A selka rushed toward Bannon from behind, webbed hands outstretched, but Nicci summoned another fireball and hurled it at the creature’s head. The flames struck home, and its flesh steamed and exploded. Shrieking, the thing dove overboard, ignoring its victim.
Bannon whirled, blinking in astonishment, and shouted an unintelligible thanks to Nicci.
As the sailors kept yelling for reinforcements, some of the off-duty crew threw open a deck hatch and emerged from below. Seeing the swarming creatures, the crew shouted to rouse the sailors in the lower decks. Rallied at last, the men grabbed whatever weapons they could find and boiled up out of the hatch to defend the ship.
But when the disoriented seamen climbed into the open storm, hissing selka converged on the hatch. The next sailor up was a tall, thin man who had been adept at patching sails. As soon as he popped his head up into the air, a selka slipped claws beneath his chin, hooked into his jawbone, and lifted him like a fish on a line. The man dangled by his head, and his arms and legs jittered spasmodically as the monsters gutted him, letting his blood spill down onto the other sailors trying to climb up. The selka discarded the body and then poured down the ladder, invading the lower decks where the crew members were trapped—and slaughtered.
Four attackers stalked forward as rain slashed down and salt water scoured the deck. Nicci stood firm, defiant, despite the roiling dizziness inside her. She felt the rage within, and reminded herself that she had been a Sister of the Dark, that she had stolen magic from many wizards. Even weakened by the poison, she was more powerful than any foe these creatures had ever seen.
The wind howled, and she pulled energy from it, reshaped it, brought the storm closer. As the selka attacked her and Nathan, she pushed back, throwing a battering ram of air. The blow knocked six creatures up over the ship’s rail, high into the air, and flung them far out to sea.
Striding forward, Nathan raised both hands, trying to summon a blast of his own magic. She could tell by his stance and his intent expression that he must be calling on a powerful spell. As ten more aquatic attackers climbed aboard the Wavewalker, Nathan gestured to fling a magical bombardment at them—and his face filled with a perplexed expression when nothing happened. He waved his hands again to no effect, and the selka surged toward him, undeterred.
“Nathan!” Nicci shouted.
The old wizard kept trying to summon magic, but failed. He seemed too confused to be afraid.
Just in time, Bannon leaped next to him, swinging his sword to hack into the nearest selka. As that one collapsed, he stabbed a second one, offering a dark grin to the wizard. “I’ll save you if you need it.”
Nathan looked at his empty hand in confusion. “I’m not supposed to need it.”
Nicci wondered if the wizard had also been poisoned. She trembled dizzily. Her last spell had left her spent, but Nicci could not afford to be spent—there were still too many attackers.
A blond sailor picked up an empty barrel and threw it at a selka. The creature grappled with him just as a large wave smashed into the deck, sweeping both overboard. The sailor went under, and Nicci never saw him resurface in the churning cauldron of waves.
Captain Eli burst out of his stateroom, screaming commands to his men. “Selka!” he cried, as if he had encountered them before. “Damn you, leave my ship alone!” He had brought his cutlass and a long rod that he used for clouting unruly sailors. With a weapon in each hand, he marched forward to meet the attackers.
Identifying the captain, the selka closed in on him, but he stood his ground on the wet deck. As the creatures came forward, the captain struck sideways with his long rod and slashed wildly with his sword in the other hand.
The cutlass lopped off a webbed hand at the wrist, and he hacked and clubbed, driving the selka back, but more closed in around him. His rod flattened slimy faces, broke sharp teeth, but selka hands snatched at him. Finally, one seized the club and tore it from his grasp.
Outnumbered, the captain kept fighting with his cutlass, slicing and chopping the attackers, but one of the selka took up the club he had lost and used the hard rod to strike Captain Eli’s wrist, shattering his forearm. He gasped in pain, no longer able to hold his sword, and the curved blade clattered to the deck.
Unable to fight, the captain retreated into the chart room, nursing his broken arm. He barricaded the door, but the selka made short work of it, splintering the wood before flooding into the chamber. Captain Eli’s screams were quickly followed by the sounds of shattered glass from the stern windows. Hurled out into the night, the man’s body floundered into the roiling wake of the ship. The sea creatures dove after him to have their feast before he could drown.
As the storm surged and Nathan struggled unsuccessfully to call on his gift, Nicci used every trick she knew, summoning a tangled combination of Additive and Subtractive Magic to draw bolts of black lightning. The first blast lashed one selka through the heart, leaving a smoking crater.
Beside her, Nathan looked bleak. “The magic … I can’t find my magic! It’s gone.” He raised his hand again to work a spell, curling his fingers. His azure eyes filled with fury, but with no result. “It’s gone!”
Nicci had no time to understand what was wrong with him. Desperate, she managed to call up a deadly gout of wizard’s fire. When the crackling ball boiled in her hand, she released it. The wizard’s fire swelled like a comet in the air and engulfed four selka that had cornered a lone sailor. The sailor’s screams changed, then ended abruptly along with their hissing, writhing shrieks as the deadly incineration erased them all.
But the uncontrolled wizard’s fire kept sizzling across the deck, charring a stack of barrels, and setting the deck and hull boards on fire. The magical incendiary kept burning, but the pounding rain and waves eventually doused the relentless fire.
Nicci sagged, not sure how much more energy she possessed, though she needed to keep fighting, because the selka kept coming.
Three weak and wretched men staggered out of the doorway from the cabins in the stern deck. The shirtless wishpearl divers walked with agonized scissorlike steps, blinded and disoriented. Sol, Elgin, and Rom could barely move, and they certainly couldn’t fight.
But the men were not entirely useless. At least they provided a moment’s diversion for the attacking selka.
When two sea creatures closed around the divers, Sol’s eyes were filled with pain and blood. He reached out, as if he didn’t realize that the selka was not one of his shipmates. The aquatic creature wrapped a webbed hand around his throat, slamming him against the wall as it grabbed his lower abdomen with its other hand. A hooked claw dug deep into Sol’s pubic bone and slowly curled upward to slice through the man’s groin all the way up to the base of his throat, like the knife of a fisherman gutting his catch. Sol’s entrails spilled out like wet, tangled ropes. As he collapsed, the selka passed him into the arms of another creature, who pulled him open wider, then dug pointed teeth into Sol’s chest cavity and began to eat his heart.
More creatures grabbed a gibbering Elgin, who slapped uselessly with his bare hands as the monsters ripped him open as well and tossed him aside for the other creatures to devour.
The third diver, Rom, turned and tried to flee, but the selka grabbed him from behind and sliced open his back, prying loose his entire spine with a few ribs still attached. After uprooting the vertebrae from his body, the creatures dropped the jellylike bag of skin and meat to the deck.
Giving up on trying to fight with magic, Nathan tore his ornate sword from its scabbard and held it up, defying the sea people. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Bannon, the two men attacked the monstrous creatures. With a fixed and brutal expression, Bannon swung Sturdy like a woodcutter hacking his way through a thicket.