"Tiger," puffed Heath, nursing a bleeding side, "you saved… our lives… again!"
"No." Even the tiger's chest heaved from exertion. "The legionnaires pulled back. I don't know why."
"They fear us!" croaked Murdoch, trying to joke.
"Who knows?" panted Adira. "We might get out of this mess with our guts intact. But we can't leave Johan alive! Shauku would find him too handy a tool!"
Slashed on a buttock and thigh and forearm, Adira gasped as she tottered to Johan's golden prison. Her sword dripped blood.
"Make ready, Whistledove! You splash water on the crystal, and I'll drive home my blade before he can escape."
"Stand fast, mortals!" Like an echo from a tomb, the voice came from nowhere. Then a clammy mist swirled in Adira's face like the breath of a frost giant. The pirate queen couldn't shift her feet, and her arms stiffened as if frozen. Equally rooted, Whistledove chirped in fright.
From within the amber crystal, Johan blurted, "Beware Shauku!"
Like a face escaping pea-soup fog, a sallow visage took shape. The vampire formed from the scalp down, so her shriveled yellow head with pointed ears and needle fangs hung suspended a moment, then were joined by her ragged robe and small clawed feet.
Yet Adira was not nicknamed "Strongheart" for nothing. The petrifying spell had yet to seize up her good sword arm. With a grunt of effort, the Sovereign of the Sea of Serenity rammed her wasp-sting blade straight and true. Black steel split Shauku's bitter heart before the misty body had fully formed.
Alas, to no effect. Once Shauku ceased to shimmer, she glanced down at the blade stuck in her chest, curled a clawed hand around Adira's clenched fist and, easily as disarming a child, withdrew the blade. The withered hand was corpse-cold but inhumanly strong. Shauku cocked Adira's wrist and almost splintered the pirate's arm, forcing her to drop her steel. Shauku smiled, the most frightening sight Adira had ever beheld. Behind, she knew her Circle of Seven must likewise be frozen, else they'd have already attacked. At least they knew why the legionnaires fell back.
The rusty-hinge voice croaked, "A worthy fight your cohorts give, but it ends now, for other plans run apace."
Adira tried to answer but only squeaked. Her mind screamed with terror, more for her crew than herself. Vaguely she supposed the vampire smothered them with some scare spell, for Adira's guts felt watery, her heart raced fit to burst, her hair prickled, and sweat coursed in rivers. Paralyzed, the pirate queen tried to stare the vampire down, but her bravado failed. The undead eyes were black and blank as a shark's.
"Adira!" Johan's trapped voice rang tinny inside the amber shell. "Free me! I can fight Shauku! Match her spell for spell!"
With a dry chuckle, Shauku reeled in Adira as a python might constrict a mouse in its coils. The vampire's free hand touched Adira's wrist with black claws, then slowly pressed. Adira watched her blood ooze from twin punctures that burned and itched. To her everlasting horror, she watched the vampire bring lips to wrist and begin to suck her blood.
Drained, thought the paralyzed pirate. I'll be sucked dry and left a husk, or else rendered a night fiend myself. And I can't move a muscle. Hazezon, where are you?
"Release her!" hissed a tiny voice.
Barely able to avert her eyes, Adira saw Whistledove Kithkin draw her borrowed dagger. Somehow, perhaps because of her small size, or her mystic heritage, the brownie had escaped the petrifying spell. Fast and feisty as a rat-killing terrier, Whistledove's rapier sang, slashing Shauku from neck to elbow, white steel furrowing sallow skin.
The attack netted nothing. Though slit to bone, the undead fiend couldn't bleed. From lips dripping ruby droplets, Shauku commanded, "Die!"
Without a word, Whistledove rolled up brown eyes and pitched face-first on the stone floor with a sickening clonk.
We're finished, thought Adira. All my fault.
Yet they were not, entirely.
Frozen and forgotten was Jasmine Boreal, a witch of nature, who plied not a sword or bow but the essences of the earth, so held a knife not of steel but of bronze, an alloy of brass and tin. The druid in sky-blue knew she was lost, out of her element, not in a cozy forest rich with magically charged greenery, but rather in a dingy cave where even the air was eye-smarting and foul. Still, many forces of nature awaited her beck and call, and a vast friendly forest lay almost overhead. Improvising as best she could while paralyzed, Jasmine Boreal pictured soaring timber, lush pine-scented foliage, and the unending carpet of intertwined roots. Wishing she might sprinkle iron filings and pine shavings, the druid pried open her hand to let fall the bronze knife.
Druidical magic usually brought small results, but with earth elements a little charming went a long way. Swollen by magic, the knife's ping on the cavern floor was amplified a hundred times, then a thousand. In an eye blink, the floor of the chamber jumped less than an inch. Yet that minor groundquake bucked the earth as if snatching a rug from under everyone's feet.
Adira, straining backward from Shauku, was flipped head over heels to whang her skull so hard she saw fiery spots. Shauku shivered into misty droplets, temporarily ethereal. Jedit Ojanen was jolted and dumped to all fours, where he clutched stone with battle-blunted claws. Murdoch was pitched forward onto his stolen shield. Heath, Sister Wilemina, and Magfire's foresters spilled like nine pins. Even Jasmine Boreal jiggled like a jelly, amazed at the ruckus she'd caused. The groundquake flung dust and ashes in the air that set many sneezing and weeping.
Adira Strongheart had crashed alongside Johan's crystal cage. Temporarily stunned, or still partly paralyzed by the vampire's curse, Adira fumbled to roll over and gain her feet. All the time Johan shouted from two feet away, though his voice was as muffled as if buried alive.
"Loose me, Adira! I can fight Shauku! I have the magical prowess! Get me free, and I swear on my sacred honor I'll combat her! Adira! Can you hear? Let me loose!"
Groggy, the pirate queen gazed at Johan, Tyrant of Tirras, not seeming to recognize the red-black face framed by horns. Of more concern was the vampire Shauku reforming from fog. Close by lay Whistledove Kithkin, like a child overcome by sleep, except her eyes bore the thousand-league stare only the dead achieve.
"Dead." Adira struggled to think. "We'll all be dead. Unless… What?"
"Let me out!" bellowed Johan through a glass wall.
"Never!" Groggy as a hammered ox, Adira levered against Johan's crystalline prison to rise. Her left hand dripped blood from the vampire's punctures. "Nay tyrant! You're bad as-"
Blood, of course, is made of water.
Adira lurched as, in a wink, the seams of Johan's prison opened. Amber plates like glass clattered on stone. Free, Johan surged to his feet. For a second or two, again dumped on her rump, Adira goggled at the looming monarch. With his purple robes and red-black tattoos and double devils' horns, he looked like a master of men. Yet the illusion shattered as Johan lifted his skirts and scampered away on bare feet.
"Like a rat." The pirate queen didn't even rage, only lay in dust and blood, infinitely tired. She'd made so many mistakes, caused so many deaths. Virgil. Peregrine. Whistledove, valiant as a wildcat. Simone, her boon companion and faithful lieutenant, always jolly and never complaining. Adira missed her friends as if her heart had been cut out. All gone for nothing.
No. Dimly Adira corrected herself. Her comrades gave their lives to stop the depredations of Johan and Shauku. To give up the fight was to sully their sacrifices. Shaking her aching head, the woman called Strongheart groped for her fallen sword.
"Very well. I'll not die. I'll kill this bloodsucker myself, if only to get Johan's throat between my fingers to strangle him slowly."