He looked uncertain.
“Thanh, do you think for one moment that Neith isn’t already doing this? I saw him kill a Mami-wata for not controlling the colossal squid that lives in the depths of Ferengren. Look,” I went on, trying again to placate him, “I just want to try something with the Zmija this evening. If it works, I’ll present the idea to the whole council. If not, I’ll scrap it completely.”
“I fear you are meddling with things you don’t fully understand, Alexandra, Defender of Men, and that is always a dangerous thing to do.”
I grinned at him. “What are rules if they’re not there to be broken?”
He shook his head. “Rules keep us safe, Alexandra.”
Our conversation was interrupted by Mitra as she sped around us encapsulating us in the circle of her coils, throwing her mane up and letting out a shriek of anger.
What is it? I asked.
Stranger, she replied, the word tinged in fear and fury.
Despite her angry protests I drifted up and out of the protective coils of Mitra’s body, an energy ball arcing between my palms as I prepared to meet our enemies.
To my surprise I found an array of Oceanids forming a wide semi-circle in the kelp.
The Oceanids directly in front of me were veiled in a shield of bubbles that obscured their appearance, allowing only glimpses of the shimmering colours and ornate ornamentation that covered them.
“Who are you?” I addressed them, forcing the nervous energy that seemed amplified by Mitra’s fear into focused analysis of everything around me as I mapped their every movement.
Their leader swam through the flurry of bubbles and up to where I hovered above them. Apart from the water we all swam in he had an additional and seemingly independent layer of liquid that surrounded him, accentuating his size and musculature.
“We are the water sprites that have heeded the call of The Haven. Who are you?”
I addressed all of them. “I am Alexandra, Defender of Men and the leader of the resistance against the abomination of Ferengren. Thank you for coming and welcome.”
It’s OK,Mitra, they are friends.
She moved aside unwillingly, keeping her huge teeth-lined snout close to the entrance of The Haven, her angry golden eyes sliding intently over each Oceanid as they entered.
Each pod that moved into The Haven wore the markings of their environment and gave me an immediate idea of their strengths as I tried to slot them into our battle plan.
The pod following the water sprites were dishevelled and wild, and they spun through the entrance to The Haven with about twenty dolphins.
I glanced purposefully at Thanh, who simply nodded and followed them into The Haven. I was delighted to have more Mami-wata, hoping that as a collective whole we’d be a force to be reckoned with.
The next pod made my skin crawl. They were deep-sea Oceanids, creatures who found safety in the very darkest parts of the ocean. They were clearly uncomfortable in the light, shielding their eyes and cringing every time Mitra or one of the other Oceanids moved. That they had chosen to heed our call for help added a particular solemnity to the gathering, not least because their strange appearance reminded me of what lay in the depths of Ferengren.
The final pod to enter was of particular interest to me. They were ornamented in glittering gold and gems that sparkled on their bodies and in their hair. The clinked as they moved, coins having been woven into their clothing.
I questioned their leader, Tallulah, as she came forward and greeted me.“The coins aren’t too heavy underwater?” I asked.
She smiled. “You like our ornamentation? It is familiar to you?”
I smiled and nodded. “Where did you find this?”
“We live in the wreck gardens. There are many treasures there although these are among the more beautiful, useful and safe.”
“Safe?”
“Yes, as humans have matured, their ability to produce beautiful things has diminished. The wreck gardens are now planted with ugly metal creatures that rot in rusted red and hold nothing but death and danger.”
“Could you take me there?”
She looked surprised. “Yes, Alexandra, Defender of Men, but what could possibly be of use to you there?”
“I have some interest in the materials the humans have used in their ships.”
“I will take you there myself,” she replied, summoning several large Oceanids to accompany us while the rest of her pod entered The Haven. Tallulah and I had the best seats on Mitra, but I was astounded at the way the other Oceanids who had been called to go with us, clung to Mitra’s side fins as we wound our way through the kelp and out into the open ocean. Once in the blue, Mitra flew through the water until it turned a deep rich velvety navy.
Tallulah directed us into the deep water, and between massive spires of black rock.
Mitra whined as we wove beneath the skeletons of dozens of ships, huge gaping wounds in their bellies the obvious cause of their demise.
As we approached one of the wrecks Tallulah murmured, “Be very careful, Alexandra, there are things in this ship that seem harmless but are incredibly dangerous.”
The ship we’d approached was a relatively recent wreck with only a few ocean creatures having settled on it. A large dark gaping wound ran straight through the hull, the metal twisted violently inwards.
I shuddered as we entered the hull.
“Do you know what this ship was used for?” I asked her as she picked her way carefully over and around the jumble of the inside.
“This was a murder boat, mostly whales,” she replied “Those are what they used to kill them.”
She pointed at a series of massive harpoons, their blades still razor-sharp.
I broke away from Tallulah and swam over to examine them. I didn’t think the Oceanids would like it at all but if we could use the harpoons as well as Mizraks it increased our odds ever so slightly. I doubted Neith would have thought of using human weapons.
“Could we take these back to The Haven? I want to show them to Aoi.”
She looked uncertain but arranged for the men who were travelling with us to tie them to Mitra.
I spent a little longer exploring the ship, finding a sonar locator and several underwater bows, all with evilly sharp spears.
“Are there other boats like this?” I asked her when my plunder had been taken back to a rather irritated Mitra.
“Yes, several,” she replied. “What do you want to use these evil weapons for? We have our own way of gathering food.”
I laughed. “Don’t worry, Tallulah, I’m not planning to go hunting any time soon. Can we take a look at the cloth makers now?”
I didn’t want to reveal my plan to her, not yet anyway. I needed to test whether it would work first and I wanted to test it in private too.
Tallulah swam quickly into a nearby wreck, inviting me to join her. Within its hull large sacks of coins were piled haphazardly in a corner.
“These can be pretty if you weave them carefully, but they are for the most part dull and uninteresting.”
“Could you weave them into overlapping rows?”
“Yes of course, although too many of them make for heavy swimming.”
“Is your whole pod at The Haven?”
“No, only those willing to fight. We have had a run-in with Neith in recent times and have lost several families to him. Some voluntarily. I only took those who feel strongly against him with me to The Haven.”
“Are there any cloth makers left here?”
She nodded, leading me through a maze of tunnels too narrow for Mitra to follow. She whined uneasily, warning me of danger.
In an old metal tanker with a deep gash running down one side and a moving garden of brilliantly coloured anemones, a series of women were happily chattering to each other as they sat nestled into a massive mound of coins. Each woman took long wavering threads and worked them deftly together, integrating the coins into various patterns and threading jewels, pearls and othe
r man-made bric-a-brac into the design as they worked.
I asked if they could weave the coins into rows.
Within a few minutes I had a length of fabric interwoven with coins, that mostly overlapped. At my request they made twelve such pieces and one long one that flared at the top.
We arrived back at The Haven as Dad was finishing up the final moves for the day. I slipped the piece of armour over my head and swam to Takimu who was busy drilling four of the Oceanids in sparring movements.
I slipped into the circle, taking one of the Oceanid’s Mizraks and holding it awkwardly. It was an unwieldy weapon in my inexperienced hands.
“What are you wearing, Alexandra?” Takimu asked as he whirled between the four of us, placing strategic strikes to show up our vulnerabilities.
“In theory…” I replied, parrying a blow awkwardly, “this should stop any Mizrak attacks.”
He laughed, continuing with the exercise but increasing the intensity until the other Oceanids drew away and it was just the two of us swirling around each other.
I found my instincts took over immediately as I dodged the blade but inevitably I wanted to test the durability of the armour and so I forced myself to drop my guard and allowed him to strike me in the midriff, tensing my muscles as the blade whistled through the water.
I doubled over as the pain of the hit ran through my body, my ears ringing and black spots dancing momentarily before my eyes as I crumpled, curling in on myself.
I could hear Takimu yelling at me from a long distance away, the sound oddly muffled. I blinked my eyes as Oceanids surrounded me and Takimu knelt at my side, white sand spooling around him in a soft cloud as I struggled to focus on his terrified face.
Maya pushed him aside and gently placed her hands on my shoulders and as she did so life and energy flowed threw me immediately and I was able to straighten out a bit, my vision clearing.
Takimu stood peering anxiously over Maya’s shoulder as she gently removed my arms from where they were clutched around my stomach. I expected a plume of blood to flow into the ocean, but none did.
“It worked.” It was Takimu who made the astounded statement, a grin spreading over his face as he pushed Maya aside a little, spreading his hands over my midriff and prodding the coins that laced the fabric.
I groaned and Maya shoo’d him away.
“You still hurt her,” she snapped angrily.
I shook my head, straightening up and prodding my bruised stomach.
“I’m still alive.”
The commotion had brought Aoi and Dad racing across the arena. Dad’s expression was thunderous as he pulled Takimu’s long braided hair, jerking his head backwards.
“What were you thinking?” he bellowed.
Takimu muttered a series of apologies before slinking away.
Aoi was examining the fabric I was wearing curiously.
“It is made with such unattractive material,” he murmured.
“It’s probably worth a fortune on land,” I muttered, watching as the coins gleamed dully in the water.
“This is what I had in mind for armour, Aoi. It will at least protect us from the Mizraks if we end up in one-on-one combat.”
“If we can save just one Oceanid from Neith then the precaution would have been worth it,” Dad said to Aoi.
Aoi informed the pod that we would all be wearing armour and organised for it to be created immediately, hoping to create a formidable barrier.
Every Oceanid was put to work and,, as they scattered to do Aoi’s bidding, I pulled Dad to the entrance of The Haven to show him the weapons I’d managed to find at the wreck gardens.
He inspected them carefully. “These will take practice before anyone is any good with them.”
“So we start practising tomorrow.”
He nodded. “You might have some trouble convincing the Oceanids that they need to work with weapons like these to defeat Neith.”
“That’s only because they haven’t seen the size and power of Neith’s army.”
He nodded. “OK, we start tomorrow!”
With the first part of my plan having gone so well, I have to admit I was over-confident when I met Thanh and the other Mami-wata he’d managed to convince to join us at the exit of The Haven after dinner.
I learnt the lesson all humans eventually do when they work with sentient creatures…that as tame as they may appear, they will always be wild at heart.
20. Hunters
Not all of the Mami-wata had bonds with Zmija. I discovered that the relationship with the Zmija was unique to the Oceanids at The Haven and that they generally guarded these relationships jealously.
The Mami-wata from the visiting pods had bonds with dolphins mostly, but explained that they could form bonds with certain whales too.
“The whales are not friendly to anything that resembles a man. They have long memories that do not forgive the atrocities done to them,” the leader of the visiting pod, Khazhak, explained.
“Would they attack Neith on our behalf?” I asked.
“It is doubtful,” he replied.
“What about colossal squid?”
He nodded. “Yes, if we get to the sperm whale, they may well agree to attack colossal squid, if for no other reason but a meal.”
“Where can we find sperm whale?”
“There are none close to here, but travelling with dolphins, maybe two hours from here, there could be some.”
“What about travelling with the Zmija?”
“An hour, at most.”
“Let’s go then,” I replied, calling Mitra as I did so.
Our party numbered twenty Zmija and thirty-six Oceanids. I rode alone with Mitra, her aggressive behaviour towards anyone who made an attempt to come near us discouraging other riders.
The purpose of the exercise, apart from finding sperm whales, was to see if Mitra could manage the other Zmija as a group. The concept had been sparked by Sabrina’s statement that Mitra and I were destined to do great things together, two queens…my theory was that if I could control Mitra and she could control the other Zmija, we would have a phenomenally powerful attacking force. If this idea worked with the Zmija, I was hoping it could work with the dolphins and sperm whales too.
Mitra, can you get the other Zmija to swim in a Vshape behind you?
The communication was silent to my ears, but when I looked to my left and then to my right the other Zmija had moved into a shallow Von either side of us.
I practised various shapes with her as the Zmija wound their way through the kelp, delighted with the responsiveness of the pack.
Once we reached open water the Zmija sped up. They began a series of leaps into the void, spreading the fins that ran the length of their bodies as they did so and gliding across the top of the water in giant leaps before diving back beneath the waves.
I found myself revelling in the warm evening air as it whistled past me, the moonlight glinting silver off the Zmija around us.
We’d been travelling for about forty-five minutes when we heard several loud whumps and then the screaming in the water.
It was a blood-chilling sound that made my stomach roll in fear and sent a shiver of fury through Mitra.
She and the other Zmija stopped leaping and instead dove deep into the velvet black of the darkened ocean.
“What’s going on?” I asked Thanh whose Zmija had drawn close to me.
“Whalers,” he replied.
“What?!” I was shocked that it would be going on so close to The Haven.
“They hunt at night so that the coastguard don’t catch them.”
Another awful scream shuddered through the water.
“Can’t we do anything?” I asked, desperately searching the water for the source of the sound.
“Not unless we want to be found.”
Another whumpf in the water followed by a mangled scream of pain had every muscle in my body tense with fury.
“How many whales will they take?”
“The entire group,” he replied.
A hatred so deep I recognised it couldn’t just be mine welled up within me.
I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Mitra would attack the whalers.
Mitra, wait.
She waited a few moments before she let out a shriek of rage and shot forward followed by every other Zmija and their helpless passengers.
I tried desperately to talk to Mitra, but could feel her actively blocking me as she raced towards the source of the screaming.
The blood in the water when we got there was horrifying. It flowed out of several gaping wounds in three whales that were being slowly reeled in.
The first thing Mitra did was so shocking I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. She swam straight at each injured whale, killing it instantly.
The water was ominously quiet for a few moments before the metallic ringing of another harpoon being loaded echoed through the water.
In the few seconds before the evil spear was shot into the water I grew suddenly weaker as I felt my talents being drawn from me. It was a subtle but insistent pull, one I tried hard to resist but I found parts of them slipping from my control.
Mitra dove deep beneath the ship and then turned and threw herself at the void.
Mitra, what are you doing! I screamed at her.
We flew into the dark thin air and as we did so Mitra spat a huge energy ball at the ship before we splashed back into the water with a jolt.
The metal of the boat screamed in protest as rivets popped and the once smooth hull of the boat twisted as the heated metal responded to the colder water. I felt as though my head would burst, the sound was so intense.
The other Zmija rammed their massive skulls against the ship’s hull, rocking it back and forth until we all heard the unmistakeable crack and tear of the metal giving way.
Mitra and the other Zmija moved away from the ship deep in the dark water, watching as it sank into the night of the sea.
The survivors splashed around in the water, desperately calling to each other as their legs pumped in useless desperation. The sea would probably claim them before they could be rescued.
Mitra, we have to get them to land.
She was confused by my reaction but before I could argue or convince her to help the humans, she and the other Zmija dove deep into the water and flattened out, keeping very still.
Fire (The Mermaid Legacy - Book 2) Page 14
