Alicia saw her changestaff slip and fall, splashing through one of the slots in the hull, but then the limbs extended across the rowing bench, and slowly the stiff wooden shape scrambled back to the Manta. A huge scrag leaped at it, splintering one armlike limb with a crushing axe blow, but the tree being's other arm wrapped swiftly around the scrag's ankles, pulling the beast to the deck. The monster howled in pain as the wooden form twisted its body into a crippled mass of scaly flesh, finally tossing the grotesque thing to the sharks.
"Attack! Take the fight right to 'em!" bellowed Brandon, gathering his crew for a charge.
The water elemental and the prince led the lumbering assault. The humans formed a V-shaped wave with Brandon at the point as they battled their way across the rocking deck of the Manta. Several men fell through the rowing slots in the chaos of the battle, plunging into water churning with hungry sharks, but there was no stopping to save them as the battle rose to a furious pitch.
Alicia's vision focused on an array of fang-studded mouths and ripping, wickedly curved talons. Her blade claimed victim after victim, and she drew comfort from Hanrald's steady presence at her side. On the other side of the earl, Brigit Cu'Lyrran held her own, her silvery longsword streaked with the green, red, and black blood of their fishlike enemies.
Robyn advanced in the rear of the attacking wave, going to each of the sea trolls wounded or temporarily slain in the battle. To these wretched predators she touched the tip of her staff, and the body crackled into flame, sputtering an oily cloud of black smoke into the air. The legs and arms of the horrid beasts shriveled into the flames as the magical fires devoured their grotesque fuel.
Arrows showered overhead as the longbowmen, standing at the rail of the Princess of Moonshae, continued to support the attack. When the assault carried halfway across the Manta, a huge scrag organized a counterattack, a rush of monsters that took the humans by surprise. Several crewmen fell, and Alicia lost her footing on the blood-and-water-slicked deck.
She teetered at the brink of a foaming slot in the deck, sensing the sharks thrashing below, eager for her blood. Desperately she reached out, but her hand slipped across the slick timbers. Then she felt a firm grip under her arm, and Keane pulled her backward, just beyond the thrust of a monstrous scrag. Her feet splashed into the water, and she felt a sharp cut in her calf as a snapping shark narrowly missed a meal.
The mage barked a command word as a sea troll-the hugest Alicia had ever seen-raised a monstrous trident. Keane pointed over Alicia's head, and she saw bolts of magic explode from the mage's outstretched finger, each of the missiles spattering into the chest of the monster, driving it steadily backward until, after nearly a dozen blasts, a mass of sahuagin rushed forward, blocking the magic-user's line of fire. The fishmen swarmed around the water elemental, and though many of them fell from the creature's crushing blows, finally the enchanted being collapsed into water, flowing back into the sea from which he had come.
Brandon personally led a charge toward the huge scrag. The other monsters deferred to the great creature, who wielded a monstrous double-bladed sword. The Prince of Gnarhelm struck at the thing with his axe, and the sea troll slowly, steadily gave ground.
Hanrald and Knaff the Elder stepped in to guard the captain's flanks, while Alicia turned to look back to her mother, intent on protecting her against any monsters who might break through the rank of northmen. She saw a monstrous sea troll fell a crewman and charge forward with an upraised spear aimed straight at the High Queen's heart!
But Alicia leaped across a slot of churning seawater, getting there first, chopping savagely to hamstring the charging monster before it could cast its weapon. The beast fell and she cut its throat, stabbing hard to penetrate the scrag's scaly armor. Quickly her mother stepped to her side, stamping her staff against the sea troll and starting its incineration.
Brandon and the monstrous scrag chopped and slashed back and forth, the northman swinging his great battle-axe with bone-crushing force, the scrag wielding the massive sword as if he were a lumberjack striving to fell a tree with a single blow. Again and again the two metal blades clashed together, neither fighter able to gain an advantage as they leaped and dodged across the blood-slicked planks of the Manta's deck.
Cries of alarm drew their attention back to the Princess of Moonshae, where they saw a dozen sea trolls scrambling over the sides-the type of attack Brandon had suspected. But the longbowmen were ready, throwing down their missile weapons and meeting the attack with cold steel. The ten Ffolk archers battled desperately to hold the longship, and though three had fallen by the time Hanrald reached them with reinforcements, the scrags were all slain or sent bleeding back to the depths.
The huge scrag battling Brandon lunged for the captain, sweeping his great sword through a great arc with enough force to slice a human body in two if it connected. The northman ducked as the blade whistled toward him, barely evading the strike. As Brandon sprang back to his feet, the double-bitted axe whipped upward, the edge biting deep into the scrag's belly. The monster howled and dropped the sword, which bounced off the deck and vanished into the sea. The scrag spun, ready to dive after the weapon, but Brandon's blade struck again, squarely between the monster's shoulders. It fell to the deck with a thud as the Prince of Gnarhelm chopped it again, this time fatally. In another moment Robyn reached them, touching her staff to incinerate the beast before it could regenerate.
Next Keane and Robyn combined to sweep a surging wall of flame across the last corner of the Manta where they still met resistance, finally clearing the enemy vessel of foes. Fires smoldered in many places where Robyn had torched the bodies of the sea trolls, and the frame of the raft itself burned in several spots.
"Oil!" cried Brandon. "Bring those casks over here!"
Crewmen made ready to cast the longship free as the flammable liquid was poured liberally over the deck of the Manta. Pools of oil caught fire as soon as they touched the smoldering sea trolls, and quickly the surface of the raft was engulfed by flame.
The humans beat a hasty retreat to the Princess of Moonshae and quickly drew in the lines that lashed the two vessels together. Sunset began to shroud the sea as they hoisted sail and caught the freshening breeze, the same breeze that fanned the fires aboard the burning Manta into an inferno of destruction.
The great raft blazed into the night, a shrinking ember on the horizon, as the speeding longship once again followed her course to the southeast.
Talos and Malar watched the unfolding drama through the window of his enchanted mirror, beholding each scene as Deirdre observed it-peering over her shoulder, in effect, at the longship and its desperately battling crew.
The Destructor felt the woman's interest in the avatar even as he saw the failure of Sinioth's plan to trap the longship. Would the servant of evil fail him again? If he did, Talos vowed that it would be Sinioth's last failure.
Then once again his thoughts turned to the dark-haired princess as Deirdre focused her attention on the enchanted-and very dangerous-glass.
17
"We're close now," Robyn announced, full of certainty. She didn't try to explain her assurance, nor did any question it. Faith had guided them across hundreds of miles of the Trackless Sea. Now that same faith told the queen that her husband was near.
Sunrise cloaked the Princess of Moonshae in a fine mist, but pale blue already domed overhead with the promise of a clear day. A good breeze had carried them through the night, and now it ruffled the sea into cheery whitecaps.