Fire (The Mermaid Legacy - Book 2) (26 page)

“Dad,” I shouted between strikes.

He fought his way to me until we were fighting back to back, swirling at every angle.

“Merrick needs you,” I gasped as I blocked another blow.

“What about you?”

“I have Mitra. He has gone into Ferengren to free the children…”

Mitra swept into the throng, snapping at the Oceanids so that they spun away from her enormous fangs.

Dad snatched at her fin, allowing her to tow him below the battle.

“How do I get in?”

I showed him the only entrance I knew. It was thick with enemy Oceanids.

“Ok…I can probably get in, but if we’re to get them out, I need you to draw the fighting away from the entrance.”

I nodded, my mind racing as to how I could do that.

He grinned at me, kissed me lightly on the forehead and said, “Trust your instincts, you were born to do this,” before he began to swim for the heart of the battle.

“Dad, I love you,” I shouted, my heart aching.

“I’ll see you on the other side,” he shouted back.

Right, Mitra, let’s give them all the help we can
.

A thrill of excitement ran through her as I drew my Mizrak from its sheath.

We burst through the tightly knit plug of Oceanids at the entrance to Ferengren scattering them in all directions. I whirled my Mizrak at anything that came within striking distance, shouting at my army to concentrate on this area.

They flooded to the entrance fighting for all they were worth, each one drawing different talents from me as they struggled with the seemingly neverending supply of angry enemies.

Mitra and I stayed amidst the chaos for a little while, hurtling heat and energy balls into our foe’s midst and parrying their blows with my Mizrak and her armour-plated and teeth-lined mouth.

A thrill of victory raced through her as the enemies around us thinned.

We will win yet
, she exalted.

I want to see where else we can help
.

Mitra raced for the surface, giving me a bird’s eye view of the battle below us and helping me direct the Mami-wata who had all taken their lead from Mitra and were breaking up the fiercest fighting with their Zmija, dolphins and whales.

From my vantage point I began to hurl balls of energy into the thickest concentration of the enemy, scattering them where I could. Pelagius joined me and, using my talents, we split the enemy into manageable groups and opened the fighting up.

Mitra also began to target groups of the enemy, stunning them or showering them with sizzling heat or poison.

As much as I was relieved to be making some progress, I was also horrified and numb from the awful images that played out before my eyes.

Whether they were the enemy or my own army, the sight of so much blood and fear and twisted, tormented flesh is something I never want to revisit.

We were making progress in some areas, the enemy retreating and trying to regroup into protective clumps around our Oceanids, making it impossible to pick them off from above without risking massive casualties for our own troops.

I could see Marinus and three other Oceanids surrounded by at least thirty others; each time they managed to win a duel another four or five Oceanids were waiting to attack them.

I directed Mitra to that pocket and whirled my blade as she propelled herself straight into them.

Marinus and his team snatched at Mitra’s fins, enabling us to tow them out of danger as Pelagius and a team of archers rained showers of arrows into them.

Mitra and I redeployed the soldiers we’d rescued into the thickest and fiercest fighting, strengthening our numbers in that area.

We were beginning to gain the tiniest bit of advantage when, on one of her dives into the battle, an enemy hurled his Mizrak at Mitra’s body.

Her scream of agony reverberated through me and for a moment I felt the deep, hot, lethal pain that pierced her side before she blocked me out.

Mitra!
I screamed as she turned again and swam for the surface, much of the strength in her movement already diminished.

Must fight
, she told me.

Having witnessed the success of their colleague the Oceanids had all drawn their Mizraks in anticipation of Mitra’s next sweep through them.

A fury so deep and dark I hardly recognised myself welled up within me as I leapt off of Mitra before she could reach the Oceanids. Swimming hard ahead of her into their midst I fought with all my strength to protect my Zmija, my Mizrak cutting through soft unprotected flesh as I vented my rage in a flurry of awful talents on those around me.

I felt rather than saw Mitra die. For all of my efforts a few of them had escaped and attacked her, their Mizraks piercing her unprotected sides as she continued to fight.

I was in the midst of a fierce battle when I felt the connection between us slip away.

Mitra!

She didn’t answer me but she let me feel just the briefest moment of her pain and the deep resigned exhaustion that came with it.

Mitra, no don’t leave me please…I can’t do this without you
.

You are strong now
, she replied, her voice already fading from my mind.
Never stop fighting…

I whirled my Mizrak around me, trying to create some space and desperately searching for her in the confusion of battle. As I glanced down, in the few moments before I was completely surrounded again, I saw her beautiful ribbon-like body drifting gently away into the dark.

Tears melted into the water around me as I continued to fight, watching the snarling, angry expressions of my enemies as they did everything in their power to kill me.

In the moments between deflecting blows I tried to get a sense of how the rest of my army were doing. The Zmija continued to dash through groups of enemy Oceanids although now that they had watched Mitra fall there were more and more injuries to our animal friends.

I managed to fight my way towards two of my army who were desperately trying to defend themselves. It was Takimu and the anger with which the Oceanids around him attacked him made it obvious that he’d done a good job of being accepted in the enemy army before betraying them.

“Where is the rest of your team?” I asked between ducking away from an Oceanid and hurling poison in his face.

“Dead,” Takimu replied, still whirling at the angry attack from the enemy.

Very slowly we managed to get to some other allies only to helplessly witness their deaths just before we could get to them.

My heart sank as I watched their lifeless bodies carelessly swept aside as our enemy began to taste victory. I was doing everything I possibly could, fighting with every ounce of strength, and yet I knew that it still wasn’t going to be enough. We would all die trying to stop Neith’s army.

It seemed ironic to me that the Oceanids we were fighting hadn’t even realised that Neith wasn’t around. They didn’t know he was dead because no one had told them. I doubted the enemy would believe me but I knew my army would.

“Don’t give up,” I shouted as I fought, “fight for freedom, fight for justice, Neith is already dead, don’t give up...”

Those around me caught on to the refrain and shouted it just as loudly, the message seeming to renew their vigour and energy as they fought.

To my surprise the enemy seemed bewildered by the words we were shouting, their fighting beginning to lack the conviction it had once had as they began to look around them.

I heard a few whispers of “Where is Neith?” and a few of them even fell back from the heat of the battle clearly searching the writhing crowd for him.

The slight slackening of the pressure allowed the remnants of my army to congregate in a ball at the very centre of Ferengren. I hurriedly pushed the injured Oceanids into the middle where the rest of us could protect them, if only for a short while, and allow them to rest and recuperate.

“Maya, you need to heal as many as you can as fast as you can.” Maya rushed to obey me, sheathing her Mizrak and diving into the middle of the Oceanids.

“I can’t share any more talents with you,” I told them. “You will have to use your specific talents and we must protect those on the inside.”

A warbled whistle from within Ferengren changed the uncertainty in our enemies’ faces to fury as they surrounded us and attacked.

“Neith was right about you,” one of them spat at me as he threw dozens of needled spines at me. I blocked as many as I could with my Mizrak.

“That’s unlikely,” I replied, heating the water around him until his skin turned red and began to blister. He dove away from me only to be replaced by another one swirling his Mizrak at me.

“You are a liar,” this Oceanid told me, each word venomous as he tried to run me through. “Neith is alive, we have just heard his call from within Ferengren.”

The first Oceanid reappeared over the top of my army, hurling another fistful of razor-sharp spines at me as I continued to protect myself from the Mizrak the Oceanid in front of me continued to wield. The spines buried themselves into the right side of my body, a few of them glancing off the armour that protected my face and abdomen but several still piercing my leg and side.

The pain was unbearable at first and then terrifyingly numb.

The Oceanids around me pulled me back into the protective ball we had created, replacing me with another soldier as I was quickly moved to the centre where Maya was working tirelessly.

Every Oceanid she healed was replaced by another two injured.

She went pale when she saw me, leaving the soldier she was tending to worm her way through the crowd towards me.

“No, finish with him first,” I gasped, knowing how desperate the front line was for strong soldiers.

She did so quickly before inspecting the spines in my wounds.

“They’re poisoned,” she told me, pulling them from my unfeeling flesh.

I nodded, finding myself drowsy and uncaring as to what was going on around me. I was just tired, so very tired.

I drifted for what could have only been moments and in that time the tiniest sound, a child’s giggle amidst the roar of clashing Mizraks, sparked a moment of hope. Maya had only just lifted her hands from me before I was worming my way back to the front line, yelling for Thanh.

He appeared still on Allentia.

“Protect the entrance,” I yelled, and he and the remaining Zmija immediately formed a roiling mass of aggressive bodies at the entrance to Ferengren.

Amidst the fighting and in between the wildly thrashing bodies of those around me, I watched as brilliant colours slipped in between the blues and greens of the Zmija and the entire tangle of creatures slowly fought their way to us.

The Zmija formed tunnel spiked with teeth and Mizraks through which dozens of children were hurried into the centre of our defences, and along with them, to my utmost relief, came Merrick.

“Where’s my Dad?” I greeted him having dived into the centre to check everyone was OKand work out how we were going to get them out alive.

“He stayed in Ferengren to stop whoever is giving commands.”

“We have to get them out of here.” I nodded towards the children who were huddled together in a protective and frightened bundle.

I gave the order for the Oceanids to shuffle so that the defensive talents were on the bottom and sides of the sphere and the offensive on the top.

Another warbled and high-pitched whistle ruined my plans instantly as the Oceanids attacked with greater zeal and ferocity than we’d experienced so far. Merrick and I wriggled our way to the front lines only to watch in horror as the sphere began to break apart. Dozens of our friends and allies felling back, injured.

I pulled my Mizrak from its sheath and protected as many of them as I could, realising as I did so that we had lost. There was no escaping the sheer numbers of them.

“Get back,” I yelled as the children who had been in the centre of our sphere drifted out to form an orb around us. I tried to push past them, to get in front of them, but before I could a massive jolt shimmered through the water followed by a blinding flash of brilliant white light.

When I opened my eyes again, all of the enemy Oceanids were floating haphazardly in the water, their eyes open and some of them with their Mizraks raised as if to attack.

Everyone behind the children was fine.

“What happened?” I asked the child in front of me.

“We stopped it,” she replied shyly.

“How?”

“As a group we sort of just said no.”

“Did you know that would happen?”

She shrugged. “Not that way.”

We were all so stunned by the sudden and abrupt victory that it took a few more moments before the celebrations began.

Merrick swept me into his arms, kissing every available part of my face and laughing as we whirled together in the water.

“You did it!” he laughed hugging me.

“We did it,” I replied hugging others who came up to thank and congratulate me.

In the midst of the excitement my stomach suddenly dropped.

“Where’s Dad?” I asked Merrick suddenly terribly afraid.

We swam quickly into Ferengren, desperately searching the now empty cells and hallways.

I found him drifting in the great hall where I’d first glimpsed Neith’s army. His body was a patchwork of ugly cuts and bruises and his face had been badly beaten. The only other Oceanid in the room was a beautiful red-headed woman, her face drawn into a vicious snarl as she floated, frozen, in the water.

“He’s still alive,” I gasped as I felt his heart still pounding in his chest.

Merrick nodded. “They all are, they’ve just been put into somnus.”

I searched my memory for the vaguely familiar word as I poured my energy into healing Dad, watching with satisfaction as his cuts and bruises recovered.

“How do I get him out of it?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Let’s ask Pelagius.”

As Merrick said Pelagius’s name the memory snapped into place: somnus was what he had been in after Sabrina died. He’d described it as hibernating.