“But how long can you fly like this with me in your arms?”
“Long enough to get us somewhere safe so that I can land and shift properly.”
He banked to the right, getting away from the swarm of undead, turning back towards the Light Kingdom and the mountain range that separated the two kingdoms, but as the foothills came into view, I saw something that made me gasp.
“Sun God, no.”
“What?”He must have heard the panic in my voice.
“They have—”I didn’t know what to call it. “It’s like a crossbow, but bigger than I’ve ever seen before. It’s the size of a cannon.”
“What?! Where?”He tilted, changing the angle of our bodies, searching.
I pointed. “It’s there.”
“Fuck, we have to get higher. If I’d shifted it probably couldn’t pierce my scales, but this I don’t want to play around with.”He beat his wings faster.
“They’re taking aim,”I warned in alarm, both inside and outside my head.
“Ball yourself up. Make yourself less of a target.”
We both pulled in, and he curled around me, hugging me tightly to his chest.
But I kept my eyes open and watched them fire.
The bolt flew out, too fast to follow with the naked eye. I prayed to the Sun God to keep him safe.
The seconds took hours. It must have gone by him. They were reloading.
He jolted to the side, spinning and crying out.
“Are you okay?”
“It went through my wing, I think. But I’m okay.”He still flapped his wings, so he must be.
“They’re reloading. We need to get out of here.”
A second crack split the air, and Faolan cried out in pain. Then a rope snapped, and the sound will be with me for the rest of my life.
The bolt anchored into his wing, and it was attached to a line that now pulled tight.
They were reeling us in like a fish.
Faolan fought hard and held me tight, but it was no use.
TWENTY-EIGHT
FAOLAN
Consciousness needled in the background. Sound came before anything else. But I wasn’t where I should be. I didn’t know how, but knew it deep within. The voices, while distant, were not those of my travel companions. Did I fall asleep on deck by accident?
There seemed to be a glaring hole in my memory.
And my eyes were glued shut. I tried to pry them open, but they just wouldn’t budge.
I must have drifted because the next time consciousness returned, I was moving. Or rather, I was being moved. The slow rhythmic sound of hooves confused me. On the sea, I was not. So what happened? I made to move, but found myself unable, and my entire body ached, adding more mystery.
I tried to move a toe. It wiggled in my boot. Next, a finger. It also moved. I tried to move my arm, but it was—bound—behind my back. Panic crawled up my skin, gnawing at my throat.
