The Coral Kingdom - Douglas Niles [133]
A sailor lurched forward from his bench, his shortsword raised, lunging toward Deirdre. He was a short man, but the gleaming steel in his hands driving toward her breast amplified his image in the horror-stricken eyes of the princess. She kicked out at him, tumbling backward as the man brutally stepped on her leg. Trapped, she squirmed helplessly, holding out the mirror like a fragile shield. Her attacker raised his sword and started the blade on a fatal plunge toward the young woman's heart.
"Luge!" shouted Brandon, furiously leaping after the crewman, but it was too late. The tip of the man's bloody weapon drove at the mirror, and the dark-haired princess cried out in anticipated pain.
Hot magic crackled through the air, exploding from Keane's finger as the mage stood in the bow. His spell arced down the length of the hull, seizing the sailor in a grip of paralyzing power. Luge's back arched and his lips stretched back from his clenched teeth as violent, killing magic wracked his body. In a second, his body, scorched as if it had been burned in a fire, dropped, rigid, to the deck.
A tentacle lashed over the gunwale, but Alicia chopped fiercely at it with her sword, sending the limb writhing back into the water. The shadowy form of the squid's body suddenly loomed into sight, its whipping tendrils flailing into the boat, seeking the black-haired princess. Deirdre scrambled back and raised the mirror, confronting the beast with its own monstrous image.
"I name you!" she shrieked. "You are Coss-Axell-Sinioth-and you are mine!" Triumphantly she lifted the glass high, shoving the reflective surface forward, straight toward the looming avatar.
Then the vengeance of Talos ripped forth, and the form of the avatar writhed in the grip of something greater than itself. The mirror shattered of its own will, shards of glass exploding outward to puncture the monster in a thousand places, rending the huge body into a gory mass of bleeding wounds.
Sinioth's bellow of agony sliced through the water, a wailing screech of unspeakable torment. A shimmering wall of crystalline fragments circled the squid, driving through its flesh, tearing the huge form into pieces and then ripping those pieces into smaller and smaller parts.
Deirdre stood awestruck, overwhelmed by the stunning release of power. She stepped involuntarily backward, raising her hands before her face to ward off… what? The circling, silvery specks of glass continued to tear at the monster until there was nothing left to rend, but then the magical storm swirled back toward her.
Slivers of the broken mirror whirled around her, forming a glittering cocoon, obscuring her from view. Then, as if propelled by some invisible command, the spiraling cyclone of glass enclosed her even more tightly, until the shards flew straight toward the woman herself. They drove like needles into her skin, but left no marks, dripped no blood.
Deirdre screamed in overwhelming horror, collapsing to the deck and curling into a ball of terrified flesh. She slapped frantically at her skin as the darts of glass pierced her, yet still she showed no evidence of wounds. For several seconds, she continued to scream, and then her cries faded to a whimpering wail. Finally, shivering, she pressed her face against the planks of the hull and lay there. The only sound she made was a soft moaning.
Robyn knelt beside her daughter, and Tristan brought a woolen blanket to cover her. Gently he lifted her in his arms, noting with surprise how much smaller she seemed now. "Sleep, child… brave daughter," he said softly, cradling her head on his shoulder. Slowly her trembling lessened, though it did not cease altogether.
Knaff guided the longship beside a tall tower, where they had seen Brigit and Hanrald. The knights expended their last breaths as the vessel approached, but they crawled to the edge of the platform and, weighted by their armor, toppled over