I blushed, but a smile also appeared on my lips. He was warm and I was tired, so I snuggled into his hold and enjoyed the ride.
Our smiles would have been cleaned off our faces if we had seen the small circle of bubbles that popped up a quarter of a mile out at sea. With the dying of my voice, the bubbles settled, but something remained unsettled.
As we were soon to find out.
Chapter 27
The wharf was quite dark by the time we reached the wooden steps that led up to the raised platform. A few lanterns hung over the doors of the wooden warehouses and hung over a few of the docked boats, but the place was otherwise dark and deserted.
That is, except for a few shadows at the end of the planks.
Torvus froze and ducked back down to the beach. I could feel his whole body tense. “What’s wrong?”
“Quiet,” he hissed. His terse tone was enough to shut me up.
He set me down on my shaky feet and leaned me against a pylon. I grasped the wood, and he leaned his mouth close to my ear where he whispered a few words. “Stay here.”
And with that, he slipped into the jungle of wooden posts that was the support for the docks. The starlight and scant lamplight filtered through the cracks between the boards, allowing me to see his shadowy form slip through the pylons.
My heart pounded in my chest as I gripped the wood. Splinters dug into my hand, but I didn’t notice. All I could pay attention to was Torvus’ shadow and those above him. He reached the spot below the group and stiffened.
Every fiber in my body wanted to join him, but my clumsiness would have just caused trouble. I strained my ears, but no sounds came to me except the gentle roll of the waves. Until I heard something behind me.
I whipped my head around and scanned the area. Shadows dotted the beach, but none of them moved. But something did touch my leg.
I clapped my hand over my mouth to stifle my scream, and I kicked with all the strength I had. An annoyed hiss came from the ground, and something scurried around the far side of the pylon. I scooted after it and discovered a pair of sharp golden eyes glaring at me. They weren’t the friendly eyes of Ramaro, but of a slinky cat. Its white, short fur glistened in the dim light, and its tail whipped back and forth like a whip. Something about that creature’s reaction made me think there was something more to it than meets the eye. The cat let out a hiss before it darted down the pylons.
And straight for the captain.
I opened my mouth to call out, but the flickering shadows above him reminded me of the unknown danger. The cat raced forward, hampered only by the soft sand. I stiffened my jaw, pushed off from the pylon, and scrambled after the beast. My wobbly legs were as stiff as thin rubber, and I skidded across the sand, taking more steps than even that short-legged cat.
However, my frantic attempts at running caught the attention of Torvus, and he turned his blue eye to me. I crashed into a pylon, out of breath but with enough strength to stab a finger at the cat. His attention turned to the still-running feline, and he darted away from his hiding spot. The cat disappeared up the slope inland and squeezed its way through a small hole in the dock boards.
Torvus passed the cat without any more notice and hurried over to me. He was just in time to stop me from crumbling to the sand. The captain made to lift me into his arms, but the noises above our heads made him pause.
He pressed me against the pylon with one arm wrapped around my waist, and covered me with his body. His eye focused on the boards above us. The group of shadows had moved toward us, and they were now joined by the feline. Torvus’ steady, hard pressed against my rapidly beating one. My lungs burned with air that I didn’t dare take.
The people wore heavy boots that caused the boards to creak and groan. They stopped just above our heads, and the cat let out a yowl. One of the people knelt and pressed a hand against the wood. I felt the air reverberate between the stranger and us. The wood rattled, and dirt fell on top of our heads. Some of the dust tickled my nose. I clapped a hand over it to stifle the urge to sneeze.
The vibrations worsened as I felt my whole body begin to move with the unnatural tune. A headache started and quickly turned into a pounding migraine. My teeth chattered, and even my eyeballs began to feel strange.
Something wet and warm ran out of my nose and down my face. My tongue flicked out and I tasted rust. It was blood. My blood.
I pressed my fingers against my upper lip just to confirm. The tips came away stained. I whipped my head up to Torvus. His worried eye flickered between my terrified face and the stains on my fingers.
Torvus swung me into his arms and took off running. The sudden motion caught the attention of the people above us, and they gave chase, including the cat. Their shadows flitted past the cracks in the board, creating an illusion of ghosts stalking us. Perhaps they were. This world had all kinds of creatures waiting to haunt me.
These creatures were solid enough to pound the boards and create a tornado of dust just behind us. We burst out from underneath the wharf, and Torvus took a sharp left turn up the sandy slope. He seemed to have wings, as his feet flew up the beach drift and onto solid ground.
The strangers were close on our heels, but the cat beat them. The screeching creature threw itself at Torvus’ back. It buried its claws into his back, but he hardly winced. I sat up, and the cat’s head popped up above his shoulder. It let out a terrible hiss and swiped its claws at me.
I yelped, and a faint reverberation shot out and struck the feline. The vibration struck the cat in the face and twisted its whiskers in every direction. The cat screamed and lost its grip, dropping backward onto the ground, where it tumbled across the hard dirt street on which we found ourselves.
The three cloaked figures didn’t miss a beat passing their feline friend, though one of them scooped up the creature in a bent arm. I squinted my eyes at our pursuers. They wore black cloaks that covered everything from head to toe, with a hood and heavy layers hiding their true shapes.
One of them flung their arm out, and a dagger shot toward us at such speed that I didn’t recognize the weapon until it zipped past my nose. Torvus darted into an alleyway to our right, and the stench of trash stuffed itself into my nostrils. We flew past stacks of garbage cans, broken wooden boxes, and stacks of debris. His feet pounded through shallow puddles that rattled as he ran through them.
And then the shallow puddles spilled out of their holes and covered the alleyway behind us. Waves rose and splashed against the shaky stacks of boxes. The wood wobbled for a moment before toppling down into the alley behind us. I looked over his shoulder and watched two of our pursuers be swallowed by the crashing crates. A terrible screech came from the cat. One man escaped the chaos, the one who had offered us the tip of his dagger. Air blasted out in front of him and flung the falling boxes aside, giving him a clear path. His compatriots struggled to extract themselves from their own issues and fell behind.
