No, no, it was my ankle that was hurt, a bright, stabbing ache. I liked some pain in battle—gave me an edge. But this was off-putting. Nauseating. It hurt.
But I couldn’t concentrate on it.
There was something wrong with my head.
It had been hit, a few times, against a very unforgiving railing, and you had to give it to those old shipbuilders who had put this place together. The captain had some of the guys from the docks work on the house, and damn, if they didn’t know how to build a railing! Nobody was falling off this ship, nope, nope.
There might be something wrong with my head.
I blinked and there was a tree limb in front of me, as big around as my body and covered in hoary old bark, like it had been there forever, only I didn’t think so. Because a blast of dirt and rock came with it, like somebody had just unloaded a dump truck on me. It made me cough and gag, because I’d had my mouth open, and now on top of everything else, I could barely breathe.
And then some apples fell on my head.
Probably not a good thing.
There was already something wrong with it.
But at least the limb seemed to have taken out a couple more rock creatures, like a bark-covered fist shooting out of the kitchen. Where I guess the apple logs had sprouted again, and slammed into two assailants I hadn’t noticed until what was basically a sideways tree smashed through the middle of them. And sent a crap ton of fruit bouncing down the stairs.
I just lay there, watching it go, because I couldn’t do anything else. The limb was lying across me like it meant business, and anyway, my brain didn’t seem to be taking orders right now. But I wasn’t too concerned, and not just because of the comfortable darkness that kept trying to eat at my vision. But because of the crashes and yells and renewed clang, clang, clang of metal on stone.
The fey had arrived, lighting up the hallway as if dawn had come in a moment. I flashed on that scene with Gandalf showing up with the Rohirrim at Helm’s Deep. Because even half-dead, I am a huge fucking nerd.
“To the king,” I whispered, laughing, and then couldn’t remember why.
There was something wrong with my head.
And this time, I could name it, because it was weirdly like static, only no.
Static didn’t hurt this much.
I think I screamed. I’m not sure, since all I could hear was that awful white noise, but I felt like screaming—and rending and tearing and stabbing whoever was repeatedly sticking an ice pick in my fucking ear. But there was no one there.
Except for Caedmon, who was looking slightly weirded out.
“What?” I said, as the static retreated, and watched him blink at me. It seemed to take a long time. But maybe not, because then he was gone again.
I heard the front doors slam open, and peered over the tree limb to see everything start to get sucked out. Or blown out, because it seemed like the wind was coming from in here. I didn’t know. I just knew that pieces of wood and other debris, even some of the smaller rocks, went flying. And disintegrating, in the case of the latter, as they sailed through the air outside. I could see them through the transom, puffing away into nothingness above the streetlights, like dirty fireworks.
Big dirty fireworks, because a few of the creatures were getting blown out, too.
It looked like some of the fey had tiny whirlwinds in their hands that they were throwing at the rock monsters, but obviously not.
There was something wrong with my head.
“They can’t hold their form too far off the ground,” Caedmon yelled, because he was back again, his long blond hair whipping around his face.
I nodded.
That explained why they hadn’t just formed upstairs to begin with.
Good to know, I thought, dizzily.
And then I blacked out, because there was something wrong with my head.
* * *