Amaskan's Blood, Raven Oak [read me a book .TXT] 📗

keep him immobilized. When his eyes fluttered open, he tried to lurch forward, but his ribs set him coughing.

Dejected, he leaned back against the wall. “My horse probably broke a rib or three with that kick,” she spoke in Shadian. Adelei leaned close to his freshly shaven face. No night grease covered his skin, giving her a clear picture of him, and she studied his features as she talked. “I wouldn’t move too much—I don’t know if those broken ribs are near any internal organs.” He shrugged, hazel eyes wide as they watched her.

“I see you were coming after me.” She held up the piece of paper she’d pried from his wrist cuff.

“Not you.” He coughed, then leaned over to spit blood upon the ground.

Damn, looks like something did get punctured. Adelei pursed her lips together. When his words connected, she grabbed the paper and held it up close to her face. “Yes, me.”

“Similar, but… not you.” A cough shook his frame. Then another. “You have no hair.”

Oh Gods, he was after Margaret.

He glared at her with eyes green one moment and blue the next. His cheeks puckered, and she leaned back, dodging the mixed saliva and blood he spat at her. It landed on the floor with a fizzle. The stone remained untouched, but the strands of loose hay bubbled and hissed when the mixture connected with it. When she looked on him again, foam dribbled down his chin from between pale, thin lips. His eyes rolled backward as his body seized beneath her.

“Dammit,” she yelled and rolled away from his poisoned body. Behind her, Midnight danced in place, a concerned whinny catching her ear. She ignored him for the moment, more concerned with the poison foaming out of the Tribor’s mouth. It hit the floor, leaving a foul smelling trail of bubbling hay in its wake.

“Hey,” she shouted. When a stablehand came stumbling sleepily from around the corner, his eyes popped out of his skull at the sight of the dead man. “Stop. Don’t come any closer.” She waved a hand in warning. “Go fetch a guardsman, preferably Captain Fenton.”

As he scampered off, she grabbed a nearby shovel to push the untainted hay away from the pool of liquid gathering outside his body. The ooze seeped through his clothing. There were poisons, and then there were poisons. This was like nothing she had ever seen. Adelei twisted on her heel to keep from stepping in the stuff. If it could eat through his clothing and skin, it could eat through Adelei’s as well.

The ooze ignored the stone as it continued to eat its way across the stable floor. Footfalls in the distance alerted her to the approaching guards, and she shoveled the mix of hay and manure until she had created a wide circle around the body. A hiss behind him meant the poison had reached the stall he leaned against.

Inside the stall a frightened horse whinnied.

“Oh Gods,” she whispered. Her eyes darted around in search of an axe. None. Nothing to break the damned wood and stop the spread. Kind eyes peeked over the stall’s gate. Kind, brown eyes that were widened to the whites as the hissing ooze ate away at the wood. The mare backed against the rear wall where she found no escape.

“W-What is that?” Captain Fenton stopped at Adelei’s outstretched palm.

“I don’t know, but whatever it is, it eats through anything but stone. We need an axe—we may be able to stop its path.”

“There’s another way,” a familiar voice croaked, and Ida Warhammer strode to Captain Fenton’s side. She reached out an arm to snag the stablehand by the shirt. “You, go fetch me the biggest pail of goat’s milk you can get. Tell the shepherd it’s by my orders, but get it here as fast as ya can. Understand?”

The boy’s knobby legs fled the stables for a second time that night. “Goat’s milk? You know what this stuff is?” Adelei asked. Another startled whinny from the stable took her attention away as the ooze leeched across the floor.

“Get the other horses out of here,” Ida shouted to the guardsmen as the animals cried out in fear. Adelei tiptoed across the floor, careful to step where the ooze was not, and she opened the gate to Midnight’s stall. He danced beneath her grip as she eased him out and edged him around the growing circle of goop.

She tugged his lead and found it taut. All four hooves dug in, and he braced himself for battle. But when she sought the enemy, none appeared. Except the ooze on the floor. The moment her hands were free of the reins, Midnight leapt over the poison and pivoted around to kick in the partially eaten door with ease.

“No.”

Too late. Midnight’s hooves made contact with the acidic ooze. He backed up and gave the rear wall two swift kicks. A light whinny from Midnight was all it took, and the mare escaped through the hole in the rear wall. Just as quickly as it had spread across the wood of the gate, the poison frothed across Midnight’s hind quarters. It bubbled and hissed its way across his flesh, and he cried out.

“Oh Gods,” Michael whispered, his eyes glued to the scene before him.

Adelei ached to reach out to Midnight, to touch his quivering flank and soothe him. Instead, she could only remain a spectator as it crept across his flank. He screamed a brutal sound out as his rear legs failed to support him, and the battle steed fell to his knees. Bloody foam scattered across the stone floor.

“You did good, boy,” she whispered. Adelei stretched her arm across too far a distance, fingers stroking the air. Her mind remembered the touch of his black mane beneath her long fingers and the warmth of his breath as he inhaled her scented palm. Adelei fell to her own knees as Midnight cried out in agony. Beside her, Michael withdrew his sword and moved toward the battle steed, but