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The water deepened the closer they rode to Nezri, until it was up to their horses’ knees, forcing them to slow to a trot. The Shiran pranced and bucked, snorting at the strangeness in their lands. Whatever protection they’d offered disappeared as the sand mares left the herd behind.
“Mirrors on the sand,” Sorasa murmured, the sun reflecting in her eyes. The strange water flecked her cheeks. She raised a hand to shade her gaze, inspecting the outpost ahead.
Corayne did the same, peering around the assassin’s shoulder. The palms sparkled, jeweled with dark droplets. A column of water like a gigantic fountain spouted into the air, a hundred feet high, wide as a tower, an impossible spring exploding out of the oasis basin. It roared with the crashing of a hundred waves, raining down on the city beneath. Like the water on the ground, it had an odd gray color, like oil or corruption. Corayne could feel it on her skin, tracking dirty lines down her face and neck.
Nezri was otherwise vibrant, but there was no one on the outskirts that Corayne could see. No citizens, no merchant caravans or pilgrims to the oasis temple.Perhaps the Spindle drove them away—or Erida’s men killed them all.
“There are at least two hundred men of Galland in that town,” Sorasa growled, pulling her bronze sword from the sheath strapped to her saddle. “Stay fast; don’t stop. Find the Spindle and get Corayne to it.”
Blades sang loose. An ax bit the air. A hook on a string swung in a lazy circle. Corayne felt for her stabbing dagger, somehow still at her hip. The hilt was unfamiliar, wrong in her hand, despite the little training she’d had from Sorasa and Sigil.
Seven against two hundred soldiers of Galland, a Spindle at their backs. Impossible, but then so was everything else up to this moment.We’ve overcome impossible before,Corayne told herself, trying to believe it, trying to be brave. For her mother somewhere, for her father dead. For her friends around her, and the realm threatening to collapse on them all.
“Dom, the sword?” she said, trying not to tremble. Her voice wavered but her hand did not, stretching across open air, her palm raised.
The Spindleblade shone, its etchings filled with the desert sun. Again, Corayne could feel the cold radiating off the ancient blade, as if its heart were frozen and not forged. Dom held it out to her, passing it between their mares.
Her fingers brushed the hilt, the leather soft.
A screaming mouth full of fangs rose up between their horses, spooking them down to the bone. The sea serpent was young, its scales a cloudy white, its eyes red and weeping black. Its jaws snapped inches from Corayne’s fingers, and Sorasa yanked her back out of its reach.
Dom changed his grip, flipping the blade through the air to take it by the hilt, swinging in the same motion. His horse reared and he missed, the Spindleblade chopping through open air instead of serpent flesh.
The mares tossed as the water foamed and rippled, splashing not from their hooves but from the quivering mass of serpents rolling over themselves, coiling and unfurling, white and black and red, gray and green and blue, scales like iridescent crystal or slick oil. The serpents circled, more and more drawn to the commotion, their movements like hunting waves.
There is no sound like screaming horses.
Corayne screamed too, as fangs snapped in her face.
The Companions broke apart, without aim, without a plan, at the mercy of their mares and the monsters beneath the surface. It was all Corayne could do to keep her seat, her arms locked around Sorasa’s waist while the assassin fought to keep the horse alive, let alone standing.
Only Sigil had any luck, roaring the cry of the Countless again. It thrummed in the air, spurring her horse into a charge. She rode with the fury of a hurricane, ax in one hand, sword in the other, leaning back and forth to use both with abandon. Serpent heads flew behind her, their sliced necks spurting black blood to stain the waters.
“Follow me!” she cried, cutting a path into the oasis, serpent corpses floating in her wake.
For someone terrified of the bounty hunter, Charlie was the quickest to follow, his legs drawn completely out of the stirrups, lest a serpent catch him by the ankle. With his red face, he made quite a sight.
“Why did I agree to this?” he howled to no one.
Sorasa’s mare spurred to action, getting her head and her bearings. The horse sprinted in the water, kicking at anything close in her haste to reach the palm trees and the outpost city.
The assassin chanted to her, the Ibalet language soothing the beast, calming her into focus. Water foamed around them, and Corayne swung, the dagger odd in her grip, its edge clumsy. She stabbed for a coil of serpent scale and nearly lost her balance, her stomach dropping.
“Just stay with me, Corayne; I’ll handle the rest,” Sorasa said, urging the mare into the palm trees.
Even flooded, Nezri looked charming, albeit deserted. The oasis was built around what had once been a placid, shining pool, the palm trees shading inviting streets. A domed and spired temple, small but intricately patterned in green paint and white mosaic, glimmered between the trees. Its prayer bell hung silent. There was a market plaza too, its stones flooded, the arches of adjoining bazaar choked with debris. Beautifully woven carpets lay forgotten, ruined in the water. As in Almasad, a causeway rose up and around the original banks of the oasis, standing on elaborate limestone columns, their crowns carved in the likeness of regal animals. It was smaller than the stone paths in the city, and abandoned.
The sun shone too brightly for so strange a day, jarring against the gray water and the tidal wave of sea serpents twisting over the sandy waterbed.
Corayne turned, searching for the others, but searching above all else for the Spindle.I don’t even know what I’m looking for,she cursed.Where it could be, what it looks like. Nothing.
Sorasa maneuvered between the buildings, splashing down a narrow street to leave the serpents behind. Doors hung off their hinges, and windows dangled open, the apartments and shops long abandoned by their owners.
A man leaned out of one, his armor good steel, his sword flashing, his tunic a hideous, hateful green. Only Sorasa’s lightning reflexes kept their heads attached to their bodies, and she yanked the mare’s reins so forcefully the horse toppled, screaming as she went.
They fell, Corayne plunging into the water. She sputtered and fought to stand, her cloak too heavy. Sorasa growled somewhere, and Corayne whirled to find the Gallish soldier on top of the assassin, his longsword pointing at her throat.
Corayne did not know she could move so quickly or with such force until her dagger pulled back, red in her hand, coated to the hilt in fresh blood.
