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“You know that?” Pritkin blinked, although that might have been from all the spray flying around. “I suppose I should have realized. You’re too soft for a peasant girl!”
I glared at him.
“I meant that in a good way!” he assured me.
I closed my eyes again; I don’t know why. It never helped. But I preferred it to what I saw when I opened them.
“—not so bad, once you get used to them. Just very territorial,” Pritkin was bellowing, before another rock splashed down, missing his shoulder by inches.
It landed on the bottom of the stalagmite, splintering off some more shrapnel, but this time I didn’t even flinch. I was too busy staring at something in the gloom back the way we’d come. Something that looked like a bunch of people carrying flashlights that were reflecting off the walls.
Only flashlights were usually golden, weren’t they?
And these burned pure, cold silver.
Of course, I thought dully. Because a raging river, a bunch of rock-wielding savages, and a nonexistent power stream weren’t enough. That would be easy mode. And somewhere along the line I’d transitioned over to expert. Which would have been fine if I had as many lives as a video game character.
But I had only one.
Which I was about to lose.
“—then again,” Pritkin shouted, because he was still talking, “there’s a slight chance they may not have had time to absorb my particular brand of charm on my last visit—”
“You don’t have any charm,” I snarled, and shoved him off the rock.
Chapter Forty-two
I jumped in after him, just as two more spears flashed toward us, almost invisible in the cascade of light from above.
And when I came up, spluttering, a few moments later, it was only to have to duck back down to avoid another volley that tore by my head. I heard it hit, the massive crack deafening even underwater, and felt the tremors that shook the cave like an earthquake. And that must have knocked some more rocks loose, because, suddenly, they were raining down everywhere.
“Get down!” Pritkin yelled. “Get down! Get—”
“You get down!” I yelled back, because a spear had just shattered a huge stalagmite, with a bang like a mountaintop had been sheared off. Which wasn’t far from the case, with what looked like half the ceiling cracking and shifting and then spearing down—straight at him. “Pritkin!” I screamed, before remembering that he didn’t know that name.
And then the outer edge of the wave hit, and I was going under, too.
But that actually turned out to be a good thing, considering the rocks and shards and what looked like whole trees pelting down from above. A rock slammed into the water a moment later, right beside me, big enough to have ripped my arm off. Except that the water broke some of the impact, so it just felt like it was being ripped off. And then the current caught me before I had a chance to wonder how I was supposed to swim with only one arm.
And forced me to start worrying about how not to drown with one instead.
For the next few minutes, my head stayed mostly underwater. But I was almost grateful for that, since every time I came up, I regretted it.
The first time I surfaced, I glimpsed Pritkin up ahead and swimming hard, which was a huge relief. And being hotly pursued by a bunch of silver fey, which was not. Especially since they weren’t having to battle the water like we were.
In fact, they weren’t getting wet at all. I wasn’t sure there was a word for what they were doing, but it might have been called rock climbing if it was done at a sprint and sideways. The best I could figure out in between waves slapping me in the face, they were leaping from tiny outcropping to minute shelf to half-inch-wide protrusion on the walls, all wet, all slippery, all at full speed ahead, and all while throwing those damned energy spears at us.
Suddenly, Pritkin’s little jump wasn’t looking so impressive anymore.
Of course, neither was the fey’s aim, which was being affected by their mad chase, by the fact that they were trying to hit wildly bobbing targets in bad light, and by the small matter of them being targeted themselves.
Because they had been. By the hairy nuggets. Who I was starting to feel a whole lot warmer toward, suddenly.
And the small fey seemed to have a big problem with their latest guests. More than they did with us. Like, way more. We’d been yelled at and threatened and had some rocks lobbed in our general direction, but that was nothing compared to the reaction caused by the silver fey’s appearance. I didn?
??t know what the little guys were saying, because I guess the translation spell didn’t do profanity, either. But they were yelling down something that sounded truly vicious accompanied by an absolute avalanche of rocks.
And it looked like Pritkin had been wrong.
