Arms of the Ocean Ch. 13

Blown-day sighed. "Ugh, fine. This is easily the worst hunt we've ever been on."

"Little help?" Ronav called as the Neynas's palms once again glowed with a fiery fury.

Vyla didn't waste time in answering. She leapt out over the pond and slid across its surface. Blown-day spun around in time to shoot down the knives she threw in his direction. The distraction proved enough for Ronav to muscle himself free of the magic that bound his legs and he fell to the ground.

The naylix cracked through the air towards Blown-day but he threw himself to one side and tumbled to safety.

"To me," Vyla hissed.

Ronav sprang to his feet and ran towards the Siren in the hope that she would keep the two hunters off of him. Instead she dove at him too, spreading out in the air, and began to wrap around his body as she had done back inside Malicious' home, albeit less gradually than then.

"Calm yourself!" Vyla commanded. Again her words came unsettlingly close to his ears.

"A little warning would have been nice!" Ronav shot back. He felt Vyla's body solidify in places as she formed herself into the suit of armor that he had worn earlier. But this time, without the added padding, she didn't have to spread so thinly.

"What's the plan?" Ronav asked. The two Siren hunters were presently recollecting themselves and eyeing this new development with caution.

"Keep you safe and hope that Zeerae makes it back in one piece," Vyla replied so that none but they would hear. "Either that or Malicious and Nimtith grow a spine. Or even Yis."

"How is she?"

"Hiding amid the roots and struggling with those sheaths on her back, last I saw."

"Do you suppose this counts as two against one?" Glade asked over their private conversation. She stood on one of their flanks, resting on the haft of her hammer, Blown-day on the other.

The Neynas shook his head. "Mine didn't count as one before, I don't see how this changes anything."

Somewhere it felt as though Vyla smiled. "Care to prove them wrong?" she asked.

"Are things okay between us?" Ronav whispered. He didn't know where the decision to bring this up now had come from. Maybe just to get the question out of the way before their imminent demise.

"Is anything ever okay?" Vyla replied after a moment.

"It could be."

Another smile, or so Ronav presumed. He did the same.

"I'll look for you in the screaming void," she said. "If only to wipe that stupid grin off your face."

"Don't keep me waiting."

"Here's an idea," Blown-day said to Glade, though he spoke loud enough for all to hear. "You get them in the pond and I'll boil them. Wouldn't that be ironic? Boiling a Siren."

"That's not irony you idiot!" Vyla shouted.

"Yes it is!"

"No, irony would be me saying how wonderful it is to be surrounded by all these foolish Shasling's who think they know what irony is."

"That sounds closer to sarcasm, actually," Ronav mumbled through his second skin.

"Quiet," Vyla hissed and her body tightened around his mouth so that he couldn't open it fully.

"He's right," argued Glade. "What you said is sarcasm. But that doesn't mean Blondie's right about irony."

"I am though." The Neynas folded his arms and pouted like a child.

"And I'm sure, to you at least, being right matters more than anything at the present. But I think we should get back to fighting." Glade hefted her hammer and swung it overhead so that it rested across her shoulders.

"You handle the moving, I'll manage weapons," Vyla whispered in his ears. "Just get me close. And if you don't avoid the fire I'm leaving you behind."

"Noted." Ronav smiled. The battle didn't seem quit so daunting now that he faced it together with Vyla.

Glade was the first to make a move. She lunged forwards as her massive hammer swung down upon them. Aided by Vyla's reflexes and armor, Ronav caught the weapon on its haft.

"Axe," he whispered as he lifted his free arm.

Vyla's skin shifted, smoothed and sharpened into a long blade upon Ronav's wrist and hand. He braced the haft then hacked through it in a single blow. Wood with a skin of steel but it broke easily beneath his might and Vyla's razor-sharp aid.

"Bastards!" Glade snarled.

Whatever celebration the two might have had was canceled immediately by Glade's fist striking them in the side of the head. Those metal gloves gave the woman a punch to move mountains.

Ronav reeled under the blow and he felt his scalp open up as crunched fragments of Vyla's hardened body slashed against his skin. A high-pitched ringing started on that side but he didn't have time to enjoy it as a wave of flame came in from the right.

"Down!" Vyla ordered.

A week ago, Ronav never would have guessed that one day he would be wearing a suit of armor, much less one that almost moved for him. Yet Vyla did exactly that in an effort to escape the heat as she bent his legs out from under him. Together they fell to the ground and Ronav half-braced against the fall before tumbling out of the line of fire. He sprang to his feet again and surged farther than he had expected. More aid from Vyla, most likely.

"Focus on the Sye, I'll keep the girl busy." As if to illustrate her intent, Vyla lashed Ronav's right hand through the air, the one that held the naylix.

Glade didn't even blink as the weapon hissed towards her and screamed upon her armor.

Meanwhile, Blown-day pressed his palms together and a tiny burst of light flashed between them. When he drew away, two blades of golden energy shone from his hands. He held each as though it were a sword.

A dart burst from Ronav's shoulder and preceded him as he charged towards Blown-day. The Neynas whipped one sword to intercept it in a spark of energy.

"Change of plan, he can't maintain his shield and those swords at once," Vyla advised.

Dozens more darts shot forth from Vyla, all pointed at the Neynas. His eyes widened and he jumped back as the blade in his left hand quickly widened into a shield. The darts hissed and popped as they struck the barrier of light and Vyla heaved in frustration.

"You're not fighting fair," said Blown-day as he raised his shield for Ronav's arrival.

The armor around Ronav's arms shifted into claws this time. He punched at Blown-day but the Neynas blocked it and Vyla snarled.

"His weapons burn," she said as a cross-cut narrowly missed their chest.

Glade soon joined them and Ronav struggled to fend off the attacks of two opponents, much less get his own in. Even with the aid of Vyla's agility, reflexes and awareness, the whirlwind of weaponry had him catching glancing blows every now and then. He could only imagine how it affected Vyla. Every mark made upon her closed up almost immediately. But Ronav knew that she couldn't sustain such damage indefinitely. Blown-day's attacks were the worst. Even the smaller cuts left nasty scorches in Vyla's body. Glade's hammer, with its shortened reach, had too much trouble getting close enough to do anything significant.

"Will you just kill them already!" the Taigin woman raged.

"I just wanted a halfway decent fight is all," said Blown-day. He ducked back and his sword faded while his shield remained.

Ronav watched as Blown-day leveled his free hand at the two of them. Nothing good could come from the Neynas' palms, he knew that. Ronav wanted to move, hide, flee, anything. He sensed Vyla wanted the same, but Glade had them on guard and they couldn't turn their back on her.

A low humming began to fill the air. It built in pitch and volume over the seconds that Blown-day charged the spell. Had Ronav not been so distracted he may have been able to better pinpoint the sound. It seemed odd that the ominous hum of such a spell should be so likened to a bow being drawn across the strings of a viola. A bright glow also built from Blown-day's hand. Once the magic reached its peak, he unleashed it.

It wouldn't have made a difference had Ronav and Vyla been properly poised to evade. The spell travelled near instantaneously towards its target. A bright beam of light that rippled the air around it.

"Gah," Vyla cried as the magic struck her in the side of the chest and melted through immediately. Ronav didn't feel anything. No heat, no pain. A bad sign.

Vyla clung to Ronav as he stumbled back for a chance to recover. He didn't dare check the severity of the burn. The second skin had stopped the spell from going all the way through him but he knew he would need a healer. If they survived, that is.

"Hold together," Vyla whispered, her voice strained. It sounded as though she spoke as much to herself as she did to him. "It will take him a while to do that again. We know what we face now. We can win."

Ronav gritted his teeth and nodded as their enemies advanced.

"Still not finished?" asked a new voice as someone came crashing through the undergrowth.

The four of them froze and turned their attention to the newcomer. The voice filled Ronav with dread.

No, he moaned in misery as Trym emerged from the trees.

Glade and Blown-day raised their weapons and spread out so that everyone remained in their sight.

"Not another step," Glade warned the Ralta. "You know the rules, 'Trym'."

"Could it be her?" Vyla whispered.

"I don't know..." Ronav replied, yet he dared to hope.

'Trym' nodded. "Right, of course. I forgot for a moment since I had wholly expected you to have dispatched these wretches by now. Will this set your mind at ease? Ayas!"

The spell-word coiled forth, guided by Trym's hands, and tangled around Ronav and Vyla. They struggled in every direction but the magic held firm, tightening around their muscles until neither could move an inch.

"Satisfied?" Trym asked as he forced his prizes to the ground.

"Hardly. That fight was terrible..." Blown-day sagged his shoulders and his weapon and shield faded away.

Suddenly Glade jolted, looked at the Neynas and her hands flew up. "Wait, ayas isn't—!"

Too late. A jagged dart disappeared into the side of Blown-day's forehead and he slumped to the ground. No muffled grunt of pain. A quiet death.

Glade's hands trembled. "Ayas isn't his spell-word... for that..." she mumbled.

"He did strike me as the slowest of the three," said Zeerae as she rippled out of her disguise. "Judging by who's left, I guess that makes you number one."

Glade clenched her fists before turning on Zeerae. "You sea-bitch! Why won't you die?!" she howled as she charged the Siren.

Zeerae stood her ground, a pillar of calmness. Only once there were no more than several steps between her and the Taigin woman did she coil like a spring before diving between Glades arms. In one swift move Zeerae had the glass visor up. Then she was inside and the Taigin collapsed.

For a while there was silence. Not even the clicks or chirps of insects could be heard. All had likely fled from the battle. Ronav slowly became aware that his knees were hurting. He wondered why until he realized he had slumped to them. Vyla peeled away and sat by his side.

"Why are you so close?" Ronav asked.

"You're bleeding a lot." The Siren pointed down. Some of her remained on Ronav's side where the blazing ray of light had struck him. Only once he looked did he start to feel the scalding pain.

"Glad to see you're... concerned for my... wellbeing." Zeerae, who had been sitting by the body of Glade, fell to one side and made no effort to stop her head from slapping against the ground. "I'll just... rest here for a while."

Ronav moved to help her but Vyla laid a hand on his shoulder. "You're injured too. Let the others get her."

Malicious emerged from around the trees and gently padded towards the fallen Siren.

"Besides," Vyla added. "She'll be fine. Purely exhaustion and silp damage, I imagine. Anything more severe and she'd be dead already."

"Though I did... throw myself at death... thrice in one night," Zeerae breathed, her eyes closed. A weak smile crept across her lips.

"I'm not much of a healer," said Malicious as she stood over the Shasteless.

"Just need... a rest," Zeerae sighed.

Something moved and metal rattled behind them. Ronav tried to turn around but found he couldn't without his wound screaming. Vyla looked instead.

"Yis, vae dro aayv av." Vyla beckoned. Come sit with us.

The rattling paused for a moment, then resumed and drew towards the pond. Eventually Yis came into view on Ronav's right and Vyla leaned over, quickly freeing the Chayli from her bonds and wing-sheathes.

"What's silp?" Ronav asked. His eyes rested on the motionless forms of Glade and Blown-day, his mind still processing the night.

"It's what Siren's are made of," answered Vyla. "Shaslings are made from bone, muscle, skin and blood. Sirens are made from silp."

"That's strange."

"It's a strange world."

Ronav looked at Vyla but her eyes were glazed over. He suddenly wanted to kiss her. Those thin lips, a faint pink, on her pale face, wreathed in curtains of black. But he didn't.

"So... you were the Siren who saved me in the water," he stated instead.

"Would it matter if I wasn't?"

The others didn't seem to be listening. Even Nimtith, who had just now arrived from over the trees. Yis still sat with them but she wouldn't understand the private words she overheard. So Ronav didn't hesitate when he answered. "No."

Vyla turned to him. "Then is this what love is?" she asked so abruptly that the question almost flitted away before it could be answered.

"What?" Ronav choked.

"Shaslings, land dwellers, speak of love in poems and stories, do they not? The emotion isn't common among Sirenkind."

Once again, Ronav found himself winding back through the past days, all the way to the docks where Vyla had been fished from the water. Yet even then, he couldn't find a proper answer. "I don't know, this week's been too strange."

"Mm," Vyla hummed in agreement. Then she went back to staring at the fig trees.

Before a silence could creep in again, Ronav changed the subject. "I don't think I understand what happened back there. How did Zeerae use magic?"

"I did," Malicious answered. "You ruffians aren't the only ones who can play cards close to your chest."

Zeerae gave a weak laugh. "No, seems our hostess lied... when she said she didn't have another... way out."

Ronav frowned. "But you were planning to pretend to be prisoners."

"Until that thing cut down one of his allies without a thought," said Malicious through gritted teeth. "Then I could see that I would find no friends among them."

"Still a bit slow... if you ask me," mumbled Zeerae. She grunted as Malicious placed a foot upon her stomach.

"I didn't ask you." The foot remained in place for several seconds before Malicious removed it again. She stepped back. "I'm sorry, all this trouble's put me on edge."

"Why did it take you so long to come help us? Surely the two of you were more than a match for Trym," said Vyla with no effort to hide the sneer in her voice as she spoke to the women.

"Oh if only you... had been there," Zeerae sighed. "Almost tragic that I had to put down... such a skilled Shasling. But dear Malicious arrived too late... to partake of the games." The Shasteless propped herself up on one elbow and, without awaiting encouragement, began laying out the details of her engagement with Trym.

===

"Leyach!"

The word rang through the trees and Zeerae immediately felt its effects. The blade of energy that parted her body began to heat up as it surged with new power. She didn't know what would happen next; she didn't plan to find out.

The most skilled practitioners of combat say that time seems to crawl during a battle, particularly when things become especially heated. Until now, Zeerae hadn't believed it. Only when she made her move did the world close to all but the two of them. Time made a respectful stop as the stars and moon ceased so that they too could watch for the outcome.

The energy blade, that lay blocking Zeerae from so much of her silp, exploded. She had to flee from it, she knew, but not before one final order. The tiniest tendril of her body jabbed through the ground and reached for her other half. It carried a single command. Attack.

Rather than withstand or fight the violent energy as it rippled outwards, Zeerae hardened the receiving sides of her silp and rode it like wind in a sail. Her body, parted in two already, parted again. A third, a forth, a fifth. Seven, nine, two dozen tentacles curled towards Trym. His hands and lips moved to shift the barrier or shoot down the attack. Sparks of flame emerged in the air and scorched the tangle of tiny arms that Zeerae had become. Much of her body succumbed to the assault that seemed to stretch a thousand years. But Trym couldn't fight every inch of her.

Zeerae struck the shield hard, the explosion far behind, and joined again with the half she had lost. The surviving tentacles probed and wrapped for an opening. There! At the back, near his knees.

Every ribbon of silp slid towards the gap. So close now. She only needed to land a good hit, not even to the head. Something that would disrupt Trym's concentration and spells.

An inch from the opening and the shield fell away. Zeerae felt a flash of confusion at first, then she choked as something wrapped around her heart. She almost smiled. He'd taken a gamble and dropped the shield. A risk to make her flinch and finish the attack. Well, that worked too.

Perhaps if Trym had ever tried something like this on another Siren, and it had to be a member of the Shasteless, he would have known better. The second Zeerae felt the touch, reflexes, that she had trained from the start, kicked in. Rather than stuttering for any noticeable length of time, her body changed direction, sharpened and shot clean through Trym's wrist. The winding spear curled to come back and this time, without the shield, nothing stopped it from flying through the man's neck.

Trym collapsed, his head falling nearby and the hood slid off. Zeerae splatted to the ground where she pulled herself back together to assess the damage. Not a good diagnosis. But she had no time to rest. A few more minutes. She only needed to hold together for a few more minutes.

===

"Then I caught these two... creeping up on me and we came up with... the little play we did here," Zeerae finished. She slouched back down and closed her eyes.

"The way you tell that makes it sound as though you really do need a healer," said Ronav.

Zeerae gave her head a weak shake. "Healers do nothing for me. Sleep, on the other hand. And some easy food."

"You aren't the only one in need." Vyla looked at Ronav. "This burn of yours needs proper tending. We should get moving."

Nimtith chose that moment to break his silence. "Moving?! No, we can't." Everyone, Yis included, looked in his direction. The Chayli stumbled under the attention. "There might be others out there, ah? And what about these three here? And the two in the trees. They need a burial. And all this moving around, this insanity. Can't we just rest for a minute?"

"What makes you think I will even let you go anywhere?" Malicious stepped forwards and she faced each intruder on her land. "This trouble you've brought and I still haven't gotten through the tests I need."

"Forget your queen-forsaken tests," Vyla hissed.

"That isn't what you seemed to think before..."

Had both woman possessed eyes, rather than only one, Ronav imagined that they would have been staring daggers at each other such that the very air would fold beneath them. Neither one backed down so he saw no choice but to step in. He rose to his feet and Vyla followed.