Cenric hefted his second javelin, and the beast lunged.
Jormanthar’s too-small legs scrambled after Cenric, its massive hulk and open jaws snapping after him.
Cenric ran straight back toward Brynn.His wet clothes stuck to him too tightly and the soft sand drew him down.It would have been a minor inconvenience any other time, but now it seemed far worse.
Jormanthar keened.
Cenric glanced over his shoulder to see the beast slow and then stop.It hesitated at the edge of the damp sand, glaring at the waves.
Brynn stood almost thirty paces off, shaking her head.She needed it closer.
Cenric faced the serpent and drew back his arm once again.He rocked forward, putting his body weight into the throw.The javelin hurled forward, striking the serpent in the second eye.
The First of Fathers had guided his arm.There was no other explanation for two perfect strikes.
Jormanthar shrieked loud enough that Cenric thought his ears would burst.The creature screamed, pawing blindly after Cenric.It stumbled forward, its jaws snapping after him with abject rage.
21
Brynn
Ithadworked.Cenrichad thrown two javelins with perfect precision, and the creature was barreling after him, blind but enraged.
Power crawled up Brynn’s legs, her hands, and everywhere that her skin touched water.It was different from drawingkafrom the air.Strength came in pulses, much like the rhythm of the waves, but strong and abundant.As her heart raced, each moment passed at once too fast and not fast enough.
“Please, please, please,” Brynn chanted, pulling magic to herself in great surges.“Please, please, please.”
It seemed the only word that could capture her gnawing desperation.Whether she was begging Eponine to help, Llyr to show kindness, or Cenric to run faster, she couldn’t have said.Maybe all three.
Cenric raced toward her, the serpent in pursuit.Now that the creature was blinded, it seemed less afraid of the water.
Brynn drew more power, growing lightheaded with the sheer magnitude ofkarippling through her.She wrapped her spell into a lash, the largest she had ever made before.
Cenric came closer, the serpent gaining on him.Cenric reached a few paces in front of her and skidded to a stop.He met her gaze in the moonlight and grinned.
Smiling at a time like this?What was in Valdar’s air that made men such fools?
The serpent roared toward them.Close.Closer.
Jormanthar opened its mouth, swooping for Cenric.
Brynn released her power straight into its maw.Her spell burst out in a great rush, slicing up into the top of the serpent’s skull.
Its pierced eyes guttered from red to black.
Brynn and Cenric scrambled out of the way as the top half of the beast’s head splashed into the waves.Cenric grabbed her, pulling her to the side as the creature’s neck smashed down the next moment.
Brynn had decapitated it from the jaw up.
The creature’s massive hulk collapsed.It crashed into an incoming wave and splashed Brynn and Cenric backwards, making them lean on each other for balance.
Just like the burned girl, the serpent split.
A mangled phantom with beetle’s wings and a vaguely human shape burst out of the corpse.The creature tried to scramble toward Brynn and Cenric, clawing at them like it might have dealt its revenge, but it flickered out of sight, dragged backwards as if by an invisible breeze.
Brynn leaned against her husband, staring at the dead beast beside them.She hadn’t realized how truly massive it was until she was standing this close.
The thing must be as long as three ships, perhaps larger.Its legs were like tree trunks yet still seemed too tiny to have supported its size.
