by Lynn Abbey
All this Heart of a Lion glimpsed in seconds, then the attack stalled. Surviving sailors and pirates clustered around their captain. All hunkered at the starboard side of the cog, with the pirates' tethered dromond dipping and pitching alongside. More merrow rose to the attack, some climbing the sides of the dromond and tramping across the deck, trailing water. The defenders were surrounded-twenty weary fighters and their aging captain, who wanted only to go below and take a nap. Their future was bleak. Stand and die under bludgeoning fists and claws, or jump over the side to drown, or be crushed between the ships' hulls, or else be eaten by more denizens of the depths.
Unless…
"Grab that barrel!" barked Heart of a Lion. Half a dozen casks tumbled and rumbled along the deck. "And that one-broach the ends! The rest of you, strip your shuts or sashes."
Not comprehending, but glad to follow any orders that might save them, the knotty-armed seamen righted the barrels and stove in the ends with belaying pins. Ripe fumes of sap and sugar wafted around the survivors. As blood-spattered merrow closed on the humans like a wolf pack, Heart of a Lion ordered the shirts and sashes sopped in the liquid until it puddled around their feet. One man hissed as the fiery fluid stung in a long gash down his shin.
"Fling the juice in their faces-hurry!"
Bare-chested men and a few women hopped forward and whipped the wet clothing at the merrows' evil, elongated faces. Wincing, flinching, the sea ogres shielded their sea-green eyes from the spatters, and shied away, shoving back their bloodthirsty mates.
"They hate the stuff," crowed Heart of a Lion. "It offends their noses!"
"So what? It's their claws and teeth that'll kill us!" Always grumpy, Harun snapped a shirt at the monsters and drove them back, but had to soak his shirt while the creatures surged in. "We can't flick laundry at them all day. How do we stop them? Or escape?"
Heart of a Lion shook his head, black beard waggling. He hadn't planned that far ahead. Once the repugnant liquid ran out, or the merrow girded their courage, they'd be massacred. What to do? It didn't help his concentration that the leader of this murder spree, the fish-headed sahuagin, was still perched on its tentacle, raised higher now to observe them. The shaman croaked and rasped like a demented seagull, urging the merrow on with curses and charms.
"I don't know what else," growled Heart of a Lion, "but I'll fry that fish-fiend and bear it to the Nine Hells with us."
Sighting down his fire-casting wand, Heart of a Lion eyeballed the crooked sea devil as he stroked his fat hand down the polished brass. "As'tal rifa!"
Came a VA-VOOMF! like a volcano coughing, and the whole world exploded into flame.
Heart of a Lion hooted as the sahuagin shaman was smashed in the gut by a flaming fist. The foul creature bled red as it tumbled off the octopus tentacle and splashed in the sea. As he lowered the brass tube,
Heart of a Lion saw that his enemies, crew, and both ships were ablaze,
"Memnon immolate my soul! Who knew the stuff was flammable?"
Heart of a Lion goggled. Across two decks raged fire white-hot and glimmering blue. Flames scurried like rats across deck furniture and wreckage, soared up ratlines, rimmed the sails, and ran rings around the scuppers and gunwales. High above, rigging sparkled and winked like fireworks, and black jots of burning tar rained. Some pirates yelped as their clothing or hair burned, but cooler heads knocked them down and beat out the flames, or else hurled folds of canvas over them. Pirates and sailors leaned far over the side, braving the grinding hulls, to sop their clothing in sea-water. They slapped the cool brine on sparks atop people and ships.
Mindless, the merrow suffered and died. Many were ablaze. Flames licked up their legs as if they waded through a grass fire. Some beat at the flames and only ignited then: hands and seaweed hair. Many galloped, bellowing in pain, to the sides of the ships and dived headlong. One broke its neck ramming the brown armored hide of a giant seahorse. Another merrow hanged itself by snaring its long neck in rigging while jumping overboard. A few, unable to act for the searing pain, fell on the decks and rolled and writhed. Further saturating themselves in flammable liquid, they were incinerated. Evil, oily smoke wafting from charred corpses stank like burning garbage. Only a couple of merrow had yet to catch fire, and they ran in panicked circles below dripping ratlines and falling sails ripe with flame.
"To the dromond! Board Shark's Fang!" A true captain again, Heart of a Lion shoved people headlong up onto the gunwale, even picked up a few and lobbed them bodily into the low-built dromond. "Harun, make ready to set sail! Saida-no, she's dead-Kalil, pull a hatchet and cut the grappling ropes! Jassan, helm the rudder to haul us away from the cog! You sailors, beat out those flames!"
A slave to custom, Heart of a Lion refused to leave the deck until his crew was safe. Once all the living were aboard, he cast a last look around the cog to see if anyone remained.
The ship was a vision of hell. Smoke roiled and billowed across the deck like thunderclouds. Through dark curtains he glimpsed burning, dying merrow like ghosts condemned to torment, staggering or crawling or writhing in thrashing balls. Paint curled and burned in long, uneven stripes. All the rigging, dried by the fierce southern sun, blazed like tinder. Glancing aloft, the pirate chief saw that the standing and running rigging would soon collapse the burning sails and smother everything. Barrel after spilled barrel burned madly, and Heart of a Lion wondered if the sealed barrels would soon explode like the fire from his wand. If so, he needed to get many sea miles distant. Turning to mount the gunwale with a grunt — he paused.
Something had caught his eye. Movement where it shouldn't be. Whirling, he faced the billowing fire. The horrific heat dried his face and eyes, making him squint, but somewhere…
There!
"Shar shield her most shameful son!" prayed the pirate. Clutching his fire wand, he ducked his head and charged the flames.
What he'd seen was a huddled, crawling figure, not a dying merrow, but the marine lieutenant Belinda Destine. She'd been hammered to the deck but not killed, too tough to die. Sweating buckets in fright, barely daring to breathe, he zigzagged past knee-high flame, skirted a rolling, burning barrel, stopped, dashed under a flaming flap of sail, then-his heart stopped cold-leaped over the open hatchway and crashed clumsily on one knee. An ankle popped like a old twig, and agony coursed up his leg.
Still, the fat pirate reached the lean lieutenant by skittering clumsily to her side. Dazed, she crawled aimlessly away from the nearest fires. Her pink silk shirt smoldered and her yellow sash was ablaze. With no breath to explain, Heart of a Lion ripped off his turban, beat out the fire, then dropped the greasy, burning folds. Kneeling/ gasping, he hooked a meaty arm around her slim middle and rolled her to his broad shoulder. With a grunt, and a grimace of pain from his sprained ankle, the pirate chief squinted in smoke and fire and staggered toward the dromond, which seemed to lay a hundred leagues across a burning wasteland that would put all nine of the Nine Hells to shame.
Limping, cursing, praying, Heart of a Lion groped toward safety and cool, sweet air. His burden mashed his shoulder and his sprained ankle. He had to circumvent the mainmast, then the mizzen, because the entire starboard side of the cog seemed engulfed in flame. If he couldn't get past the fire at the prow, he'd have to risk the ocean-and he'd never learned to swim, an instance of laziness he regretted now, but perhaps not for long.
"Come-uh! — daughter of disaster! We can't- oww! — tarry here!" Heart of a Lion gabbled at the unconscious girl to keep up her courage, or his. "My, they must feed you marines-uh! — oats and hay! Come, this is no worse than a forest fire, or so I hear-what?"
Rearing from the smoke, tall as a flaming volcano, like a ghost from his haunted past, loomed a merrow scorched black along both its sides. Mad with pain, the monster lunged into the mizzenmast, bounced off, then saw the humans and roared a challenge.
Heart of a Lion had no weapon, neither scimitar or even dagger, and was saddled with an unconscious woman besides. Lackin
g anything else, he used what came to hand-the brass fireball wand.
"Begone!" Craning back one thick arm, Heart of a Lion slammed the tall merrow across the jaw with the brass tube. The sea ogre's mouth shut with a clack! as the creature was bowled sideways. The pirate wasn't sure, but guessed he'd broken the thing's neck, a feat more suited to his lusty youth than a middling age. Dropping the bent tube, he staggered on blistered feet for the dromond.
One last sheet of blue-white flame blocked his path to the dromond, and through it pirates turned and pointed, their images rippling in the heat above the fire. A roaring in his head wouldn't let him hear what they called. With no strength left, only heart, the pirate chieftain charged.
In five limping strides, he bulled into the cog's gunwale, pushed headlong, and dived.
Fire filled his vision, then blue sky, then green water — then he crashed on his shoulder against a pine deck.
At the last second he'd twisted away from the shoulder bearing Belinda Destine. Exhausted, pain throbbing in every part, roasted as if on a spit, he lay gasping while willing hands laid him flat. Blessed cool water was slapped on him and the lieutenant. A hand tilted his head and poured fresh, sweet water-truly the nectar of the gods! — down his parched throat, then the hero was left alone as pirates and sailors set sail.
Dimly, Heart of a Lion heard the thunk of axes. Under his back, he felt the dromond come alive and pull free of the burning cog. At more shouts, the decks canted slightly. The captain, thirty years at sea as boy and man, felt the dromond's rudder bite the waves as she gained headway. Squinting aloft, he saw sails billow, snap into place, and fill their tan bellies. His ship was safe, and he could rest, lying at ease and staring at the blue sky.
"You… saved my life."
"Eh?" Rolling his head, "Heart of a Lion found the blue eyes of a northerner staring into his. Lieutenant Belinda Destine of the Caleph's Imperial Marines was scorched, smoke-grimed, half cooked, but alive. She croaked like a crow. "You waded through flames and… carried me out. You… coldcocked a merrow with… one punch. You truly do have… the heart of a lion."
"Oh, that was nothing. I did that every day when I was young. Even on holy days." Used to boasting about himself, Heart of a Lion was suddenly embarrassed, yet it was pleasant to see a pretty young woman smile. To show off, he pushed to his elbows and casually studied the sails.
"Still," he rubbed his running nose, "pirating has slipped into a lull as of late. Tell me, what do they pay captains in the Caleph's Navy?"
ONE WHO SWIMS WITH SEKOLAK
Mel Odom
4 Flamerule, the Year of the Gauntle
"Stop this ship before we smash against the wall!"
The sahuagin prince-one of the surviving four of the recently destroyed Serosian city, Vahaxtyl-lifted a hand bristling with thick, jagged claws and surged forward menacingly.
Laaqueel, High Priestess of the Claarteeros Sea sahuagin kingdom, crossed Tarjana's wooden deck without hesitation, putting herself between the sahuagin prince and her king.
The prince stood over seven feet tall on splayed webbed feet, dwarfing Laaqueel's slight frame. The priestess knew the sahuagin were thought ugly and cruel in appearance by the surface dwellers, but to her they were perfection-something she'd never achieve.
Fins stood out from the prince's scaled body, jutting from forearms and legs. The anterior fins on the sides of his great-jawed head joined together on the dorsal fin down his back in the Serosian way instead of remaining separate the way Laaqueel was accustomed to. His coloring wasn't the greens and blacks of the sahuagin of the outer sea. Instead, his scales shone teal, marked with splotches, the dominant colors in the world of Seros.
The prince was broad and powerful, a predatory creature the harsh sea had bred to withstand the depths and combat. He wore only the sahuagin warrior's harness that provided carrying places for the few personal items he had as^well as trophies he claimed in battle. The harness also bore the prince's insignia. He carried a royal trident chipped into shape from greenish-gray claw coral.
Little more than an arm's reach behind Laaqueel, Iakhovas stood unmoved and faced the angry prince. A small smile twisted Iakhovas's lips. "Maartaaugh, do not make the mistake of threatening me." He spoke in a low voice that traveled only to the nearest ears. "I've already killed one of Aleaxtis's princes. Though it wouldn't trouble me in the slightest to kill another and glut myself on your flesh and gnaw on your bones, I would see you live. If you remain intelligent enough."
Laaqueel knew she was the only one who saw Iakhovas as he truly was. He looked human, tall and broad now, with dark hair held back by bones with carved runes. A carefully groomed mustache ran down each side of his mouth then joined his sideburns, leaving his chin and cheeks clean-shaven. Runic tattoos covered his body. He wore black breeches and a silk shirt, black leather boots, and a heavy sea-green cloak that held magical secrets and weapons in its depths. He was missing an eye, but these days the empty socket somehow gleamed golden, as if something buried in its depths was beginning to surface.
Everyone but Laaqueel believed Iakhovas was a sahuagin. The magic spell he wove around himself prevented them from seeing anything else. Laaqueel had seen him at his weakest, and now she knew him at his strongest, but even she didn't know what he truly was.
Laaqueel seized Maartaaugh's wrist in her powerful grip, halting the movement. Surprise glinted in the prince's oily black eyes as he felt her strength. His great mouth snarled in warning, revealing proud fangs.
It was a face Laaqueel would have loved to wear.
"Stand back, malenti," Maartaaugh spat.
The word "malenti" slammed into Laaqueel, carrying all the savage disrespect and pain that she'd borne all of her years. The pain-the incompleteness and the stench of the outcast-remained sharp.
She was malenti-the unwanted offspring of true sahuagin caused by the nearness of the hated sea elves. Many priestesses thought the curse of the malenti-birth was one of the Shark God's gifts, a built-in warning that drove them to seek out their enemies and destroy them. Malenti were usually destroyed at birth, but a few of them were saved to serve as spies, masquerading as the hated sea elves.
Laaqueel was only a few inches short of six feet. She wore her long black hair tied back in a single braid. Rounded curves and full breasts that she knew attracted the eyes of sea elven males and surface dwellers made her body ugly to her. She preferred the harsh angularity of the sahuagin form. To further compound the curse she'd been given, her skin wasn't the greenish or bluish cast of the sea elves. Instead, it was the pale complexion of a surface dweller.
The priestess turned her voice to steel, using the pain that she felt but never letting it touch her words and make them weak. "Don't speak disrespectfully of me, Prince Maartaaugh. Sekolah has chosen me priestess of his faith. You may keep your opinions of me, and of my birth, but never of my calling. I live to serve Sekolah, and I will die in that service if I need to." With the merest thought, she flicked out the claws sheathed in her slender elflike fingers, baring sharp edges.
"Most Sacred One," Iakhovas addressed her.
Laaqueel kept her gaze locked on Maartaaugh. "Yes, Most Honored One." She watched the prince's guards over his shoulders. They were no problem. The sahuagin crew who worked under her had already surrounded them.
"Release him," Iakhovas ordered.
"As you command." Carefully, Laaqueel stepped back, setting free the wrist she'd captured so quickly and forcefully. She felt the currents flowing over Tar-jarea's deck, wrapping around her, spinning warm and cool water together. She kept her eyes on Maartaaugh. "You will understand this, prince. No one may lift a hand against my king while I live."
Maartaaugh gazed at her angrily but didn't say anything. In the sahuagin culture, the females fought alongside the males with the same ferocious skill. However, the only positions of importance the females held within the sea devil society were as priestesses.
Laaqueel had often thought it was only that wa
y because the males didn't like the idea of handling the hated magic that was contained even in Sekolah's gifts.
Maartaaugh threw his arm toward the wall growing ever larger as Tarjana hurtled forward. "Even if we survive the crash, you'll doom us to the untender mercies of the sea elves manning the garrison."
Iakhovas looked past the man and said, "We won't touch the wall."
"By Sekolah's unending hunger," Maartaaugh exploded, "we can't miss!"
Laaqueel stared at the wall, watching as it loomed over them. The Sharksbane Wall had been constructed thousands of years ago by the sea elves and mermen of Seros. The sahuagin-true to their nature-had warred almost incessantly with the other underwater races. As a result, the sea elves of the Aryselmalyr Empire and other races joined to build the Sharksbane Wall.
The wall was one hundred and thirty-five miles long and stopped sixty feet short of the surface of the Sea of Fallen Stars. Sea elves and their comrades manned the garrisons strung along the top of the wall. It had been constructed to confine the Serosian sahuagin to the Alamber Sea, the easternmost arm of the Inner Sea.
For thousands of years, the Sharksbane Wall had stood as proof against-and insult to-the Serosian sahuagin. Now, Iakhovas had sworn to bring it down and free the sahuagin trapped behind it.
Laaqueel felt the steady strokes of the rowers as they powered the great galley beneath the sea. With sahuagin manning the oars, the big ship shot through the water. The wall was now less than two hundred yards distant. Even if the rowers worked at it, she didn't think they could keep Tarjana from breaking up against the barnacle- and coral-infested wall. She focused on Iakhovas's words, holding them as truths the way Sekolah had indicated she should.
Without another word, Maartaaugh turned to glare at the huge wall.
All of the prince's life, Laaqueel knew, Maartaaugh had lived in the shadow of the Sharksbane Wall, letting it define so much of his life. Personally, she found even the thought of that confinement horrible. Sahua-gin were meant to be free, able to go where they wanted and kill what they pleased.
