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Chapter Fourteen

The kelpies plowed through several of the guards, for their horses were blind to the great stone beasts. Althea felt the jaguar haul her back to her feet by the back neck of her shirt like she might lift a kitten. The feline shoved her forward towards the river, but it only served to cause her to stumble over the nearby queen's half-risen form and take all three of them down again.

"C'mon you guys, geez!"

Hazel was hovering over them on her horse, her gaze darting between the approaching kelpies and the Arubian guards slowing them down.

Althea, disentangling herself from the jaguar's tail and the queen's left leg, groaned and pushed herself to her feet with her good hand. When at last the three were upright, the blonde and Ximena exchanged a rather heated glance.

"Remind me not to call on you when we need someone coordinated, cat."

Ximena flattened her ears.

"Next time I'll let them trample you."

"Ladies!" Reema gasped, holding her destroyed wrist with her right hand. Baetu appeared behind her, nudging her anxiously. "The border...water...remember?"

Althea felt a shove from a different individual this time—her little sorrel mare—and the horse dipped down onto her knees so that the princess could again mount up. The blonde watched Baetu circle in front of Reema and the woman, rather impressively, grabbed his mane with her uninjured hand and leveraged her way onto the eighteen hand high monstrosity as easily as one might have climbed a small set of stairs.

Behind them, another guard and his horse were thrown aside, and only six more soldiers remained between the royals and the two kelpies.

"Let's go!" Althea cried, drawing her bow again as her mare charged across the water. This time, she aimed for one of the creatures' eyes.

A deafening wail pierced the air as her arrow struck true, and the first kelpie veered off course just as its hooves touched the water.

The remaining guards swarmed the stumbling creature, one of them managing to spear the other eye. It collapsed, writhing, into the shallow, murky, brackish water of the river.
Althea and the others scrambled out of the water and onto the beach on the opposite side. She saw Reema swing Baetu around to look back at the scene unfolding.

"Madame Morgan, look!"

Althea pointed at the second kelpie, who had stopped pursuing them, and was now pacing tirelessly back and forth in the center of the river. The queen caught her eye in the darkness, her face only momentarily confused.

"It can't cross?"

"The border wards!" Hazel shouted from somewhere nearby, sounding excited.

In spite of her relief at realizing the kelpie either would not, or could not carry its mission across the border, Althea felt uneasy. The beast was almost completely unresponsive to the fact that it was still being pummeled by arrows, spears, and crossbow bolts by the Arubians. Its gaze, sharp and focused as ever, was still very clearly fixated on the queen. The Escadian princess felt her brows furrow and her eyes narrow. Kelpies didn't hunt like this. They didn't fixate. And they certainly didn't hunt in pairs. Hazel had told them Ximena had thought something was odd about the first kelpie. But what?

After a few minutes, the guards finally ceased firing on the creature—probably because the attacks weren't affecting it, nor was the kelpie attacking them—and simply gathered around to study it as it paced. Althea found herself looking at the queen, who was just as fixated on the kelpie as it was on her. The princess frowned.