The caravan emerged from the tunnel, lights behind them fading into blackness. Before them, a steep, cobbled causeway descended into the main street of Rishada. Jhovalls' claws clicked along the street. Mercadians nodded condescendingly at the crowds that stared at them, shouting at the few foolish enough to block their way.
Rishada was a smaller version of Mercadia, with the same profusion of market stalls, the same clamor of merchants- but all of it had a distinctly nautical flavor. Many folk roamed the streets with the rolling gait of sailors. Fresh fish were laid out on stone slabs, along with crabs, lobsters, squid, shrimp, and other, less identifiable creatures.
The Mercadian procession made its way through the confusing maze of streets, down to a broad, open square. Around three sides of the square were low stone buildings. The fourth side was open to the sea and extended outward in a long pier lined with docked ships. Most were small fishing smacks, but a few were sleek schooners.
It was beside one of these that the caravan paused. The ship Facade had been chartered to take the ambassadorial contingent. The company loaded on the ship and settled in for a night in the moorings.
One night's stay in Rishada was enough to last the Weatherlight companions a lifetime. The cabin in which they were housed was dark and narrow and smelled intolerably of fish. The beds were small, lumpy, and damp, and there was little privacy save the darkness. All three women-Sisay, Hanna, and Orim-were crowded together, and since Orim chose to speak no more than a few words, Sisay and Hanna felt constrained to silence as well. They slept as best they were able and were roused the next morning by a sense of motion.
Blinking the sleep from her eyes, Sisay rose and climbed to the deck. The crew had just cast off the lines, and Facade drew away from the city. Sisay breathed deeply. It felt wonderful once again to be aboard a ship under sail. Hanna came to join her, and the women traded quiet smiles.
On the water, the Mercadians seemed abnormally silent and tense. They huddled together on the deck while Sisay and Hanna stood in the prow of the ship, watching the water.
Rishada dropped quickly behind them. Before them the sea spread out in an endless horizon. Both women found the rush of air and water exhilarating after the long, hot, dusty journey. The wind filled the sails, and the flag of Rishada, gray with a red ship surmounted with a blue crest of arms, snapped smartly from the mast.
Along the surface of the water, small fish skimmed. One suddenly rose from the waves and, spreading a pair of broad fins from its sides, took to the air with a graceful swoop and soared away on air currents. Sisay and Hanna stood openmouthed as an entire flight of the flying fish followed their leader and disappeared into the yellow sky. The water was very clear, and Sisay at times glimpsed stranger creatures moving about in the depths. When she stared hard at the distant forms, they seemed only shadows that flitted over the dimpled waves.
Gazing at the illimitable ocean, Sisay said to Hanna, "What wonders await us out there?"
Hanna's eyes too were filled with the oddly colored sea. "What wonders, and what horrors?"
Two nights hence, Orim was at the prow when the horrors began.
In the last gloaming of evening, a huge figure burst up from the distant, inky tide. It hung massively in the ribbon of dying light, and then crashed back into the wide sea-a breaching whale.
Orim gripped the rail. Through stout wood, she felt the profound thrumming of the waters across the beast, the compression wave flung from the leviathan's vast bulk, the rumble of tip vortices trailing enormous fins. Her own arms and legs remembered the blissful sensations of swimming and diving and surfacing in the lagoon. Closing her eyes, she could almost imagine stroking toward Cho-Manno…
Another tremor moved through the rail-this one violent and shuddering.
Orim gasped, opening her eyes.
A harpoon sailed out from a deck-mounted gun. Its line uncoiled with a brutal whipping motion. The barbed shaft sank into the swell where the whale had disappeared. There came a muted shriek through the deeps. Rishadan crews cleated off the harpoon line, and it went taut with the agonized thrashing of the beast.
Orim staggered back from the rail, stunned. Gathering her strength, she stalked toward the harpooners, a pair of tall, thin, tan-skinned seamen. "What are you doing?"
One Rishadan flashed a glad smile. "Harpooning!" he said.
She shook her head. "This is a chartered vessel, an ambassadorial voyage-"
The young man shrugged narrow shoulders. The short gray vest across his chest leaped up. "This won't slow us. If we can kill it, we can drag it behind us and work it in the water while we make way. If it gets away, there's nothing lost."
"Nothing lost!" Orim said angrily. "What about the whale? What about its life? Nothing lost?"
The other seaman shouted a warning, pulling in slack rope. "It's coming about! It's heading straight for us. It's going to stave the ship!"
Orim turned back to the rail.
A massive mound of water angled across the billows, heading directly at the ship. Within the water rose a low roar. Fin tips broke the surface, and a massive figure shouldered through the darkness below. The harpoon stuck stupidly from the thing's back, slack rope trailing in the water behind.
"Fire!" the Rishadan cried.
That same shuddering violence moved through the rail.
Orim caught her breath as the second harpoon leaped outward. It met the surging bulk of the whale, embedding itself just behind the leviathan's head. Red streamed in the darkling water behind that jutting shaft. The beast did not slow. It came on, straight for the ship.
More amazing, though-a vast hand rose from the waters ahead of the whale. Huge fingers laid hold of the shaft and ripped it bloodily forth.
"That's no whale!" the harpooner muttered in dread. "It's a Saprazzan warrior beast!"
From the mounding waves rose a huge head, as large and knobby as a boulder. Kelplike hair streamed behind a sloping brow, which overshadowed small, angry, and intelligent eyes. The gray-green muzzle of the thing bristled with fangs that could bite a man in half. One vast hand clutched the gory harpoon above the waves. The other took a final stroke and then surged up to seize the gunwale of Facade. With an almighty rush, the warrior beast hurled itself on deck. "Attack-!" one of the harpooners began. His warning was cut short. The beast rammed the bloody head of the harpoon through the man. His chest cracked open and gushed like an egg. He riled on the shaft, gore making the deck slick beneath him. Orim fell back. More shouts rose.
Crew rushed forward with tridents and spears. The vast beast hauled itself across the deck, clutched the second harpooner, and crushed him in an enormous fist. There was nothing left of the man but meat and bone meal. This was a Saprazzan? Orim wondered numbly, clawing her way to the fo'c'sle. An ominous sight greeted her.
The black sea all around boiled angrily with fins. They converged on Facade. More monsters climbed the gunwales to slide onto the deck.
These were smaller-man-sized creatures. Their faces gleamed like mother-of-pearl, with hooked beaks and vast, staring eyes. Great mantles of seaweed draped the heads of some, while the heads of others were encrusted as with giant barnacles. Their torsos and arms were also very human beneath their conch armor, but from the waist down they had the long, scaly tail fins of fish. Pearlescent tridents were gripped in their webbed hands. As beautiful and otherworldly as these creatures seemed, they killed with an all-too-familiar savagery.