A hand plants itself on my chest, pushing me back at Linton. And before I can do or say anything, he and Beal are grappling in a tangle of limbs and roars.
Linton drags me out of the way and up against the main wall. He produces a long, thin knife and, his red eyes concentrated on the fight unfolding in front of us, picks at his sharp teeth.
“Aren’t you going to do anything?” I ask him.
“You’re the one with the sword,” Linton says. “And I think Warden’s enjoying himself.”
There is a crash as the pair land on one of the rickety sideboards and it splinters into matchsticks. Beal snarls, rearing back, a large piece of wood embedded in his side. He pulls it free and attempts to stab Warden with the wet end.
Warden rolls to one side, avoiding the blow, before slamming his weight into Beal’s legs, sending him crashing down to the floor, raising a cloud of dust. Tentacles swirl from him as he grows larger again. They grasp at Warden’s limbs.
“Why isn’t he turning into his Brag form?” I fire at Linton.
The mothman shrugs. “Maybe he doesn’t think the floor will hold him.”
I look down. Unlike the rest of this place, the floor is not stone flags, not here. It’s long wooden boards which are almost as ancient and crumbling as the furniture in this place.
“Warden!” I stomp my foot down. “The Dark Gibbet!”
He turns his head, a tentacle wrapped around his throat. His eyes meet mine. I stamp again on the floor.
“The Dark Gibbet,” he repeats, his voice strangled.
In a swirl of dust, debris, tentacles, and hooves, Warden transforms. The floor creaks. It groans and then it gives way. I raise my arms, expecting to go with it, but instead something has hold of me and I’m held in the air as the entire place falls. I look up to see I’m being held by Linton, his huge wings flapping hard, an amused expression on his face.
We are engulfed in a huge wave of dust and debris. I feel like we are moving, but without any visible points of reference, I can’t be sure. Below me, I’m sure I can still hear snarls and growls, along with more destruction. It’s not clear if the fight is still continuing or the noises are a result of the destruction.
The air clears, and Linton deposits me on the foreshore. The Shellycoat’s fortress rises out of the sand, huge and imposing.
“What are you doing?” I fire at him. “We need to help Warden.”
“We are helping him,” Linton says. “He cannot die, you know that. But we can. By being here, he can do what he needs to do.”
I stare hopelessly back at the fortress. I can’t argue with Linton, but my heart can’t stay still.
Now I have Warden back, I don’t ever want to leave him again.
WARDEN
The damned Shellycoat is verytentacly. I might get one off, but another wraps around me. Fortunately, as the floor beneath us disappears, he relinquishes his grip, presumably to use those tentacles elsewhere. I allow myself to fall, bracing for the landing and making ready for the inevitable.
I hit the hard stone with enough force to expel much of the breath from my lungs. Being immortal doesn’t absolve me from the pain which spears through my flanks and radiates through the rest of me. Nor does it help with the complete lack of vision due to the amount of debris falling with us.
For a beat, there is no noise save for that of the remnants of the floor hitting the ground around me.
“Warden.” My name is growled through the dark.
“I’m here,” I snarl back. “And I will still take the Thegn, no matter what you want, Beal.”
“Then you will lose what you hold most dear.”
“Not a chance, Shellycoat,” I snarl back. “I might not have my mortality here, but I promise you, if you make any attempt to touch my mate or my friends, you will lose everything.”
“What makes you think I have anything left to lose?” The Shellycoat looms out of the dust and darkness, his mouth filled with sharp, irregular teeth, his eyes bright, feverish, St. Elmo’s fire flowing over his body and scales. “Not when he took what was most precious to me.”
“You don’t have anything precious,” I retort. “You are the Shellycoat and you care for no one.”
“I cared forher,” Beal rages. “And he took her.”
