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Now that the water had mostly streamed away, I could see that it was similar in design to the craft we’d just found, with a slightly rounded top and a capsule-like body. But this one was made entirely out of polished wood, although it otherwise copied the metal version exactly. Right down to the wooden “rivets” in the sides and the indistinct, foreign words on the door.
Only this one was floating through the air.
It slowly rotated, the bluish lights on the sides strobing the rocks and sand, but missing us when we drew back behind the ledge of stone.
The flood of light reached past us, extending halfway down the little tunnel. But the craft didn’t seem to find the tunnel very interesting, either. After a moment, it withdrew, and when I checked again, peering out from near the bottom of the rock where the shadows were the thickest, I saw that it had settled onto the wet sand near the shield. The door lowered, and a contingent of silver haired fey poured out, their boots splashing on the waterlogged sand.
“What now?” Ray mouthed.
That was a good question, I thought, watching the fey. They looked eerie in the strange blue light, even more so than normal. It striped their faces and tinted their hair. But they seemed to see just fine, as some of them were already stripping off and wading over to the empty shell of the shield.
They appeared to be having trouble seeing the bottom, as it was partly flooded and the churning action of the falls was keeping it moving. They could probably tell that there were bodies in there, but not how many or what kind. But that would not last long.
Their craft was larger than the one we’d found, and there were a lot of fey. I counted fifteen, and there could be more inside. And unlike the ones who had taken me, these were well armed. While all Ray and I had was a knife I’d taken off of one of our attackers, a broken, tourist-grade scimitar, and a wrench.
“We shoulda taken that shin bone,” he whispered, and I silently agreed.
And then my eyes widened.
“Look,” I whispered to Ray, and pointed.
“What? I don’t—oh. Oh, shit.”
I seconded the comment. Because our footsteps were clearly visible on the wet sand, tracking first up the beach and then across the cavern. They would have been even more so, but the black color of the sand blended them into the shadows somewhat, and there were patches of rock here and there that broke them up. The fey had also landed on top of some of them, putting down on the biggest section of sandy soil.
But any moment now, they were going to be noticed. They had filled up with water, and the bluish light coming off the fey’s craft was highlighting them perfectly from this angle. That would likely be true from other vantage points as well.
As soon as one of the fey noticed, we were going to have to fight.
I tensed up, preparing—and then another capsule breeched the falls. It was as big as the last, and its shutters were down, exposing the interior and allowing it to immediately begin spewing forth fey. They leapt from the windows before it had even landed, calling out to their fellow warriors, although whether instructions or questions, I didn’t know.
I weighed my options. I had a stun ability that theoretically could take on this many, leaving them defenseless. But the fey were really spread out, and I needed them bunched into a relatively small area for it to work. And it only lasted about a minute. I could kill this many in that amount of time, but what if there were more?
The stun tended to wipe me out, leaving me at a disadvantage in any fight that might follow. I usually reserved it for emergencies as a result: for when enemy backup arrived unexpectedly and I found myself outnumbered, or when I ended up surrounded and needed to escape. It was a good defensive weapon, in other words, but not particularly well suited for offense.
And, of course, there was an even better defense, if we hadn’t yet been spotted.
“Well, hell,” Ray said. “That’s only fifteen, maybe twenty guys a piece.”
I looked at him. “Do you think you can take fifteen or twenty well-armed fey warriors?”
He rolled his eyes. “You do know there’s these things called jokes, right?”
Yes, but this did not seem like the time.
But perhaps it would help to ease the tension.
“I think we should make like a tree,” I said.
“What?”
“Leave.”
He stared at me for a moment, in what appeared to be concern. But he must have agreed. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get outta here.”
Chapter Eighteen
Dorina, Faerie
