"I went to pay a call on some friends," Marqillor announced. "They wanted to meet you."
"Can we get out of here?" inquired Tristan, knowing it would take a stunning bit of sorcery to transport him to the surface in any state approaching alive.
"I don't know. The surface is far away, and if you swam the distance quickly, the rapid change in pressure would surely prove fatal."
"What can we-I-do, then?"
"We can go to the palace of Kyrasti," explained Marqillor. "That's the great dome where Krell-Bane and Sythissal hold court. It's the very heart of the Coral Kingdom. More significantly, a portion of the throne room is filled with air. You will be able to survive there."
"Sythissal." The name was familiar to Tristan. The sahuagin king had been his enemy for more than twenty years. "But who's Krell-Bane?"
"The king of the sea trolls, and a very evil monarch he is. Krell-Bane is the most hated enemy of the merfolk, and we have been given a marvelous chance to strike him!"
"Why is it so marvelous?" Tristan wondered.
"Because you freed me," explained the merman prince. "The perimeter of the scrag king's palace is well patrolled by sharks as well as by his troops. The interior of the castle, secure as he imagines it to be, is not nearly so well protected."
"How far is it?"
"Several miles," admitted Marqillor, placing a hand on Tristan's arm as the human's face fell.
"I can never swim that far," Tristan acknowledged with a shrug. To come so close to escaping, and now to be thwarted by such a trivial distance!
"There might be a way," offered Marqillor, studying Tristan's face. "It is not without risk, and it requires great courage on your part, but it may be possible for you to make it."
"I'm ready to try anything," said Tristan-and he meant it.
"Dead ahead, Brandon," Robyn quietly announced to the Prince of Gnarhelm. The northman nodded. For five days, he had followed no compass but the intuition of the Great Druid, yet he didn't begin to doubt the acuity of her direction.
The wind had favored them for the first two days but then faded to a lackluster breeze. They made headway, but their listless wake sliced placid waters, a far cry from the white slash trailing the Princess of Moonshae when she was under full sail.
"Look-in the water!" announced Brigit, her voice terse and commanding.
The others saw them, too-sharks, in a great school gathered around the longship. Schools of the ugly fish, triangular fins slicing the surface of the water in menacing patterns, approached from fore and aft until dozens of the predators surrounded them, spread in a wide escort around the longship. The marine predators had no difficulty matching the Princess of Moonshae's speed.
One of the longbowmen took aim at a huge gray shark as it approached the hull. His arrow pierced the sleek body, immediately coloring the surrounding water pale red. Moments later, the ugly fish closed on their stricken fellow, tearing the body apart in a thrashing orgy of killing.
"Look! Here come more of them!" announced Keane as more fins appeared, slicing through the water from the north. Additional bowmen raised arrows and took aim.
"Don't shoot," the queen suggested. "The blood will only draw replacements-faster, I'm sure, than we can kill them off."
"Makes sense. Save the arrows for the sahuagin and scrags," Brandon agreed.
"Look!" For an hour or more, Knaff the elder had been observing a strange blot on the northern horizon, until finally he made his terse announcement, calling the discovery to the attention of the others.
"It's one of those damned flat ships!" cursed the captain as soon as he saw the object. He looked critically at the sun, the sail, and then back to the pursuing Manta.
"They'll be on us with hours of daylight to spare," he announced cryptically.
Robyn came to the stern and looked. "I could try to raise the wind…" she said tentatively, turning to look at the Prince of Gnarhelm.
Brandon met her gaze, then shook his head firmly from side to side.
"There's only one of 'em now. I think we should take our chances in a fair fight. We're sailing into the heart of their territory, and it doesn't make sense to let that ship hug our tail while we do it!"
"I agree," Alicia said firmly, turning to her mother. "And we serve no purpose exhausting you before we get there!" The princess's readiness for battle surprised even herself, but Alicia found herself looking forward to crossing blades with the aquatic horrors on the Manta. After the long days of travel and repair and further travel, her emotions distressed her. Brandon continued to make her nervous, and she couldn't look at Keane without a stab of guilt.
It seemed proper now that they would begin to settle this matter, writing the solution in blood.
True to Brandon's prediction, the Manta had closed to within a few hundred feet by midafternoon. Alicia studied its approach, clearly able to distinguish the long platforms separated by strips of churning sea. Hundreds of fishmen paddled furiously, and the blunt prow of the raft rode up on the swells, the flatship surging forward like a great flying fish.
The humans readied themselves for battle, and it seemed to the princess that her mood was shared by the rest of the crew. She saw no reluctance to face the sea beasts. Indeed, many of the men displayed smiles of grim satisfaction at the prospect of battle.
As the splashing raft drew steadily nearer, the crew of the longship studied their foes and prepared to mount a defense. First to strike were the Corwellian longbowmen.
"Aim for the sahuagin, men!" Hanrald urged. "Your arrows'll be wasted on the sea trolls!"
The ten Ffolk archers fired volley after volley of steel-headed death from their powerful weapons. Most of the missiles angled with precision onto the unprotected decks and rowing benches of the Manta, and dozens of the scaly fishmen squirmed from the impact of the deadly rain. Their comrades simply pitched the slain over the sides to lighten the load for those remaining. Sharks swarmed among the corpses, relishing the gruesome feast.
The High Queen faced the approaching craft and held her staff in both hands. Alicia, beside her, carried the changestaff for the time being, but her sword rested in its scabbard at her belt. More arrows poured onto the Manta, but they seemed to put little dent in the teeming sea beasts.
Then, to the horror of the humans, the raft surged forward, veering toward the longship's rear quarter. The prow of the Manta, Alicia saw, was not so blunt as she had imagined. In fact, it narrowed to a sharklike snout, and through the froth of the wake, they could see the gray reflection of a metal-tipped ram!
Robyn recognized the impending disaster clearly, and she raised a prayer to the goddess Earthmother. Even through the deck of the longship, past the thousands of feet of brine into the ocean depth, the power of the great druid touched that of her deity and the words of the spell came forth.
"Cadeus, devor-ast!" cried the High Queen, and the command words touched the power of wood. Trees were the most stately children of the goddess, and thus ever susceptible to her will, even after they had been torn from the earth, their timber turned to the uses of creatures such as humans … or sea trolls.
Timber such as the heavy shaft of the ram.
Robyn's spell warped the great beam, twisting it downward and forming a great curl back toward the Manta. The creaking force of the twisting wood shrieked against their ears, but the shaft did not splinter. Instead, it held its new shape, the great timber curling downward into the water, pointed harmlessly toward the ocean floor. The sudden increase in drag slowed the great raft like an anchor, and disaster was averted for the moment. As the Manta lurched to the side, waves of water rolled over the long rowing benches, dragging the craft still slower and carrying many of the sahuagin right off their vessel.