over their shoulders, they hauled the craft further inland. They weren’t far away, yet Nelle could get no solid impression of them, as though she watched from a great distance or through a filmy glass. They were all very tall, she could tell that much, taller than Sam, taller even than Mage Silveri. They seemed oddly jointed somehow, as though their arms were made up of too many elbows, their legs of too many knees. Their spines were unnaturally curved, with great humps at the shoulders and an impression of what might be spikes protruding down their backs. But they were too strange, too hazy for any clearer impression.
Nelle knew she should tear her gaze away, crawl back over the rowing bench, and huddle in the dark with Sam. However, not seeing what was going on seemed worse than seeing it, so she hunkered down further, straining to see what happened on that stretch of rocky shore.
A gangplank lowered from the side of the foremost vessel. More of the shadowy figures ran down and lined up on either side, their hunched forms relatively erect. But Nelle could not spare them any attention. Her gaze went instead to the figure at the top of the gangplank.
Once she glimpsed him, it was impossible to look anywhere else.
He was nearly seven feet tall—not as tall as the shadowy beings, perhaps, but far more commanding in pose and demeanor. Nothing about him was stooped or oddly jointed. He stood like a master, like a king, with shoulders thrown back and chin held high. From this distance it was impossible to get a clear view of his features, but Nelle did not doubt he was devastatingly handsome, far beyond the beauty of mortal men. What she could see was his strange complexion—dark, dusky, with almost a purple undertone. His hair, which flowed to his waist, was blue-black like a midnight sky. He wore a trailing silver garment that floated dreamily when he moved. It also bared his chest, revealing the powerful musculature of a warrior.
“A fae,” Nelle whispered. This was her first sight of a fae—and not just any fae, but a man of Noxaur, more dreadful, more otherworldly than all other fae inhabiting the realms of Eledria.
She’d known they were beautiful. She’d known they were terrible. But she’d never imagined anything quite like this.
He strode down the gangplank to the shore, his boots crunching loud in contrast to the perfect silence of the shadowy minions whose ranks he passed through without so much as a glance, and made his way several yards inland before pausing, fists planted at his waist, to look this way and that along the beach. For a moment Nelle feared he spied her hiding place. But his gaze traveled past without pause, turning up toward the towering cliffs and the lighthouse above.
Suddenly he raised one hand, the loose sleeve sliding down to his elbow, and snapped his fingers once with a sharp sound like the crack of a whip.
A hideous series of gulping, bellowing roars erupted from the ship. Sheer terror jolted down Nelle’s spine as six four-legged creatures appeared at the top of the gangplank—long, low, massive creatures that sprang down to the beach and swarmed around their master’s legs. They were shadowy things like the silent minions, but more solid. She would have called them dogs by the way they moved and the sounds they made. But she’d never seen any dogs quite like these.
Their master swung his arm first to the right then to the left. The creatures, slavering and howling, obeyed at once, three tearing off in one direction, three in the opposite.
Those second three came straight toward her.
In a mad scramble, Nelle backed up to the other end of the boat where Sam waited. “Out, out!” she hissed. “We’ve got to block the entrance!”
She couldn’t see his face. Just enough light squeezed through the cave opening to gleam in his eyes, reflecting her own terror back at her. “How do we do that?” he demanded breathlessly.
“Turn the boat!” If they could shift it, put it on its side and turn it slightly, they could block enough of the entrance that the dog-things wouldn’t be able to get in.
She heaved at the boat, and Sam, seeing her intention, hurried to help. The noise of scraping and of wood grinding on stone pounded her ears, and Nelle could only hope the wind drowned it out so that it wouldn’t draw the dogs’ attention.
A forlorn hope. No sooner