The wyverna crouched, swaying, eyeing each of them in turn—a predator casting its eye over the herd and selecting the weakest animal to bring down. Ryley swallowed the bile that scorched his throat and cast a sideways glance at Silas. What had his mother been thinking when she’d insisted on bringing him along? Sehani magic might not work directly on the wyverna, but it helped whisk you out of harm’s way, at least. Silas wouldn’t last five minutes on his own.
“What took you so long?” Chryss had aimed his comment at Kunnandi and Shikari.
Ryley winced. Even though Chryss had once been a god, it still didn’t pay to give one lip…. Or remind them they were late to the party. The Elder Gods were here now, and that was all that mattered.
Kunnandi scowled. “We had things to discuss.”
I’ll bet. And if not for Hope being taken by the wyverna you might still be “discussing” things. Ryley took care to keep that thought private and not leak a hint to Kunnandi.
Silas finally smothered his awe enough to speak directly to the god all hunters worshipped. “Any ideas how to hurt this thing, Shikari?”
“Whatever we do it’ll heal itself almost instantly, just like we usually do.”
“Unless our wound is inflicted by a wyverna of course,” Chryss said. “Or another god.” And this time it was Shikari who scowled.
Silas appeared very resigned as he rolled his shoulders to limber the joints. “I suppose someone’s got to make the first move.”
Before Ryley could open his mouth to issue a caution Silas had darted forward to stab the wyverna’s haunch and was backing away to the relative safety of the circle again. The creature craned its neck to hiss at him before resuming its swaying vigil. Blood gushed from the spear wound. Silas grunted in a satisfied way. “A few more like that and it’ll bleed out.”
Wisa joined the circle. “Watch, Hunter,” she told him.
Ryley watched the man’s expression. And when Silas swallowed and muttered, “Holy cervida-shit!” he cast a glance at the wyverna’s haunch, already knowing what he would see. The injury was now little more than a scar, and even that was fading.
“You gods sure knew how to make a scary creature,” Silas said.
Suni eyed the wyverna and sniffed. “It’s an abomination. No wonder you need our assistance.”
Wisa briefly inclined her head toward each of the Elementals in turn. “On behalf of the Dayamari Elder Gods we thank you for coming to our aid.”
Prettily said, but Ryley suspected the words had stuck in her throat. When it came to the Elementals the gods had a ways to go before they could completely bury their pride.
“Our wyverna is looking a little to perky for my liking,” Marc said. “I think it’s getting ready to attack. How about you Elementals smack it around for a bit while we get organized?”
“Delighted, I’m sure.” Without preamble Vindra loosed a blast of chilled air that froze the wyverna solid.
“I really, really, like it when you do that,” Ryley said. “Gives us time to come up with a plan of attack.”
The Elemental bowed. “You’re welcome young Sehan.”
The Elder Gods conjured their favored weapons. A spear for Shikari, a long, wickedly-sharp blade for Kunnandi, and for Wisa, a three-pronged weapon that Ryley couldn’t recall the name of right now. So long as it did the job. “I vote we hit it with everything we’ve got, then let the Elementals have another go at it,” he said. “They weakened it before. Maybe Suni can fry its wings a bit, while Marc blasts a nice, deep hole right here. Then we’ll herd it in and bury it.”
Silas gave a terse nod. “Sounds like a plan.”
“If you want to die sooner rather than later,” Chryss said.
“Got any better ideas?” Ryley asked. No sarcasm meant. If Chryss had a better idea, he wanted to hear it.
“Nope. Remember, don’t be tempted to use any of your Sehani powers on it. It’ll only absorb them and they’ll make it stronger. That applies to you lot, too.” He jerked his chin at the three Elder Gods. “No fancy god-stuff—not unless you want us all to end up wyverna-fodder sooner rather than later.”
“What about me?” Marc asked.
Chryss narrowed his gaze and stared at the young god for a long tension-filled moment. “I’m not sure about you yet. Have to wait and see.”
Ryley couldn’t help his sharp bark of what passed for laughter lately. “I don’t expect we’ll have the leisure of ‘waiting and seeing’.”
Silas cut him a glance, his pupils dilated with shock. “You think we’re all going to die.”
“Yes. But at least it’ll be quick. Unlike the immortals among us we won’t be hanging around fighting, getting hurt and healing, over and over, until the world as we know it ends.”
“There is that,” Chryss said, and clapped Silas on the shoulder. “Don’t fret, Hunter. Everyone’s got to go sometime.”
“Unless we can come up with a better plan,” Marc said.
Ryley scratched his chin as a question smacked him from way the heck out of left field, as they liked to say on Earth. “Chryss, if the gods are too badly injured to function for a while, who gets to escort us to the spiritual world when we die?”
“Reckon we’ll be hanging around as phantoms for a bit.”
“I can think of a few people I wouldn’t mind haunting,” Silas said, doing his best to sound as unconcerned as the others. “Look. It’s chewed through half the ice already.” He flexed his fingers and then gripped his spear more firmly.
Marc made a sound in his throat that sounded like a surprised gurgle, and Ryley noted he was gazing intently at Silas. “I think I do have another plan. Hope wanted you here with us for a reason, Silas, and I think I’ve just glimpsed a hint of what that reason might be.”
“Well done, Marc,” Wisa said, smiling at him. “You’re progressing nicely.”
He rounded on her. “You knew about Silas?”
“No,” she said, sounding affronted. “And I still don’t know exactly how you think to use him. If I had crucial information to help our cause, do you truly believe I’d keep silent?”
“We don’t know what to believe anymore,” Ryley said. And refused to feel guilty at the wounded expression he glimpsed before she dropped her gaze.
“Get on with it, boy.” Chryss made a rolling motion with his hands.
“Silas can take life-energy,” Marc said, “just like Romana does. He feeds off people’s energy.”
“Me?” Silas stared at the young god. “You’re mistaken. I don’t feed from anyone. I don’t have any such ability.”
“Bullshit,” Marc said. “It’s why you can so easily sway people to take your side and do what you want. Or do you simply believe you’re that charismatic?”
Silas’s mouth opened and closed.
“You take energy from the people around you and convert it for your own use,” Marc said. “It’s only small amounts—negligible, really. But if you link with me, you’ll be able to boost your own abilities with my powers, drain the wyverna of its life-energy and cycle it back through me. Together we’ve got a chance to kill this thing. Or at least substantially weaken it so we can contain it again.”
“You think so?” Ryley glimpsed the desperate hope that flamed in Silas’s eyes and envied him. He’d lost all hope in happy endings.
Marc’s grin was so broad and infectious that Silas had started grinning, too. “We can do this, Silas.”
Chryss tugged his beard. “It’ll be dangerous, Hunter. Marc will act as a conduit—giving you access to his power and then draining you of any excess you gain from the wyverna. But he’s a god, and if you take too much power from him, or hold it inside you for too long, it will destroy you.”
Ryley felt compelled to voice his doubts. “What’s to stop the wyverna from absorbing Marc’s power through Silas?”
“Excellent question,” Kunnandi said.
“Marc was correct to compare Silas to Romana,” Chryss said. “Theirs is not a creative power like a Sehan’s. Theirs is a negative power—destructive, if you prefer. And even though he’s now a Dayamari god, Marc retains such strong links to his home-world I believe he draws power from that world, also.”
“Interesting hypothesis,” Kunnandi said. “But how can it help us combat the wyverna?”
“I believe the wyverna won’t be able to absorb Marc and Silas’s powers because when combined, they will be fundamentally alien to this world. That’s what I hope, anyway.”
Silas’s jaw worked silently for a moment, and then he turned to Wisa and the words erupted from his mouth. “If I’m going to risk my life on a theory, can’t you gods at least See whether this is going to work?”
None of them met his gaze. Finally Wisa said, “We’ve never been able to See anything to do with wyvernas clearly.”
From the way Silas stared at her, Ryley knew the hunt-leader was fighting the gut-wrenching realization his gods were fallible.
Silas blinked, shook himself, and said, “Let’s do it.”
“Now would be good,” Suni trilled. “The creature is almost free of Vindra’s most excellent ice-cube. It’s looking rather, er, pissed as young Marc is so fond of saying.”
“Open your mind to me, Silas,” Marc said.
The force of the young god’s mind brought Silas to his knees. He leaned on his spear as black spots danced before his eyes. And then his vision clouded until he could no longer see anything at all. His skull throbbed. His brain felt so enlarged with Marc’s presence he feared it might explode. And then the immense pressure eased and he could see again. He realized with a jolt that he’d topped to the ground. He groped for his spear and hauled himself to his feet.
“Good,” Marc said.
If that was “good”, gods help him when he had to deal with “bad”.
“I’m going to show you what to do,” the young god told him, “and then I’ll help you make the link. I’ll buffer you as much as I can without interfering but be ready. When you make mental contact with this beastie it’s going to be a shock to your system.”
“I’m ready.” He hoped.
With Marc’s assistance, Silas pushed outward with his mind… and saw a world he could never have imagined. He marveled at the explosion of life-energies around him, a swirling, pulsing array of too-bright colors that made his breath catch in his throat.
At Marc’s suggestion he narrowed his focus until he could identify individual aureyas from the seething mass. The gods were almost too exquisitely painful to behold, and the Elementals so alien his brain couldn’t make sense of what he was Seeing. Quickly he dragged his Sight away from them and sought a human aureya. But even Ryley’s aureya was strange. Silas finally realized he was Seeing two aureyas inside the young Sehan—as though Ryley’s physical body was inhabited by two distinctly different souls. He didn’t realize he’d been distracted until Marc’s inexorable will called him back and directed him toward the wyverna.
Under different circumstances Silas might have admired the creature as he would any other competent predator. Viewed with his new Sight, however, the wyverna provoked nothing short of awe. Its deadly beauty was now overlaid with colors spanning the rainbow. Its aureya vibrated with a suppressed power that agitated the colors, mixing them and swirling them into hues he’d never imagined could exist. It was as though the gods had drawn beauty from every source they had available and caged it in this one perfect creature.
Something inside him was drawn to the wyverna’s power. He wanted it. Craved it.
Marc showed him how to coax his yearning into a fine thread and send it snaking toward the wyverna’s aureya. It latched on leech-like, and then wormed its way toward the pulsing heart of the creature’s power.
Ah. There. Perfect. His thread embedded itself deeply. As he began to feed the thread pulsed and grew thicker. The sensation was vaguely disgusting at first—almost too alien to accept. And then it was pleasure and more pleasure and simply… more. He groaned as the power burgeoned inside him, filled him, expanded him to the point of pain. And then there was relief and an easing as Marc began the cycle of siphoning off the excess power. A part of Silas mourned the loss. But a part of him knew it was of no matter. He knew how to replace it now. Oh yes.
Greedily he sucked more inside himself.
“Protect Silas!” Ryley barked the warning as the wyverna exploded from the remains of its ice prison and lunged for the hunter. But Marc was already moving. He scooped the oblivious man over his shoulder and backed away.
Kunnandi stepped in front of him, standing legs apart, ready for action, like some badass bodyguard. “If you’re injured too badly to continue what you’re doing with the hunter we’re royally screwed,” he said by way of explanation.
Marc nodded tersely, accepting the logic even if he didn’t much like the thought of being babied. He propped Silas up and peered out at the action from behind the slight Elder God.
Ryley had thrust his spear and impaled the wyverna as it surged forward again. He stood firm while the creature scrabbled its claws to gain purchase on the ground and forced the spear through its body, intent on crawling ever-closer to him. Chryss stood by Ryley and slashed at the creature’s head in an attempt to drive it back. Shikari had taken up a post at the rear of the creature and was hacking at its flanks with a huge axe. He put all his considerable strength behind the blows, slicing deeply, but as each new cut was inflicted it healed almost instantly.
Wisa and Suni joined Ryley. The goddess stabbed viciously at the wyverna with her three-pronged spear, while the Elemental blasted it with a stream of fiery heat.
The wyverna howled in pain and Marc felt a vicious surge of pleasure.
Silas had learned quickly. Now the wyverna’s power gushed into him in a rapid stream, forcing Marc to siphon off ever-increasing pools of power to prevent Silas from storing any of it. Who knew what a human might inadvertently do with so much power, or how using it might affect him? This process was risky enough without turning Silas into a potential monster and having to put him down.
All was going to plan—kind of—when a need speared through him and he was powerless to block it. It thrummed through his body, bringing with it an overwhelming sadness and regret that almost drove him to his knees.
She was near death but he couldn’t disengage from Silas and go to her aid. Not yet. Torn, he weighed the value of one human life against another. Gods help him, even now he chose her. He would always choose her.
Decision made, Marc allowed Silas to take as much of the wyverna’s power as the man could humanly hold. He flexed his will and it slammed into Silas, tearing all the power he’d stolen from the wyverna from him in an instant. Marc swiftly shaped the power into a shaft and coated it in pure will. He aimed it and launched it into the stratosphere.
Its target was the protective veil between worlds.
He felt it deep in his soul when the veil tore and knew he had only seconds to act. He reached out through the rapidly closing tear in the veil and latched on to the essence he sought, summoning the one person who might be able to save her. He knew the consequences of his actions would be far-reaching, that he might never be forgiven for such an audacious, self-serving act. He didn’t care. She meant too much to him.
It was done. All he could do now was hope.
He turned his focus back to the task at hand, restarting the siphoning process from Silas and taking in everything he’d missed in blink of an eye. If this didn’t work there was no Plan B and—
There. A sudden contracting of the wyverna’s aureya accompanied a dramatic paling of its colors. “It’s working!” he shouted.
The creature howled, long and plaintive. It sank to the ground and lay panting, its forked tongue flicking. And then its body began to shrivel and shrink, caving in on itself.
Silas laughed, a chilling sound full of triumph and delight.
Marc left him to stalk over to the stricken creature. He prodded it with his foot. It didn’t react. Its jaws were stretched wide, its hide dull and patchy. Only its eyes retained any signs of life, remaining plump and shiny for the briefest moment before shriveling in the sockets until they reminded him of raisins. The force that gave it life had been sucked from it, leaving behind a wizened, shriveled husk.
Ryley mopped his face with the hem of his tunic. “It’s over.”
“Good job, Silas.” Kunnandi gave the man a gentle push and sent him staggering toward Marc and the others. “You’ve killed it. Go take a look.”
But Silas was shaking his head over and over. “No. There’s more power to take. I sense it. More. I want more!”
Marc frowned. What the hell was up with him?
Silas licked his lips, his gaze eagerly scanning every inch of the wyverna’s corpse. “There’s something still in there. I can sense it. I want it!”
“There is no more. It’s dead.” Marc scrubbed a hand over his face. If his actions had broken Silas’s mind….
“There’s something still in there. Power. I can sense power. I want it!”
“The damnable creature is finally dead,” Wisa said. “It’s got no more power to give. Marc, please incinerate it and ask Vindra to disperse the ashes on the winds. For my sake finish this! I need to get my daughter home so she can be properly healed.”
Some instinct prodded Marc to scan the wyverna’s corpse. Silas was correct, there was some spark of energy remaining. “Fuck me sideways. How—?” Ah shit. His stomach lurched as he connected the clues. Hope. She’d been psychically linked to the creature when he’d brought it down with the bollas. Had that link ever broken?
“What’s wrong, Marc?”
He ignored Wisa’s question. Appalled by what he now suspected, he probed further. This was bad. He dreaded to think how being linked to a creature at the moment of its death might have affected her, and—
Oh fuck no. This was really bad. Silas was still draining power all right. Hope’s Sehani power! Cursing, he severed the hunter’s link with the wyverna.
Silas swayed and then fell forward onto his face.
Wisa blanched and her hand shot to her mouth. “No.”
“What’s wrong?” Ryley demanded. “Will somebody tell me—?”
“Hope was still linked to the wyverna,” Marc said. “It was her power Silas could sense. And her power he was draining.”
~~~