The Boy IN My Phone

The Greynhym's New Weapon

Rhia

Peacebringer crashed through the Greynhym's nervously extended weapons. Their leader's club lashed down then flew away with half a forearm attached.

She had eyes only for the play of muscles in her rescuer's arms, his unhesitating ferocity.

The Greynhym leader screamed but the cry was cut irrevocably short as its torso toppled empty onto the sand. Argentium expelled a Greynhym presence from any host flesh it touched.

Two more of the dead animators crumpled. The rest of the Greynhym were edging backwards. One tripped over her useless legs and gurgled its fear at her from the sand. She was only aware that another two had gone down from their curtailed howls. Most were blundering away, discarding broken clubs and un-bloodied spears. A black and white bird shied away from nearby rocks piping its warning into the wind.

Peacebringer plunged down beside her, returning the fallen gurgler to a state of unlife. She twisted around to watch as the warrior harried any who tried to turn back. Leaderless, they strayed too close to the tide in their mindless terror and the surf surged forward applying carnage at ankle height, its touch every bit as toxic as the sword to the Greynhym spirits that inhabited those spent and misused bodies. They fell before it.

Fifteen scream-seared moments later, the final creature crumpled; its blue-lipped mouth agape in a desolate cry that expired as the Greynhym essence left its host and the empty carcass fell dead into the hungry frothing water. Peacebringer was quieted again. It was wiped and sheathed.

He had come. Her gamble had paid off.

His ice-pale eyes wandered to her; to the prize he had rescued from the spear-tips of his putrid enemies. His pupils were flecked with the countless enslaved souls he had freed on Peacebringer's edge. She felt her blood rising under that gaze; through fear she told herself.

She raised up her torso clumsily on her elbows, covering her nakedness as best she could. She spoke her words in the common tongue; words she had trained herself to utter. 'L-lord, I am come to warn you'.

Her words were too quiet, husks of words, dried in the salt and morning sun. He removed his helm; blond hair flowed onto his shoulders. 'Lord,' she whispered.

He bent his head close.

'The Greynhym have a new weapon ...' she swallowed, her voice was betraying her.

Closer.

'Be wary.' Her teeth plunged into his strong neck.

Blood burst around her ripping teeth, spraying and falling in rivulets from her chin. Her arms clamped fiercely around his head.

The famous warrior was thrown, unbalanced and in such shock that he beat at her with barely one tenth of his strength. Even so, he broke one of her arms and it was a miracle she held on.

When, finally, he toppled onto her, she pulled him closer, and caressed his hair with her good hand. 'I have something to tell you,' she crooned softly then bit again.

Only when his blood slowed to a seep, and the tide lapped at her mangled legs did she heave herself out from under the weight of him. She pushed at and straightened her broken legs, smoothing them back into use, concentrating to will them mended. She stood then and did the same with her arm.

She looked down. Long black tendrils of hair were matted against her body, steeped in his thick strong blood. She placed a foot upon that proud strong chest, still she felt herself swooning at the grey pupils in his lifeless staring eyes. She would not wash for half a moon.