a hand on Marrraa’s cheek. “Shh.” Marrraa
looked into Liselle’s deep, misty-grey eyes and quieted down. “Hush
now, you’re going to be just fine.” Liselle made Marrraa relax with
her will.

Looking inside the wound, Liselle could see
that the bones were broken in numerous places. With another, “Shh,”
she magically stopped the bleeding. Then she closed her eyes,
asking the plants around her for strength. Energy came rushing in
and Liselle turned it into healing power.

It flowed from Liselle’s hands into the
mangled arm to knit everything back together. Using the magical
vision she had while healing, Liselle was able to watch the bone as
it mended. The muscles reattached and the veins, fat cells and
flesh reformed. Even the camouflaged leather armor wrapped back
around the arm and mended itself just as good as new.

Liselle rubbed the arm with healing energy,
flowing strength and health back into it. It was an additional step
that would save weeks of recovery. After Liselle was done, she
shook off the extra energy. Rather than being exhausted from the
spells, she was invigorated from all of the power the plants had
sent her.

“You have healed my arm completely. That is
not a thing any Rojuun can do,” Marrraa admitted in amazement.

“It wasn’t that big a deal,” Liselle said
casually. She didn’t want to talk about it. The plants had given
her way more energy than needed and it itched within her veins.

“It
is
a big deal, Cousin” Tathan
said next to her. “Very few people can heal and none so completely
as to mend the very garment a person wears. That is an
extraordinary talent, Liselle.”

“It’s not that hard,” she said. “You just do
it.” She shrugged, not knowing how else to explain. The power was
bothering her. Liselle hopped up and down while shaking her arms,
trying to get rid of it.

“Ahh yes. I’ll have to remember that next
time I’m injured,” Tathan said with a roll of his eyes. “Just do
it.”

“More sstejj come,” Vevin interjected. “Many
more.” He looked in the direction the first pack had come from.

The power in Liselle’s veins was itching
even worse than before. She felt an urge to let it loose on
something. The plants didn’t like the sstejj. They had been telling
her that ever since she had arrived in the tunnels. The sstejj were
unnatural and not meant to be in the world.

The plants also told her that something else
controlled them, created them, and drove them to a hateful lust for
the taste of Rojuun. The plants didn’t care one way or another
about the Rojuun, but the fact that the sstejj trampled the plants
in made them mad. Sstejj were not supposed to be in the world.

She felt the plants in her mind saying they
would give her all the energy she needed to destroy the sstejj.
Liselle took a deep breath and turned toward the approaching
sstejj. The men were beginning to move into position, so they
didn’t notice that Liselle’s eyes had become pure blue fire.
Marrraa noticed, shrinking back in fear.

The plants told Liselle that a flood of
sstejj was coming out of the tunnels to break down the gates and
overrun Garrrn Cavern. They didn’t use words or even pictures to
communicate this. Liselle simply understood them.

Liselle told them to lessen the energy they
were sending. Flowers had taught her since birth how to handle
power, but these were going to kill her with their eagerness. They
didn’t know how to handle her like the flowers above ground did.
The plants eased up, but the power was still making her veins
itch.

She needed to physically see the sstejj to
combat them and it was imperative that she release the energy soon.
Liselle jumped into the air and began flying toward the center of
the cavern.

The rest of the party watched in shock as
she glided up on blue mists. In a moment, Liselle had a vantage
from which to see the sstejj. She tried adjusting her vision to see
in the distance as Vevin could. She succeeded, but it required a
lot of energy. The horde of the aberrations streaming into the
cavern was a terrifying sight.

Liselle was held firm in the air by a web of
magic extending from the plants. She would be able to channel as
much energy as needed without moving, but her body wouldn’t be able
to handle it. The plants offered theirs. Out of necessity, Liselle
changed her understanding of magic and learned a new way to
cast.

The wind that her gathering of energy
created was extreme. If the plants hadn’t been holding her steady,
she would have been flung into the wall behind her. Liselle felt
the blue fire gather around and funneled it back along the strands
of magic to the plants in the caverns. Then she paused and told the
plants to hold her companions. They did so by casting a net of
protection that would shield them from what she was about to
do.

Blue fire screamed throughout the cavern.
The largest blast came from Liselle while hundreds of smaller
flames shot forth from a myriad of plants.

It washed over the sstejj like a wave,
instantly incinerating the front lines. From there, fire jumped
from sstejj to sstejj, killing each one. Flames coming from the
plants lashed out like great whips at the sstejj, killing each one
they touched. The screams of dying sstejj echoed through the
caverns, hurting the ears of any who listened.

Liselle guided the fires through the hordes
until it had killed all in the cavern and many in the tunnels
beyond. She felt the rest of the energy leave her body. The last
thing Liselle remembered was the plants letting her gently back
down to the ground where her cloak was. Then everything went
black.

***

Tathan knelt beside his cousin, filled with
dread. He checked her pulse and found it strong. A breath of relief
escaped his lips. Every time he thought he had seen the most
impressive thing ever, something new would happen making everything
else seem trivial. The magic Liselle had cast should have killed
her or anyone else who tried it, yet somehow she was alive.

“Liselle.” Tathan gently shook her shoulder.
“Liselle.” She remained unconscious. “We need to get her to safety
as soon as possible.” He stood, looking toward the gate. “I think
she killed them all and we can make it back to the caverns. I’ll
carry her.”

“I don’t mind carrying Lady Liselle,” Sir
Danth said. “It will be no effort at all.”

“No! I get to carry her!” Vevin shouted. “I
told her that I would keep her safe and protect her and I didn’t do
a good job and now she’s hurt!”

“Alright, alright.” Tathan motioned for
everyone to be calm. He turned to the knight. “Sir Danth, you and I
will keep the creatures from attacking the group while Vevin
carries Liselle.” It was hard for him to trust his cousin to anyone
else, but something told him that Vevin would protect her with his
life.

Sir Danth nodded reluctantly. “Of course,
Master Tathan. That is a wise decision. I do believe that Lady
Liselle killed them all though. And here I thought I was the most
dangerous person in this group.” He let out a tinny chuckle while
shaking his head.

“Are all humans like you?!” Marrraa asked in
high-pitched tones. She had finally come out of her shock and stood
there gaping at the lot of them.

“Like us?” Tathan asked with a wry grin.
“No. There aren’t any humans out there like us.” He didn’t bother
to mention that he was the only one in the group who could be
considered fully human. “You know enough about magic to understand
that my cousin’s health is in danger, yes?” he asked the Rojuun
woman.

She looked at Liselle’s body lying on the
cloak and slowly nodded. “Of course I realize that. Human bodies
can’t handle magic as well as Rojuun bodies and the spell she cast
would have burned out all but the most powerful Rojuun.” She looked
at each one of them. “I do not know who you are, but . . .” she
trailed off, shaking her head. “Bring her with. It should be safe
to go back to the gate. We accomplished more than I expected
today.” She paused to look at the small flames dancing upon the few
bodies of sstejj left in the cavern. “There shouldn’t have been
that many of the vile creatures. We should have died out here
today.” She looked at each of them again with suspicion and just a
little bit of awe, and then she turned, motioning for them to
follow her.

Vevin deftly picked up Liselle and wrapped
her in the cloak before anyone else could grab her. He followed
Marrraa with Tathan and Sir Danth behind. It didn’t take them long
to get to the gate. There were no further attacks or even the
sounds of sstejj in the cavern.

None of them saw the red eyes watching them
from a distant tunnel, or the sharp teeth that were bared in hatred
for the creatures who had slaughtered his pets. Vevin might have
seen with his eyesight, but he was concentrated on getting Liselle
to safety.

Chapter
26

Liselle woke in a comfortable bed. Her head
ached and her body felt drained. She moaned as she sat up. Her eyes
opened, but she closed them right away when light seared through
her skull.

“Lady Liselle!” Vevin exclaimed, jumping
onto the bed next to her. The volume of his voice rammed through
her head, making her wince.

“Shh, shh, shh, Vevin. My head hurts,” she
pleaded piteously.

Vevin dropped his voice to a whisper. “I’m
sorry. I’m just happy to see you awake.” He ran fingers gently
through her hair to sooth the pain.

“Mmm,” she responded, leaning into his
touch. She liked it when he did that. Vevin liked to sleep in her
room at night and when it was quiet, he would come to the bed and
run fingers through her hair, humming until she was asleep. She
knew he had a crush on her, but didn’t mind. Liselle hadn’t told
him that she had a bit of a crush on him too.

“How long have I been unconscious, Vevin?”
she asked, her eyes still closed.

He kissed her cheek before whispering, “For
two days now. Tathan was afraid that you might have burned out your
mind, but he wouldn’t admit it to anyone.”