Can't Look Back (War for Dominance Book 1) (21 page)

John could feel currents in the water and knew he must be close to the monster. He paused. His plan had ended with drowning the shaman and escaping; he hadn’t thought about what he’d do if he actually made it back to the ship. When he had last looked, the monster seemed to be having its way with the
Dancer
and its crew. If he came up alongside the ship, there probably wouldn’t be anyone available to pull him on board. They’d either be dead or still fighting Scylla, so getting aboard the ship was going to be difficult. That left either helping with the fight against Scylla from the water or going back to the orc ship. As going back to the orc ship was certain death, he ruled that out.

That left helping with the fight against Scylla, but he had no idea how to go about it. He didn’t have his sword, dagger or armor. They wouldn’t have been much help if he had them; it would have been hard to swim with their weight dragging him down.

He had a few spells left, but didn’t know how well they’d work under water. Lost, he didn’t even know where to go to find the monster. For that matter, he didn’t know if the fight was still going on. Maybe his friends had already killed the monster. He didn’t want to contemplate the other outcome. John knew he needed to come to the surface to find out what was going on and which direction to go.

John surfaced about 20 feet from the side of the
Dancer
. In his short time underwater, the sky had darkened considerably. The death of the shaman had freed the storm that had been following the orc ship, and it was surging forward to claim them. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled, but it wouldn’t get there soon enough for the crew of the
Dancer
, John saw, as the fighting was all but over. The creature was unstoppable. He turned toward the ship in time to see the half-orc first mate get eaten by a head that she never saw coming. The head then dipped back down and came up with the ship’s captain. The monster cut him in half, and most of the captain’s torso fell into the water, along with whatever weapon he’d been carrying. He couldn’t find Lady Ellyn. Always where the fighting was the heaviest, if he couldn’t see her, she was already dead or eaten. Or, most likely, both.

He found Ghorza. She was huddled with the two Mathison children behind the captain’s cabin. It looked like she was trying to console them so that she could get back into the fight. She was certainly needed; John could hear the ship’s timbers cracking from the monster’s constriction. John couldn’t see Fitzber, but he could tell where he was. One of Scylla’s heads had an arrow in its eye and was screaming in frustration. John had seen the way Fitzber frustrated Dantes; Fitzber had to be harassing that one.

As he thought of Dantes, John saw him run up to assist Fitzber. Two force missiles streaked upward to blast pieces from the monster’s nose. It screamed again, but this time it was in pain, not frustration. Before Dantes could launch another spell, though, the head snapped down with the speed of a cobra. It rose back up and Dantes was gone. Dantes must have dodged to the side, John thought; he was too good a fighter to let the monster get him that easily, wasn’t he? John was horrified moments later as the head flipped back and opened slightly to swallow what was in its mouth. There was a flash of red, and Dantes was gone.

NO!
John couldn’t let the enemy win. He
wouldn’t
let the enemy win. If nothing else, he wasn’t going to let the orcs get the little girls. He’d kill the monster, somehow, would escape with whoever was still left, somehow, and would use his spell book to complete the quest. Somehow. He’d figure it out as he went, but first he had a monster to kill and a friend’s life to avenge.

John needed a breath, so he dropped down below the surface. The motion saved his life as a spear shot through the place where his head had been. The orcs on the ship had seen him, and the spear rocketed past him, skipped once on a wave and wedged in the side of the
Dancer
, only a foot above the waterline. Perfect, John thought, not worrying about how close he had come to dying; just what I need.

He went under and swam to the side of the ship. He knew that he would have to be quick; the orcs were surely searching for him now. Looking up, he could see the spear above the ship’s water line. Most of its energy had been spent prior to hitting the ship; John didn’t think the spear was stuck too far into it. Even better, the blade of the spearhead was vertical, so it should come out fairly easy for him. He reached up out of the water, grabbed the end of the spear and pulled down. Success! It came out of the ship in his hands, and he quickly submerged with it.

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Three spears took the place of the one he had just removed. The orcs had guessed that he would try to get the spear and had aimed all of the ballistae on that side of their ship at it. If the spear had been stuck, or if John had been exposed for any length of time, he would have looked like an oversized pin cushion.

Taking his new prize, he swam under the boat to the side of the monster. As he approached, he got the scare of his life; one of the heads was waiting for him. He froze in shock and fright. There was no way he was going to beat the monster in its own element. He closed his eyes; he didn’t want to see it coming. When nothing happened after several seconds, he opened an eye. The monster continued to look at him with its unblinking eyes, but didn’t attack. When John saw the hilt of Lady Ellyn’s sword sticking out of its ear hole, he understood. This head was dead. He swam up to the head, experiencing a brief moment of terror when Scylla moved, causing the head to shift as if it was alive. John decided the sword would work better than the spear, so he let the spear go, and it vanished into the depths before he had time for a second thought.

Grasping the sword, John pulled on it, but it wouldn’t come out. He tried using one hand to brace himself on the head and the other to pull, but it was wedged in tightly. John needed more leverage, so he grabbed the sword with both hands and put both feet on the creature’s head. Pulling with all of his might, he was finally able to withdraw the sword.

Now that he had a sword, he was once again stumped as to what to do. He had to kick hard to counter the weight of the sword, so he grabbed onto the head to hold himself steady while he considered. He laughed as he saw his handhold. It looked like someone had stuck Ghorza’s scimitar into the monster’s nostril. He palmed his face as the realization dawned on him. All of his friends were attacking the monster in the places that it was best able to defend, where it was bony and covered in hard scales. Someone, probably Lady Ellyn, had figured out how to attack the heads—stab them in soft places where it would do the most damage.

John needed to do the same thing. He needed to stab Scylla somewhere that it didn’t have a lot of defense, but it also needed to be somewhere that it would do the most good. His friends were stuck attacking it head by head; by virtue of being able to breathe water, though, he was able to attack the body. The problem, John realized, was figuring out where to attack that would do the most damage. The monster’s body was over 100 feet long; there had to be some places that would be better to attack than others.

It had to be the belly. That part would probably be the least well defended; if there was a place that the scales were easier to penetrate, it would probably be there under one of its flippers, John decided. That would be its most vulnerable spot. He might not be able to kill it outright by stabbing it in the belly, but maybe he could perforate some organs and kill it...although it was debatable whether or not he would last long enough to enjoy the victory. In the movies, people that were gut-shot always died, but sometimes it took a while. If he could stick the sword all the way into Scylla, he was pretty sure he could kill it.

He hoped this would work, as he knew most of his spells wouldn’t be effective against the monster. Although the freeze ray worked well against the shaman, he doubted that it would have much effect against something as big as Scylla. The only thing he had that he thought might work was his second Heat Metal spell. If he could heat up the end of the sword so that it was really hot, maybe that would help him penetrate the monster’s belly and cause a little extra damage once it was inside.

It wasn’t a great plan, but it was all he had, and he knew time was running out. The sound of wood snapping carried to him clearly through the water. Scylla was about to destroy their ship, and then it would eat the rest of its passengers and crew. He had to act, and he had to act now.

John swam forward along the creature’s side. He wished that he hadn’t dropped the spear so quickly. Made of wood, it wouldn’t have been as heavy as the sword, and he would have been able to stab deeper into the creature, potentially doing more damage.

He finally reached the forward left flipper, which was slowly stroking to hold Scylla in place. Growing tired from all of the swimming he’d done, he didn’t stop to contemplate. He touched the point of the sword and cast the Heat Metal spell. “
Calefacite!
”

It didn’t take long for him to see the problem with his plan. As the metal began to heat, the water worked to draw off the heat. The monster’s moving fin caused currents that made the heat loss worse. The beast’s sides expanded and contracted several times while the metal heated, causing additional currents. He could tell that it was taking too long; the spell would end before the sword got white hot. The spell just didn’t work as well in water as in the air. He realized that there
was
one positive effect; by drawing off some of the heat, he was able to hold onto the sword longer than he would have been above water. As the water heated up, he also found that he was warm again for the first time since he jumped into the water.

As the tip of the sword passed 101 degrees Celsius, he found that he had another problem; the sword started boiling the seawater, turning it to water vapor and causing bubbles. John didn’t know if Scylla would feel the bubbles, but they were super-hot, so he tried to keep them away from the creature. The boiling water surrounding the sword did allow the sword tip to heat faster, though, and also kept more of the heat in the sword. While the hand heating the sword was magically protected from the effects of the spell, in no time the sword became almost too hot for his other hand to hold. He had to use the sword before he was forced to drop it.

He ended the spell and took hold of the sword with both hands. Before he could stab the monster, the flipper that John had been swimming behind shifted, lifting up so that one of Scylla’s heads could see what was causing the water to heat up alongside it. John was suddenly face-to-face with a live head.

The creature saw John and the sword, and it knew what he intended. Without having to think about it, the head snapped forward at John. He was just as terrified as the first time he had seen one of the monster’s heads, but this time he was armed. He held out the sword in front of him, hoping that the Scylla head would impale itself on it.

It didn’t.

The head couldn’t reach him; it came up two feet short. John knew this was his one chance. Now that the monster knew he was there, it would have all of the advantages and would eat him in short order. He turned to the beast’s body as it took the biggest breath that John had seen, its side coming all the way out to him. John saw the tip of the sword was still a dull red as he stabbed the creature as if his life depended on it.

Fitzber was down to his last two arrows, for all of the good they would do him. He looked down the length of the wreckage that used to be a ship. Three heads left to kill and three heroes left to do it. While he would never give up, the realist inside of him knew their odds weren’t very good. After his last two arrows, he was down to his short sword and dagger. He didn’t think that Scylla would notice either of them as it swallowed him. Father Telenor was fending off a second head with a boathook. Fitzber doubted that battle would last long. Ghorza was fighting the third head, and she unleashed her black enfeeblement ray. If Scylla noticed, it wasn’t obvious to Fitzber.

“Come out, little gnome, and I will make it quick,” said the Scylla head to Fitzber as he ducked back around the forward mast. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the head Father Telenor was fighting bite down on the boathook and pull it from his hands. Father Telenor dove to the side as the head tried to snap him up.

“Not while I have arrows,” said Fitzber, firing his penultimate arrow at the head. He made his shot, even with the gale force winds that had sprung up, and the arrow vanished into a nostril to prick the sensitive membrane inside. Unfortunately, the arrow caused the head to sneeze and the whole body spasmed. The port side of the ship gave way, boards snapping and wooden rivets popping in a spray of broken lumber. The ship had already been settling into the water; now it rolled to port as water flooded in the broken side. The aft mast, already weakened in the earlier dragon attack, snapped off. The ropes holding the sail parted, and the sail blew away, the canvas flapping in the breeze. The remaining companions and the two little girls were thrown overboard as the ship keeled over.

The head closed to within several feet of Fitzber so that it could look at the gnome with its remaining eye. “And now, I have you,” it said. Lightning flashed as the head turned back to him and the mouth opened. Fitzber could hear the little girls screaming as the mouth came toward him. As the rain began pelting down, he saw that there was nowhere else to go.