Amazed at the Calma's bravery Silus moved to join their defensive line.
The eel coiled around a tower and out of sight and, for a moment, Silus thought that it had moved on to other prey, but then — with a terrifying screech — the sinuous beast was amongst them.
The rider lashed out with its javelin, only for one of the Calma to wrap its flail around the shaft and pull. The weapon slipped out of the Chadassa's grasp and started to fall towards the seabed. Silus snatched it up before it could disappear and turned in time to see another Calma entangle its flail around the wrist of the eel rider. Within moments, however, the Chadassa had unsheathed a knife and severed its own hand, freeing it of the Calma's hold. Dark blood boiled into the water, throwing the eel into a frenzy that jolted the rider about in the saddle, but it soon had its mount back under control.
The eel opened its jaws and rushed another of the Calma, only to find Silus barring its way. The creature came to a sudden halt, jerking its rider forward in the saddle, its long, slim tail coiling behind it. A stream of bubbles slowly rising from its nostrils, the eel's eye slits narrowed as it considered this new thing now before it.
However, Silus didn't give it long to calculate its next move. He lunged for the eel, wrapped one arm around its thick neck and drove the barbed point of the javelin deep into its mouth. The eel let out a shriek that sounded like sheet metal tearing before rapidly ascending, taking Silus with it as he continued to cling on to the shaft of the weapon. The Chadassa crouched low over its mount's skull as it urged it on, trying to shake Silus off with rapid twists and turns.
As the towers of the citadel rolled dizzyingly around him, Silus saw that the remaining Calma were following in the eel's wake. He urged them back, not wanting any more of their blood on his hands but, despite his gestures, they closed on the beast.
One of them latched onto the eel's dorsal fin and tore into the ridged flesh, causing the creature to buck and writhe as it attempted to dislodge its attacker. Another Calma descended on the rider and tried to pull it from the saddle, but this attack met with less success and soon the Calma was tumbling away from them, blood gushing from its throat.
Silus's arms were beginning to ache with the effort of maintaining his grip on the javelin. Blood was pouring freely from the wound in the eel's mouth and the strong oily taste of it, as it clouded the water around him, was beginning to make Silus dizzy and nauseous.
They were not far from the surface now, but instead of launching itself from the sea, the eel began to slow. Thinking that it was finally succumbing to its wounds, Silus loosened his grip on the javelin and looked up to see how the Chadassa was responding to the imminent death of its mount.
But the creature didn't seem at all perturbed; instead it dug its heels sharply into the eel's temples and placed its remaining hand on the top of the creature's skull.
There was a flash of light and it felt as though a vice had suddenly closed on Silus's heart, as though he had been slammed into a brick wall at speed. One moment he was preparing himself to deliver the killing blow, the next he was falling, wracked with pain and paralysed. The water around him sparkled with electrical discharge and a dead Calma drifted down towards him, lazily turning, its eyes the white of cooked fish.
The eel coiled down from above and tore the creature in two, hungrily gulping down the innards that burst from its sundered flesh. But the Chadassa didn't give its mount long to feed and soon the eel was hurtling towards Silus once more.
He willed his limbs to move, he even attempted to reach into to the eel's mind and turn it on its rider, but all he could do was watch as death came to claim him.
He was about to close his eyes and offer up a final prayer to the ancestors, when a Calma ship closed around the eel.
The Chadassa was thrown from its saddle only to be cooked in an instant when a thin beam of emerald energy lanced from the ship. Riderless now, the eel coiled itself around the strange vessel and tried to close its jaws on the flesh-like hull, but the ship was clearly tougher than it looked. The eel worried at it in vain, rapidly becoming more and more enraged by its impervious prey. The ship withstood its futile scrabblings for just a moment longer, before suddenly flexing its limbs and pulling the eel apart.
As the sundered chunks of flesh fell slowly past, feeling began to return to Silus's extremities; but not quickly enough for him to get out of the path of the ship as it closed on him.
A thin, translucent tentacle unfurled from the centre of the craft to wrap itself around his waist. He knew that the Calma were on his side, but he couldn't help but feel afraid as he was pulled into the red, gaping maw that opened up at the vessel's core.
The mouth closed behind him and Silus was deposited into a small domed room that began to rapidly drain, leaving him on his knees, coughing up the seawater from his lungs. Once he was breathing normally again he managed to stand, though his legs shook with the strain and he had never felt so tired or so cold.
With a sound like lips moistly parting, a door dilated open above him and a hand reached through. Silus knew that hand and when he looked up, sure enough, there stood Katya. She helped him scrabble up into the ship's control room, where several Calma were busy piloting the vessel.
Silus and Katya didn't say anything as they embraced.
With his wife's arms around him, he realised just how long it had been since he had last held her. All the things he had taken for granted — the smell of her hair; the warmth of her skin — suddenly seemed as though he were experiencing them anew, and when she said his name he began to cry.
"I'm so sorry. So, so sorry," he said. "What did they do to you?"
"They took Zac away and then left me. After that there was nothing. Have you seen him Silus? Do you know where Zac is? He's safe, isn't he?" The look in Silus's eyes told Katya that he wasn't. "No, please no. No, please Silus. Tell me that he's okay. Please."
But no matter how much she pleaded with him, Silus couldn't tell her what she wanted to hear, so instead he continued to hold her, and when the grief overcame her and she sank to the floor, he went with her.
"Make them pay, Silus," she said, "promise me that you'll make them pay."
As they sped away from the Chadassa citadel, Silus promised.
Kelos waited until the remaining Calma ships surrounded the Llothriall before he began to cast the spell. The parchment he took from the battered leather tube had the rainbow sheen of fish scale and, indeed, the sheet had been made from the hide of an extremely rare marine creature. It had cost Kelos a considerable amount to acquire and would crumble into dust once the spell was cast, but he considered that such circumstances as they now found themselves in more than justified its use.
Kelos lay the shimmering material flat on the table before taking out a small bottle of violet ink and a quill from a pocket in his robe.
"Kelos, what the fuck are you doing? This is no time to draw a picture," Jacquinto said, as he peered over his shoulder, "those bloody things are almost on us."
"I am not drawing a picture. It may not look like it, but I am performing some extremely powerful magic. You should be impressed."
Kelos began to draw a diagram onto the sheet, the ink of the chasm squid sinking into the page with the faintest of crackles as he moved the quill.
The Llothriall shook as something ploughed into its side and the bottle of ink went skittering across the table. Jacquinto caught it just before it hit the floor and Kelos exhaled heavily.
"Thank you, you may well just have saved all our lives."
Kelos finished his illustration as the sound of the assault increased on all sides. Then, after blowing on the ink to ensure it was dry, he took the page and folded it into eight segments.