The Coral Kingdom

10

Brandon cursed, and veteran northmen sailors tumbled from their rowing benches, dislodged by the force of the collision. The Princess of Moonshae shuddered violently as a cascade of seawater surged over the gunwale. Alicia scrambled to regain her balance, certain that the hull of the longship had been fatally punctured.

But as she stood again, the princess realized that the deck felt solid under her feet, and she could see no sign of a crack in the solid planks of the hull. She tried to tell herself that, just maybe, the Princess of Moonshae was not finished yet.

If water was not pouring in, however, the same could not be said of the sahuagin. Dozens of fishmen leaped toward the longship's hull as soon as the two vessels collided. In a few seconds, many of them sprang to the gunwales and scrambled into the shallow hull.

Following the impact, the prow of the longship rested on the broad, timbered deck of the enemy raft. Stout, waterlogged beams formed parallel keels separated by the long strips of water. Under the weight of Brandon's ship, the bow of the raft wallowed beneath the waves. With the fishmen scrambling all around, it seemed as though the two vessels were firmly locked together.

Brandon shouted an inarticulate cry and split a sahuagin skull with his great axe. Wultha picked up one of the creatures in his huge hands, snapping the creature's spine before casting it into the faces of two of the corpse's charging compatriots.

Keane, meanwhile, snapped the words to a quick spell and crushed something like dried threads in his left hand. He pointed at the fishmen with his right. Immediately strands of gooey string shot from his extended fingers, wrapping themselves about several of the approaching monsters, binding them securely to the hull. The creatures snapped and snarled, but their most diligent struggles couldn't break them free. Even more were ensnared as they attempted to crawl over the original targets of the web.

Hanrald, holding his great longsword in both hands, cleaved his way through a pack of the sea monsters, slicing a huge scrag into pieces small enough that he could kick them over the side. The lack of armor, which he would have worn for any battle on land, didn't slow his aggressive tactics in the least. He shouted and roared, leaping this way and that, muscles tensing for each bone-crushing blow.

But not all of the attacks went the way of the humans. Three northmen in the bow fell, fatally wounded in the first rush before they even had time to draw their weapons. Others felt the kiss of sahuagin steel-hooks and spears, scimitars and tridents-as more and more of the creatures spilled into the longship's hull.

Alicia's keen longsword drove through the shelled breastplate of a scale-faced fishman, and then she gasped as the creature fell, for beyond it loomed a much more formidable foe.

Nobody had to tell her that this was one of the scrags. A wide mouth, like a shark's, gaped open to reveal many rows of short, barbed teeth. Stringy hair, like strands of pale kelp, straggled across the monster's smooth scalp, while pale, dead eyes stared with all the emotion of a fish.

But there was plenty of threat in the creature's actions as it raised a double-pronged spear and aimed it at the unarmored princess. Powerfully clawed feet gripped the gunwale as the creature loomed, monstrously huge.

"Incendrius!" Keane barked the single word that cast one of his most powerful spells, a magical command that caused a tiny pebble of flame to burst from his finger and drift, with a deceptively gentle and wavering flight, like a seed borne by a gentle breeze, toward the gunwale of the Princess.

"Down!" shouted the mage, then watched as Alicia scrambled back from the looming horror of the scrag.

The fireball exploded with a white flash that, for a split second, seemed to outshine the sun. The mage had pushed the center of the spell well past the longship's hull, but tongues of flame sizzled outward in a seething hellfire that licked along the gunwale and singed a corner of the sail. Several scrags perched on the rail vanished, incinerated to ashes in less than a second, and the following wave of sahuagin perished, shrieking, in another moment.

The respite gave the princess enough time to climb to her feet. She thought of her staff and immediately seized the shaft of wood, stamped it on the deck, and shouted the command: "Phyrosyne!"

The shaft began to grow, extending upward in shoots of green branches, planting feet to either side. The tree creature reached out with its tough, branchlike hands-and promptly fell over as the longship rocked on a gentle swell. The flailing branches knocked sahuagin and northmen down together as the magical being struggled to gain its balance on the unstable platform.

Exasperated, Alicia raised her sword against another scaly, fang-bristling face that appeared at the gunwale. She could hear the crunching and creaking of timbers as the two wooden hulls scraped together, a sound broken by the screams of sahuagin and scrags crushed between the vessels.

She sliced the head from one of the fishmen, ignoring the gore that spewed from its neck. The corpse toppled backward, and then once more she faced a huge sea troll. The creature sprang to the gunwale, balancing on its clawed, webbed feet while it brandished a trident over its head and thumped a fist against its solid, heavily muscled chest.

The princess darted forward to attack, deflecting the monster's forked weapon and gashing its thigh with her silver long-sword. The creature bellowed and thrust, driving the prongs of its trident into the deck beside Alicia's foot. It struggled momentarily to pull the three-pronged spear free, and this was all the opening the princess needed.

Alicia aimed a wicked slash at the thing's scaly belly, watching as her keen steel sliced halfway through the vulnerable area. The sea troll gagged and choked, slipping backward as green blood spurted into the longship, across Alicia's legs. She paused, gasping for breath, waiting for the creature to fall dead.

Instead, she saw the gashes in the scrag's body slowly mend themselves, as if an invisible pair of healing hands pulled the sides of the wound together and bound them. For several moments, the monster wobbled, as if it would still perish, but then its eyes snapped open, boring into Alicia, and once again the creature raised its trident.

Forcing her dread to the back of her mind, Alicia lifted her sword to parry the coming blow, feeling as if she moved through a dream. The blade clashed against the gleaming steel tines, but one of the barbed tips scored a gouge across the woman's shoulder, tearing through her light tunic to puncture her skin. The princess ignored the pain, driving her own blade inside the creature's defenses, plunging the tip through the monster's belly and then pushing forward with all her strength.

Green blood splashed over her hand, and she felt the bile that rose in her throat. With a final shove, she forced the monster backward, off the rail, then clung to her sword with all her might as the beast fell away, almost dragging her weapon with it.

Finally she pulled the gore-streaked blade free and slumped against the gunwale, looking for her next opponent. A few sahuagin fought for their lives against the men of Brandon's crew, but they quickly met a gory fate. A pair of huge scrags, their bodies punctured by dozens of arrows from the Corwellian bowmen, stood back to back in the center of the hull. Brandon and Wultha led a charge that dragged the two creatures down to the deck. Numerous weapons hacked the sea trolls into immobility, and retching sailors tossed the grim remains into the sea, where they would doubtlessly regenerate.

Alicia could see that the Princess of Moonshae had at last passed the huge raft, breaking free to carve her course through the sea. Worriedly she looked ahead, remembering how the second raft had risen from the sea directly in their path. Now both craft of the aquatic attackers frothed through the water to the stern.

That knowledge was minimal consolation, however, for the flailing paddles on the flat rafts propelled both of them along the longship's wake with shocking quickness. The second vessel took a little while to get up to speed, but soon it was planing across the waves, driving forward even a little faster than the first one.

Still, the battle had ended for the moment. The oarsmen labored in the longship's hull, and the Princess moved with stately grace away from the attackers. Alicia's tree creature, still unable to gain its balance in the ship, settled in the hull, and she commanded it back into its staff form, irritated against her better judgement with her enchanted but clumsy ally.

Robyn stood at the stern, watching the two vessels and their complements of screaming, scaled monstrosities. Then she turned back toward the bow, looking upward at the wide sail that caught the gentle breeze-but not enough to pull them away from their enemies.

The High Queen closed her eyes and reached for the power of her goddess. The Earthmother heard and answered the call of her Great Druid.

And the sail bulged outward with a freshening wind.

The man awakened after a very long time. . years, or perhaps a lifetime.

Perhaps even longer.

He sat up and looked around, reaching toward his side, driven by instinct to grasp for something. But what? Whatever it had been, it wasn't there now. Nothing was there now, beyond his skin and a pale white tunic that barely covered his nakedness.

A sword-that's what he reached for. He recalled an image now, indistinct but coming into focus. He saw a silvery blade, sensed its sharpness along both edges, felt the strength inherent in the gleaming steel.

Where am I?

The man looked around. His surroundings were dark, but not black. Long panels lined the ceiling, huge surfaces of opaque glass. From beyond, there issued a dull glow, like a distant lantern diffused through a mound of emeralds.

He saw a surface … for sleeping, the hard slab where he had awakened. A bed-he recalled the term from somewhere. This one was made of a hard substance, like rock, but a little softer to the touch. He ground granules of the stuff away with the palm of his hand. Not rock-what was it?

An image came to him of surf, of long white breakers pouring onto a beach, and blocky objects in the water-like this thing that made his bed.

Coral. The word came to him, and he felt a small measure of pleasure.

A noise sounded somewhere in the distance, and once again he reached reflexively for the sword. But something was strange in that motion, something beyond the fact that he had no weapon.

He looked down, and his eyes widened in shock. The movement felt unnatural, he realized, because he had only one hand! His left arm ended at the wrist, in a clean, well-healed wound that was nevertheless none too old.

Again the man looked around, at the strange canopy overhead and the walls of solid coral. He noticed a pool of still, dark water. There seemed to be no other way in or out of the chamber.

And then a deeper question came, beyond the wheres and the whys. The man slumped to the coral bed with a groan, but he resisted the urge to lower his head. Instead, he raised his face to the ceiling and spoke.

"Who am I?" he asked.

But no one and nothing answered.

Mastery of Caer Callidyrr was an idle pastime to Deirdre. The offices of her mother and father in truth required little attention during these summer days. Royal court was not in session, nor were there any pressing matters of diplomacy or war to concern her.

Instead, she found time for the tasks that were dear to her-the study of her magic, and the contemplation of the world she saw in her mirror.

It was to the latter that she found herself drawn more and more, as if she sensed that she could learn more from the glass than from any dense tome or musty volume.

Shortly after she had teleported from Corwell to Callidyrr, she located the Princess of Moonshae in the mirror. The image, she learned, displayed an easy affinity for locating Deirdre's mother or her sister. As soon as she imagined the wide expanse of Corwell Firth-and, on later days, the Trackless Sea-the image of the sleek longship came into focus. As always, she could move closer, like a gull diving toward the wavetops, and steady her vision with as much detail as she desired.

But that proved rather a mundane activity. There was little variance, as the days passed, in the activities of the crew or passengers on the long voyage. Even the weather remained fixed in its clear sky and light, favorable wind.

Deirdre had quickly thought of using the mirror to seek her father, but she found no such link as with her female kin. Instead, she probed the depths of the ocean, but saw only vast seas, giant fish, and a dark, featureless floor.

There was one more whom Deirdre desired to seek through the glass, yet thus far she had lacked the courage. Still, she remembered the tingle of recognition when she had spied him at the Corwell festival. This was the one she had called Malawar. There had been a powerful affinity in that sensation, as well as very real fear.

Deirdre felt nothing romantic nor even vaguely affectionate in that attraction. Rather, she thought of Malawar as a mighty source of power, a source that she had barely mastered once, and then only to send it away. But now her mind had begun to think more ambitious thoughts: If she could but capture that power, channel it to her own ends. .

The possibilities seemed unlimited.

The being that so occupied Deirdre's thoughts remained in the seas below the Princess of Moonshae. Sinioth lurked in the depths, awaiting the progress of the Mantaships with growing impatience. The gap narrowed, but too slowly for the avatar's desires. Sythissal, king of the sahuagin, remained below the sea with his master, while Krell-Bane commanded the attacking force on the surface.

It was the power of the accursed goddess, he knew, that sustained the unnatural wind. Normally the sleek rafts of the scrags should have overtaken the longship by now. But instead, he was forced to endure this crawling chase.

But the longship had sailed far from the Moonshaes now, and the great druid drew her strength from the very localized presence of the Earthmother. Surely she could not maintain this magic forever!

Seething with the impatience of his hatred, Coss-Axell-Sinioth tried to settle down and wait.