Shea shifted next to him, wincing as her palms stung. Blood dotted the skin and tiny specks of dirt and rock decorated them. Her muscles protested as she scrabbled to her feet, her sleeve torn and ripped, along with the knee in her pants.
“I can’t believe that worked,” Wilhelm said as he climbed to his feet next to her.
Neither could Shea.
“You know, when you first assigned me to her care, I thought you were punishing me for some unknown transgression,” Trenton told Fallon as he staggered upright, his face a mask of pain. “Little did I know you were giving me the most dangerous assignment in your army.”
“Neither did I,” Fallon said in a rueful voice as he sat up. The bashe’s final convulsion had knocked them all off their feet.
Wilhelm’s smile was faint as he looked at what they’d done. “They’re going to tell stories about this. Our children’s children will speak of this battle one day.”
Shea didn’t share in their humor. She would have much preferred a placid, staid existence—not battling creatures straight from her people’s oldest stories.
Wilhelm looked just as bruised and battered as Shea felt. Something must have struck him in the face during the confusion because the skin under one eye looked swollen and red.
Witt was in a similar state, but without the beginnings of a black eye. Trenton was the worst off, his face slightly pale as he sucked in shallow breaths. Given the pain tightening his face, she was willing to bet he’d bruised or broken his ribs again.
Chirron was going to have a lot to say about this.
She sighed before looking back at the great beast in front of them. The eye facing them was a bloody mess, the lid closed to protect what was left. Its mouth was slightly ajar and it slumped bonelessly on the ground. Its scales contained an iridescent sheen, gold tones around its eye and mouth before transitioning to dark blue and silver along its body. The feathers in the crest around its head were dark silver.
It was a majestic creature. Part of Shea regretted the need for its death, but there’d been little choice. This wasn’t a beast whose territory they had strayed into. The mythological had come looking for them. It had known Shea’s name. It was a weapon someone had directed at her with the intent to kill.
She reached up and touched its feathers, surprised when one came away in her hand. A slight shimmer glinted on the ground, distracting her, and Shea bent down to get a closer look at it. A scale.
It was sturdy and unyielding as she tapped it.
Fallon picked up another and tried to bend it in his hands. “This is why our swords wouldn’t work. It’s harder than iron.”
“The earth clan would be interested in these,” Wilhelm said, examining the one in Fallon’s hands. “They would make for an impressive armor.”
“Only if you killed a hundred of these monsters,” Trenton said with a wan smile. “I’m not sure it’d be worth the price.”
Especially since they barely survived killing one.
“Let’s get out of here before anything else chooses to attack us,” Shea said, tucking the two scales and feather into her shirt.
There was a rustle in the surrounding mist, a disturbance causing it to swirl and eddy.
A dark shape rushed out of the haze, screaming, mouth opened wide, the speed that of a snake striking. Impossible to dodge.
They’d misjudged. There had never been just one. That was how it could move so quickly. There was another, hidden in plain view.
Fallon leapt for his sword, already too late.
Shea and the rest could do nothing but wait, seeing their deaths bear down on them.
There was a slight thump and whoosh; the bashe’s head jerked to the side even as fire encased it, sending bits of scale and cartilage sailing. It dropped to the ground, flailing around in death convulsions as the other one had.
Shea watched in surprise, not quite able to reconcile the quick turn of events. She’d been braced for death but somehow was still alive.
Fallon was there seconds later, as he pulled her further from where the thing had landed. He buried his face in her hair and his arms tightened around her in a hard embrace. It took several breaths before he set her aside, turning to face whatever had killed the bashe.
A shadow appeared in the mist, grotesque and long, with a tail trailing behind it.
The men positioned themselves to face this new threat. Fallon solidly in front of Shea as Trenton and Wilhelm spread out, Witt on the end.
They held themselves ready, anticipation tingling along their nerves. A man stepped out of the mist, goggles on his face. He had a long, narrow tube slung over his shoulder and a rope stretched behind him.
