Snake Heart (Chains of Honor #2) -Lindsay Buroker Page 0,28

after him.

As one, the pirates turned toward the waterfall.

“What is it?” a nervous-sounding man asked.

Numerous rifles and crossbows pointed at the waterfall as another screech came from behind it. The soul construct leaped straight out into the pool. The heavy curtain of water did not affect it as much as it had Yanko, and the creature landed with a splash.

Yanko used his mind to stir up a great wave and send it crashing into the construct’s blocky face, but he doubted that would stop it when tons of rock had not. Before his attack landed, he spun and swam full speed for the nearest bank. His sword and his pack weighed him down, but he barely noticed. Heavy splashes came from behind him. A dozen rifles fired. Yanko doubted that would do any more to hurt the creature than the swords and arrows had.

His knee banged against the slick bottom. He found his feet and charged up to dry land, hardly caring that some of the pirates’ rifles pointed at him.

“Run, run,” he blurted and dove straight toward them, trying to push through.

He thought they might let him, that they would focus on shooting the creature and barely notice him as he squeezed past. Instead, two towering men with barrel-like builds stepped together, blocking him. He bounced off, and his foot slipped on a wet, mossy stone. He went down at their feet.

Another time, he would have been embarrassed, but he was too concerned about the soul construct. He whirled, rising to his knees and scrambling to prepare a defense that might keep the magical creature from ripping him in half.

It was every bit as close as he had feared, charging out of the water, arms raised, ready to grab him. More guns fired. The bullets bounced off, doing nothing. Men shouted orders, a dozen people giving useless advice.

Yanko lifted a hand, thinking to create an earthquake under its feet, imaging it toppling backward into the water. Before he struck, the night lit with an immense surge of flames. A blast of fire that seemed as large as the pool itself slammed into the soul construct.

Yanko scrambled backward, both because of the fire but also because of the power. It railed at his mental senses almost as intensely as the heat and light railed at his body. The flames wrapped around the creature, burning so brightly that he couldn’t make out its contours within the inferno. The air stank as the monster burned. Another inhuman screech came from within the fire, this one sounding more like cries of agony than of anger, and Yanko remembered that human souls had gone into creating this monstrosity. Even as he continued backward, trying to escape the heat, as well as the monster, he imagined them trapped in that hulking body, tormented for eternity—or until the construct died.

This time, the pirates let him back away because they were backing up themselves. Thoughts of escaping returned to mind, but the men weren’t that distracted. A meaty hand reached for him. Yanko whipped up his sword. To fight against so many would be futile, but if he could surprise this handful of men in front of him, he might slip into the dense foliage and disappear.

An invisible force landed on him from above. It came down so hard that his knees buckled. He soon found himself flat on the ground, his cheek pressed against the cool, mossy rocks. He still held his sword, but he couldn’t lift his arm. He couldn’t lift anything. Only his eyes could move, allowing him to see the inferno at the edge of the pool dissipating. Nothing remained standing there. A few ashes floated in the fading light. Night returned to the pool, the darkness once again broken only by the pirates’ lanterns.

The gunfire and the shouts had stopped, with silence falling over the jungle. The faint shifting of pebbles reached Yanko’s ear, someone walking toward him. The sets of boots that blocked the way into the trees scooted back. The force pressing down on Yanko lessened, but he could still feel magic all about him, like invisible ropes binding him, promising he could not escape. Was this truly the power of one of those two fire mages he had seen? He could imagine them hurling that inferno, though he was amazed that they could have destroyed the soul construct so completely when his own power had simply bounced off it. But the magic holding him now felt like weather magic.