Fire (The Mermaid Legacy - Book 2) (25 page)

She twisted up and back in on herself, moments before we reached the edge of Ferengren, frustration rippling through her.

The rest of the pod caught up with us and as soon as they had I gave the order to attack.

The Zmija and their riders dove over the edge of Ferengren, teeth bared and shrieking in fury into a space void of life.

The plankton lit the round space perfectly revealing only one Oceanid in the very centre of Ferengren.

The Zmija milled around the edges looking for the massive army that should have been there as Mitra and I cautiously approached the Oceanid in the middle.

It’s probably Neith
, I warned her.
He is evil, Mitra, be careful
.

It is not Neith
, she informed me.

How do you know?

He is dying
.

I stared more intently at the figure suspended in the middle of Ferengren.

Gorgeous swathes of royal blue and purple
spiritus
swirled around him in the water. His blue eyes were fiercely alive and alert, his whole body straining against something that held him mutely in place. He showed no fear, just a fierce determination.

“Merrick?!” I whispered.

He turned to me.

I loved him more in that moment than I ever had before. He gave me the courage to spur Mitra on even as I watched the monster of the deep rise silently behind him, sweeping an experimental tentacle across his back. He turned reluctantly from me to face it as I hurled an energy ball which whirled deep into the fleshy tentacle.

The creature screamed, a high-pitched alien shout of pain and anger as it writhed away from him.

In the silence that flooded the water after the explosion of noise I saw hope blossom from Merrick as he continued to track the injured animal’s movements., I listened to my own heartbeat thumping in joy at his escape before the answering call that bellowed up from the deep drained all hope from both of us as the water began to swirl.

The original squid had been joined by two or three others. They spoke to each other as they swirled, angry short bursts of communication that churned in the space. Their massive eyes as they spun past us were black with rage.

Mitra, get to him!
I yelled as she shuddered in fear.

Danger
, she told me, turning away from Merrick.

I was off her back in a matter of moments, racing to Merrick as Mitra screamed
Danger
in my mind over and over again.

When I reached him I was horrified. He had hardly any skin intact and his jaw and nose had obviously been recently broken.

“Alexandra…” My name came out mangled from his ruined mouth as his eyes desperately flicked from me to the massive squid that encircled us.

He pulled me into his arms as soon as I was within grasp.

“It’s a trap,” he gurgled at me, “you have to get out of here.”

“Not without you,” I told him fiercely, immediately beginning to heal him, pouring my strength into his body as the squid swirled around us.

“Don’t use your strength for me, my love,” he whispered as another squid extended a curious tentacle towards us. I stopped healing Merrick and blasted it with heat, the creature screaming as it snatched its tentacle away from me.

A shriek from above us followed by the shout of the word I’d taught them for disguise had me desperately focused on healing Merrick before the Oceanids began to draw on my talents.

The squid paused in their circling, muttering to each other just before twenty Zmija and ten whales descended on them. The Zmija ripped great chunks out of them as they swirled past, shrieking in fury. The whales took enormous mouthfuls of their soft pink bodies and even though the squid filled the water with a thick dark ink that made breathing difficult and tore at the whales with their barbed tentacles, the whales pulled them with greater and greater efficiency into the dark depths beneath us.

In those few seconds, a long warbling whistle filled the water. The space was almost instantly filled with hundreds of Oceanids, their bodies lining Ferengren as far down as I could see and all the way to the top. We were outnumbered at least twenty to one. Worst of all, the very front line of their army was manned by dozens and dozens of children.

“We have to get lower,” I whispered to Merrick, still desperately trying to heal him even as I felt my strength failing me.

In the next moment several things happened at once.

My army shot dozens of arrows into the enemy, some of them reaching their mark, shrieks of pain filling the water.

Neith’s army exploded outwards in an almost single movement, the whole group accelerating out of Ferengren and sweeping my army with them, and a fine and very sticky weighted net hit me with a jolt before wrapping around Merrick and me.

The two of us began to sink immediately.

“What is this?” My breath came out in short sharp terrified gasps as I struggled against the net.

“An ambush,” Merrick replied, trying to help me with the strength I’d given him as we both listened to the chaos above us. Screams of pain were mingling with shouts of triumph and the continued signals from both leaders.

“I have to get out of this net,” I gasped, pushing with all my might. “My army is helpless without access to my talents.” I tried to wriggle to the opposite side of the net but it was as sticky as a spider’s web.

Mitra
, I screamed, but I found I had no awareness of her presence.

Our descent into the blackest part of the ocean was stopped with a jerk before a whirring Mizrak raced between us and we let go of each other just in time to avoid having our arms amputated., Together we fell out of the net.

“You came.” Neith’s voice held an edge of wild madness to it.

“Get away from here,” Merrick screamed at me as he raced at Neith, who casually swiped his blade at Merrick’s chest opening up a wide gash which made him crumple in pain.

“Leave him alone, Neith, it’s me you want,” I shouted as I struggled to untangle myself from the remnants of the net.

“You’re right and you’re wrong,” Neith observed, grinning at me as he casually twirled his Mizrak. “I did want you on my side, Alexandra, but as you’ve obviously decided to make a pest of yourself I think it would serve me better to simply get rid of you.”

His last words were accompanied by a pounce forwards, his Mizrak whirring through the water. I only just managed to get my Mizrak out of its sheath to stop the blow, and as I did so I heard the shout from my army to use energy balls.

“You really are so much more foolish than you at first appeared,” Neith told me as he whirled his Mizrak round, forcing me to block him, the force of each blow propelling me backwards in the water.

“I’ve known your every move from the moment you entered The Haven, I knew you would attack soon and so I drew you out, and like a fool you fell for the bait, and now look.” He raised his Mizrak and pointed at the melee above us. Your precious children are all involved in that, some of them dying, others simply being scoured of the precious innocence you managed to convince them all to fight for…”

The effect of my army’s access to my talents was a palpable drain on my energy. I could feel each Oceanid that drew from me, I knew their panic as they accessed it and their relief when the talent served to protect them.

“And for what? A mere irritation really because this defence will cost me soldiers and it has cost me time, although only a very few days. But it will cost you everything, Alexandra, Defender of Men.” He mocked me as he whirled the Mizrak at my head.

“It will cost you Merrick.” I blocked several massive blows from his Mizrak. “It will cost you your father.” He was angry that I’d managed to block him and held his Mizrak against mine, propelling me into the gloom of the very deep. “It will cost you every soul that has been foolish enough to follow you, and believe me I will not be kind to the ones that are left alive.” He chuckled in the dark. “Oh I will make them pay.” He released the pressure from my Mizrak and swung his in a great whirring circle over his head, backlit by the plankton that were slowly beginning to drift back down from the surface into the very deep.

Above his whirring Mizrak I could see the silhouettes of the Oceanids fighting each other, some fighting for freedom and some for anarchy, but all fighting to stay alive.

I loosened my grip on my Mizrak and flicked my wrist ever so slightly, allowing it to spin me.

Neith laughed. “It’s a good thing you didn’t agree to be part of my army, Alexandra, Defender of Men, you would never have made the grade.” He brought his Mizrak down in a death blow just as my Mizrak took off, arcing over him and covering his back in a series of cuts.

He howled with rage and attacked me again, each blow a death strike. To this day I don’t know how I managed to parry those blows in my weak and almost helpless state as my army continued to draw from me, but I did.

He had backed me against the rock wall of Ferengren and had raised his arm to administer the final blow when my hand slipped from my Mizrak and it shot out of my hands.

Neith laughed when he saw it whirring away from me.

“You see, Alexandra, even your weapons are against you, what hope did you ever have of beating me?” He grinned evilly and brought his Mizrak down, and in the moment that I ducked out of the way I watched my Mizrak turn and race at Neith, burying itself into the rock in front of him and impaling him on its still whirring blade.

As I stared at his shocked face in horror, a shouted command and a blossom of orbed light above me drew the last of my strength as my army threw hundreds of energy balls at the enemy and I sank deeper and deeper into the crushing abyss, unable to find the strength to move a single muscle.

The smooth scales on Mitra’s neck slipped along the length of my body as she slid beneath me, infusing me with energy as my skin touched her.

Finish this
, she said, nudging me.

I can’t
, I replied weakly as the Oceanids above me continued to draw talents from me.

STOP!
The mental shout was so loud and came from so many voices that I knew Mitra had co-ordinated the whole group of Zmijas to communicate with the Oceanids.

Almost immediately the drain on me ceased.

Merrick
.

She paused near a ledge where he lay curled into an unmoving ball.

I swam to him using the strength Mitra had given me to heal the wound across his chest and take him to Mitra.

We must fight
, she told me as I settled with Merrick on her neck.

Not before he is well
.

She was irritated with me, but she circled Ferengren as both of us poured healing into Merrick and I watched in relief as his wounds healed. When I looked toward the surface again my heart stopped beating for a moment.

Our army was completely outnumbered and without access to my talents they had quickly been overpowered. Neith’s army had surrounded each of them and many had already given in, nets having been thrown over them.

Mitra raced straight through the centre of the battle and up into the void above, banking on wide-spread leathery fins, drawing the water towards her in a massive whirling funnel.

“How is she doing that?” Merrick shouted over the roar of the sea as we gazed down at the vortex of the hurricane Mitra had created. The Oceanids, friend and foe alike, were swept into a spinning circle of water which tumbled them head over heels, effectively stopping the fight and completely confounding the capture of our army.

“She’s using my talents,” I shouted back, concentrating on allowing Mitra to access any talent she wanted to use. Just as before, sharing with her didn’t exhaust me at all but rather filled me with strength and power.

As the water reached up to us she folded in her fins and we dove, the wind whistling through my hair and making my eyes run as Mitra shrieked. We hit the water like an arrow released from a bow, Merrick and I crouched over her neck as it streamed over us.

The Zmija were waiting for us and they fell into a formidable pack of warriors that quickly encircled Ferengren and the Oceanids who had been swept to the sides in the whirlpool Mitra had created.

Pockets of Neith’s army attacked the Zmija using their formidable talents to stun or injure them. Their attack only lasted a few seconds though because I began to shout the words that would allow my army to draw talents from me again.

The drain on my strength was still profound, but I found that as soon as I started to feel myself fading Mitra would infuse me with strength again.

We need to find the children, Mitra
.

She began circling Ferengren as Merrick and I searched the skirmishes for any sign of them.

“They must have been taken inside,” Merrick said after we’d gone round twice.

“How are we going to get to them?”

“I know the way, but you’ll have to leave Mitra.”

“I can’t leave her and give them my talents,” I replied, desperately frustrated with my weakness and horribly aware of the sacrifice I was potentially making by choosing the adults over the children.

“I’ll go then.”

Terror blossomed in my chest at the thought of Merrick going into danger again.

I shook my head. “It’s too dangerous.”

He let go of my waist and allowed the water to tug him from Mitra.

“Merrick!” I screamed, terrified I’d lose him again.

“I love you,” he shouted above the noise of battle before dashing into the thick of the fighting.

Mitra, I have to go after him
, I screamed.

You have to protect your people
, she replied, her words scorching my mind with their anger.

A few moments later I spotted Dad in the thick of the fighting, his Mizrak whirling around him as he parried blows. Hoping against hope that I’d be able to function for at least a few minutes without Mitra’s help, I pulled my Mizrak from its sheath and whirled into the melee.

Almost immediately I was surrounded by huge Oceanids, all of whom attacked me with a vengeance as I whirled to parry their blows.