Shadow Borne (25 page)

Crystal blue mist lingered in the air,
twisting and weaving in the light evening breeze that swept through
the trees. A wild eyed Coatyl saw it and dodged, trying to avoid it
but to no avail. Within seconds, he fell, tripping over a dead Life
Breather on his way down.

Soon, I found myself engrossed in the
fighting, unconsciously dodging and swaying in time to the battle,
flinching whenever another Breather took a hit and went down. The
Coatyl had figured out that if they held their breath, they bought
themselves a few much needed seconds to escape. To put it plainly,
the Breathers were getting their asses handed to them.

A Coatyl thrust his arm out, slashing toward
his opponent. But his intended victim dodged the blow, falling back
against the fence as another Breather stepped in and exhaled his
death mist into the creature's face.

The Breather that had hit the fence
straightened and in the next instant, our eyes met, locked.
Something flickered in the black depths of its eyes and I was
shocked to find they weren't expressionless at all, but
rather...desperate, hunted. Pleading. I gasped and stood face to
face with him–her? I didn't know. And suddenly it didn't
matter.

The Breather opened its
mouth and then Claire was beside me, frantically yanking on my arm
in an effort to pull me out of the line of fire. I shrugged her off
and kept my gaze fixed on the Breather, united with the creature as
its mouth opened wide, and then wider still.
Impossible
.

Its jaw was...hinged...somehow and my heart
thudded as I stared into the large gaping black hole that stretched
over nearly half of its face. The Breather's torso expanded and it
let out the most horrific, shrill scream I'd ever heard. On and on
the ear splitting cry went, echoing through the trees and sending
icy chills throughout my entire body. I clapped my hands over my
ears and cried out. Beside me, Claire and several others did the
same. "Stop!" I screamed, crouching down and pressing my hands
harder against my ears.

Abruptly the eardrum shattering noise
ceased. I straightened, ignoring Mark and the others shouting at
Claire and me to get away from there. Mark grabbed Claire and swung
her up over his shoulder, forcibly removing her from danger. She
struggled against him, all the while screaming for me to move.

I saw both Mike and Aranu moving toward me
from opposite ends of the clearing and I leaned over, quickly,
breathless as I gripped the fence and shoved my face closer to the
creature.

"Breathe on me." I
demanded.

Chapter Twelve

Ever After

The Breather's head snapped up and its eyes
locked on mine. Could he–or she–even understand what I'd just said?
A flicker of comprehension flashed in the black eyes and then,
slowly, its mouth opened.

I tensed, at first thinking the creature
meant to scream again, but instead of opening wider, its mouth
pursed and a second later a puff of shimmery, icy, blue mist rushed
over my face and lingered in the air like the prettiest smoke I'd
ever seen.

Aranu roared and abruptly, I realized I was
holding my breath. The Breather mimicked my posture, gripping the
top rail with fingers that looked scaly but otherwise remarkably
similar to my own. I was going to have to breathe. Praise all, what
had I done? Panic was a gray blur in my peripheral vision and dimly
I acknowledged it was either breathe or pass out. Curling my
fingers tight around the blue ones on the wood, I parted my lips
and inhaled in one swift, half sobbing gasp. Nothing happened.

Aranu and Mike both came to a skidding halt
on either side of me. Each man was breathing hard and Aranu looked
like he would gladly murder me on the spot. Mike just looked
horrified. Seconds ticked by, then a full minute and I heard Mike
let out the breath he'd apparently been holding.

I was alive. My hands were still locked over
the Breathers'. As soon as I let go, the creature reached out,
tentative, and I felt the cool, rough fingers slide down the side
of my face. It rubbed a lock of my black hair between its fingers
and then let it slide across a lightly scaled blue palm.

"It's not hurting you." Aranu kept his voice
calm and even, but from the corner of my eye, I could see his arms
were loosely braced at his sides. He was ready for trouble. But I
wasn't, at least not from the Breathers.

"How do you feel right now?" Mike asked,
resting one hand on my shoulder and then just as quickly backing
off.

"I feel fine." I said, taking another deep
breath and shrugging. I was able to breathe normally and nothing
ached, or stung, or burned. "I didn't think the mist would have the
same effect on us as it does the Coatyl." I explained quickly. "If
Kahn engineered these creatures to take out the Coatyl, then he'd
want them to do the job without posing such a threat to himself,
right?"

"But he could have just as easily instructed
his scientists to work with these guys only using special safety
equipment, suits and breathing masks. There was no guarantee
whatever is in its breath wouldn't be toxic to you, too."

"True." I agreed readily enough. I couldn't
argue that my actions had been safe. But it had been my choice to
make, not Mike's or Aranu's or anyone else's to criticize.

"Don't mind me over here, I'm still
recovering from the ten heart attacks I just had." Claire gasped
from behind Aranu.

Of course that didn't mean
they
wouldn't.

"Mark, did you see that? The venom didn't
kill her."

"I saw it."

I glanced over Claire's shoulder and saw
Mark steadily watching the Life Breather across from me. "That was
foolish, by the way, Aries." he said absently.

"Behind you!" Claire shouted.

I whirled in time to see a flash of white
come up on the Breather who was still at the fence, watching us as
intently as we were watching him, the battle momentarily,
foolishly, forgotten. But now everyone seemed to explode into
activity.

Mark rushed forward and thrust his sword
into the Coatyl closest to the Life Breather. At the same moment,
Aranu threw himself forward and to the left, gripping the Breather
by the shoulders and hauling him to the side and out of the
immediate line of fire. A second Coatyl broke away from the
writhing crowd and ran at us; I whipped a fresh arrow from the
leather-bound quiver, slipped it into place and sent it flying. It
wasn't a kill shot, only making it into the creature's shoulder,
and shallowly at that, but it stopped him from reaching us.

The Breather shook itself free of Aranu and
turned, exhaling into the now slowed down, snarling Coatyl's face.
Watching the creature writhe and then fall, an idea took shape.
Well, not so much an idea as the blunt edge of conscience. I winced
as, in the distance, a Breather's torso was ripped open.

"Mark." I raised my eyes to his and he
lifted a brow. "We could stay back here safe behind the fence...or
the illusion of it...but it's not right."

"No, it's not." he agreed, green eyes
cutting to the violence raging mere feet away from where we stood
relatively safe and as far as the Coatyl knew, untouchable. "But
just because the Life Breather's venom didn't hurt you, because
this particular Breather didn't hurt you, doesn't mean the others
won't try and attack us some other way. They may not realize we're
trying to help."

"I can't stand here and watch them die."

Long moments passed where he regarded me in
silence but finally he nodded and motioned to the men closest to
us. "We're going in, guys. Everyone go quickly and tell a group of
ten, then instruct them to do the same. We don't want to announce
our intentions. Not that the Coatyl won't know when we all jump the
fence in about three minutes, but we don't want to them going into
a frenzy before we're on the other side with them."

"Right, sir." one of his men replied.
"What's the plan?"

"Protect the Life Breathers. Everybody find
a blue guy to pair up with and then shadow him." Mark instructed
without wasting any more time. "This is very important men–and
women," he added as if just now noticing the group of nymphs that
had gathered around us. "The Life Breathers' lung and stomach areas
are their weak spots. We have to guard their fronts and give them
an opportunity to breathe their toxins onto the Coatyl. Make sure
everyone knows the gases are only harmful to the Coatyl."

"Got it."

"One more thing, Raun, double up around the
perimeter. I need at least a two to one ratio. No one escapes."

Raun and the rest of the soldiers nodded and
moved swiftly into the crowd to carry out Mark's bidding.

Claire briefly touched her fingertips to my
forearm. "Be safe." she said, wide-eyed.

I nodded and tried for a confident smile,
knowing the gesture was a complete fail; my face felt stiff and
frozen. Safe? I spun around and took up my previous place at the
fence. The same Breather that had touched my hair moved to stand
across from me. With a small sigh, I inclined my head toward my
unlikely ally. I'd be anything but safe, but I would try to be
careful.

"Hold on." I murmured to
the Breather. "We're coming over to help you." The creature shifted
its weight from one foot to the other.
It's nervous.
Once again I was
struck by the level of comprehension it displayed. "Soon. It won't
be long now." I forced my lips into another awkward smile and tried
for reassuring. Despite the language gap, the Breather seemed to
have no trouble understanding what I was saying.

Were they capable of speech? And what had
they been like before Kahn had mutated them? Granted, I wasn't
familiar with every form of man and beast–and the many combinations
in-between–in Terlain, but I had traveled extensively. That much
came with the territory of search and rescue...and war. And true, I
wasn't exactly at my best right now, but I was still pretty sure
I'd never so much as heard of a scaly blue, hairless race of people
with paper thin, nearly transparent midsections, no discernible
gender, and amazing lung capacities. Hadn't someone said they were
northern creatures?

"On ten, men!" Mark's baritone rang out,
clear and coldly determined. It was time.

In spite of any misgivings I had–and there
were only about a hundred of them–excitement roared through my
veins as hundreds of soldiers rushed forward, flowing around me and
leaping over the fence in a thunderous torrent. I let their battle
cries wash over me and fill me with the familiar hum and flow of
energy. The blade became lighter in my hand, I hardly felt the
weight of the quiver and bow at my back. Gripping the rough, uneven
wood, I braced my weight on one hand, twisted my hips, and overtook
the fence in a graceful leap to land on my feet on the other
side.

The Breather took a hasty step back and I
pointed my blade toward the ground. "I'll guard you." I said,
pointing to the soft flesh of its midsection. "And you worry about
breathing. Let's go!"

Around us, the battle had erupted into
complete and total mass chaos. Blood began to seep into the ground
in astonishing amounts and I was relieved to see that most of it
was thick and oily and dark. Most, but not all. I ducked around
another soldier and narrowly avoided tripping over a man on the
ground.

Long, deep lacerations cut a wicked looking
path across the man's chest. His breathing was shallow and then,
within a few seconds, the thready rise and fall of his torn chest
stopped altogether. It always felt wrong to just leave them, but
obviously at the moment there was no other choice. My arm came up
and I slashed the throat of a Coatyl who moved too close to my
Breather. Later, we would collect our dead. Later, we would grieve
for those lost. Right now, we would survive.

Harsh, maybe, but we had all known the risk
when we'd hopped the fence. Screams and shouts from the men mingled
with the snarls of a hundred Coatyl and I pressed on, dodging and
weaving in time with my Breather in the age old dance of war.
Slowly, the tables began to turn. The double guard at the perimeter
meant the Coatyl were hemmed into an ever tightening circle.

The Breathers continued to exhale their blue
crystalline mist, over and over until the air was thick with it and
the few Coatyl that still lived were in the process of suffocating.
Waving my hand in the blue fog, I moved and almost fell over a body
that I couldn't even see clearly. My Breather's hand shot out and
righted me almost immediately.

"Thanks." I grinned, lungs burning from
exertion. The steady thump of my heart signaled the battle was
over–and won. My companion nodded briefly and I shoved my knife
back into a faded leather sheath, then spun a slow circle,
surveying the damage as the bulk of the mist dissipated.

The clearing was filled
with bodies, many of which were on the ground. Most were Coatly,
some were soldiers, still more were Life Breathers. But we'd
managed to save most of them and the Coatyl were all dead. Taking
hold of my Breather's hand, we picked our way across the sea of
white, to where Mark stood beside Claire and Mike and a larger
group of decidedly worse-for-wear soldiers. I nodded in response to
Claire's worried perusal and unspoken question.
Yes, I was fine, in one piece anyway, which meant I'd at
least fared better than those who were lying on the ground behind
us.

"Which way did they go?" Mark asked,
accepting one of several thick, coarse brown cloths that were being
passed around the crowd. He made quick work of wiping the blade of
his sword, sheathing his weapon and handing the cloth on to the
next person.

A tall, muscular soldier shifted in the
crowd and I saw Aranu. His eyes were cool and they held mine
captive as he answered Mark's query. "They headed west. Seven of my
men are already headed their way."