“Please let them pleasure you,” the one before him said softly. “It will help you deal with what I must do.”
Tristan looked directly into her face, and in horror watched her beautiful eyes begin to change. Her deep blue irises slowly narrowed, running vertically, and turned yellow. The deep, black pupils were now mere slits. Snakelike eyes looked calmly at him, and she opened her mouth. A forked tongue appeared.
“You do not like me this way?” she asked coyly. The long, pink tongue slithered in and out between her full lips, flicking back and forth as it tested the air.
“No!” Tristan snarled angrily. Trying hard to keep his concentration while the other two wraiths continued to caress him, he glared into her yellow, reptilian eyes. “Whatever it is you intend to do, get it over with!”
She smiled. “Very well.” Whipping her pink tongue back and forth, she wetly ran the flat of it up and down his right cheek. Moving lower, she slithered her tongue in and out between the laces of his leather vest, toying with the hair on his chest, then finally ran it down the length of his torso.
Not knowing what would happen next, Tristan closed his eyes and tried to steel himself.
The serpentlike wraith shot her tongue out, cleanly slicing through the leather of his left boot. She then probed it into the cut in the boot to carefully slice a wound in his foot. Tristan cried out, trying to shake her off. But he was too late. Blood was already running out of his boot and into the sand. As the blood came more quickly, a silver bowl appeared on the ground below him.
Once his azure blood began to drip into the bowl, the two wraiths on either side of him stopped their molestations and hovered quietly before him.
“Why?” he snarled. “I know why you would want to bleed the wizard, but why me? I am untrained, and represent no threat to you while still in these chains!”
“We have bled you and the wizard for the same reason,” the first wraith said, smiling. Her eyes and tongue had returned to normal; her incredible beauty was restored. “We wish you to become weak, and therefore controllable. An appropriate amount of blood loss will accomplish that in the Chosen One, just as it would in any human. Trained or untrained. But in your case there is yet another reason. The Chosen One’s blood has uses all of its own.”
Looking into Tristan’s puzzled face, she smiled again. “Ah, I see you do not understand,” she purred. “So much that you still do not know, Chosen One. But the days of your ignorance are finally coming to an end.”
Tristan did not know what she meant by that, and part of him was past caring. He struggled against the manacles as his foot throbbed. His shoulders and wrists felt as if they were being burned away from his body, and additional rivulets of azure blood began to run crazily down the length of his arms from where he had been struggling against the iron. He looked back up into the eyes of the wraith with hatred.
“So what happens now?” he spat at her.
“We wait,” she answered pleasantly.
“For what?”
“For enough of your blood to have been collected. We have no need for the wizard’s blood, only yours. Then the master’s other servants will come.”
Tristan wanted to ask them what other servants were meant, but they flitted away along the beach. He sought desperately for a means of escape as he listened to the dribble and plop of his life’s fluid hitting first the metal and then later its own pool, but no answer presented itself.
Just as the blood in the bowl began to splatter over the edge with the continuing flow from his foot, the wraiths reappeared.
The one who had cut him looked down into the bowl and smiled. “There now,” she cooed. “That wasn’t so bad, was it? Now we can heal you and the wizard.”
Tristan had been greatly weakened from the loss of blood, and he knew it. He hung limply in his chains, doubting that he would have the strength to raise his dreggan even if he were free.
They have us exactly where they want us, he thought. Weakened and humbled. And there is nothing either the wizard or I can do about it.
He immediately began to feel the itching in his foot that signified the incantation of accelerated healing. Turning, he saw that Wigg’s wound was closing, as well. The wraiths were hovering over Tristan’s bowl. The one who was their apparent leader picked it up, then smiled at him.
“Good-bye, my sweet prince,” she whispered. “We may never meet again. But if we do, by then there will be far more for us to discuss.” She looked him up and down, then gazed reverently into the bowl containing his blood. “So many questions, aren’t there?” she teased. “And so few remaining of the craft who can answer them for you.”
The chains holding the wizard and the prince snapped open, dropping them to the sand. Tristan tried to stand and somehow slowly came to his feet. But when he attempted to reach for his dreggan he fell back down, unable to rise again.
Noticing the wraiths had directed their attention to the ocean, his tired eyes searched the sea, trying to find what it was they were waiting for. Finally, he saw three small black dots against the sage horizon. As they drew closer, he could tell what they were. The horrific birds of prey.
Tristan crawled across the sand as best he could, coming nearer to Wigg. Shaking the wizard did no good, nor did several sharp slaps across the face.
The birds of prey came nearer. Stretching their pointed wings to buffet the air, they landed softly on the beach. Tristan narrowed his eyes in disbelief. These were not the same kind he and Wigg had observed in the Hartwick Woods. These birds were more advanced. As he looked closer, the grotesque, obvious differences in them made his breath come quickly to his lungs. These birds had human-looking arms and hands in addition to their wings.
Their arms extended from just beneath the top of the middle wing joint, and ended in hands of five perfectly formed fingers each. The arms were sculpted and muscular. Black leather gauntlets adorned their wrists. Around the chest of each bird was a black leather baldric holding a long, sheathed sword. In addition, their mannerisms told the prince that they were far more intelligent than the ones he had seen the previous night. The birds before him did not possess the jerking, uncertain movements of the others. Rather, they seemed calm and in control.
Everything else about them seemed to be the same as the others, however. The long, pointed heads, the leathery wings, and the great black claws at the ends of the feet were identical. Their scarlet, grotesque eyes rotated constantly, taking in the wizard, the prince, and the wraiths all at once. And then, unbelievably, one of them spoke.
“They have been bled?” it asked, turning its awful head toward the wraiths. Its voice was high and eloquent.
“Yes,” the wraith who had cut Tristan said. “We now have a sufficient quantity of the blood of the Chosen One. I am pleased to present the bowl to my master’s hatchlings.” Hovering nearer, she placed the bowl of azure blood into the waiting arms of one of the other birds.
Without speaking further, the hatchling who seemed to be their leader walked closer to the prince, drawing his sword. Tristan’s breath came harder. He wished with all of his being that he could find the strength to take his dreggan into his hands.
The hatchling placed the tip of his sword beneath the prince’s jaw, raising Tristan’s face painfully upward. After regarding him for a time, the great bird lowered his sword.
Another time, I promise you, the prince swore silently.
The hatchling turned to address the wraiths. “You are free to go.”
Without further discussion, the wraiths flew through the waiting door frame, disappearing, leaving the wizard and prince alone with the three awful birds.
“What do you want?” Tristan shouted weakly, trying to stand and take his sword into his hand. But standing was impossible, as was pulling the heavy dreggan from its scabbard.