The light from the moons gleamed on the dark water of the cove. Makala had the impression of shadowy forms moving near the edge of the dock just beneath the water’s surface, but perhaps it was just her imagination. The lingering after-effects of her head injury conspired with the night and moonlight to create an illusion. Still, she decided not to get too close to the dock’s edge.
“Eyes front,” a raider growled and pricked her lower back with his sword.
Makala had to bite her lip and curl her hands into fists, fingernails digging into the palms, to channel her anger so she wouldn’t whirl around and break the sword-happy idiot’s neck.
Ahead of her, Zabeth moaned and stumbled to her knees.
“Get up!” one of the raiders snapped.
Makala stepped forward to help the old shifter woman, but the same raider who’d pricked her back said, “Mind your place, missy, or you might find yourself taking a moonlight swim, and believe me, that’s something you’d prefer to avoid.”
The raiders nearby who had caught the comment laughed, and Makala knew she hadn’t been hallucinating when she thought she’d seen something swimming in the cove.
As much as she wanted to go to Zabeth’s aid, she knew the raiders would never permit it and that she’d likely just cause trouble for Zabeth and the other prisoners by attempting to defy their captors. She gritted her teeth and remained where she was while the sword-happy raider stepped around her. Zabeth knelt with her head hung low, trembling and swaying from side to side, as if she were going to faint any moment. The raider toed her in the rump, not gently, but not hard enough to be considered a kick, either.
“Come on, old woman, get on your feet. We’re not going to carry you in.”
“That’s not a woman!” another of the raiders shouted. “Can’t you see she’s a shifter?”
“Nothin wrong with that!” yet another raider called out. “Ernard likes ’em old and hairy!”
More raiders burst out laughing this time, and Ernard, less than thrilled at being the source of amusement for his companions, kicked Zabeth again, much harder this time.
There was only so much that Makala was willing to let pass. She started forward, intending to fulfill her earlier fantasy about wrapping her manacle chains around a raider’s throat and strangling him. Before she could do so, Zabeth turned to look up at her tormentor, her face transformed into a more savage, bestial aspect. She bared her fangs, growled, and brought her claws up into the juncture between the raider’s legs. The man screamed, blood gushed onto the dock, and Zabeth grinned.
Though the raider had been severely wounded, the man still possessed enough presence of mind to raise his sword so that he might strike back at Zabeth. Makala lunged at the raider and caught his sword arm with her manacle chains. She shifted her weight, yanked hard, and the bleeding raider dropped his sword as he spun off the dock and into the water. He hit with a loud splash and disappeared beneath the surface. Makala saw movement under the water as several large somethings swam from under the dock toward the spot where the raider had sunk. Everyone on the dock, raider and prisoner, watched the water now, and one of the raiders said, “That’s it for Ernard, then,” without the slightest hint of sorrow.
“Better this way,” another raider said. “Who’d want to go on livin’ after gettin’ tore up down there?”
The water burst into a foaming froth as Ernard broke the surface, shrieking in agony and terror. Several large dark shapes had attached themselves to his body, and it took Makala a moment before she recognized what they were-crabs, but not ordinary crabs. These were much bigger, about the size of a large shield. The creatures tore vigorously as the raider’s flesh, oversized claws cutting like razor-sharp blades through skin and muscle, all the way down to the bone. At the rate they were going, it wouldn’t take long for them to strip Ernard’s body clean.
The dock shuddered as if something huge moved beneath it, and a shadow slid out from under the dock toward Ernard, a big shadow.
“Looks like Mama’s hungry,” a raider said, and though the woman’s tone was one of dark delight, there was an edge of queasiness to her voice as well.
The crabs, as if reacting to some silent signal, abandoned their prey and disappeared into the water. Still screaming and bleeding from dozens of wounds, Ernard sank beneath the surface, but he didn’t stay down for long. Water roiled and Ernard burst back into view, caught within the claw of a gigantic crustacean. This, then, was Mama.
The claw squeezed and Ernard’s screams were silenced as the raider fell back into the water as two separate pieces. The surface surged upward and Makala had the impression of a dark craggy shell, a pair of beady hate-filled eyes, and ferociously working mouth parts. Then Ernard was gone, and Mama submerged. The dock shuddered again, and Makala realized the gigantic she-crab had once again taken het roosting spot among the dock supports beneath their feet. How many of the she-crab’s children clung to the supports along with the mother, hungry and ever alert, hopeful that another tasty morsel would fall off the dock and into their waiting claws?
No one made a sound as the ripples caused by the submerging she-crab slowly subsided, but once the water was calm again, one of the raiders stepped forward, grabbed Zabeth by the elbow, and hauled the elderly shifter woman to her feet. Makala expected Zabeth to attack the man just as she had Ernard, but her bestial features were gone. She was just a frightened, exhausted old woman who could barely remain on her feet.
“I don’t know who captured you,” the raider said, “but whoever it was is an idiot. We don’t have any need for shifters, let alone any as old as you.” With his free hand, the raider unsheathed his sword. “Ernard was no friend of mine,” the man said with a slowly widening smile, “but I’m going to enjoy taking revenge for him.”
“No!” Makala shouted.
She tried to put herself between Zabeth and the raider, but someone reached out and grabbed hold of the chain connecting her wrist manacles. The raider was female, and Makala recognized her as one of the pair that had climbed down into the Nightwind’s hold. Steel whispered and the woman pressed the point of a dagger to the underside of Makala’s chin.
“Careful, you’re about to make yourself more trouble than you’re worth,” the raider warned.
Makala wished her mind wasn’t dulled by hunger and her reflexes slowed by weariness. She knew she couldn’t just stand here and let Zabeth be slaughtered, but her brain refused to offer up any alternatives.
The raider who had hold of Zabeth raised his sword high, preparing to bring it down in a killing stroke. Makala hoped that Zabeth might be able to once more unleash the bestial side of her shifter, but the old woman just looked at the sword blade gleaming in the moonlight with tired resignation and waited for death to claim her.
“Hold!”
The voice echoed through the air, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once. The raider holding Zabeth froze, an expression of stark terror on his face. Makala glanced at the woman holding the dagger to her throat and saw a similar expression mirrored on her face. All the raiders looked scared, and they all stood motionless as statues, heads turned toward the entrance in the cliff wall where the dock disappeared into darkness. Makala turned and watched as two figures came striding forth from the shadows. She recognized the one on the left as Onkar. The raider commander was grinning, displaying his sharp vampire teeth, and his eyes glowed red like two smoldering fires.