Joan and the Kraken by Kat Simons

Author:Kat Simons
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: T&D Publishing

5

Using mostly her thighs, her legs hooked under Rory’s shoulders, Joan pulled her sword from the scabbard across her back, wielding it one handed.

The legendary sword was perfectly balanced and weighted. There was a reason stories were still told about the thing, linking it to ancient lineages and magic and old kings and that lake lady. There was a reason wielding it was said to make kings—although she’d bet the English would be surprised by the Irish woman wielding it now. It was about as perfectly formed for useability as a sword could get. So she could use it one-handed or two as the situation called for.

Since she needed one hand to hold Rory’s neck, one-handed sword fighting would have to do.

Rory swooped down over the fishing boat and immediately had to climb again as multiple tentacles slashed the air around them, encompassing the boat in a halo of dangerous, suction cup and poison-tipped limbs.

“Direct approach won’t work,” Rory said. “Distraction and hope I’m faster than a kraken.”

“Sounds fun.”

She laid down across his neck, holding her sword turned backward so she could swing it forward when needed. And watched the movement of black tentacles below as they swept across black rock and white capped sea.

They still had yet to locate the head. Part of her hoped they wouldn’t have to kill the beasty. It was dangerous as all hell, and if needs be, she’d destroy it. But kraken were rare, and when they stayed where they belonged, not an imminent danger to humans. If she could just get this one back down to the southern hemisphere and its chunk of empty, otherwise untraveled ocean, it wouldn’t have to die.

Tentacles slapped the air near Rory as he ducked and dodged as close to the creature as he could without getting tangled up in deadly limbs. The kraken followed them, most of its bulk moving away from the boat, along the small island’s shoreline, as if it would give chase. But the minute they banked back toward the boat, the kraken shifted directions too and reached the wrecked vessel before they could.

“Like trying to take a dead rodent from a feral cat,” Joan muttered. “Doesn’t want to give up its prize. Now what?”

“We get low enough for you to stab it a few times. Maybe an injury will drive it off.”

“Or at least keep it distracted enough we can pick up the boat.” She nodded. “Mind yourself.”

She readied her sword as Rory barreled downward, aiming for a seething mass of tentacles with no visible signs of the tips, where the rubbery purple-black skin looked more like a nest of snakes, a knot that would take time to detangle. He skimmed over the top, his taloned feet ducked up under him, low enough that Joan could reach down and run the tip of her sword along one of the exposed limbs.

Bright red blood burst from the tentacle, as the cut went deep enough to reveal muscle and blubber. A screech to rival Rory’s pierced the air, higher in pitch than anything Rory usually made.

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