Azure bonds - Kate Novak [66]
Then she heard a noise that set her hackles rising, a noise from her dream-the sound of a thousand hissing snakes in a stone room. The sound of a kalmari.
She whirled about, scanning the boundaries of the campsite, but the darkness defeated her eyes. She glanced over the campsite. Dragonbait lay curled like a cat. Olive snuggled in a nest of blankets. Akabar-there was only darkness where Akabar should have been.
Something in the darkness glittered, and Alias recognized the rows of needle-sharp teeth. Only then was she able to make out the silhouette of the beast. From the tear-drop shape extended a dark, prehensile tail. The creature's shadow shifted just enough for Alias to make out Akabar's sleeping figure. The kalmari wrapped its tail about him and began lifting the mage to its gaping maw. Muttering in his sleep, the Turmishman struggled feebly, trying to kick off the blanket entangling his legs, but he did not awaken.
With a shout, Alias leaped forward. Her movement was sloppy and awkward. Damn dream wine! I'm not sober, she realized as she accidentally kicked the sleeping Olive. The kalmari, still hovering with its tail firmly wrapped about the mage, fixed its unblinking, yellow eyes on the warrior.
Alias drew her sword but she hesitated, remembering that the barbarian's two-handed weapon hadn't even bloodied the monster. If the dream was true, her weapon was useless. But if the dream was true and the kalmari was indeed one of Cassana's creatures, then according to Nameless, it could be warded off with the sorceress's sigil on Alias's arm. If Nameless had been telling the truth…
Frustrated with all the uncertainties, the swordswoman stopped analyzing the situation. Still holding her sword, she raised her branded arm over her head, wrist forward. Her arm felt heavy and sluggish, as though a solid gold shield were strapped to it. Damn wine! she thought. She gritted her teeth and kept the arm up. A brilliant, blue light shot from the sigils, illuminating the campsite and making the black, smoky form of the kalmari easier to discern.
Lacking the eyelids to blink in the strong light, the kalmari's elongated pupils narrowed to slits, and the creature floated backward the length of a sword. Its grip on Akabar was still firm, however, and it held its tail forward, using the mage as a shield.
I can keep the creature back, Alias thought grimly, but how do I get it to drop Akabar?
In her dream she had asked Nameless how to defeat the kalmari. He had told her, but the details of the dream were already drifting from her memory. Alias struggled to remember his words.
He hadn't told me what to do exactly. He'd said something about what the kalmari couldn't do. It couldn't eat something. It couldn't eat something twice. What nonsense! Alias thought. If you've eaten something, you can't eat it again, can you? Unless you're the kind of creature that regurgitates the bones of your victims.
Behind her came a high-pitched curse from Olive. "What in the burning lake is that?"
Ignoring the halfling, Alias lunged at the monster, slicing her blade through the extremity that entrapped the still unconscious Turmishman. The monster's hissing increased in pitch and volume. It was not Alias's sword that troubled it, though.
The closer she got to Cassana's creature, the brighter her brands blazed. Annoyed by the intense light or perhaps, as Nameless had said, afraid of its mistress's sigil, the kalmari retreated farther, though it did not appear ready to flee.
Alias's eyes roamed across the floor, looking for remains of the northern warrior or other travelers already consumed by the kalmari. Finding nothing to feed the creature, she lunged again, plunging her sword into one of the monster's eyes. Again, the beast moved away from the light of her arm, but showed no damage from her sword.
Sword. The barbarian's sword! The kalmari had spit out the barbarian's sword. A sword with a lion-headed hilt, just like the one Olive had plucked from the ruins.
The adventuress shot quick glances over her shoulder, her eyes scanning the