The Unkindest Tide (October Daye #13) - Seanan McGuire Page 0,83
standing. She wasn’t wrong. The don’t-look-here, already strained by my interaction with the world around me, broke in a haze of cut grass and copper as the tines pierced my stomach.
The pain was incredible. I swallowed it as best I could, grabbing the trident and yanking it toward myself. That drove the tines deeper in, which was bad. It also caused the startled guard to lose her grip on the shaft, unable to handle what she was seeing. That was good.
“Someone call for a hero?” I asked, and punched her in the face.
Merrow are militant and violent and always ready for a fight. Dianda is considered a relatively peaceable example of her breed, and I’m pretty sure she’d challenge the wind to a brawl if she had the opportunity. But here’s the thing about having a reputation as the biggest badass in existence: people mostly stop hitting you. I had never seen anyone with any sense try to start a fight with Dianda in what I would consider the smart way, by sucker-punching her before she had a chance to respond.
The guard reeled backward, blood gushing from her nose and split lip. I grabbed the shaft of the trident and yanked it out of my body before the skin could start healing around it. Then I swung it as hard as I could, slamming the end of the shaft into the side of her face, just below her eye. There was a sickening cracking sound. Her eyes went wide before she collapsed, bleeding and motionless, on the hallway floor.
The other armed guard seemed to shake off his disorientation—or maybe he was just too angry to notice how dizzy he was. He bellowed and charged at me, trident lowered, like he thought he might have better luck skewering me than his partner had.
He never reached me. The Cephali dropped from the ceiling, landing on his head and wrapping her tentacles around his face, cutting off all air supply. He grunted angrily and clawed at her, only for her to wrap two more tentacles around his wrists. His struggles slowed and finally stopped, and he fell, not visibly bleeding, next to the first guard.
All this had taken less than a minute. Maybe that was why the guard with the map hadn’t moved. He turned slowly, eyes gone wide and face gone pale, and I realized how young he looked. He didn’t even look as old as the still-invisible Quentin . . . and he didn’t have a weapon.
“Hi,” I said. “We’re from the other team. I have a proposal for you.”
He swallowed hard. “I will not swear fealty to a woman I’ve just met,” he said. His voice shook. I realized he thought I was Merrow, and that, as a Merrow, I was allowed to kill him if I wanted to, thanks to his own liege’s declaration of war.
“Not what I’m looking for, so don’t worry about it,” I said, trying to make my voice as soothing as I could. “My squire—who’s still invisible, and could be behind you right now, so don’t even think about running—my squire is pretty good with knots. You give me the map, not because we need it, but because I don’t want you to have it anymore. He ties you up and shoves you into a storeroom. When someone finds you, you get to tell them you fought just as hard as your friends here.” I prodded one of the fallen guards with my toe. It would have been nice if the Luidaeg’s spell had left me with my shoes.
“I refuse to sit by while my comrades in arms are killed,” he said stiffly, and closed his eyes. “Do me this mercy, and kill me quickly, so I may be ready for the night-haunts to arrive.”
I glanced at the place where I assumed Quentin was standing, wishing that he were visible, so I could see him roll his eyes. Then I looked back to the guard. “We’re not killing anyone. We’re here for Peter Lorden. Once we have him, we’ll leave, and you can tell whatever story makes you happy. Be the hero who fought off twenty invisible attackers, or just say you kicked your friends’ asses. I don’t care. Give me the map, let us tie you up, and this ends.”
He opened his eyes, looking uncertainly from me to the Cephali still sitting serenely on the other guard’s face, and back again. Then he held out the map.