The Teeth in the Tide

by Rebecca F. Kenney

  “True, Blossom. I meant no insult to your rabbits.” He grinned at her. “Someday, though, I hope to take you to the Meroan coast. They have immense pastures there, grazed by herds of cattle, and the cuts of meat from those fat beasts, cooked on a grate over an open flame, with a bit of sea salt—ah, it’s bliss. Isn’t it, Jaza?”

  Jazadri nodded. “As you say, Captain.” But he did not smile.

  Flay’s smile disappeared too. “We should talk about the plan. The bait. I’ve decided it will be me on the hook, Jaza, not you.”

  Kestra’s heart dropped, like a stone falling into blue depths. “What? No!” And Jazadri echoed, in his deep voice, “No.”

  “And why not?” Flay’s eyes sparked. “I’m the captain. I’ll do what I please.”

  “Not when it puts the men in more danger,” Jazadri said. “Losing their captain would be a hard blow indeed.”

  “If I died, you’d be captain. I should think you’d leap at the chance.”

  “And how long would your father let me retain that post?” Jazadri’s black brows lowered. “You are the captain, and it’s my job to keep you safe, and alive. As it’s your job to keep safe the other men under the mast, from the navigator to the cabin boy.”

  At those words, delivered with a look of unmistakable challenge, Flay stiffened. “The cabin boy wasn’t my fault.”

  “Of course not, Captain.”

  Several of the sailors had stopped their work and were staring, drinking in the altercation between the two men. Flay’s eyes swept the deck, and he raised his voice so they all could hear. “Your brother’s death was an unfortunate accident.”

  “Maybe he’d still be breathing if someone hadn’t convinced him that being a cabin boy was a worthy post—”

  “That’s not fair, and you know it.” Flay’s jaw pulsed. “You’re the one who asked me to hire him.”

  “But you gave him dangerous tasks.” Jazadri stomped closer to the captain, his burly chest rising faster with every breath.

  “No more dangerous than anyone else aboard ship. And if you didn’t approve of his duties, you should have talked to me about it!”

  “Should I? And you’d have listened? And my brother would not have fallen, screaming, into the sea? Would not have ended up as strings of flesh between a mermaid’s teeth?”

  Flay shoved Jazadri with both hands, so ferociously that the enormous sailor shifted a step. The next second he slapped a broad palm to Flay’s chest and pushed him. Flay stumbled backward against the railing.

  “I warned him!” Flay shouted, righting himself. He looked positively feral now, his eyes blazing with blue fire, his lean body tense as a cat’s before a pounce, his fists so tight Kestra saw bone-white through the skin of his knuckles. “I warned him to be careful! Not to lean over, not to walk the railing or swing from the rigging once we got too close.”

  “I warned him too!” bellowed Jazadri. “But I knew he was young and careless, and so did you. We should have—god’s bones, I should have watched him more closely.” The words ebbed from his throat in a groan of regret.

  Flay seized his first mate’s shirt at the neck, twisting it in his fist. “We had the whole ship to watch. Many lives at stake.”

  Jazadri’s great hand clasped Flay’s throat.

  Heart pounding, Kestra slipped her hand into the side pocket of Mai’s bag, her fingers closing around one of the specimen knives. She edged toward the two men, ready to do something, anything. To stab Jazadri, maybe, if he didn’t release the captain.

  The two men glared, breath hissing through clenched teeth—and then Jazadri crumpled. His hand slid from Flay’s neck and he turned aside, bowing over with his palms on his thighs. His shoulders shook, but he made no sound.

  Flay gripped his arm, touching his forehead to the first mate’s. “Let me do this,” he said brokenly. “Let me pay for it.”

  “No.” Jazadri straightened, wiping his face. “I’ll go. That was the plan you agreed to, and I’ll hold you to your word, Captain.” He cleared his throat. “Besides, do you think the mermaids will come close enough for such a skinny piece as you? For my meat, they’ll swim right into our hands.”

  Kestra thought Flay might argue, but after a moment’s heavy silence he said, “Fair point, Jaza,” and smacked the first mate’s midsection. But his laugh was hollow.

  Flay and Jazadri went below to get the armor. In their absence, the crew moved aimlessly about the deck, tweaking the stays, rearranging coils of rope, or sprawling on the boards to wait until they reached their destination.

  Kestra stepped back to Mai and returned the knife to the bag.

  “What did you think you were going to do with that?” Mai whispered.

  Kestra gave her an apologetic smile. “I don’t know. Stab someone?”

  “Would you do that?” Mai looked at her straight on, not an ounce of humor in her eyes.

  “No, of course not.” For a second, Kestra imagined driving the knife into flesh, feeling the point slide through fat, puncture muscle—sensing the scrape of the blade against bone. It didn’t sound enjoyable.

  Not at all.

  Except that a deep, furious part of her rose, hulking and gleeful, at the thought of such violence. Ached for the terrible release it might bring.

  “I see it, you know.” Mai’s low voice startled Kestra. “You’re not getting better. You’re getting angrier by the day.”

  “What are you talking about?” Kestra forced a laugh.

  “Oh, you’re good at hiding it. You putter around the garden, you work in the kitchen—you smile so calmly at everyone and say exactly what you’re supposed to say—but inside you’re as angry as I am. I just don’t bother to hide it. Everyone knows I’m bitter, and moody, and a little strange. Not you—you’re perfect. Except for deep inside, where they can’t see.”

  Kestra’s breath quickened. “I’m fine.”

  “Whatever you need to tell yourself.” Mai shifted, balancing against the gentle rocking of the ship. “But when you’re tired of pretending to everyone else, you can always talk to me.”

  The ugly dark thing in Kestra’s soul stirred, heating her insides. Swallowing, she stalked away from Mai and climbed to the upper deck, where she had a better view of the rippling sea. Its breadth and its lack of walls both unsettled and enticed her. She wanted all that sea and sky for her own. Her borderless playground. For a horrifying second, she thought she understood how a mermaid might feel, swirling in those bottomless depths, leaping into the sky, devouring anything that dared threaten her domain. Churning out endless batches of spawn so she could spread her influence farther and deeper into the vast ocean.

  A hand touched her lower back, and she spun, ready to fight.

  “Easy, Blossom.” Flay smiled, but his eyes were serious. “We’re ready. I’m about to give the order to drop anchor. Once we’re steady in the water, we’ll lower Jaza over the side.”

  Already three sailors were prying boards from the railing, clearing a space for the backup anchor chain to pass over the edge. Flay had chosen a spot where the side of the ship was clear of spikes, offering a less perilous path downward. More men stood ready by the windlass, prepared to haul the anchor and the first mate back to safety as quickly as possible.

  A gleaming shape caught Kestra’s eye—Jazadri himself emerging from below decks, a massive figure in silvery armor. He held a large knife in one hand and a barbed lance in the other.

  Flay waved an arm. “Drop the primary anchor!”

  “Aye, Captain!” came an answering shout.

  A grinding shudder followed, and a creaking of the ship. “Anchor is down, Captain!”

  “You don’t have to watch, Blossom,” Flay said. “You can wait in my cabin until it’s done.”

  “Not on your life.”

  She followed him down to the lower deck and watched them lash Jazadri to the chain, his booted feet propped on the curving spokes of the anchor. Slowly, slowly they began to lower him down, toward the water. Flay
stood beside the chain, a crossbow dangling from his hand as he leaned over the rail. Two more sailors with crossbows flanked him, bolts at the ready.

  The open area of the railing was crowded with sailors, so Kestra and Mai pushed a crate against a boarded section so they could stand on it and watch Jazadri’s progress. More men clustered behind the first line of observers, until Flay shouted at them to move away, or risk tilting the ship with their weight. Reluctantly, they spread out over the deck.

  When the distance between the first mate’s boots and the sea was about a man’s height, Flay shouted, “Drop the meat!”

  “The meat?” Kestra gasped.

  “My idea,” said Mai. “To lure the mermaids in.”

  A man in a greasy apron shouldered up to the railing and dropped three plucked chickens and a large pork haunch into the ocean. Kestra winced at the waste, imagining the delicious glaze she could have made for that pork.

  Mai jostled her with an elbow. “It’s for a good cause.”

  “A little lower,” called Flay. “And—stop.”

  Kestra gripped the edge of the board and peered over. The pork and chickens were bobbing untouched in the water, eddies of white foam tracing the blue surface around them.

  “Hold,” Flay said. “Steady hands and sharp eyes, boys!”

  A shadow in the water. Slithering away so fast she barely saw it.

  Another shadow, darting in. A long, sinuous tail and a cloud of hair. Clawed hands seizing one of the chickens and dragging it under.

  “They’re here!” Flay shouted. “Look alive!”

  Kestra stared at Jazadri, a bulky man of metal tied to the anchor chain. He must be sweating with terror inside that armor. Why had they lashed him with rope? What if the mermaids slashed through the rope with their claws and knocked him into the sea? He’d sink instantly, weighted with all that armor. Of course, it was thick rope—ship’s rope. Maybe he’d be all right. Maybe—

  More darting shapes in the water, racing back and forth, clustering and breaking. The other chickens and the pork haunch disappeared.

  And then a mermaid launched herself out of the sea, curving in a splendid spray of glittering drops and bared teeth, snatching at Jazadri. He caught her in the mouth with a ferocious punch, and blood splattered the surface as she flew across the water and splashed beneath the waves.

  As the crew cheered, more sailors crowded to the rail again. The ship groaned, shifting, and Flay spun, aiming the crossbow at his men. “Back!” he roared. “Half of you to the other side of the ship, and stay there, or I’ll shoot you myself and throw your carcasses to the mermaids!”

  They obeyed, a dozen of them scampering to the opposite side of the deck.

  Kestra looked back over the rail in time to see three mermaids’ heads break the surface. They shrieked, cries of madness and anger so painfully shrill that Kestra had to cover her ears. She saw Jazadri twist away from the sound—and at the same moment, two more mermaids leaped for him.

  Kestra screamed.

  Jazadri threw both arms outward, catching one mermaid with his knife and spearing the other with the lance. The one he slashed caught his arm, tearing away his gauntlet as she fell, and the knife spun down into the waves. But the second mermaid wriggled like a fish on a hook, pinioned by the spear through her gut. She slashed at the first mate, her claws ringing and screeching against his armor.

  “Now, men, pull him up now!” roared Flay. The men at the windlass pushed and hauled, working the mechanism as fast as they could.

  Not fast enough. More mermaids leaped out of sea, tearing their sister off the lance and shredding her belly in the process. A groan erupted from the watching sailors as the lance tumbled from Jazadri’s hand into the waves. One of the mermaids caught Jazadri around the waist, not biting, but pulling. Trying to jerk him off the anchor. Jazadri beat at her with his remaining gauntlet, but she snapped at his unprotected hand, and he bellowed in pain.

  “Up! Up!” shouted Flay in a frenzy. “Faster!” He seized the chain himself and began to pull, and the sailors around him took hold to help.

  Kestra couldn’t breathe. Her chest was tight, burning with panic as Jazadri and the mermaid thrashed and struggled. The mermaid pulled herself up higher and unhinged her lower jaw, every sharp tooth bared as she angled her head for the gap between Jazadri’s breastplate and his helmet—the bare length of his neck.

  With a mighty heave, Jazadri twisted aside just far enough to shove his gauntleted fist into her mouth. He wrapped his other arm around her waist.

  The mermaids screamed as the anchor rose higher and higher. They leaped and fell, ripping long strips of leather from Jazadri’s boots with their talons; but he did not release his prize. Higher he rose, until he and the captive mermaid were an arm’s length from the rim of the railing.

  “Kestra!” Mai screeched, shoving an elbow into Kestra’s ribs. “The fire-ray serum!”

  Kestra clambered down from the crate and grabbed the pot of serum and the injector the herbalist had given her. Men were already backing away from the railing, fearful of getting too near the mass of metal armor and flailing claws and whipping fin that was about to tumble onto the deck. But Jazadri, the mermaid, and the anchor appeared to be stuck, struggling at the edge.

  “Someone has to pull them over!” Mai cried.

  Flay lifted his crossbow.

  “No!” Mai shouted. “Don’t shoot her! I need her alive!”

  Bellowing in frustration, Flay threw the crossbow aside and leaped forward, reaching for Jazadri, calling to his men. But the crew hesitated, faces rigid with fear.

  Razor claws slashed, nearly shredding Flay’s beautiful face. Kestra pushed the serum and injector into Mai’s hands and ran to the railing. Jazadri’s fist was still in the mermaid’s jaws, his arms around her bony torso. The gills along the creature’s ribs flapped uselessly in the open air. Was it Kestra’s imagination, or were the creature’s movements slower now? Her gaze flicked to the mermaid’s face. No nose, nothing to suck air through.

  “She can’t breathe with his fist in her mouth,” she said aloud, and inside she laughed, delighted. Leaning over the railing, she darted out her hand and, by some miracle, managed to seize one of the creature’s bony wrists. “Get the other arm and hold it still,” she called to Flay. “Wait until she passes out, and then we’ll pull her up. Mai,” she yelled. “Open the serum and fill the injector.”

  She counted to fifty before the mermaid’s body went slack. “Now,” she said to Flay, and they pulled. Jazadri pushed from behind as best he could, until the creature tumbled onto the deck in a puddle of seawater and wet hair.

  Still the sailors hung back, and Flay snarled at them. “By the teeth in the tide, I will cut the balls from every man jack of you and hang them in a row from the rigging if you do not get my first mate back on this ship in the time it takes to say shit-sucking starfish!”

  The sailors rushed forward and hauled Jazadri and the anchor on board. While they untied him, Kestra snatched the injector from Mai and plunged it into the mermaid’s wet, bony chest, between two of the ridged ribs.

  “Did it work?” Mai’s voice quivered.

  “We won’t know if it worked until she wakes.” Suddenly Kestra could smell the creature—fish, rot, salt, and moisture. She held her hand under her nose, looking around for Flay. But he was kneeling beside Jazadri, oblivious to all else—so Kestra stood and snapped her fingers at the two sailors who had helped Mai build the cage. “It’s time!”

  The cage had been loaded on board in the dark of the previous night. The men dragged it forward, and at Kestra’s urging, they hoisted the mermaid’s slick body and tumbled her into it. Recovering from her shock, Mai approached and showed them how she envisioned the body fitting inside. The mermaid’s neck was locked into a yoke at the front, her head protruding for easy examination—and her hands were snapped into the adjustable armholes in the sides of the cage. Her torso slumped, half-supported by her arms, and her tail lay heavy and li
mp on the floor of the enclosure.

  “We have a tub of salt water back at the inn,” said Mai, her eagerness returning. “The cage should fit right down into it so she can keep her tail wet. Until then, we’ll have to dump a little water over her now and then. Kestra—Kestra, she’s waking up. Why is she waking up? Close the lid!”

  The sailors slammed the cage shut just in time, as the mermaid’s tail whipped upward and crashed against the wood. Quickly they secured the latches.

  “I guess the fire-ray serum doesn’t work well on mermaids.” Kestra backed away from the mermaid’s snapping jaws. “At least she passed out long enough for us to secure her.”

  “She’s amazing,” cooed Mai, edging around the enclosure to see the creature from every angle.

  Kestra didn’t see anything amazing, only monster of stone and scales. She swallowed her revulsion and turned away.

  A few strides brought her to Flay’s side. He’d stripped off Jazadri’s armor, and the ship’s physik was binding the cuts on the first mate’s arms and feet, where the mermaids’ claws had managed to find a way between armor joints or through boot leather. Blood was already soaking through bandages on Jazadri’s left hand.

  Kestra didn’t touch Flay. He wasn’t her lover here; he was a captain whose partner had been severely wounded. But she moved into his space, so he could feel the heat of her beside him. The wind had risen, whipping the sails. Clouds, building and gathering all morning, were finally closing over the sun, thickening quickly as more gray cloudbanks joined them from the north. A fat raindrop splashed on Kestra’s arm.

  Flay spoke without looking at her. “He lost two fingers on his left hand.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “It should have been me.”

  “He wanted to do it.”

  Flay sucked in a sharp breath, exhaled, and smiled, a ghost of his usual grin. “We got what we came for, Blossom, and no lives lost. That’s a win in my book.” He raised his voice over the frenzied screams of the mermaids rioting in the waves. “Pull up the primary anchor and let’s leave this cursed stretch of the sea!”