Jahnu stopped and stared at the strange apparition walking down the street toward them. Dirella, still holding onto her husband's arm, stopped as well.
"Do you see that?" Jahnu asked in a hushed voice. He knew what he thought he was seeing-a monster stepped straight out of childhood bedtime stories-but such a thing couldn't possibly be here. Not on the streets of Regalport! High Price Ryger made sure his city was one of the safest in the Principalities. The city watch was well trained and well paid, and the Prince's Sea Dragons diligently patrolled the waters beyond Regalport.
"It looks like a, a walking shark," Dirella said, a note of wonder in her voice. "Do you think it's a joke of some kind? A drunken sailor playing a prank in costume?"
Jahnu let out a relieved sigh. Yes, of course! It had to be something like that!
The "wereshark" stopped as it drew near. Its dead-black eyes narrowed, and Jahnu caught a whiff of saltwater mixed with the scent of rotting meat wafting forth from the thing's tooth-filled maw. Suddenly, he wasn't so sure that this was a joke.
The wereshark lunged and sank its teeth into Jahnu's shoulder. The man screamed as his blood geysered into the air, splattering his wife who was also screaming now and desperately attempting to pull free of her husband-his arm had folded back reflexively when the creature bit into his flesh, trapping her hand in the crook of his elbow. The wereshark didn't look at Dirella as it gnawed at Jahnu's bloody shoulder, serrated teeth sawing gobs of meat off the bone. But the woman's scream rose to a high-pitched shriek and, as if to silence her, the wereshark lashed upward with a clawed hand and disemboweled her. It worked most effectively. Dirella became instantly quiet as her intestines spilled down the front of her expensive gown and onto the ground.
The wereshark ripped a hunk of meat from Jahnu's shoulder, and the man fell sideways onto his dying wife. Dirella, unable to support her own weight any longer, let alone that of her husband, slumped to the cobblestones below, and Jahnu landed in a bloody heap on top of her. Through blurred vision swiftly going black, Jahnu saw the wereshark swallow his flesh and then, grinning in a way a true shark never could, the beast crouched down as it came toward them to continue its grisly feast.
The sight Jahnu saw as life left him was a hazy image of other weresharks filling the street, and the last sound he heard were the screams of other victims as the monsters ran forward to join in the slaughter.
More weresharks arrived, and more after that, and they all walked past Nathifa, Haaken, and Makala and continued on into the city. Dozens of them.
Nathifa paused in her chanting, unable to stop herself from laughing in delight. It had begun! Nothing could stop Vol's conquest of the Principalities now! Nothing!
The lich resumed chanting and the weresharks kept coming.
And that's when Nathifa saw the prow of an elemental galleon coming fast toward the dock.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
She's already started!" Diran said.
The priest stood at the stern of the Turnabout, peering through the lens of a hand-held telescope, long black hair trailing behind him in the wind. The sky was clear, and the moons provided sufficient light for him to make out Nathifa standing on Regalport's central dock. He recognized the statue of the priest Nerthatch that Ghaji and he had been forced to deal with on Demothi Island. Haaken Sprull, in the shape of a half-man, half-shark, stood behind the statue, clawed hands gripping its shoulders, blunt snout pointed skyward as he bellowed in pain. Behind Haaken stood Nathifa, holding the dragonwand and blasting the wereshark with a stream of mystic energy released from the Amahau. Makala stood close by, watching the procedure with a malicious grin, clearly amused by Haaken's pain.
A steady parade of weresharks climbed out of the bay one by one, pulled themselves onto the dock, and lumbered past the lich and her servants as they headed into Regalport proper.
Diran handed the spyglass to Ghaji so the half-orc could see for himself. The other companions gathered around, and though they didn't have telescopes of their own, the elemental galleon was only a quarter of a mile away from the docks and closing fast. They could see well enough to give them a good idea of what was happening.
Ghaji lowered the spyglass. "This is Vol's grand scheme? To send a bunch of ugly fish-faces into Regalport for a late dinner? It's an awful thing, but I don't see how that will help her conquer the Principalities."
"You forget that a lycanthrope's bite is infectious," Leontis said. "Though I have no doubt the weresharks will kill tonight and take great pleasure in doing so, my guess is their primary purpose is to infect as many of Regalport's citizens as they can with their curse."
"At Grimwall, Erdis Cai sought to create an army of undead soldiers for Vol," Tresslar said. "It seems that Vol has decided to create an army of sea-based lycanthropes instead."
"Any army of weresharks… under the Lich Queen's control," Diran said. The vision the Fury-demon had shown him was coming to pass, and its implications were staggering. "They could move throughout the Principalities without the need for vessels, traveling undetected beneath the waves."
"They could infiltrate any city or settlement in human form," Onu added, "attacking whenever they wished."
"They'd keep on attacking until they'd either killed or infected everyone," Yvka said. "And then the whole lot would move on to the next settlement."
"They'd board ships at sea too" Hinto put in. "Killing or transforming the crews."
"Their numbers would grow swiftly," Solus said. "So much so that the Principalities would fall before they could muster a sufficient defense."
Even if the barons and princes had advanced warning of the wereshark threat, what sort of defense could there be? Diran wondered. This was precisely the hellish scenario the Purified had envisioned that had caused them to embark on the Purge. The Purified had succeeded in preventing the scourge of lycanthropy from destroying all of Khorvaire. But what the servants of the Silver Flame hadn't considered-hadn't the resources to even attempt to consider-was dealing with those lycanthropes who lived in the world's rivers, lakes, seas, and oceans. Those beasts were too well hidden, too well protected in their watery lairs, to make hunting them practical. So, out of necessity more than anything else, the Purified had adopted a you-don't-bother-us and we-won't-bother-you attitude toward aquatic lycanthropes that had worked well enough for years.
Until tonight.
"We have to stop her," Diran said.
"Who?" Ghaji asked. "Nathifa or Vol?"
"Both," the priest said grimly. He turned to Onu. "Have your crew head for the dock where the lich is casting her spell."
"At once!" the changeling said. "I assume you'd like them to get a longboat ready as well?"
Diran shook his head. "You misunderstand. I don't want the Turnabout to get near the dock. I want to ram it."
Onu looked alarmed for a moment, but then a slow grin spread across his face. "Sounds like fun. Come, Hinto! I'll need your help to convince the crew we haven't lost our minds!" The changeling hurried off with the halfling in tow.
"I'm not so certain we haven't lost our minds," Tresslar said.
"I understand that you want to slay the lich," Ghaji said, "And why. But to damage the Turnabout like that…"
"I'm not acting out of a desire for vengeance, my friend," Diran said. "We must stop Nathifa. We can worry about dealing with the lich and her servants-not to mention the weresharks already in the city-once we've interrupted her spellcasting."
Yvka eyed the rapidly decreasing distance between the elemental galleon and Regalport's main dock. "The water may not be deep enough so close to the dock. What if we run aground?"