were the only things that gave away his presence.
Suddenly Rio cursed loudly. Startled, I jumped behind Levent only to step on his tail. He whipped it away from my painfully sharp hooves so quickly that I tumbled to the cold ground.
The dragon-kin’s injured glare was especially harsh in the torchlight.
“Sorry,” I squeaked.
“Have you two finished?” The half-blood sounded terribly amused by the chaos he had just caused. At least his jab had moved the kin’s glare to him instead of me. Predictably, it did not faze him.
“Bring the torch over here, would you?”
All too eager to put some distance between his tail and my hooves, the kin obeyed.
A door identical to the one we just passed through blocked our path. As Rio examined it, I realized we had left the golden ring behind in the mechanism of the other door. Fortunately, he did not seem to need it. The door swung open a moment later.
The next chamber was only dimly lit by a number of the glowing orbs, but it easily outweighed the light of our little torch. Levent let the fire die as he and Rio walked ahead. I stopped in the doorway to blink and rub my eyes.
“Get on the floor!” a voice with a strange accent instructed. I backed up instinctively, and waited for my vision to clear.
Before me, Rio and Levent were on the ground. Whether they had been knocked down or put themselves there rather ungracefully was unclear. Several dozen arrows and spears were aimed at their backs, wielded by group of very thin, very blue people in bronze armor.
I paused, not sure whom to thank for the fact they had not noticed me yet. Without a word, one of the spearheads inched a little closer to Rio’s neck. A chill raced up my spine.
“Wait a second!” I said.
My words caused half of the pointed weapons to turn to me. I raised my hands and backed up further. The eyes of the mermen were frightened but full of determination, their dark irises so large no whites were visible. I shivered.
Several archers toppled to the ground as Levent barreled into them with a roar. Taking the chance to disarm them, he did so. He had one of the weaker-looking