The Sea Devils Eye (38 page)

Waiting for a chance to reach his side, Laaqueel darted in and engaged Vhaemas while his son and daughter sped toward Iakhovas. Vhaemas the Bastard caught Iakhovas’s trident in his own even as his half-sister, Princess Jian, swam in with her sword.

Jian swung the sword as she passed, breaking the trident haft with a thundering crack that rolled over the hills. When the broken trident fell away, Vhaemas the Bastard pulled his own back and rammed it at Iakhovas.

“No!” Iakhovas shouted in rage.

His shape blurred, becoming the thing Laaqueel remembered from the cave near Coryselmal. Fins appeared on Iakhovas’s head and face, arms and legs, back and chest. If she hadn’t already seen the form before, the malenti priestess knew she would have thought it was a trick of the sediment and sand swirling around Iakhovas.

Before Vhaemas the Bastard could shove his trident tines through his opponent’s head, Iakhovas grabbed it with superhuman speed and shoved the weapon to one side. He rammed the broken haft of his own trident through the bastard king’s torso. Iakhovas continued to push until his talons reached Vhaemas’s abdomen. He ripped out the merman’s entrails and strung them through the water. Vhaemas the Bastard struggled only briefly before going limp.

Still in motion, Iakhovas pursued Jian, who turned to confront him. The mermaid warrior lashed out with her sword, scoring a slash across Iakhovas’s chest. Iakhovas kept going, driving himself at the mermaid and receiving another wound to his arm.

Vhaemas redoubled his efforts against Laaqueel, driving her back so that he could disengage. He swam through the water, stopping only long enough to pick up the end of Iakhovas’s broken trident. Still in motion, the merman king slammed the mystic trident into Iakhovas’s back, burying the points deeply.

Roaring in pain and rage, Iakhovas batted Jian’s sword aside and seized her head in an impossibly huge hand covered in sharp edges. Holding her head, he raked the long fin from his other arm across her midsection, ripping her into halves-one belonging to a beautiful girl and the other to a fish.

King Vhaemas tugged at the trident tines imbedded in Iakhovas’s back, trying to free them. Iakhovas whirled, closing his massive fist and hammering the merman king on the head. Partially senseless, Vhaemas tried to retreat but couldn’t move away fast enough. Iakhovas made a fist and brought it down on top of the king’s crown.

Before the dazed merman king could move or defend himself, Iakhovas dived at him, grabbing him around the throat. Blood and sand misted the water around the two combatants, obscuring the view as the battle raged around them.

Laaqueel kicked out, flicking her toe claws out and gutting the merman warrior who swam at her. She whirled and brought up the barbed net hanging at her side, whipping it out to drape over another merman warrior she narrowly avoided. She gloried in the battle, embracing the thought of death because then there could be no more doubts. A smile twisted the corners of her mouth, and she felt more alive than she had in days.

Little malenti, you’ve come back into your own.

The malenti priestess didn’t bother to reply. The exhilaration she felt was only temporary, and she knew it. As the merman warrior fought the net, the barbs buried themselves in his flesh. She choked up on the trident hail and raked the tine across another merman’s face, taking out his eyes.

NO!

The female voice echoed in Laaqueel’s head, driving her to her knees in the loose sand. The malenti priestess put her hands to her temples, willing away the pain and the vertigo.

This is not your path, Laaqueel Not anymore.

“Stop!” the malenti priestess pleaded, gazing out at the battle before her. This is what I was born and bred for. This is Sekolah’s purpose for me.”

Little malenti, are you hurt?

Laaqueel looked at Iakhovas. “I am all right.”

“Then get up. There’s a battle to be won here before we lose the war.”

Iakhovas held the unconscious merman king by the throat. King Vhaemas’s head bled profusely, bits of gold and bone glinting amid savaged flesh. Iakhovas’s blow had driven the crown into the merman king’s head.

Staving off the vertigo and uncertainty, Laaqueel picked up her trident, taking the fight to the merman warriors.

I will not allow you to take the lives of these people, the feminine voice stated.

“I am sahuagin.” Laaqueel engaged the nearest merman, thrusting her trident at his face.

No.

Laaqueel’s trident thrust stopped short. The merman warrior moved to take advantage of his luck. As he thrust, though, a wild current sprang up from below him and pulled him away.

Nor will I allow you to be harmed. Not unless you make me.

“Then strike me down if you can.” Laaqueel gazed around the depths. “Come out of hiding. I will fight you. My life has not been my own, and I’ll spend it gladly.”

I come to give you your life, Laaqueel.

“How?” As the malenti priestess looked around, she noticed that none of the merman warriors even seemed to know she was there, as if she’d suddenly become invisible.

There is another path you must take that is better suited to your nature.

“I am sahuagin.”

You do not hove to be.

It is all I have ever wanted to be.”

Then you should raise your standards, Laaqueel.

“Sekolah gave me life and gave me the strength to kill in his name. It is enough.”

And Sekolah let you be placed, in the power of the Taker.

Laaqueel had no reply.

Yes, you know him for who he is, and you know the kind of destruction he’s brought to this world. If he should return to the Sword Coast, it will only be the same. And Iakhovas no longer needs you. You know that.

The Great Shark gives me power to serve his will.”

Sekolah gives you power to kill in his name.

“Yes.”

You could have more.

“I only want to be sahuagin.”

You’re not. You have never fit in with your people, Laaqueel, and you know you never will.

“lean.”

No. You live a lie now, and you know it. As long as you remain in Iakhovas’s grace you will be protected, but should you fall, you will be killed and rent. Meat is meat. I can give you more than that.

“Why should you?” Laaqueel shouted. “What am I to you?”

You are strong, Laaqueel. The times coming after the Twelfth Seros War will not be easy. I have use for that strength.

“So I could serve you instead of Iakhovas?” Laaqueel shook her head. “No.”

When the time comes, you will live or die as you choose, but if you kill any of those under my protection, you will know my wrath as you have known my benevolence.

“And should they attack me?”

They won’t. You are under my protection, and they will know it. Iakhovas remains your only true enemy, but one is coming who has the power to deal with him.

“The boy in the cave?” Laaqueel couldn’t believe it. Though the human had put up a good fight against the koalinth in the cave, he couldn’t challenge the savage deathbringer that was Iakhovas.

Yes.

“He’s too weak.”

Not once Taleweaver brings him into his belief. Wait, Laaqueel, wait and see if I don’t have more to offer than you’ve ever known.

Emotion ripped through Laaqueel as she felt the voice fade from her mind. Uncertainty and doubt plagued her, and her faith wasn’t there to shore her up. She prayed to Sekolah, but she felt the words were only empty effort.

“I am Iakhovas!”

Turning, Laaqueel watched as Iakhovas swam into the midst of the battlefield. He looked every inch a proud sahuagin warrior-king. His voice boomed, gaining the attention of the warrior around him.

“You king has fallen,” Iakhovas roared in triumph, “and I have killed the children.”

He threw the merman king down to the torn bodies if Princess Jian and Vhaemas the Bastard.

“I am death-unstopable and merciless. Oppose me and die!”

As Laaqueel looked across the war-torn sea floor, she saw the wave of defeat sweep over the surviving warriors of Eadraal. The Thuridru mermen screamed in triumph. The malenti priestess felt the arrival of the thundering presence hammering against her lateral lines. She looked to the east, in the direction from which shifting currents came.

Whales materialized out of deep blue-green depths. Half a dozen four-hundred-foot-long humpbacked whales swam in the lead, trailed by dozen of smaller ones. They stampeded over battlefield, scattering both armies.

Iakhovas hung in the sea, staring at them.

An auburn-haired mermaid swam with them, flashing between the two lead humpbacks.

“Arina.”

Several of the mermen near Laaqueel spoke the name, and she assumed it belonged to the young woman with the whales.

The whales broke before Iakhovas, swimming under him, knocking the nearby warriors around in whirlwind currents that drew sand up from the ocean floor in massive clouds.

And after the whales passed, Laaqueel noticed that King Vhaemas’s body was gone, evidently taken up by one or more of the great creatures. The morale of the mermen disappeared with the merman king, and they began disengaging where they could and falling back.

Iakhovas evidently wasn’t going to give them an easy retreat. He issued orders at once to begin the pursuit. It was going to be a bitter death march back to Voalidru.

*****

Tu’uua’col swam through the clutch of rocks and settled gently on the ocean floor behind Prince Mirol as he prayed to Eadro.

Built lean and angular, Mirol didn’t look like a warrior, or the newly named heir to the throne of Eadraal. King Vhaemas had awakened only once after the whales and Princess Arina had transported him to Naulys, the merman city west of Voalidru. During that time he named Mirol as his successor, then slipped back into the coma that held him still.

Tu’uua’col hadn’t accompanied King Vhaemas during the Battle of Voalidru. The prejudices the merman warriors had against him because he was shalarin ran too deep. Still, he had not allowed himself to be put on the sidelines as the Taker’s army closed on Naulys. His place, for the moment, was at the prince’s side. Quietly, the Green Dukar put his hand on Mirol’s shoulder.

Unhurried, Mirol finished his prayer to Eadro, asking for deliverance in this time of need. He flipped his tail and turned to face his advisor.

“Our scouts have spotted the Taker’s advance guard,” Tu’uua’col said. “How soon will they be here?”

“Within minutes.”

“And their numbers?”

“As at Voalidru,” Tu’uua’col answered.

“Do you think we can hold them from Naulys?”

The Dukar hesitated. Mirol had remained very true to his calling as a priest until his father had handed him the reins of leadership. As a result, the boy didn’t know much about the ways of war and warriors.

“No, my prince. Not without a miracle.”

Mirol showed him a brave smile and said, “Exactly what I was praying for. Now let’s see if Eadro can deliver.”

He took up the trident that had been his father’s and swam to the front of the line.

The land around Naulys was hilly, rife with coral reefs. They’d used those reefs to set up ballistae that had been salvaged from surface world ships. The Taker’s army came on, the drowned ones at the lead.

Tu’uua’col watched as the first rows of warriors clashed. Priests of Eadro, summoned by Mirol, worked to turn the undead, chanting praises to Eadro. Many of the drowned ones were turned away, leaving the koalinth to bear the brunt of the first attack while their own ranks were broken by the zombies’ retreat.

For a moment, confused by the retreating zombies, the koalinth gave ground in the face of the vengeful assault by the merman warriors of three conquered cities who’d managed to join Naulys’s defenders. The sheer numbers of the koalinth turned the tide yet again. The merman warriors were slowly driven back.

Tu’uua’col watched, desperately seeking some way out of the situation though he knew there wasn’t one. The Taker had planned too well, and the priests had not turned all of the drowned ones. He gazed at the Taker’s flagship floating above and behind the koalinth, then noticed the fluttering movement that came in from the north.

The winged shapes sped through the water without warning, and they came by the thousands. They descended on the staggered line of koalinth without mercy.

“What is that?” Mirol asked. He peered into the deeper reaches of the sea.

“Ixitxachitl,” Tu’uua’col answered, feeling somewhat better. “Apparently, they decided to join in and retaliate against the Taker.”

“It’s a miracle,” Mirol said quietly.

Tu’uua’col didn’t agree, thinking it was more like the demon rays taking advantage of the diversion the mermen provided. As he watched the ixitxachitls swoop in on the koalinth, the Dukar thought the real miracle would be if the demon rays didn’t turn on them next.

The merman warriors pressed to the forefront, cutting down koalinth as chance presented itself

“Col,” Mirol asked, “do you think there’s a chance to form an alliance at Myth Nantar to stand against the Taker?”

““Yes,” the Dukar replied quickly.

Excitement flared within him. The merman cities held the largest population in the immediate area around Myth Nan tar. If they took a step to form an alliance he was certain the other races would agree.

“I would like you to start on this immediately after this battle is finished,” Mirol said. “Provided we both yet live. I will go with you.”

“Of course, Prince Mirol.”

Tu’uua’col turned to watch the battle as the koalinth continued to retreat before the savagery of the ixitxachitl. If Myth Nan tar rose again, as was alluded to in some of the legends, the Dukars would also rise once more.

Nine days later, Pacys stood close to the Great Barrier. Senior High Mage Reefglamor and the other High Mages of Sylkiir stood there with the others who agreed to the Nantarn Alliance. After nearly a tenday of hammering out the details, the old bard knew them all. While they’d bickered and argued among themselves, he’d written, adding their songs to the epic that came so readily now to his lips.

The Taker’s army had been turned at Naulys, leaving the city intact, though Voalidru was still heavily occupied at the moment. Scouts had also determined that Iakhovas was pulling together reserves from the sahuagin raiding parties and guiding even more of the drowned ones that continued the occupation of the Whamite Isles.