Under fallen stars

XXIX

2 Flamerule, the Year of the Gauntlet

Tarjana cleaved steadily through the water, deep into the territory of Aleaxtis. Vahaxtyl, the sahuagin capital, lay in ruins less than five hundred yards away, riven by the volcano's explosion the day before.

Standing on the enchanted mudship's prow, Laaqueel stared out at the destruction scattered over the bed of the Alamber Sea. It was worse than she had expected. For a time she'd feared none of the sahuagin community had lived through the fiery blast.

Huge, jagged rocks lay strewn across the blasted terrain. Dead fish floated in the dappled turquoise water and glinted silver where the weak sun's rays touched them. Small scavengers that had finally returned to the area worried frantically at the unexpected feast, concerned that larger predators would come at any moment. More rubble covered the skeletal remains of ships that had fallen to sahuagin savagery, battles, and deadly storms.

Dozens of sahuagin bodies floated in the currents as well, prey to the flesh-eaters also. The malenti priestess knew that those weren't all that had been killed. Many more corpses had surely remained trapped inside their dwellings when they caved in. Other bodies had been swept away by time and tide.

The living sahuagin worked among their dead, sharp claws and huge teeth stripping meat from the corpses for meals. The scent and taste of scalded blood and boiled meat hung in the water, constantly touching Laaqueel's nostrils.

"You are troubled, priestess?"

Slowly, not knowing how to properly broach the subject, Laaqueel turned to face Iakhovas. Her eyes met his even though she still wanted to show him deference. No matter what, she knew she couldn't lie. He would know and she didn't want that between them.

"Yes," she said simply.

Iakhovas walked to the railing and closed his hands over it. His face remained stern and hard. "Why?"

"So many lives of We Who Eat have been forfeited." She gestured out at the seabed. "They have lost their homes."

In the distance, the Ship of the Gods still simmered. White, foamy bubbles from superheated water spiraled to the surface. The currents threaded hot waves in with the cool ones that coiled around Laaqueel. Still, the volcano appeared to be in little danger of spewing deadly lava again.

"Ah, little malenti, your perception of things is off and you don't even know it."

A sudden flush of anger flooded Laaqueel. She turned to him.

"You forget, my priestess," Iakhovas continued before she could speak, "they didn't choose to make their lives here." He gestured at the heaps of rubble. "That's no home, no village lying out there strewn about and destroyed. This parcel of unwanted land is what the sea elves and mermen grudgingly gave this tribe of We Who Eat after the First Seros War over ten thousand years ago. They drove them here, then penned them in, and they've kept them here ever since." He held her eyes with his solitary one. "This was no home, priestess. This was a prison."

In her heart, Laaqueel knew he spoke the truth. Everything around her, including the Alamber Sea, was a cage. The Serosian sahuagin had lived very small lives.

"I had not intended for so many to die," Iakhovas stated quietly. "In truth, I didn't know that our arrival here would cause such an upheaval."

Despite his flat tone and the fact that she knew he wouldn't have wanted her to know much of his private thoughts, Laaqueel believed the note of regret she heard in Iakhovas's voice was genuine.

"It was not your will, Most Exalted One," she said, speaking with the certainty of faith. "It was the will of Sekolah. These deaths are the result of the fury of his claws and teeth reaving the weak from the tribe, making his mark on his chosen people."

He stayed silent for a moment, not looking at her, as if weighing her words carefully. It was the first time Laaqueel could ever remember him doing that. "Do you truly think so, Most Sacred One?" His voice was almost a whisper.

Laaqueel shoved aside the tiny seed of doubt that stayed relentlessly within her. Even by Iakhovas's own admission he hadn't known the explosion was going to happen, but it had. Her training taught her that it had to be by the Great Shark's will.

'Yes," she said. "The sahuagin who lived here have stayed in one place for so long, it would have been hard to convince them to leave."

"Or to convince them to challenge the sea elves and mermen who sentenced them." Iakhovas glanced at her, a small smile twisting his lips. A dim golden light gleamed in the hollow of his missing eye. "I find your words, your thinking, very comforting, my priestess."

Laaqueel bowed her head, not prepared for the onslaught of emotions that whirled within her. She had never thought in her whole life that she'd be completely accepted. She was too much of a freak to expect that. She could only hope, and even then that hope was always dim. A surge of embarrassment filled her, one of the few times that it came from something she'd accomplished instead of something she'd fallen short on. She tried to think of an appropriate reply but couldn't.

"Thank you, Most Exalted One," she said simply.

Tarjana floated closer to the destroyed sahuagin city, powered by the oars of the rowers below. The ship's approach had drawn attention in the form of a dozen fliers that suddenly skimmed from hiding on the sea floor. All of them carried sahuagin warriors.

"Ready yourself," Iakhovas warned. "We won't be greeted gratefully."

Laaqueel knew it was true. As she'd been trained, she pushed her emotions away. It was so hard this time, though, because there was so much pleasure in how she felt as a result of Iakhovas's unexpected praise. That confused her because generally her emotions were filled with pain. Bloody Falkane had left her feeling the same way.

Tension twisted her stomach as she watched the fliers quickly flank Tarjana. The fliers the Serosian sahuagin used were smaller than the ones the malenti was accustomed to, but they moved quickly and powerfully through the sea.

Iakhovas called orders out to stop the mudship. Quietly, Tarjana sank to the sea floor, settling deeply into the loose silt, crunching against the lava rock thrown out from the volcano.

The smaller fliers rode the currents above them. Coral spears and tridents bristled over the railings of all the Serosian fliers. Crossbowmen peered over their weapons.

Iakhovas stood before them all, his arms at his sides. He took no cover and he offered no outward threat. Laaqueel glanced at him, then had to turn quickly away. Whatever spell he was using to disguise himself as a sahuagin had gained power. Even though she normally saw him as human, the malenti's vision clouded painfully, giving different views of human and sahuagin that overlapped so quickly one blurred into the other.

Occasionally, the view was of something else-something she couldn't clearly recognize.

The sight of Iakhovas's other self sent fear thrilling down Laaqueel's spine. Nausea twisted her stomach relentlessly. She wasn't certain if the ill feeling came from the spell or the sight of his misshapen other self. Her curiosity made her want to look again in spite of her reluctance.

Instead, her attention was riveted to the large sahuagin who strode to the forefront of the closest flier. He wore a prince's insignia, recognizable even though the markings were different than what Laaqueel was used to. He held a royal trident in one gnarled fist. A three-armed sahuagin in a royal guardsman's war halter flanked the prince on his left.

The royal guard beside the prince held Laaqueel's attention. The guardsman gazed at her with bold viciousness, no hesitation in him at all.

"Who are you?" the guard bellowed.

Silently, the other sahuagin aboard Tarjana who weren't at the oars swam up to take a stand behind Iakhovas. They bared their weapons as well, but Iakhovas waved them still.

Even with all the fliers they'd brought with them, Laaqueel knew they didn't have a chance if the Serosian sahuagin attacked. Despite the awesome destruction the volcano had unleashed, Iakhovas and his followers wouldn't have been able to stand against them. Unless Sekolah wills, the malenti amended to herself. She kept her gifts at the ready, certain Iakhovas was doing the same.

"I am Iakhovas." His voice thundered through the water, punctuated by the shrill clicks and whistles of the sahuagin tongue. "I am king of We Who Eat in the Claarteeros Sea."

"Liar!" the black-clawed royal guard roared. "That place exists only in myth."

"Most Exalted One," a sahuagin baron among Tarjana's crew said quickly, "let me claim the right of blood challenge against this offender. I swear by Sekolah's blessed fins that I will bring honor to your name."

"No," Iakhovas answered calmly. "No blood will be shed unless I command it. They need every warrior they can muster." His words resonated and carried through the water.

Laaqueel quivered inside. Not responding to the royal guard's accusation could be construed as cowardice. It was an open invitation to attack.

A four-armed sahuagin, missing one of his arms, who floated next to the Serosian prince opened his mouth to speak.

"Silence, T'Kalah," the prince commanded without looking at the warrior.

TKalah swung on the other man, displeasure evident in his body language. Laaqueel knew if the prince had noted the movement he would have punished the warrior for insubordination.

The prince studied Iakhovas with his measured gaze. "You are a king."

"Yes," Iakhovas answered shortly but politely.

Laaqueel watched T'Kalah, feeling that if any attack was launched it would come through that sahuagin first. During her inspection of the royal guard, she noted the fact that the anterior fins on the sides of his head flared back over his skull and merged with the dorsal fin on his back. The anterior fins of the sahuagin in the outer seas didn't connect. His different coloring had already been noticed. Even as strange as the Serosian sahuagin looked to her, she knew they fit in more securely with her own people than she did despite Iakhovas's influence.

"Among your own people, perhaps," T'Kalah growled, "but not here."

Iakhovas pinned the sahuagin warrior with his glance. "I made myself king through blood, three-arm, and if need be, I will remain so by spilling more. Make no mistake about that."

TKalah's black eyes burned with hostility and he stared hard back at Iakhovas. It was not something most sahuagin would ignore. Instead, Iakhovas looked back to the prince, dismissing the sahuagin warrior as if he were nothing. Laaqueel watched the muscles bunch across T'Kalah's chest, and the amputated stub of his arm jerked involuntarily.

"No," she stated forcefully. She held her hands up before her, feeling the power of her gifts. "I am a priestess of Sekolah, warrior, and you would do well to heed my calling and the authority of the Most Exalted One."

The prince looked at T'Kalah as well, then moved his trident to face the other sahuagin. "If you move, you shall have to get through me as well."

"I seek only to protect you," TKalah argued.

"Then do it by serving me," the prince ordered.

Angrily, T'Kalah held his trident upright in one hand, then folded his other two arms across his chest. "These are ill currents, Maartaaugh."

"If so," Maartaaugh said, "we shall swim through them." The prince turned his attention back to Iakhovas. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to see your king," Iakhovas said.

"King Kromes is dead. He died when the volcano exploded."

Iakhovas remained silent.

"His death," Laaqueel stated to fill the uncomfortable void that followed, "was by the will of Sekolah."

"Liar!" T'Kalah cried. "He's dead by your hand! Killed when you came through the volcano!"

Maartaaugh looked at the royal guard. "They couldn't have come through the volcano."

"I tell you, Exalted One," T'Kalah stated, "it is as I say. Would you call me a liar?" He took a step away, setting himself into a fighting stance. "I won't take such an accusation without demanding blood honor."

"We came through the volcano," Iakhovas told them.

The sahuagin prince faced Iakhovas again. "How?"

Laaqueel heard the uncertainty and fear in the prince's voice. She knew Maartaaugh was thinking of the magic involved with such a thing. "We were brought here by the Great Shark's will."

"They spout still more lies," T'Kalah said. "All true sahuagin know that Sekolah doesn't meddle in the affairs of his chosen. He expects them to fend for themselves."

Maartaaugh's face grew stony. Laaqueel felt the prince slipping away from them, saw it in the way he folded his arms and closed in on himself.

"Why," Maartaaugh asked, "would Sekolah do such a thing?"

Laaqueel stepped forward, taking her place beside Iakhovas. She lifted her voice and made it strong. "The Great Shark has established certain currents within Most Exalted One Iakhovas. Sekolah started a ripple within the Claarteeros Sea, and through the strength and forethought of Iakhovas, that ripple has spread even unto Seros."

"Brave words," T'Kalah snarled, "but words are cheap."

"He brought an army here," Laaqueel said.

"And killed our king." T'Kalah stepped toward her. "Tell me why the Great Shark would choose a malenti to speak for him."

The words stung Laaqueel.

"Because," Iakhovas snapped, "her faith is stronger even than your thick-headedness."

T'Kalah swam up from the flier's deck, cutting through the water swiftly. The currents he started slammed against Laaqueel.

"Most Sacred One," Iakhovas said softly, "don't kill this one yet."

T'Kalah arrowed toward them, disregarding the prince's commands to return to the flier.

Summoning her power, Laaqueel shot out a hand, praying to the Great Shark that her control be strong and sure.

Little more than halfway between the vessels, T'Kalah's smooth stroke suddenly shattered. His arms and legs twisted in a vicious convulsion. He flailed out against the sea as if it was closing in on him.

Laaqueel held the sahuagin warrior in the spell's thrall, knowing the pressure she'd created was so great he wasn't able to breathe properly.

"Enough," Iakhovas said.

Silently, Laaqueel dismissed the spell, feeling terribly fatigued. It was one thing, she knew from experience, to unleash a spell, and quite another to attempt to curtail it and shape it once it had been loosed.

Released from the crushing pressure, T'Kalah finned weakly in the ocean, barely able to control himself. Weakness showed in every move he made. Angrily, he retreated back to his flier.

"What do you want?" Maartaaugh asked.

"If your king is dead," Iakhovas asked, "who leads?"

"The remaining princes. We serve as council. For the moment."

"How many are you?"

"Five," Maartaaugh answered.

"Then I will speak to them."

Glints of anger stirred in Maartaaugh's black eyes. "Why should I allow it?"

"You would be foolish to try to stop me," Iakhovas declared. "I've come from an ocean, a world away, and I've come here for one thing only. I've traveled to Seros to free you from your prison."

Laaqueel stood at Iakhovas's side as he spoke at the public forum he'd demanded. She felt the currents eddying around her, tracked by the lateral lines that ran through her body. She watched the five princes gathered at the makeshift table that had been hastily cobbled together by laying a section of flat rock over two stacks of rock in one of the cleared areas in the center of Vahaxtyl. The table was more a show of authority than any furnishing. The princes wore their halters of rank and held their tridents.

All of the princes were grim-faced. They didn't even talk among themselves at Iakhovas's announcement.

The malenti priestess knew they were of one mind. Maartaaugh had already spoken to them. Even then, Iakhovas had agreed to come to their offered meeting unarmed, with only Laaqueel and a dozen Black Tridents as a token show offeree.

If the princes voted against Iakhovas's offer, Laaqueel had no doubt that they would all be dead before the sun stabbed down into the water again. She averted her gaze from the princes' table out of deference, and more nervousness than she wanted to admit.

Most of the populace of Vahaxtyl ringed them, sitting on broken terrain over the underground sections of the city.

Huge gray lava rocks piled high all around. She knew Iakhovas's voice carried well in the water, but messengers were on hand to relay what was spoken. She heard Iakhovas's words passed on again and again.

Most of the sahuagin crowd's body language registered disbelief and anger. They knew that the outer sea sahuagin had come through the exploding volcano and had emerged unharmed while so many of their city died. That crowd was only a step away from reaching out for vengeance. The rubble of the city lay scattered around them, and the twilight gloom of the depths filled the water above them.

Laaqueel didn't know what Iakhovas had been thinking to agree to the princes' terms. She drew water in through her gills, held it for a moment, then flushed it out again.

Steady, my priestess, Iakhovas stated calmly in her mind. Trust in your faith. Everything is going to be as it should.

As it should for them, or for us? she asked.

Iakhovas didn't answer.

Toomaaek stood at the center of the table. He was tall and thick, his body covered in scars from sharp edges and flames, testifying to how closely he'd fought the surface dwellers over his years. "You are responsible for the deaths of our people," he said.

"Am I?" Iakhovas demanded. His voice was hard and cutting as coral. "In my belief, only the weak die in mass graves, and those are taken by Sekolah's sharp fins and ferocious fangs. He wants his people strong."

"You twist our beliefs," Toomaaek said.

"No." Iakhovas's denial was flat, unarguable. "I only embody them with my actions. Sekolah sent me here, gave me the ship that made this possible. He destroyed the inadequate among your people to leave those who would be willing to die fighting for their freedom."

A rumble of angry clicks and whistles echoed in from the crowd. Laaqueel studied the sahuagin around them. She'd already overheard several comments about her own heritage and the fact that she was a malenti. Iakhovas's words struck the crowd harshly, fanning the anger in them to fever-pitch intensity.

Though the sahuagin didn't believe in the same concepts of family as the surface dwellers and sea elves did, they did stand for the community as a whole. Refusal to accept the loss and make someone else responsible was natural to them. She felt Iakhovas should have known to handle things better. Silently she prayed, knowing they were only inches away from death.

"You dare!" Toomaaek thundered.

"By Sekolah's blessed wrath," Iakhovas roared back, "I do dare!"

Toomaaek slammed the butt of his trident against the stone table. The sound echoed harshly, racing through the water.

"I dare to stand up for your people against those who would keep them in shackles," Iakhovas said, finning toward the princes' table. "I dare to travel here in a manner that I don't understand, listening to the guiding hand of the Great Shark as he speaks to my priestess, and trusting in the fact that I'm doing Sekolah's will."

"We don't know that." Toomaaek remained gruff.

"I do." Iakhovas kept swimming.

Laaqueel fell into motion automatically behind him. The guards around the princes started forward. One of them lowered his trident level with Iakhovas's chest.

With blinding speed, Iakhovas snatched the trident's tines away from his chest, then shoved the sahuagin guard back half a dozen paces. The show of strength caught the attention of everyone watching.

"Where are you guiding your people?" Iakhovas demanded. "What plans do you have for We Who Eat in Seros?"

Toomaaek tried to speak after a moment, but Iakhovas spoke loudly over him.

"For ten thousand years and more," Iakhovas said, "you and the barons, princes, and kings before you have let your people languish in this prison built by the hated sea elves and mermen."

Another guard stepped forward and thrust his weapon, ordering Iakhovas to halt.

As if shooing away a bothersome fingerling perch, Iakhovas shoved the trident aside with one hand and caught the sahuagin warrior by his war harness with the other. Iakhovas yanked, and the guard spun back into two sahuagin behind him, knocking them all off their feet so they floated out of control for a moment.

"Why have We Who Eat not been freed from this place?" Iakhovas demanded.

"There is no escape," Toomaaek stated.

Laaqueel heard the buzz of conversation streak through the crowd of onlookers.

Iakhovas sounded as if he couldn't believe it. "Have you not looked at the Shark God's teachings? Sekolah teaches us that all things are possible if enough blood is shed. They happen more quickly if most of the blood belongs to the enemies of We Who Eat."

Toomaaek stood his ground but clearly wasn't happy about it. Iakhovas leveled an accusatory finger at the table of sahuagin princes.

"With that kind of thinking," he said, "you've become the jailers of your own people. Not the sea elves and the mermen. You teach your young not to struggle against that perversion of our nature called the Sharksbane Wall." He shook his head in rage. "Our very natures cry out for struggle and adversity to test us and shape us into the most deadly warriors we can be. We're supposed to teach our own lesson in turn: that We Who Eat are meant to be the most feared creature in any of the seas."

"We have fought against those that man the Sharksbane Wall," Maartaaugh argued. "For ten thousand years, we've shed blood over that construction."

"And still you've not shed enough," Iakhovas accused. "When has Sekolah ever declared the price too high to improve the sahuagin people?"

Unbelieving, Laaqueel listened as some of the anger started to drain away from the crowd's murmuring. They sounded more interested in what Iakhovas had to say.

"Instead of tearing that accursed wall down," Iakhovas went on, "you and those rulers before you have chosen to accept it and live with it as though it were meant to be. It wasn't! We Who Eat were born free and meant to die free."

A few scattered cheers sounded from the crowd. Laaqueel drew in a deeper breath and took heart in the reaction. No matter what else, Iakhovas was right about the sahuagin heritage.

"The Sharksbane Wall can't be torn down," Toomaaek declared. "The sea elves and mermen guard it without reservation. The sea elves use their magic to make it strong."

Iakhovas stood across the table from the sahuagin prince. "It can be torn down."

Toomaaek shook his head. "It's been tried."

Iakhovas gazed at him fiercely. "Not by me."

Pride at Iakhovas's display of courage and conviction whipped through Laaqueel. He stood before the whole city, sounding as if he was prepared to take them all on. She held onto the feeling as she watched him, praying the whole time to Sekolah. Awe filled her at the audacity Iakhovas showed. He was more sahuagin than any she'd ever met before.

"You can't break that wall," one of the other princes stated.

"I can," Iakhovas replied hotly, "and I will. I won't sit back and quietly be a coward while pretending to be a prince."

"You go too far!" Toomaaek roared.

"I'm going far enough to tear that wall down," Iakhovas promised, "and I won't stop short of that. Any sahuagin warrior who wants to take up arms and follow me to freedom is welcome."

"The sea elves are too powerful," Maartaaugh said. "They have magic and numbers and allies."

"Then we'll get our own magic and our own allies." Iakhovas didn't move away from the table, but Laaqueel knew he was no longer talking only to the princes. His words were for the ears of the crowd. "Those things are out there. Sekolah gives power to his priestesses, and there are others out there who resent the sea elves controlling so much of Seros with their machinations. The sea elves have grown fat and lazy, complacent in the inability of We Who Eat of the Alamber Sea to do anything other than send a few groups of warriors across the Sharksbane Wall every now and again."

Hoarse, ragged cheers started up from the crowd intermittently. Laaqueel struggled to keep a smile from her face. The knot of fear still sitting sourly in her stomach made it easier.

"I will raise up an army," Iakhovas vowed, "an army the likes of which Seros and the lands around it have never seen before. That army will spend its blood and that of its enemies, and the sea will run red because of it." He turned and raked his eye over the crowd, his posture proud and erect. "For those of you who will follow me, I will lead you to greater glory than you've ever known. I will teach you again what it means to be a warrior, to truly be one of the Great Shark's chosen."

The crowd came alive, and the cheering clicks and whistles echoed everywhere. Sahuagin picked up fist-sized rocks and slammed them together to make even more noise. The poundings punctuated the cheers.

The smile broke through Laaqueel's defenses and spread across her lips. She gazed across the crowd in wonderment. Surely this was a sign. No one could have walked into Vahaxtyl and claimed the city's populace in so short a time.

Iakhovas flung a hand back toward the princes' table. "Warriors, blood of Sekolah's chosen, up until now you have been robbed of the heritage to become true members of We Who Eat as the Great Shark would have wanted. These princes and others like them have held you captive here like prawns in sea elf farms."

Toomaaek tried to silence the crowd but failed. Laaqueel watched as the sahuagin whipped themselves into a frenzy. Fresh anger fed off the fear and confusion that had been left over by the destruction of their city. Iakhovas offered them enemies and a chance to strike back at those enemies at a time when they felt the need to do something. War came naturally to the sahuagin.

"If you continue to follow them," Iakhovas went on, "you'll overpopulate these waters in time. Or you'll curtail the population so that won't happen, kill your young yourselves and deprive yourselves of the army you will need in the future to conquer Seros."

The cheering turned thunderous, but somehow Iakhovas could speak over it even though the Vahaxtyl princes couldn't.

"Sekolah found the sahuagin," Iakhovas said, "and he freed them from the shell that was their prison then. Do you think he freed you to find another prison in which to live?"

"No!" filled the water from the throats of thousands of sahuagin.

"We Who Eat were born free," Iakhovas said. "Our heritage is to die free, cleaving the hearts of our enemies and gnawing the flesh from their broken bones!"

The cheering drowned out all other sound. Toomaaek swam over the table and finned down beside Iakhovas, stirring silt with his splayed feet. The prince raised his trident in an open threat.

Instantly, the cheering started to subside.

Slowly, Iakhovas turned to face the Vahaxtyl prince. He stared at the warrior and waited silently. All voices from the crowd had died away when Toomaaek spoke.

"I say you speak lies, Iakhovas of the Claarteeros Sea. Whatever brought you here, it wasn't Sekolah. Your purpose isn't to guide We Who Eat to a greater destiny. You seek only to make our people throw their lives away."

"I speak the truth," Iakhovas replied.

"Then pick up your weapon and defend yourself," the sahuagin prince ordered. "I claim blood combat against any champion you care to name."

Iakhovas regarded the warrior. The sahuagin prince was head and shoulders taller than Iakhovas and weighed nearly half again as much. His skin was dark blue with places that looked almost black.

Since someone of lesser rank was challenging him, Laaqueel knew according to sahuagin custom that Iakhovas could pick one of his guards to fight for him. The priestess waited tensely, knowing how Iakhovas was going to handle the situation.

"I will stand as my own champion," Iakhovas said, "that the truth of my words be more accurately measured."

"Then pick up a weapon." Toomaaek stepped back, his great feet raking up silt in small clouds from the ocean floor.

Iakhovas raised his hands. Bony claws fully six inches long protruded from his fingers. "The only weapon I'll need are these."

"Fool!" Toomaaek snapped.

He backed out into the center of the impromptu meeting area. Without hesitation, Iakhovas followed, gliding up a few feet above the ocean floor with the grace of an eel. He smiled.

"I'm proud of you, Prince Toomaaek," Iakhovas said. "You're a fine sahuagin warrior. My only regret is that you can only die once, but it will be for the good of your people."

Toomaaek didn't waste words. He became an explosion of action. Pulling his barbed net free of his hip, he expertly flung it out at Iakhovas. The net splayed out and sailed true, wrapping around its target. Toomaaek pushed the trident forward and swam after it, driving it before him.

For a moment Laaqueel thought Iakhovas was dead. Her heart almost stopped its frantic beating. Iakhovas hooked his fingers in the net that had wrapped around him. He'd protected his single eye with one arm. Tugging fiercely, he ripped the net off him, tearing the barbed hooks from his flesh at the same time. He screamed in rage and pain.

Toomaaek closed quickly, the trident aimed directly at Iakhovas's heart. In motion almost too fast to be seen, Iakhovas shoved his feet against the water. He shot up, curling gracefully over his attacker as the trident tines missed him by inches. Continuing the roll through the water, Iakhovas flipped behind Toomaaek as the sahuagin prince passed. Cruelly, Iakhovas dug his claws lightly across his opponent's neck, leaving bloody scratches. The claws also sliced through the anterior fins, freeing them from the dorsal fin.

Blood streamed out into the water from the superficial cuts.

Toomaaek threw out his free arm and kicked hard, finning himself into a roll of his own. He tucked forward and under, coming up with the trident again as he faced Iakhovas. The move was designed to catch an enemy from underneath, driving the trident deep into the stomach or crotch.

Either would have been a debilitating wound.

Turned as he was from his own flip through the water, Iakhovas had his back to Toomaaek. Though he didn't see the sahuagin warrior's move, Laaqueel knew Iakhovas must have sensed it in some fashion. As the trident sped toward his back, Iakhovas swept out a hand and pushed himself sideways in the water.

The trident tines missed him again by inches. As Toomaaek swam by, already aware he'd missed his opponent, Iakhovas raked claws across the back of the sahuagin prince's lower leg. The sharp edges cleaved flesh easily, drawing blood in a gust.

Laaqueel watched Toomaaek as he tried to turn. His leg was obviously hamstrung, the foot flopping loosely as the current pushed it. Stubbornly, the sahuagin prince turned in the water again. He appeared surprised to see that Iakhovas hadn't pursued him.

"You're wounded," Iakhovas said, still floating in nearly the same spot he had been since the fight had begun. "Stop now and live to help me set your people free."

"No." Toomaaek shook his head. "I'm going to kill you to show them the lies you've promised them."

Laaqueel watched the sahuagin prince. She felt certain it was obvious to the crowd that Iakhovas had deliberately stopped short of tearing Toomaaek's head from his shoulders on the first pass. She watched Iakhovas, marveling at the strength and skill he displayed. When he'd killed Huaanton, Iakhovas had struggled in that fight. Toomaaek was even bigger than Huaanton had been, and Iakhovas was handling him easily.

"They're not lies," Iakhovas told him. "There is greatness coming to We Who Eat. A rebirth. You can be part of it."

"No one can do what you say." Toomaaek finned toward him again, more slowly this time because of the injured leg.

"You have time to reconsider." Iakhovas stood his ground, finning down a couple feet to stand in the silt. "You can heal and still fight the battle that should be yours."

Toomaaek adjusted his approach and sped at his opponent.

Iakhovas ran out of time to move, standing loosely before the sahuagin prince.

Cheers and shouts of anger battered Laaqueel as she watched. She couldn't believe Iakhovas was doing nothing to defend himself. He couldn't use his magic, not without turning away the sahuagin crowd he'd won over.

At the last moment, Iakhovas raised his hands and grabbed the approaching trident. He hooked his fingers over the tines and rocked back slightly as the impact pushed against him. He dug his feet into the ocean bed and shoved as hard as he could.

The trident stopped no more than a finger's width from Iakhovas's chest, but the haft knifed through Toomaaek's heart, spearing him. Blood clouded the water. Triumphantly, Iakhovas lifted the quivering corpse on the end of the trident above his head. He gazed at the princes' table in open challenge. "Is there anyone else who wishes to dispute my words?"

None of the princes answered.

"Then, by the power of blood and combat," Iakhovas said, "I declare myself Deliverer of We Who Eat of Seros."

Sporadic cheering came from the crowd at first, then grew in intensity until it filled the area. Laaqueel was surprised when Iakhovas simply didn't declare himself king. The malenti knew he could have and also knew that no one there would have challenged him for that right after seeing what he'd done to Toomaaek. The decision seemed to shock the four remaining princes as well.

When the cheering died down a little, Iakhovas swam up, pushing the corpse at the end of the trident above him. "I will deliver you from this captivity," he shouted. "I will find you allies to fight your most hated enemies. I will teach you and mold you into the fiercest army Seros has ever seen."

The cheering started again, but somehow Iakhovas was able to speak loud enough to be heard.

"I also promise you glory." Iakhovas held steady in the currents, high enough in the water to be seen by everyone. "I will give you the chance to live and die as true sahuagin warriors. Blood will demand blood, but we will drink our fill of it from the skulls of our enemies."

Laaqueel watched Iakhovas, feeling as mesmerized as the Serosian crowd. He'd won them over and made them his, just as he'd done with her own people. He truly was a gift from Sekolah. The Shark God had answered all her prayers from the time she'd been a little girl to this very day. She was something important to her god and her people.

"I will break the abomination that is the Snarksbane Wall!" Iakhovas shouted. "You will be free, forever free, to run the course of Seros."

Laaqueel noticed even Maartaaugh was shouting his support, caught up in the tide of what was happening to the crowd. However, T'Kalah stood in the shadows of the rubble, a dark scowl on his face. Still, she didn't let the royal guard's presence touch her celebratory mood. Iakhovas had triumphed, and she was part of it.

"Born free!" Iakhovas yelled.

The crowd took up the chant. "Born free!"

"Die free!" Iakhovas followed.

"Die free!"

"I will take you from this prison that is the Alamber Sea," Iakhovas shouted. "Together we will descend upon the sea elves and destroy them where we find them. I will see Myth Nantar, the sea elves' most sacred city, razed and driven deep into the ocean floor before we are done!"

"Destroy the sea elves!" someone yelled. The crowd took up the chant. "Destroy the sea elves! Raze Myth Nantar!"

"We are born free!" Iakhovas screamed to the crowd, using both hands to wave Toomaaek's corpse at the end of the trident haft like a banner.

"We will die free!" the crowd screamed back at him.

"Born free!"

"Die free!"

Laaqueel felt Iakhovas's voice inside her mind. What do you think, Most Sacred One? Do we have an army?

Yes. Laaqueel looked around at the thousands of sahuagin standing around them cheering.

I will break Serds, Iakhovas declared, and I will forever change the lands of the surface dwellers. No one will avoid my touch or the carnage I will have wrought. I am their destiny!

Laaqueel knew with certainty that his statements were true. Iakhovas reached up and used his claws to shear Toomaaek into bloody gobbets. He flung the flesh chunks outward, drawing up the closest sahuagin sitting around him.

"Come and eat, warriors. Let us take Toomaaek into battle with us. He stood for what he believed, though he believed wrongly. He can still nourish us. Meat is meat!"

"Meat is meat!" the crowd roared back. "Born free! Die free!"

As Laaqueel watched Iakhovas stripping the flesh from the dead sahuagin, then swimming out to feed the crowd, she knew there was no turning back. Iakhovas had raised his army.

And the Sea of Fallen Stars would fill with blood to pay the butcher's bill.