Page 125 of Clash of Storms
"Time tomake friends, Malin," he stressed. "Which I can't do if you're in the vicinity."
27
Freyja and Malin vanished into the mist, and Sirius slunk through the fog, wincing every time he set weight on his foot. Something in it must be broken.
"Spread out," Roar muttered, ahead of him.
Three dark shapes loomed in the mist.
He'd played this game in Lord Fáfnir's territory, but this time the stakes were higher, for he wasn't the predator now.
One eye. One good foot. A sword. And his powers, severely depleted after such a brutal beating.
Against threedrekiwarriors who wanted his head.
All he had was stealth and a vicious sea wyrm hiding somewhere in the waters.Time topray to the Goddess.
"Tiamat, watch over her," he whispered, under his breath. She'd given him Malin for a reason, and he was forced to admit it hadn't been to curse him, after all. Perhaps the goddess had seen some good within him, to grant him the gift of his little drekling's heart. She couldn't intend for him to die here.
He had a queen to kill, after all.
Sirius limped through the steam, gathering the energy of the shift inside himself. After the beating in the throne room, it was like pouring molten lead over his skin. Muscles shifted and realigned; bones reknit themselves.
And the pain vanished.
Sirius staggered forward a step, realizing all the ruined skin on his back no longer pulled and there was no lancing sensation in his foot. As he'd shifted, he'd somehow healed himself. The shift rearranged his body on the minute level, and it must have regenerated his torn and ravaged flesh. His hand shot to the hollow socket of his eye, but it seemed he couldn't regrow what was taken.
Fine. He'd lost the eye for good. Small price to pay for killing a king. He stripped off the rag covering it, and curled his hand around his sword.
This leveled the playing field somewhat.
He materialized behind Lor, and the otherdrekispun to face him, then visibly relaxed when he recognized Sirius's face. Sirius kept his left side turned to the warrior.
"They've got to be here somewhere," Lor muttered, holding his sword low. "That bastard won't be able to move quickly. You take him. I'll get the girl."
Thedrekiwrithed within him at the threat to Malin, but he needed to get close enough. "Sounds like an excellent plan."
"He's here!" Lor suddenly yelled, and Sirius realized he hadn't fooled him at all.
This was a trap, meant to lure him in.
He brought his sword up to counter Lor's sudden thrust. Steel rang and Sirius was driven back, searching for the others. The loss of half his field of vision left him achingly vulnerable; they could come at him from the right and he wouldn't even know until it was too late.
He needed to finish this quickly.
With a sudden lunge, Sirius disengaged Lor's counterstrike and drove his sword straight through the warrior's chest, his fingers curling around Lor's shoulder as he hauled him into the thrust.
He let his body shift again, mimicking Lor's features, and the otherdreki'sfist curled in his shirt, his mouth gaping in horror as Sirius reformed. Sirius twisted the sword for good measure, and blood gushed from Lor's mouth in a wet gurgle.
Letting go of him, Sirius eased the enormous body to the ground, blood spreading across thedreki'schest. Water shifted nearby with a wet pop, almost as if something crested in the lagoon, and then vanished.
He paused.
The fumaroles and steam created the perfect environment for the trap he'd just sprung, but he couldn't forget they weren't the only ones out there.
Sirius backed into the steam, his nostrils flaring. The overpowering reek of sulfur filled the air, but now he was growing used to it, he could just make out something vaguely reptilian beneath the stink.
And then something darted out of the water.
