Dark Tarot (Dark Carpathians)

She felt Sandu’s reluctance. Not only Sandu’s reluctance but that of all the Carpathian males. The concentrated, extremely powerful disapproval was in her mind. The guardians—and Danutdaxton—were not happy with Sandu that he had allowed his lifemate to be in such danger. She hated that for him, that they didn’t see how magnificent and courageous he was to go against centuries of tradition and have faith in their partnership when they hadn’t been together that long.

She didn’t wait; she flooded his mind with overwhelming love, words she couldn’t say, but a feeling she could give him, and then she spotted a particularly large and aggressive scorpion tracking the red and gold flecks falling through the clouds. The gigantic demonic creature scuttled through the forest, rounding the trees, forcing the hellhounds to get out of its way, at one point even spraying venom at a hellhound to move it.

This huge scorpion had eight eyes glowing brightly on the surface of its prosoma. She knew, in spite of having so many eyes, most scorpions used their bodies to see, not their eyes, as they had poor eyesight. She couldn’t count on that. If this scorpion could see those little gold and red flecks like a beacon, she had to believe those eyes were seeing accurately.

The tail was much thicker than the others were. Each segment as it went up to the stinger, like the others, was larger, but on this scorpion, the segments almost doubled in size. The venom sac was enormous. Even the claws used to pull the massive demon forward could be used as weapons. They looked as if they might be tipped in venom as well.

Keep shooting the hellhounds, but keep his attention centered on Danutdaxton. You have to remember scorpions can jump. He probably can jump very long distances, much more than normal. Sandu, maybe Dax can leave a false trail of those red and gold flecks and just not be anywhere near that scorpion.

The scorpion wasn’t silent as he stalked Danutdaxton through the hellhounds. His stinger rubbed along the dorsal surface repeatedly, producing a loud warning, or at least Adalasia thought it was that at first. Most black thick-tailed scorpions warned off intruders by stridulation. The more she listened intently, the more she realized the sound wasn’t the same over and over. It changed often, the noises different. That gave her pause. What exactly was the scorpion doing?

All of you, listen to the sounds that scorpion is producing with his stridulations. He’s not repeating the same noises as he should be. He’s massive. His eyes see where the others don’t. I’m hovering over the scorpion to its left, and I can clearly see this one has very poor vision.

She’s right, the scorpion is definitely using various sounds, Nicu said.

Adalasia watched the way the hellhounds moved, and the other scorpions repositioned themselves when the red and gold flecks fluttered to earth from above. Suddenly, one of the other scorpions jumped high into the air, stabbing with his stinger, right where Danutdaxton had laid that false trail. She emerged from the fog, the crystal sword slicing through the thick tail of the scorpion. Following it down as it descended to the ground, she cut off its head and was back in the fog before the large scorpion was barely aware she had killed the sixth predatory arachnid. That left two.

The beast rubbed its stinger along its back in a fury of ferocious activity, producing a series of noises. Adalasia watched it carefully: the eyes, the movements, the reactions of the hellhounds and last scorpion. Her breath caught in her lungs.

This was the one directing the battle, reporting back to Nera. A trusted demon resided in that scorpion. Once he was disposed of, the hellhounds would be without a commander. The other scorpion would be easily defeated. She had consecrated the ground. Nera couldn’t use it to bring more of her demons through. She shared her belief with the other Carpathians.

Tell me what you need.

Sandu. She could always count on him. Steady. Trusting her. He was close to her. She breathed him in.

Start a heavy assault on the hellhounds, circling around him as fast and as furious as you can possibly make it. We want to confuse him, even if it is just for a few seconds.

She couldn’t make a mistake, not with this one. She exchanged the shield for the consecrated vial of water. The demon wouldn’t go easily. She would need to make every second of confusion count and add to that time with chaos of her own making.

Sandu suddenly materialized, whirling buckets of hyssop oil in a wide circle so that the contents poured over the hellhounds baying beneath the Carpathians. Baying turned to howls of anguish and roars of rage. The scent of burned fur and flesh permeated the air, and great patches of oozing red skin bubbled up on the relentless hounds. He began firing arrow after arrow into the eyes of the hellhounds, dropping beast after beast to the forest floor.