by Matt Larkin
The kupua roared so loudly it echoed off the mountain. If anything, his form seemed to have grown larger, and tusks had risen from his lower lip.
What the …?
He held a bird with a wing in each hand. With his roar, he jerked his arms apart, rending the bird in a shower of ice shards. The other two had torn further gouges in the kupua.
Screaming wordlessly back at the birds, Pele launched a stream of fire at one. They were too fast, dipping around her attack like the throw of a clumsy child. The hawk she’d attacked dove for her. Rather than try to aim at it, she ducked into a ball and engulfed her entire body in flame, pouring mana into it, sending the conflagration surging higher and higher. The bird was nothing but hot water when it struck her, and even that evaporated an instant later.
She rose to find the kupua screaming at the last bird, which had flown away.
“Kupua …” Pele stumbled to his side. A hundred wounds, a few deep, covered the oversized man. And she swore his rage had somehow added to his height, to his bulging muscles.
He turned to her, face framed by tusks as long as her hand, panting. His shoulders heaved, then slumped, and he fell forward to the ground. He shook himself and before her eyes his muscles did indeed shrink back into themselves.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
26
Kama cleared his throat and beamed at the queen he’d just saved. “I am His Royal Egregiously Incorrigibleness, Kamapua‘a the Mighty.” He thumped his thumb against his chest. “Extra mighty. Shitting extremity, you might even call me.”
“What?” Pele shook her head like she thought maybe she was still dreaming. Understandable, given how dreamlike Kama was when he wanted to be.
He had charm coming out of every shitting orifice in his body. “I just want to say, your flaminess, I shitting love you.”
Pele’s face screwed up in what he chose to take as a half smile, then she strode toward him, eyes darkening. With each step, a tendril of smoke began to waft off her shoulders. Then all at once, her hair burst into flame. Her eyes were lit by it, unearthly in their furious beauty.
As she drew near, he had to fall back a step from the incredible heat surging off her body.
“Who do you think you are?” she demanded.
“Well, uh … I think I’m Kamapua‘a. I thought we covered that. You know? Father of your future children. Fulfiller of your secret passions. Also, lots of fun at a luau.”
For a moment she stood there, mouth agape. Sometimes he had that effect on people. Then she placed both palms on his chest and shoved him. Her strength was nothing compared to his, but still he fell back, his bare chest scorched where she had touched him. The pain didn’t end with her contact and he looked down to see her handprints, fingers and all, seared into his chest like great red welts.
Well, shit.
Yeah. He was going to have so much sex with her. Musicians would write songs about them. The Love of Pele and Kamapua‘a. It would be a classic played at wedding feasts for centuries. He could hear it now, played on a pahu drum—bumpa-bumpa-boooom!
“We’re definitely shitting marrying.”
Pele sneered at him. “You are a buffoon. My gratitude for your having saved my life is the only reason I don’t reduce you to a charred husk of smoldering bones. I am afraid to even ask why you insist on lacing your every word with shit.”
“Oh! Well that’s easy. Big sis says people don’t like it if you say ‘fuck’ every other word. People are less offended by offal than by love, though.” Kamapua‘a cleared his throat. “Not me of course. I’m plenty good with sex. Speaking of which, on account of the gratitude and all, you are going to spread your legs, right? Boar’s all riled up and shit. You wanna see?”
Pele flexed her fingers once, then a flame leapt from her palm, surging up from her skin. It was no larger than a torch fire, but it sat there in her hand, not burning her any more than the fire in her hair did.
Glorious.
“Yeah, that is shitting amazing. Never did the shit with someone on fire, but I figure the first time will be down right expulsive.”
The woman snarled, whipping her arms forward like reeds, throwing lashes of fire at him that drove him stumbling away.
“Whoa, what the shit? I promise, my blood is as noble as any. I’m a descendant of Uli herself, and that’s saying something. You and me, we’d make a perfect pair. Matched as well as my two balls, you know. They’re both excellent, in case you wanted to know.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I know who you are. You are a fucking swine.”
“Now, see big sis says you shouldn’t say f—”
“You are a hog. The son of a hog, fit only to be a servant, and not one I’d ever let in the house, much less my bed!”
“Stop, don’t do that—” he begged.
“You, pig man, have lived as a bandit, feeding off the suffering of your own people. You are an animal, and if you come near me, you’ll be roasted alive.”
He felt it, then. The Boar God shifting around inside him. Deep inside his soul. Rage and arousal commingling into a haze of red-hot emotion that blurred his vision. It was in him, clawing its way up from his gut and pulsing down into his cock.
The beast that demanded respect. It demanded everything.
No one had ever shitting respected him. She blamed him for banditry? Old Haki’s rejections and resentments had forced Kama. Called up the boar.
Just like this woman.
A growl escaped his chest. Hard to … even … keep human form like this. His muscles began to tighten, shift and grow under the moonlight.
“Losing … control …”
Pele’s eyes widened and she fell back a few steps. “You are truly a madman. Or you are a slave … to that akua inside you.”
“No more … insults …” Kama snarled at her. He couldn’t take it anymore. Who did the bitch think she was? Who? Who!
Were these his thoughts?
Stop, stop, stop this, before …
The Boar God lunged at her, caught her wrists, ignoring the sizzle as his flesh burned and peeled. He felt nothing but the rage and lust.
Rage and lust.
Rage and lust!
He had already grown over seven feet tall, was still growing.
He forced her down, easily jerking her legs apart with his own. Enlarged like this, she was so tiny beneath him.
She was screaming, snarling like an animal herself. Thrashing, as he struggled to get inside her. The whole mountain trembling with his lust. The boar had enlarged his whole body, now pushing eight feet tall, so large he could barely fit in—
Something snared him under the chin.
Heaved.
Flung him end over end, the wind whipping past his face in a blur even as he crashed upside down into the snows.
The impact blew the Boar God out of him, giving Kamapua‘a control for an instant. Groaning, Kama rolled over to look up and see a man standing above him, steam rising off the stranger’s head and shoulders, billowing from his mouth and nose in a cloud that obscured his face.
Before Kama could even gain his feet, the stranger had seized him up with one hand under his chin and hefted him off the ground. Kama gasped, choking. This shitter was as strong as he was, at least.
Kama grabbed the man’s wrist and struggled to pry his fingers loose. The stranger thrust his arm outward and flung Kama bodily down the slope. He hit snow, rolled, tumbling in a blinding white haze, hit something shitting hard, and blasted all wind from his lungs. Kept tumbling.
Spinning round and round.
Smacked something else that cracked under his rising momentum.
And then Kama fell free, flailing in midair as he pitched over the edge of a precipice, unable to even scream for lack of breath.
27
The full moon lit the ocean like a pale fire overhead, casting Namaka’s foes in silhouette—like shadows come to prey on the forces of Mu. The Muians had set an ambush for the advancing Hiyoyans, one the he‘e would allow them to p
ull off. This night was when the tide turned for Mu.
Namaka hung back, letting her army rush forward to meet the threat. Part of her wanted to be up there, to help her new people however she could. But she was no warrior and she’d only get in the way. From the back, she could do something the others could not.
A dozen tiger sharks surged forward from the enemy ranks, rushing in upon Ake and his forces.
This time it would be different. This time, she and Nyi Rara had what they needed.
Namaka reached both hands toward the onrushing sharks, begging the sea to stop them. “Come on.” Her soul reached the sea.
She shouted her fury at the sharks. The instant before they would have collided with Ake and his people, an undersea wave shot outward from his position, crashing into the sharks and sending them spiraling out of control. The wave carried her own mer forward and they launched themselves upon the tiger sharks in an instant, impaling them with tridents and spears, filling the sea with blood.
A merman wrapped his arms around one of the shark’s dorsal fins and bit through it with his own shark-like jaws. The fish flailed out of control and more mer swarmed it, stabbing and biting and driving it into the sand.
A slight shudder ran through Namaka from the effort. No matter how hard she tried, Nyi Rara’s presence seemed to interfere with her control. It took so much more out of her than it should have.
Despite the loss of their advance forces, the Hiyoyan army still crashed into Mu’s, the bloody sea devolving into a blurry, incoherent melee Namaka could make little sense of. And she could do nothing to help Ake now, at least against the forces that had already joined the battle. Instead, rapid beats of her tail carried her around the skirmish’s edge, scouting for any fresh threats.
“Where are the damn he‘e?” she asked.
Late.
They had to hold this position until help could arrive from the He’e Aupuni. It was only a few dozen miles away, but she didn’t know just how fast those octopuses could swim. Already Mu faced superior numbers.
Just hold the line.
Namaka grunted, and continued swimming until she had come around to Hiyoya’s side. There, waiting beyond a gorge—a whole other battalion of Hiyoyan mer, armed with some kind of bladed bracers strapped to their wrists. Most of them appeared to be watching the battle, but at least a few turned to face her.
These forces must plan to wait until Mu had near exhausted itself then sweep in, fresh and quick to slaughter Mu’s broken lines. Maybe the he‘e would arrive in time, but Namaka wasn’t going to take that chance.
You are not ready for this many foes.
Right. Because those Hiyoyans were going to sit around and wait until she was. She had wiped out the better part of an island with a kai e‘e. She could handle a small army of mer.
Nyi Rara pushed against her mind, trying to forestall her actions. Growling, Namaka slammed her will against the mermaid. It was time they did this her way. The mermaid inside her gasped, perhaps not expecting such a strong push.
Namaka spread her arms in open invitation, in unveiled threat. Let these Hiyoyans come to her. Let these little bottom feeders try to take another home away from her.
She clenched her fists and waters around them began to swirl, forming vortices. She was not a warrior. She was a goddess. “Come and get me!”
Like that, a dozen of the Hiyoyan strike force launched themselves toward her. Namaka almost laughed. A dozen.
As her enemies drew near, Namaka yanked her arms back in toward herself, pulling the sea around her in a swirling bubble. The other mer were sucked in, tossed about and spun around her. But she needed to do more than make them dizzy. She needed to make them see, to make them fear.
Shrieking, she summoned the sea beneath them and shot them all upward like a shooting star falling in reverse, a ball that launched itself out of the sea and into the air. Namaka broke free of the ocean and for an instant was flying, the moonlight glinting off her skin and scales while the dozen mer beneath her tumbled around in her trap. Gravity caught her and yanked her down. Namaka turned, falling back into her ball and driving it down. The sea beneath it parted, swept aside in an inverted dome revealing the seabed just in time for the ball to slam her enemies into the sand. The next instant the weight of the ocean crashed around her.
Her power enveloped her, sheltering her from the crushing weight of the falling waves until they stilled, and another beat of her tail carried her forward.
She gasped, barely able to catch her breath, but filled with a euphoric sense of glory she could never have put into words. She could feel her mana, flowing through her, connecting her to all the endless sea.
Hiyoya’s forces watched her, faltering, clearly too terrified to assault her. Wicked grin on her face, Namaka punched forward, intent on throwing a concussive wave in their midst. She did so, but merely knocked a few aside, carrying only a fraction of the weight she intended.
She’d blown through too much mana. Indeed, her chest was heaving now. The events of the past days had not given her enough time to meditate and draw in energy.
Dammit. Namaka looked to the regrouping Hiyoyan forces—they were converging on her.
How much could she push it now without killing herself? Mana was life, and without it, her body and soul would give out. But none of that mattered if the Hiyoyans killed her.
There, among them, she spotted Matsya, face a mask of anger and distress at seeing her here. She was done being afraid of him. Of any of them.
Namaka stretched both hands out, once again inviting the forces of Hiyoya to attack. Then she swept them back together, shooting out a crossed current under the sea toward them. The waters responded to her desire—but not only toward the Hiyoyan army. They jetted out in all directions, colliding with her own fighting forces as well as the advancing Hiyoyan reserves.
With a cringe, she looked over her shoulder to see the battle stalled for a moment. Mermaids and mermen lay scattered on the ocean floor, shaking themselves. Some floated limply, unconscious or worse. No.
Not again. Not again.
Godsdamn it! As long as Nyi Rara was there, she lost either power or control.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “Nyi Rara?”
No answer came from the mermaid princess. The spirit had clearly driven herself into a torpor trying to control Namaka’s wild surges of power.
In desperation, Namaka turned and fled, retreating behind the Muian lines. Had her power made enough of a difference on their side?
She feared she’d know the answer all too soon.
The wake of battle left the sea a pink slurry, littered with severed arms, half-eaten faces, and mangled corpses. The scent of so much blood had Namaka ready to dive in and bite down on anything fleshy. Indeed, mer darted among the carnage in a feeding frenzy, and she couldn’t even say they were all on her side.
Ake met her then, and she could smell his blood before she saw him. It trailed out of a kelp wrap where his left hand had been. His face was a grim mask, not giving away the pain he obviously felt so much as the anger at yet another devastating battle. “The he‘e did not arrive.”
No.
What did that mean? That Kanaloa had refused Punga’s offer of Red Coral Reef? Or that … “They betrayed us.”
Ake shook his head, clutching his arm to his chest. “Why?”
“Mu once enslaved the he‘e.”
“Yes.”
“What if they’ve been waiting all these centuries for the chance at vengeance?”
“Who would wait so long for revenge?”
Namaka glowered. Oh, a person who felt wronged enough might wait an eternity to avenge the injustice. She knew it all too well. She’d fallen into that trap. “We have to get back to Mu.”
Namaka swam faster than she had ever swum, even using the water to enhance her speed, shooting it out in jets behind her. Pushing herself, she could cover maybe thirty miles in an hour, but the jets helped her reach almost twice that. The undersea
world blurred around her and still she feared she would arrive too late. If the he‘e had betrayed Mu, no help was on the way. And after the battle with Hiyoya had turned against them, the city might be woefully unprepared to face a new threat.
By the time she neared the city, the sun had risen and set once more, and the city grown dark. The moment she slowed her pace, the sounds of battle assaulted her.
We’re too late.
Nyi Rara! Thank the ‘aumākua the mermaid princess had awakened. Did she know all that had happened?
I know. Despite our pretenses of cooperation, neither of us holds full control. We seek symbiosis but find only disrupted equilibrium. We failed, utterly, because we are so very ill-suited to one another. Kuku Lau should have given your body to an older, stronger mer than myself, rather than striving so much to elevate our ‘ohana.
We were fools, all of us, caught in our prideful currents and blind to the threats just beyond.
Namaka had no answer for that. As she entered the city, chaos greeted her. Mermaids and mermen struggled with he‘e everywhere she turned. Every window, every house seemed to reveal another octopus strangling a mer.
Namaka darted into one of the houses where a he‘e had one arm around each of a mermaid’s arms, four holding her tail still, and two more crushing the poor girl. Wordless rage shrieked from Namaka’s mouth as she sent a jet of water slamming into the he‘e. The impact sent both attacker and victim colliding with the house wall. The mermaid’s eyes glazed over, but the he‘e almost instantly recovered. Its arms propelled it toward Namaka like a rock hurled from a sling, not swimming so much as launching itself at her.
Twisting and ducking, she tried to avoid the creature, but it used its arms to alter its momentum so easily it crashed right into her. Before she could even react, those arms enwrapped her, constricting, suctioning onto her skin and scales. Namaka tried to scream but the he‘e wrapped one arm around her neck and gills, cutting off all air. She grabbed at it and tried to pull it away. Though its skin was soft as velvet, the muscle beneath was like rock.
