The Coral Kingdom tdt-2

by Douglas Niles

  The magic-user blinked, trying to think as the aquatic attackers swarmed closer. "I agree," he concluded after a split second. After all, the two knights were some of the best fighters among them.

  Keane quickly unfurled the leather parchment, hurriedly reading over the words to the spells, each of which would provide its target with the ability not only to breathe underwater, but also to move through the sea as if the liquid was no more obstructive than air. In moments, he chanted the brief commands and passed his hand through the careful symbology of the spell.

  "We'll go out and meet them. We'll try to draw as many of them off as we can," explained Hanrald. The earl looked up at Alicia, who had joined them in the bow.

  "Farewell, princess!" boomed Hanrald, with a bright smile at Alicia. "We battle yon foe; it is the way of the knight, after all!"

  Alicia felt a great fear for her friends. "Take care," she said quietly, stretching upward to kiss the suddenly blushing Hanrald. She turned to Brigit with a wan smile. "Don't let him get into too much trouble!"

  The elfwoman smiled sadly and touched Alicia on the arm. "It is too late for that, I fear," she said.

  Then, as the swarming fishmen were almost upon them, Brigit and Hanrald dove over the side, racing through the water as swiftly as if they sprinted over a grassy field. The two dropped to the surface of the submarine ridge, landing lightly on their feet after a hundred-foot descent. Immediately they began running over the rough terrain, dodging around large outcrops of coral that loomed like giant boulders before them, and within a few seconds, they had disappeared from the view of their companions in the longship.

  The voyagers saw scores of the attacking monsters swerve downward, pursuing the two knights. Scrags spread into a wide screen, swimming dozens of feet above the ocean floor, while many sahuagin darted into the ravines and gullies where the two intruders had vanished.

  At the same time, the rest of the swarming predators continued to press toward the Princess of Moonshae. The complex of towers and domes was well defended, and more and more of the guards appeared in the distance, swimming toward the fight.

  "Phyrosyne!" cried the princess, stamping her changestaff against the longship's hull. Immediately the shaft grew upward, though the tree creature twisted low to prevent its upper branches from breaking into the water over their heads. Thus propped in the hull, the wooden fighter reached out with knotty branches, ready to defend the ship against the wave of attackers that surged against them from all sides.

  For an hour, Alicia's life became a maze of battle as she joined the crew of Brandon's ship in a desperate defense of their beleaguered vessel. Only the shock of their appearance and the success of Brigit and Hanrald's diversion, it seemed, gave them any chance in this battle, for no sooner had they vanquished a company of scrags or sahuagin than a fresh formation arrived to take its place. If the sea creatures had all attacked together, she knew, the battle could have had but one grim outcome.

  Robyn recovered her awareness as the battle began and rose to her feet to aid in the fight, remaining in the body of a human this time and wielding spells instead of her own flesh. Tavish frantically played her harp, and as always the enchanted instrument caused the human warriors to forget their fatigue and their fear, striving their utmost to win this all-important battle.

  The changestaff fought as steadily as any courageous human warrior. It broke the backs of fishmen and scrags alike, seizing their bodies in its firm branches and twisting with inexorable force, tossing the crippled remains back into the sea as it searched for another foe.

  As it was, they battled desperately with spells and steel, arrows and axes, and they just barely managed to hold the swarm at bay. The water in their wake was littered by the torn bodies of the sea creatures, while many brave northmen and Ffolk gasped out their last breaths in the blood-spattered hull of the longship. The air grew thick with the stench of sweat and blood and saltwater, until each breath clogged in the throat, burning lungs and providing precious little oxygen for the breather.

  Desperately battling men and monsters crashed over the benches, around the casks of stores, and even up and down the mast, but in the end, every attack was driven off, at a dear cost in blood.

  "There-some kind of castle!" announced Brandon, peering through the murk toward a mountainous structure rising before them.

  "All around us-a huge compound!" exclaimed Keane, his tone full of wonder that almost succeeded in vanquishing his fatigue.

  Spires arose from a sea bottom that undulated through a series of steep-sided ridges, the huge protuberances of the massive coral reef that formed the foundation of this undersea realm. Twisting towers of shells, gleaming with mosaics of pearl, silver, and gold, studded the coral hills. Domed buildings, many with panels of emerald-colored crystal set in their roofs, clustered among the towers. There were no walls in this city. They would be no more useful here than they would on the surface against attackers who could fly.

  The central feature of the submarine vale was a huge rounded structure that occupied the center of a shallow depression. All around it circled ridges of coral, occupied by towers and other lesser buildings. The huge structure was built as a series of great domes, piled one atop another until they reached their highest point in the center, which consisted of a great rounded chamber with panels of clear crystal set all around the curving wall.

  "It's got to be the palace!" cried Robyn. "Go there-to the top!"

  The ship sailed into the great bowl, surrounded by coral towers. The huge dome before them looked like some kind of undersea mountain, except that its surface was marked with turrets and balconies and was broken by many great panels of green crystal, providing glimpses into the shadowed chamber below.

  The Princess of Moonshae, free of pestering attackers for the moment, came to rest beside one of the portals. Eagerly Alicia stared through the murk, not sure what she would see but full of more hope than she had felt in months.

  Nevertheless, the sight that met her eyes was too shocking for any reaction, at least until a second had passed, enough time for her to confirm her identification and find her voice.

  "It's Father!"

  Alicia stared in astonishment as the shapes below the glasslike panel came into view. She saw Tristan in a shallow alcove at the side of the domed chamber. "We've found him!" she cried in pure elation.

  Then Alicia saw the monstrous creature rolling in the waters before her father and she screamed in horror, for the whirling shape reached toward the king with a pair of grasping tentacles, slithering through the water like eels. She saw Tristan squirm desperately in their clutches, dragged slowly but inevitably toward the water.

  Sinioth surged and thrashed in his fury. First had come the news that the prisoner had escaped his cell, and now the humans dared to come against him here, in Kyrasti! He had tried to prepare himself for this possibility, but the reality stunned him beyond disbelief.

  Sythissal, of course, had paid for his failure to secure the prisoner. The captor had been put to death-justice, to Coss-Axell-Sinioth. As he well knew, should he himself fail, Talos would show him no greater mercy.

  But Coss-Axell-Sinioth was not one to dwell upon his defeats, except as they fueled his rage and propelled him to vengeance. Now the prisoner, and then his rescuers, would pay for their arrogance and pride.

  18

  Floodwater

  Tristan looked up in amazement. Moments earlier, he had noticed a shadow across the emerald pane over his head, but when he saw the outline of a northman longship there, he thought he was losing his mind. The ship heeled over, presenting her beam to the window, showing a hull filled with humans!

  Then Tristan saw his wife and his daughter, faces he had forgotten in the haze of his drugging, but that now poured back with the full force of memory-and he was certain that he had gone mad.

  "Robyn! Alicia!" His voice came out in a strangled gasp. Tristan stood up, ignoring the chaos in the room behind him, and reached toward the high windo
w with his one good hand, imploring.

  The tentacle grasped his ankle before he saw the giant squid's attack. A powerful force jerked the king backward, toward the floor of the throne room. Never had water terrified him as much as it did now, when the full wealth of his life came flooding back.

  Desperately Tristan kicked at the tentacle around his leg, chopping with his dagger, realizing the blade was too dull to have much effect. He cast the useless weapon aside and struck with his bare hand and even the blunt end of his wrist, yet his resistance made no difference. Irresistible strength jerked him from the niche and into the water. Tristan barely captured a breath before the monster dragged him below the surface.

  The king ignored the pain flaming through his arm and focused his hatred and rage against the massive beast that sucked him under the water. The creature seemed full worthy of that hatred. Something unnatural lurked in those murderous red eyes, flaming like coals to either side of a beaklike mouth. Smaller tentacles flailed around the beast's horrid maw, but the two massive tendrils securing Tristan had no need of help.

  A figure swam before him, and Tristan saw Marqillor approaching the squid. The merman wielded a large trident, acquired from a vanquished scrag, and now he shoved the weapon with full force into the giant head, flexing his powerful tail in a surge that pressed the tines deep into the creature's monstrous body. The squid twisted away, thrashing at Marqillor with a tentacle, movement enough to allow Tristan to fling his head and torso out of the water, gasping a breath of air before the monster once again pulled him down.

  Other mermen swarmed around the monstrous beast, striking at the squid with whatever they held, sometimes with merely their hands and tails. Tristan kicked with all his might, struggling to break free. He cursed the mutilation of his left arm, feeling that if only he had two good hands, he would be able to defeat the beast. Even in his oxygen-starved delirium, however, he recognized the thought as madness. The monster was too huge, too mighty to be vanquished by a man and certainly not here, in its natural environment. Finally the air exploded from Tristan's lungs and the fight abandoned his body. It required too great an effort to hold onto his breath.

  But then he felt strong arms around him. As his mouth opened reflexively to gasp in water that would choke him, he felt a merman's face before him, and instead of water, he inhaled a life-saving lungful of air.

  The merman who saved him paid with his own life, Tristan saw, as the writhing squid wrapped the fellow in looping tentacles, whipping him toward that crushing beak. Other fishfolk tried to save their comrade, but it was too late. The mouth crunched over the victim's midriff, and the sound of breaking bones snapped horribly through the water. The dying merman's mouth gaped, emitting a cloud of thick blood into the water.

  Once again Tristan managed to work free, pulling himself to the surface and splashing into the niche, finally, as he watched for tentacles. Alone and unarmed, of course, there was little he could do to defend himself if the squid determined to have him.

  But at least, he vowed, the monster wouldn't get him without a fight.

  "This way!" Hanrald cried, driving his huge sword through the body of a scrag that swam in his path. The human dove into the narrow passage, closely followed by Brigit, the sister knight stabbing another pursuing sea troll as she guarded their rear.

  They darted around a corner in the passageway, and Brigit stopped to pull a metal lever protruding from the wall. Immediately a large rock settled from the ceiling to the floor behind them, pushing bubbling water out of the way and solidly blocking pursuit-but also barring their return along the same route.

  The knights paused to catch their breath.

  "That worked even better than I thought it would-our diversion," Brigit gasped, flashing a wan smile. Though dark water pressed around them, thanks to Keane's spells they were able to talk and breath as easily as they did on the surface.

  "How many were chasing us?" Hanrald wondered aloud, remembering the frantic minutes of pursuit, the fleeing fighters just barely able to outdistance a whole swarm of swimming monsters. All of them, he thought with satisfaction, had been distracted from their original target, the Princess of Moonshae.

  The pair had battled their way through a savage cordon of sea troll guards, finding that the enchantment of the spell gave them great freedom of movement. They could slash and parry as if only air blocked their blades. Thus their superior skill outclassed the scrags, who, though they fought in their natural environment, employed little in the way of tactical finesse. Some of the monsters didn't even carry weapons, and those who did used them primarily for thrusting-easy attacks to parry for a skilled swordsman or swordswoman.

  Also, the two knights found that they could run at very nearly full speed, thanks to the effects of the spell of free action-their feet found solid purchase on the sea floor, and the water did not obstruct their forward progress.

  "I think we diverted a hundred, at least-maybe more," Brigit guessed. "Enough, I hope, to let the others get into the palace." How they would get away again, with the full wrath of the Coral Kingdom aroused against them, remained an unaddressed problem.

  "They're still out there," said Hanrald, leaning his ear to the stone. Sounds of prying and scraping came clearly through the water, though as yet the barrier showed no willingness to budge.

  "Let's hope they don't break it down for a few minutes," groaned Hanrald, exhausted from the long minutes of battle and flight. They had raced along the circular wall around the undersea palace until they reached this labyrinth of towers and tunnels. Now, in one of those tunnels, they saw the rock that separated them from their enemies start to wobble.

  "How long before we should get back to the ship?" Hanrald mused.

  Brigit looked at him and shrugged. "Maybe we ought to move on," she suggested. Keane had told them that the spells had a very finite time limit, and neither of them had to stretch his imagination to come up with a picture of what would happen when the magical protection wore off.

  Hanrald started down the corridor at an easy lope. Brigit easily kept pace as the passageway curved through a long descent. Abruptly it ended, opening onto a balcony carved into the side of a deep undersea chasm. The far side of the chasm stretched as a sheer cliff no more than a hundred feet away.

  "They're coming after us," reported Brigit, spotting the swimming forms of several scrags following them down the winding tunnel.

  "Let's go!" shouted Hanrald, raising his sword in one fist and taking Brigit's hand in the other. The pair leaped from the balcony, kicking their feet and swimming with their hands. The force of their jump carried them far from their start, floating through the water like birds soaring through the air. Far below, the base of the chasm darkened to a midnight black-and then they were past, landing on a balcony across the canyon much like the one they had jumped from. Without hesitating, they darted through a doorway into another submarine passage, still racing forward.

  Abruptly they came into a large room, domed like many others they had seen. A dozen tunnels opened in the walls of the chamber, and an equal number of diamond-shaped crystal panels spiraled around the ceiling.

  "Which way?" wondered Hanrald, at a loss.

  "We can't go back," Brigit informed him after a quick look behind. "We'd better move on, quick!"

  Hanrald turned to the right and charged down one of the passageways. Immediately a large scrag loomed before him. The creature jabbed with a trident from a darkened niche in the side of the corridor. Surprised, the knight grunted as the weapon pierced his rib cage. Hanrald staggered back in mute astonishment, watching the water around him begin to redden.

  Brigit whirled past him, disemboweling the scrag in one vicious slash. The creature floated to the side, but a quick look back showed her that their swimming pursuers were closing in rapidly.

  Beside her, Hanrald's eyelids drooped, and his motionless body drifted toward the floor. As gently as possible, the elfwoman nudged the knight into the alcove that had concealed the sc
rag. Then she turned to face the pursuing sea trolls, deflecting the lead scrag's harpoon and splitting his face down the middle.

  More of the monsters swam forward, but the sister knight sliced and slashed so skillfully that each of the beasts felt the edge or the tip of her blade. Warily they backed away from the elfwoman's silver sword, content to hover in the passageway beyond, blocking escape to the right and left but making no immediate move to attack.

  Hanrald's eyes fluttered open. The knight's consciousness returned slowly, belaboredly, mainly because of an awareness of crippling pain. Each breath he drew slashed like a hot iron through his chest. He tried to focus his vision on something, anything.

  He noticed a brightening of the shadows in the back of their niche. He forced himself to a sitting position, looking closer, increasingly hopeful with what he saw.

  "Brigit!" he said, intending to bark commandingly and surprised that his voice came forth as a mere feeble gasp. Nevertheless, the elf woman turned around after checking to see that the scrags remained well back from her blade. "Look-stairs. They must lead to one of those towers above the palace."

  The sister knight saw that a tightly spiraling stairway led steeply upward from their alcove. "Let's go!" she exclaimed. "We can try to get the attention of the ship from there!"

  Hanrald smiled warmly, grasping one of her hands in his. "A good plan," whispered the earl, "for you. You'll have to leave me here to distract them. You make your escape-get back to the ship!"

  Brigit smiled and said nothing. Instead, she leaned over and kissed the human knight on the lips.

  "Up! Climb, dammit. I can hold them, but not forever!" groaned the man, struggling to sit up and look around.

  "Shhhh," whispered Brigit, holding his head in her hands. Hanrald had lost a lot of blood, but she reduced its flow by pressing a cloth against the wound. "In a little while we'll go together."