Alaysha had one thought: to psych the fluid from whatever was stealing her breath. It wasn't a matter of fear or bravery; it was one of pure self-preservation. The power tingled beneath her skin even as she saw Cai drop to her knees. They'd been back-to-back when the battle began, but now as Alaysha spun, searching for breath to pull into her lungs, she'd fallen away from Cai. She knew she had mere heartbeats to stop the psyching, that within ten, all of the Enyalia, the boys even the one she'd come to recognize, Yenic Gael and Theron would be nothing but dried flesh.
If she could just focus it, she could at least save someone. But where? How?
Her lungs were starving for air and her legs lost their strength, unable to find the fuel they needed as the air was robbed from her lungs. Blackness was overtaking her vision; she could smell the stink from the sweat of the fighters, taste the water from beneath their pores. If she didn't do something immediately it would be too late. It wouldn't matter who took the lives: lack of air or lack of water had the same result, but if she did nothing they would all be dead.
A flicker of movement, there in the trees, past a collapsed Uta and Thera, several Enyalia on their knees struggling not to pass out. A heartbeat more and it would be over.
The easy water had already gathered to a mist, was gathering still. The quick supply from buckets and gourds and water skins, it was all there ready to be used. It would have to be enough. Like she would strike with her sword at an enemy, Alaysha imagined the water as part of her arm. She swung, gathering it into a wide streak and at its apex, she sent it jabbing forward, toward the movement she saw in the trees. It gathered as it hurtled forward, picking up condensation from the psyched breath of each woman and child, and it turned to a sheet of water with enough force that it slammed into a tree, cracking it in two as it crashed into the woods.
Alaysha fell forward onto her chest, her hands splayed in front of her, trying to hold herself up. She couldn't breathe; she had spent everything she had in the attack. She lay there, trying to focus. The Enyalia who had reclaimed enough air to stand were doing their best to sprint into the woods, swords drawn. Alive then. Most of them. But staggering as though drunk.
She felt herself being lifted into warm arms. Strange. She hadn't realized she was cold until just then.
"We have to get out of here." Yenic's voice. "You have to get out of here if you want to live." Shouting at someone, everyone, it seemed. Fires had started somewhere near, she could hear the lightening striking wood and splitting trees. She could smell the stink of char and burning skin. A blur of flame from the edge of the woods where the tinder sword blazed.
Alaysha's vision blurred, but she could see waves of red flashes then of green. Moving. The feeling of awkward loping. "Come, man," she heard her Saviour say. "I know a place."
"It best be far away." Yenic said. He was breathless too, as though he was running and labouring at breath at the same time. But it didn't feel like they were running. It was too awkward, too slow.
A grumble of thought, then darkness. Alaysha couldn't stop shivering. She thought the shadows wanted her to sleep. They crept in from her side vision, threatening to steal even the unfocused power that she kept tightened and in check. But there was something she had to tell these saviours of hers. Something important.
"Gael," she croaked out and her throat burned at the effort. She tried to lift her head because that wasn't what she wanted to say. It had something to do with the movement she'd seen as she felt her power let go, and she needed to concentrate, to get it back.
"Gael," was what came again.
"Her man," came Cai's voice.
"I'll see to it." Yenic again. Sullen but agreeable.
"Use Bodicca and the beast to get him. Meet me at nightfall. She'll know where I'm going."
"Bodicca," Alaysha mumbled, and even that wasn't what she wanted to say, but it was closer. Gael. Bodicca. Theron. Aedus.
Edulph.
Yes. She could picture it now. Remember. Three attacks. A bloom of arrow. A swat to the neck. The loss of air. A complete triangle of attack and at its third point a small child—a girl no more than two seasons old.
The wind witch, surely. And with her two people Alaysha knew on sight. Aedus, her hair and body slicked in mud, holding a blower to her lips. Edulph with a bow. The only people standing, unaffected, by the child's power.
And that could only mean one thing.
They had her blood.