Ice Crypt (Mermaids of Eriana Kwai Book 2) Page 25
“I’m going to get them,” I said.
Blade ready, I plunged in.
I cast my senses through the group, making sure I could track each predator. The striped dolphins projected a mild awareness of me. The sharks didn’t seem to notice. Their focus was on the ball of herring.
“My, those fish are small,” I said loudly. “Too bad there isn’t a large, tasty mammal around here to devour.”
None of them reacted. Not that I’d expected them to.
I swam closer, using my hands to waft my scent in their direction.
“Mmm.”
The outermost thresher turned, distracted from its meal by the promise of something much larger, much tastier.
“That’s right. Come on. I bet I taste pretty good.”
I ran my fingers through my hair and flicked off a few drops of fish guts.
With competition so fierce and the prey so small, this had to work.
I glanced around the thresher, tracking the predators again. Birds continued to plunge in from above. A great white snapped its jaws around one and spat it, realising it wasn’t a fish.
Dolphins, a swordfish, two great whites … three threshers. I was missing one.
The current surged at my tail. Open jaws shot at me with blinding speed. I grunted and bent backwards, curling out of range.
My heart raced.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay. This is good.”
A presence closed in from the side. Another thresher had abandoned the frenzy, its focus locked onto me.
They were about to surround me. Would they close in on a hunt like orcas did?
No, I told myself. They’ll fight over you and tear you limb from limb.
Much better.
I backed away.
The dolphins arrived. They whipped past, blinding me with bubbles. Anger projected from the striped dolphins as the larger pod took over their feeding spot.
I dove, desperate not to let the sharks lose my scent.
Spio shot by, advancing with the pod and circling wide around the frenzy.
“What are you doing?” I shouted over the chattering dolphins.
“Helping!”
He plunged into the baitball. Fish scattered. Dolphins whistled their frustration at Spio for ruining their strategy. Sharks reacted with bursts of energy, catching any stragglers before they escaped.
Spio erupted from the school of fish with a war cry, swinging his spear. Anything nearby recoiled. The thresher that didn’t received a whack to the face. It backed off.
Knocked away from their target, the sharks had all caught my scent. The closest thresher lunged and nearly closed its teeth around my tail.
The striped dolphins surrendered the meal and left. The sharks didn’t care; they had better prey to hunt.
“Keep going,” Spio shouted. “I’ll make sure they follow.”
He had dragged a trail of guts from the direction we had come. I led them recklessly down it. The blood was dissipating, but the scent lingered.
I rubbed my hands over my body and through my hair as I swam, scrubbing away the blood.
Feeling the distance between the sharks and me, I spared a glance over my shoulder. They swam open-mouthed, snapping up any remains they found along the way.
I was relatively clean. I pushed faster. With blood still on the current, I hoped the sharks would forget what they were chasing.
I dove abruptly.
Sure enough, the sharks kept swimming straight along the trail.
I followed them from below.
Soon, their urge to kill dissipated with the blood. Their pace slowed. They’d given up on the hunt.
I rose alongside them with my blade out. After gorging on fish, and without the scent of blood driving them mad, they seemed to decide I wasn’t worth chasing.
The bigger great white led the shoal. I couldn’t help noticing he was large enough to fit my entire body inside. Between the pointed snout and the pectoral fin, five gills the length of my forearm flared open and closed. In his jaws, bits of fish were caught between his many teeth. The inside of his mouth reeked of blood. I opened a little more distance between us. Sure, I had the advantage of speed, but I never underestimated a shark’s reaction time.
Behind the great white, the four threshers followed. Trailing behind was the second great white. It kept trying to veer away, but something was making it fall back in line.
“Spio?”
From the other side of the trailing great white, he said, “Never - do - that - again.”
I laughed.
We used our weapons to guide the sharks, poking them in the sides when they threatened to leave the current and swatting their tails when they moved too slowly.
Keeping them in a cluster proved hard work. I switched my focus rapidly, making sure none of them was preparing to strike. They were hard to read.
All signs of the feeding frenzy disappeared behind us. We were suspended in emptiness for a moment before the vibrations from Adaro’s group brushed my skin.
“Spio, we have to make the sharks move faster.”
I wasn’t sure why I bothered whispering. It wouldn’t matter once we bombarded him. This was the point where we became open traitors to the crown.
Two possible outcomes lay ahead: freedom or death.
I tried not to consider how many ways this plan could go belly up. What if I’d been wrong, and this wasn’t Adaro’s group? What if the other guys weren’t able to turn the sharks around? What if the soldiers fought off the sharks too easily?
“We need to get aggressive,” said Spio. “You’ll have to go into demon mode.”
He was right. Sharks didn’t flee easily. Merpeople were a shark’s biggest predator, and even that was questionable.
“Okay,” I said in a small voice.
I kept pushing the sharks, steeling myself. Spio stayed at the rear, pushing the second great white from the opposite side.
“You know, Lysi, before you came here, I wished for a girl to come to the unit. Or I sent out a message to the universe. Whatever you want to call it.”
I glanced back, wondering what he was getting at.
“Then you arrived,” he said. “At first, I thought the universe misunderstood me. I wanted a girl I could … you know.”
“Got it.”
“But it was meant to be you. I don’t know where I’d be right now, if you hadn’t shown up. Somehow, I think something bad would’ve happened. We would’ve given up, gotten scared, been caught. I don’t know.”
He faltered. “What I’m trying to say is that I’m glad you’re here.”
The sharks created a wall between us, so I couldn’t see or feel Spio, but I knew he was sincere. He wouldn’t have said it otherwise.
“I’m glad you’re here, too, Spio.”
It was hard to imagine what life would have been like if I’d been stuck as a soldier, not a part of anything bigger. I might have tried to escape on my own and gotten caught.
Still, was I better off this way? Driving a line of sharks towards an armed guard, it was hard to tell.
Adaro and his convoy were close. I counted fourteen bodies. Based on their sudden halt, they felt us coming.
Heart racing, I tightened my grip on my weapon. “Ready?”
“Yup.”
I thought of Adaro, and my eyes burst with blood. My teeth lengthened. My skin tingled as it transformed. Webs appeared between my fingers, ready to help me navigate faster.
I turned to the great white.
Some kind of hesitation passed over the sharks nearest me. They sensed my transition.
I raised my weapon and roared, sending a jolt of alertness through the sharks.
Spio bellowed from the other side.
We swiped at them, attacking near their tails. They darted away from the sting, projecting a mix of confusion and dawning aggression.
A thresher turned to me with blinding speed, jaws open, but didn’t strike.
“Go!” I shouted.
>
As we swung our weapons, the sharks’ demeanour changed. They turned from hunters to hunted.
They shot away from Spio and me.
We chased them faster. I shouted and swung my weapon, sending them off as if they were seals fleeing a whale.
The group materialised ahead. My senses found Coho at once. Ephyra swam beside him.
How determined were they to maintain their image for Adaro? I hoped they had the sense to swim away instead of trying to fight.
As expected, Adaro travelled in the centre. His soldiers spun to face us, weapons out. Katus and Ladon floated in their midst, still bearing injuries from the mine.
A moment passed where the group seemed stunned to find predators stampeding towards them. Coho reached for Ephyra’s hand.
Adaro’s gaze locked on me. In a blink, his expression changed from surprise to rage.
Spio and I waved our weapons beside the sharks, bringing them closer together. With the larger great white in the lead, they formed the deadly harpoon Spio had planned.
The guards roared. They rushed to meet us.
Spio and I dove at the last moment, breaking away from the sharks in unison.
But as sharks and mermen crashed together, the shoal did not have the harpoon effect we had intended. There was an explosion of bodies. The sharks scattered like they’d hit a wall, to either side and above and below—not daring to push through the line of armed soldiers.
For a moment, panic seized me as I envisioned the sharks steering around the group and continuing onwards.
But then the sharks came firing back, and I had to dive to avoid being bitten. Pontus, Junior, and Nobeard closed in, swinging their weapons and bellowing.
Though we were outnumbered, the five of us were enough to surround Adaro’s group. We turned the sharks back towards them, keeping them inside.
The sharks twisted, their excitement picking up. Jaws clamped over empty water. Bodies whirled in a blinding wall of bubbles. Mermen shouted.
A thresher snapped its tail. I winced at the pulse in the current. I hadn’t seen it happen, but the soldier nearest me floated limp—knocked out.
The guards tried to lead Adaro away, but couldn’t without encountering jagged teeth and striking tails. So they attacked instead, swinging weapons at noses, gills, and eyes.
I hollered over the din. “Make a baitball!”
The guys sank with me. We worked together to push the group of mermen towards the surface.
The chaos developed in rings: me and the guys on the outside, a layer of sharks snapping at anything in their way, guards swinging weapons to stop teeth and tails from advancing, and then Adaro, protected in the centre and unable to move. Coho and Ephyra stayed by the king’s side, weapons raised, preparing to strike at any shark that came too close.
Katus swung his good arm at the nearest thresher, driving it towards me.
I gritted my teeth and roared at the shark, raising my arms. It balked, spun around, balked again. Katus was waiting for it.
Trapped, the thresher gave a burst of speed and arched its body. The long tail whipped over its head and struck Katus in the face.
The current buffeted my chest, strong enough to shove me backwards.
Katus went limp. Blood oozed from a gash across his face.
I let him sink.
The thresher darted after him, chasing the fresh blood.
“Get in there, Pontus,” shouted Spio. “We’ve got them.”
Pontus, Junior, and Nobeard dove into the midst without hesitating.
Spio and I circled the sharks, swimming as fast as we could to keep them clustered.
Driven wild by the scent of blood, the sharks attacked everything in front of them, clamping down on limbs and tails.
Never before had I needed faster reflexes. For every swipe at one shark, the one behind it bulged away from a swinging weapon. Their movements were sporadic, fuelled by bursts of energy that I could barely keep up with.
Spio and I swam harder, faster, flitting around the sharks in a tight, evenly spaced circle.
The exertion pushed air from my lungs in gusts. The instinct to breach was becoming difficult to ignore.
Aggression flooded the scene, muddying my senses. Everything beyond the nearest shark was a flurry of bubbles. My ears filled with howls of pain and rage. Blood crept towards us, smelling and tasting like both animal and merman. Thrashing bodies and swinging weapons made it impossible to feel for anything meaningful—like the guys’ whereabouts. Pontus, Junior, and Nobeard had disappeared.
I hoped desperately that the guys were getting closer to Adaro. With each heartbeat, the sharks pushed further out. Any satisfaction they felt at a fresh meal of merman had disappeared. They wanted out. Tails and jaws sent torrents at me, making it hard to control my path.
My muscles weakened. Each swing at the sharks cost me all the energy I could muster.
“Lysi!”
With a jolt, I realised I’d caught up to Spio. I checked my speed, but too late. A gap opened behind me.
On the other side of our baitball, a thresher darted away, leaving a trail of blood from a gash in its side.
“No!”
I dove below the cluster to chase it, but stopped. I’d never catch it in time.
Above, several soldiers had dropped out of the fight—either unconscious, or dead. I smelled the burn of iron. The bodies sank, blood clouding from gaping wounds. I shrank away.
My heart skipped a beat when I saw familiar faces. I didn’t know their names, but I recognised them from the army. A day before, we had been allies.
Not dead, I thought. Please, not dead.
We had one target, and only one. Guilt squeezed my chest—even for the sharks, who pushed outwards with more force, now.
Adaro’s protection was crumbling. Five soldiers remained. Two of them were Coho and Ephyra, who were both bleeding from shark bites but hadn’t been hit with iron. Ladon was bleeding and burned, gritting his teeth against Junior’s brute-strength attack. The other two were ordinary soldiers. It drove a hole in my gut to see Nobeard and Pontus fighting them so fiercely.
The larger great white lunged for me. A strip of flesh hung from his teeth.
I was losing wind. I raised my blade, but those jaws suddenly seemed too much for my measly weapon.
“Leave it, Lysi,” shouted Spio. “He’s too pissed.”
I dodged the snapping teeth, expelling a spout of bubbles in the effort.
“No shi—”
“Go, Pontus!”
It was Junior. I whirled around. The great white blasted away, disappearing into the blue as fast as the thresher had.
Pontus had knocked out his opponent.
Four guards left. Junior parried Ladon while Nobeard fended off the remaining soldier. Coho grabbed Ephyra, pulling her away from the swinging iron. Whether he was giving us access to Adaro or keeping his wife safe, I didn’t know. Either way, Adaro was exposed. Pontus shot towards him.
Next to Adaro’s huge, imperial form, it occurred to me how young Pontus was. He was a boy, diving at the most powerful merman in the Pacific, a single weapon in hand.
Another thresher blasted through the space between Spio and me. I thought to stop it too late.
Pontus let out a war cry.
For a moment, I thought Adaro might flee through the widening gap in the sharks and soldiers. But he faced his opponent, teeth bared.
Pontus thrust the trident towards the king’s stomach.
Adaro seized the iron prongs, stopping Pontus cold.
I waited for the shriek of pain. I wanted to smell flesh on iron, to hear the sizzle as he burned.
But I didn’t. Had a tunnel closed around my senses, or was the scene too full of blood for me to feel anything else?
With one hand grasping the trident, Adaro drew back the other arm. That was when I noticed the weapon across his back: a stone mace, with a hook at the end. My iron hook.
I screamed. “Pontus, look out!”
Pontus saw it too late. The iron sliced across his face, blood spurting as his head snapped around.
His head lolled, the blow leaving him semi-conscious. This time, I heard the sizzle. I smelled burning flesh.
Somehow, Adaro still held onto the iron prongs of the trident. He pulled Pontus towards him.
This was wrong. Adaro should have been searing. He should have projected unbearable pain. Red beads oozed from his palms where he gripped the trident—but that was all.
He ripped the weapon from Pontus’ grasp and spun it around.
“Pontus!” I yelled.
Spio and I shot forwards.
We were too slow. The iron plunged through Pontus’ ribs.
I felt it. I never realised what Pontus meant to me until that moment—his last moment. After spending so much time with him, the pain he projected overwhelmed me. Fear and agony washed over my skin, bringing a cry to my lips.
Junior felt it, too, and a hundred times more powerfully. His outburst hit me like a punch in the stomach. He abandoned Ladon and shot for Adaro.
I shouted at him, but he wouldn’t hear me.
Ladon made to follow. Spio and I deflected him. Ladon swung at me, giving Spio the chance to slam him with the butt of his weapon. The air left his mouth in a stream of bubbles.
The king pulled the trident from Pontus’ limp body. He turned it on Junior.
The two mermen were similar in stature, but Junior had no iron. Would it matter, even if he did?
Ladon made a desperate swing at Spio, who retaliated by striking him across the chest. Another wound opened, and he backed off. He’d been bitten and slashed in several places. Blood poured from somewhere in his back. His eyelids fluttered. He would bleed out soon.
I pushed him with the hilt of my blade. He floated limp, too weak to retaliate.
All feeling seemed to have left my body. Light-headed, I glanced around.
The sharks had scattered. The last thresher tail disappeared in the distance, leaving drops of blood in its wake.
Between the floating bodies, Coho and Ephyra were hunched over, trembling, weaponless. They both bled from multiple punctures. A half-moon of teeth marks dotted Coho’s forearm. Our eyes met, and regret tightened my throat.
But what had I expected? Did I think we would charge in, push aside Adaro’s guards, and kill the king in one clean swoop?