The night after getting his summons and watching Mena try to comfort the aging chieftain, Kelis did not sleep. Instead, he lay on his mat with his eyes pinned open, imagining journeying south instead of heading north to Bocoum. What if he crossed the great river and sought out the Santoth in the far south? Perhaps Aliver was among them. Maybe that's why he still seemed to live. Or perhaps they could bring him back into life. Maybe they just needed-wanted-to be asked. Aliver had been brave enough to seek the sorcerers out. Perhaps another needed to do the same.
He was thankful when the new day dawned. With the morning breeze and the slant of the sun, the world sprang to life. Mena was a whirlwind of energy, in among the Halaly men like one of them, her voice as loud as theirs and even more in command. She was a sensitive being, Kelis knew, troubled by things she rarely spoke of. But to the world she was at her best when danger neared, all certainty and poise and maybe even a hunger to be face-to-face with peril.
The Halaly had effectively formed a blockade to hem the beast in. Skimmers and other boats were spaced at even intervals, anchored in place and connected with ropes that made an unbroken line. The early hours were spent shuttling crossbowmen, warriors, fishermen, and others out to the various vessels. A steady wind white-capped the water and buffeted the boats, straining them against their anchors. They had chosen this day for the wind, knowing the rhythm by which the air currents shifted and when they blew strongest.
Once all were as near to being in place as they could be over such bobbing, moving expanse, the signal to lift anchor and unfurl their sails issued from the mouths of Halaly horns. The skimmer that Kelis rode in jumped to grab the wind. The sail snapped as it filled, and he had to hold on as the light vessel surged into motion. The craft-two narrow pontoons with a skin platform between and a simple rudder-had a shallow draft and was built for speed. The water they zipped over was no more than waist deep. He could have rolled into the water and stood half wet, risking only to be cut in two by another skimmer. Indeed, they sailed through reeds and marsh grasses, sliced over lily pads and spreading green muck.
It was an impressive sight, but it seemed suddenly wrong. Why hadn't he considered this before? There are too many of us! How could a hundred ships coordinate an attack on one creature while moving at such speed? They would get tangled and crash into one another as they neared it. He wanted to shout out that the plan of attack was flawed. He wished he were with Mena. Surely she was thinking the same and must be trying to convince the Halaly of this. But he was just one of a few in this skimmer. He did not really even have a role here except to be with the Halaly, to do as they did, and to aid the crossbowmen who would be their main weapon.
The lookout perched at the prow of one of the pontoons shouted. He leaned over the water, his arm outstretched and finger pointing. Kelis tried to follow his direction, but he saw only water and a protrusion in the distance that he took to be a small island. But it was just a round mound of earth atop which reeds and perhaps a few short shrubs grew.
Why, then, did it move? Why did it change shape before his eyes, as if the entire island had rolled over and come up with a new topography? Nobody else seemed as confused as he was. They continued to hurtle toward it at all the wind's speed, shouting to one another, their spray-splashed eyes fixed on their target.
He looked again down the line of moving vessels, having no idea anymore where the princess was, hating the knowledge that she could die here just like any of them, just as her brother had. The formation was ragged now, with some skimmers ahead of others. Kelis's vessel was soon behind a few others, blocking his view of the island that was not an island. He wished-although he knew it was not a true wish but one sprung from the moment-that Mena was content to rule from a safe distance, like Corinn in one of her palaces. A strange thought to have here, and not one that he held for long.
When he next saw the creature it was near enough that he could doubt it no more. It dwarfed any living creature he had ever seen. It was comparable to nothing that walked or swam or squirmed. Its girth was like an outcropping of rock, like a hillside or like the island he had first thought it to be. But it was a flippered, scaled mountain of an undulating semi-aquatic monster, like no fish but with parts of fish in it, like no worm and yet wormlike in the grotesque rolling convulsions that propelled it forward. It bristled with scales that peeled as if it were diseased, no real protection as they opened and closed with its movements, the body beneath them as translucent and spotted and slick as the flesh of a squid. It did not swim at all, for the water was far too shallow. It wriggled away from them with the blubbery determination of a seal made huge. Its speed, though, was nothing compared to that of the skimmers.
The foremost of the vessels reached it. They raced along either side of it, tiny on the nearside and hidden altogether on the other. The first crossbowmen launched their barbed missiles made with a hinged construction designed especially for this task. Strong ropes trailed out behind the missiles. It only took a few moments after firing for the lengths of rope to unfurl behind the swift vessels and yank taut to the cleats secured to the skimmers' prows. The line tugged on the missile, but instead of pulling free, the prongs carved quick trenches through the foulthing's flesh. They sank deeper and stuck fast in a matter of seconds.
The jolt when their boats were jerked to a halt sent several soldiers into the water. Others pitched from the prows when the ropes snapped. In two boats the cleats were ripped out, sending splinters of wood flying.
Kelis saw this all in fragments captured by his darting eyes. By the time Kelis's skimmer neared range, a slightly greater order had been established. More crews were remembering to drop their sails as they set the barbs. Several boats-sails again curved with the wind-now strained as the earth's breath pressed them forward. As more flew past the heaving creature the crossbowmen pierced it and pierced it again. Rope after rope snapped taut. Barb after barb set deep.
Before long the beast was being pulled into the shallows behind fifty skimmers, with more joining every minute. It was even more maddened than before. Its great cavern of a mouth rose out of the muck. It gasped and bared row after row of teeth. It looked as if it wished to roar but was instead more ghastly for its lack of a voice.
Kelis aided his vessel's crossbowman by steadying him as he aimed and by pulling him back into the boat as his missile hissed out. He heard the captain shouting orders to the other crewmembers, and he did what he could to aid them. The next few minutes passed in a blur of confused motion and noise and wind. He was jostled about the boat, had to duck the boom, and nearly toppled into the water. All around them other skimmers cut in and out, colliding in a tangle of ropes and flying bolts, wind slapping cries about. Quite a few lost their lives or broke bones or were otherwise injured; and through most of it Kelis could not tell if their efforts were achieving what they hoped. He knew the water was getting shallower and shallower. He saw that they were cutting through muck now, but it wasn't until the beast itself showed its true fear that Kelis believed they had it.