Caelan deftly brought his own up to block, stopping her. She was fast, but she wasn’t as skilled with bladed weapons as he was. No, he had a feeling she was more adept with the razor-sharp claws that tipped each finger. More of a hands-on fighter.
“Almost,” he grunted as he pushed her away from him.
A man’s voice cried out in pain, and some of the fear unclenched from around Caelan’s heart. The pitch had been too high for Eno. It could only mean that his bodyguard had taken out one of his attackers.
Safa snarled and took a couple of backward steps toward the entrance of the park. Her dark-red lips twisted into an ugly smile. “I don’t need to finish you.” Her large eyes darted upward and Caelan followed her gaze to see hundreds of large, black birds perched on the surrounding rooftops and balcony railings. All silently watching him.
Caelan’s throat became painfully dry as he stared at those emotionless black eyes. He was afraid to move, to even breathe, lest they take that as the signal to attack. She had been using her gift from the Goddess of the Hunt while they fought, summoning all these winged predators to the park.
“Good luck,” she snickered. She darted away, shouting something he didn’t quite catch. The command was lost in the high-pitched cry that went up as countless wings unfolded and their feathery bodies launched into the air.
Tightening his fist around his sword, Caelan ran across the park, leaping over rocks and a dead body to reach Eno’s side. The man already had his bloody sword raised in defense, but it wouldn’t be nearly enough in the face of so many beaks and talons.
He blocked out all the noise and chaos, pushed away the thought of being torn apart by winged death, even suppressed the idea that Eno’s life was balanced in his hand. He reached for the gift from Tula, the oldest part of her gift. The shield jumped from his chest and sprung up over them in the blink of an eye. Too fast for the birds to even react.
Dozens of them hammered against the pale green barrier, speckling it with red blood and black feathers before falling dead to the ground.
“Are you all right?” Eno demanded, nearly shouting in his ear just to be heard over the cacophony. Birds were squawking so loudly it was nearly like screaming. The ones that hadn’t hit the barrier but pulled back in time now circled, searching for a way past Caelan’s protection.
“I’m good. You?”
“Fine.”
Despite Eno’s reassurance, Caelan ran his eyes quickly over the man. There were splatters of blood and a couple of smaller cuts, but nothing that appeared life threatening.
“I guess this was about as good a first meeting with that woman as we could have expected,” Eno continued.
Caelan grunted as he turned over the fight in his head. She wasn’t as strong with the sword, but she’d held her own. No, more than held her own. The entire fight had been a distraction, a way of keeping his attention completely on her while she used her power to summon help. Very tricky. A lesson he’d very much needed to learn when dealing with her.
“They called her Safa,” Caelan murmured.
“Not a name common to New Rosanthe.”
Caelan shook his head. “Her accent is also strange. I can’t place it. I don’t think it’s New Rosanthe either.”
Those were just the start of the questions that buzzed in Caelan’s brain when it came to Safa. All of them he wanted to bounce off Rayne and see what his advisor thought, though he wasn’t looking forward to the part where he told him that Safa was in town and she’d attempted to kill them. The only thing he was entirely sure of when it came to Safa was that she wanted him dead. Not a big shock, but it was nice to have at least one known since so much of his life had become an exhausting list of unknowns.
“The birds aren’t leaving,” Eno observed, and Caelan had to agree.
While fewer were now dive-bombing the shield, they were still swirling around the small shield like a black tornado, blocking out their view of the rest of the city as well as any avenue of escape.
“I thought they would leave after she left.”
“So did I. Guess I’ll have to try something else.”
With the shield firmly in place, Caelan poked at the God of Storms sulking in the back of his brain. The old god was feeling left out and neglected. How dare Caelan fight someone and not include him?
It took more than one poke to feel the power from Kaes rising in his chest. He didn’t need much to stir up the wind from a brisk breeze to a brutal gale. The wind swept from the mountaintop and poured through the city like a flash flood ripping through a narrow gully. The squawking and cries of the birds grew as they were blown away from the shield and out of the city altogether. Some fought the wind, trying to rush to Caelan and his shield, but they were no match for the sheer strength of the God of Storms.