A Quiet Crossroads (Lake Baikal, Siberia)

[Sören]

Kemala’s fingers replaced his own. The water through the hole was frigid, zipping a chill up his arms.

“No,” he snapped to her question of what it was. Irritated. Had the woman listened to nothing he had said last night? They were rocking wildly, but he left her to the hull’s care. “We do not need a sword,” he scoffed. His fist tightened, though the rune’s powers already frenzied in his blood. They thrust down in an effort to steady them, as a wave crashed over the edge. Sören grunted at the drench of ice.

Meanwhile what rose from the frothing waves he was surprised to see possessed a humanoid shape. A she. Her skin was loathsome green, the scales across her body dissected in jagged lines of red and black. Spikes erupted from her skull, and tentacles writhed behind. From the violent waves churning endless beneath them he dare not dwell over how big she must be beneath the surface. It would take only one of those thick tentacles to cleave them in two. But it was a clawed hand that rose, gripping the thick-shaft of some weapon he had no intention of allowing the monster to bring to aim. Lips snarled. Its glossy black eyes were focused entirely on Kemala.

An arc of blood sprayed as the whip of runes bit deep into her exposed flesh. The creature’s piercing scream severed any notion of humanity; it chilled his blood. Sören moved to block the creature’s sight of his companion, though clearly it was not the manner in which it hunted.

Power coalesced for another attack. Yet he could not kill it. If he did the body would be lost forever, and what it guarded with it.

“Stop what you’re doing with the runes, Kemala. Drop them now.”