Dragonspell - Donita K. Paul [72]
Kale was on her feet, running to help. The second soldier sprang toward Dar.
“Look out!” she screamed.
Dar tucked himself in a ball. Instantly, his shimmering bubble covered him like a turtle shell. The blow of the bisonbeck’s blade rang off the magical shield.
Screaming his frustration, the soldier jumped at Dar with both feet. He landed on top of the shell, forcing it down with a crackling snap on the bricks.
Kale stopped her forward course and plunged into the bushes, running behind them to a place of better advantage. The soldier either heard her or saw her. He left Dar and bellowed as he approached the manicured thicket. She dropped to her knees and crawled into the underbrush.
What can I do? What can I do?
Make him trip?
Blind him with a flash?
The soldier’s huge boots stomped inches from her hands. The branches above her clattered.
Blind him!
She squeezed her eyes shut and thought with all her might.
It worked. Even within the protection of the shrubbery, her eyelids glowed red when the light burst with full intensity around her.
The bisonbeck groaned. His body hit the bricked pathway. Kale stayed where she was, huddled in the dark, panting and trembling.
She listened. Bedlam clamored at the fort entrance, but many walls and buildings muffled the clash of arms. The courtyard around her pulsed with the aftermath of conflict. Tension hung on the air. Silence echoed in sudden stillness.
“Kale, come out,” Dar called. “Where are you?”
She tried to speak. “Here.” Her voice croaked a broken whisper.
“Here,” she said again, a bit louder. She inched out of her hiding place.
Dar sat where she’d last seen him, his shell gone. He rubbed his eyes.
“Tell me next time, all right? Warn me.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “By all the light on the crystal sea, that was brilliant.”
Kale tried to smile in response to his praise, but her lips quivered. A sob rose in her throat. She choked it down and finished easing out from under the stiff, scratching branches. Dar still rubbed at his face, knuckling his eyes.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“I hope so,” he answered. “Check Leetu and Gymn while I try to focus.”
She didn’t bother to stand, crawling the few feet to the base of the statue. The cape had fallen away and exposed part of the emerlindian’s clothing. Kale saw Leetu’s chest rise and fall in a gentle, shallow rhythm. Gymn lay inside his pocket-den in a quivering ball. Kale pulled him out and held him securely against her neck, rubbing one finger on the ridges between his ears.
“You’re as big a coward as I am,” she whispered. “Because you feel what I feel, and I feel what you feel, does that mean we make each other’s fear worse? We’ll both have to be more brave.” She sighed and looked over at Dar examining the bisonbeck bodies. “Like Dar. He’s already up and seeing to our safety.”
Dar leaned close to the soldier stunned by Kale’s blast of light. He prodded the prone man with his sword. She watched him pat the side of the bisonbeck’s uniform, locate another long knife, and remove the weapon.
“These soldiers won’t fight again,” he said. He rubbed at his face as he stood erect.
Have I damaged Dar’s eyes? I sent a vision of blinding light into the soldier’s mind. How did Dar…?
“Dar?”
“Hmm?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Hmm?”
“If I sent the suggestion of brilliance into the bisonbeck’s mind, why was the light real? I saw the flash even with my eyes closed. The flash nearly blinded you. No one should have seen it but him.” She nodded toward the man at Dar’s feet.
A puzzled frown tightened Dar’s furry features. He looked down at the soldier and then up at Kale. He rubbed his eyes again with the back of his hand and squinted at her once more. He opened his mouth and closed it again without speaking.
“Hurry!” The shrill command came without warning. Both Dar and Kale jumped. Seezle’s blurred approach created a whistle as she zoomed through the archway and came to a halt. “That light drew too much attention.