The Coral Kingdom

by Douglas Niles

Cries of alarm drew their attention back to the Princess of Moonshae, where they saw a dozen sea trolls scrambling over the sides—the type of attack Brandon had suspected. But the longbowmen were ready, throwing down their missile weapons and meeting the attack with cold steel. The ten Ffolk archers battled desperately to hold the longship, and though three had fallen by the time Hanrald reached them with reinforcements, the scrags were all slain or sent bleeding back to the depths.

  The huge scrag battling Brandon lunged for the captain, sweeping his great sword through a great arc with enough force to slice a human body in two if it connected. The northman ducked as the blade whistled toward him, barely evading the strike. As Brandon sprang back to his feet, the double-bitted axe whipped upward, the edge biting deep into the scrag’s belly. The monster howled and dropped the sword, which bounced off the deck and vanished into the sea. The scrag spun, ready to dive after the weapon, but Brandon’s blade struck again, squarely between the monster’s shoulders. It fell to the deck with a thud as the Prince of Gnarhelm chopped it again, this time fatally. In another moment Robyn reached them, touching her staff to incinerate the beast before it could regenerate.

  Next Keane and Robyn combined to sweep a surging wall of flame across the last corner of the Manta where they still met resistance, finally clearing the enemy vessel of foes. Fires smoldered in many places where Robyn had torched the bodies of the sea trolls, and the frame of the raft itself burned in several spots.

  “Oil!” cried Brandon. “Bring those casks over here!”

  Crewmen made ready to cast the longship free as the flammable liquid was poured liberally over the deck of the Manta. Pools of oil caught fire as soon as they touched the smoldering sea trolls, and quickly the surface of the raft was engulfed by flame.

  The humans beat a hasty retreat to the Princess of Moonshae and quickly drew in the lines that lashed the two vessels together. Sunset began to shroud the sea as they hoisted sail and caught the freshening breeze, the same breeze that fanned the fires aboard the burning Manta into an inferno of destruction.

  The great raft blazed into the night, a shrinking ember on the horizon, as the speeding longship once again followed her course to the southeast.

  * * * * *

  Talos and Malar watched the unfolding drama through the window of his enchanted mirror, beholding each scene as Deirdre observed it—peering over her shoulder, in effect, at the longship and its desperately battling crew.

  The Destructor felt the woman’s interest in the avatar even as he saw the failure of Sinioth’s plan to trap the longship. Would the servant of evil fail him again? If he did, Talos vowed that it would be Sinioth’s last failure.

  Then once again his thoughts turned to the dark-haired princess as Deirdre focused her attention on the enchanted—and very dangerous—glass.

  17

  Kyrasti

  “We’re close now,” Robyn announced, full of certainty. She didn’t try to explain her assurance, nor did any question it. Faith had guided them across hundreds of miles of the Trackless Sea. Now that same faith told the queen that her husband was near.

  Sunrise cloaked the Princess of Moonshae in a fine mist, but pale blue already domed overhead with the promise of a clear day. A good breeze had carried them through the night, and now it ruffled the sea into cheery whitecaps.

  The longship left a swath of wake through the swells, cresting each and pouncing forward to the next as if the vessel herself sensed the nearness of their goal. Alicia stood in the bow, wanting only to finish the voyage soon—for better or worse.

  The Helm of Zulae, still sitting on a rowing bench before the mast, gleamed in the first rays of sun to break the mist. Alicia looked at the powerful artifact and at the vast expanse of featureless sea. How could they possibly know when to dive, where Tristan was held below the unchanging waters?

  Her mother, however, had no such doubts. Robyn, too, remained in the bow of the longship, her eyes closed in concentration. Tristan’s presence grew in her heart and her mind, filling her with hope and determination. Finally, less than an hour after the pale dawn, she turned back to Brandon. From his position beside the helm, the sea captain looked at her expectantly, and she raised her head in affirmation.

  “It’s time,” Robyn said softly, the words carrying clearly to every member of the crew.

  Brandon nodded. News of the impending descent washed swiftly through the ship, and the men alternately looked upward at the sun, knowing that they might be beholding it for the last time, and down at the suddenly menacing sea. Would those waters soon swallow them?

  “Ready with the helm,” cried Brandon. Hanrald and Brigit picked up the artifact and carried the gleaming object to the bow, where they stood behind the figurehead and awaited Brandon’s next command.

  “Steady on the rudder,” the captain instructed Knaff, who stood at his usual post. “Furl the sail, lash down anything loose, and ship the oars!”

  His crew leaped to obey, every man determined to do his best. The familiarity of the tasks lent necessary stability to the strange prospects before them. Knaff himself tested the horizontal rudder they had affixed, insuring that the wide, short stabilizer could move freely up and down.

  “Can it work?” asked Alicia, only half-joking as she stood beside Keane and watched the enchanted figurehead.

  “Don’t you think it’s a little late to wonder about that?” replied the magic-user. Alicia laughed, though Keane hadn’t intended the remark to be humorous. She took his arm and he sighed—sadly, she thought. The two of them turned their attention to the captain, and the princess felt Keane’s arm tighten beneath her clasp. Unconsciously she clasped him more firmly.

  “All stand by!” Brandon cried, looking once more at the sky. If the Prince of Gnarhelm was nervous, however, he didn’t betray it in his posture or his voice.

  “Now!” he called sharply, chopping downward once with his hand.

  Hanrald and Brigit smoothly raised the Helm of Zulae over the wooden figurehead. Carefully they lowered it, pleased as the smooth silver headpiece came to rest firmly on the female features of the proud carving. The helm seemed to shrink slightly, so that it rested firmly on its wooden perch.

  Immediately the longship settled lower into the water, with an unsettling lurch that was obvious to every member of the crew. Before anyone had time for second thoughts, Brandon looked at his helmsman with a grim smile. “Let’s go,” he said.

  Knaff instantly pushed down on the horizontal rudder, driving the wedged platform into the water at the vessel’s stern. The manuever raised the longship’s after quarter, angling the bow downward into the waves.

  Alicia felt a slight tilting of the deck below her feet, and suddenly the horizon canted to the side. She grasped the gunwale with her left hand, still clutching Keane’s arm with her right, as the Princess of Moonshae’s prow sliced through the surface of the sea.

  Waves rolled to either side, and the sensation that the ship was sinking underneath her was impossible to avoid. Frothing, angry turbulence to port and starboard surged higher and higher, until it rolled above them, but none of the water spilled into the hull.

  More and more of the ship plunged beneath the surface, until the roiling maelstrom formed a tube enclosing the forward half of the vessel. Alicia, standing amidships, took a last look at the sun, and then white water surrounded her. She turned aft and saw Knaff the Elder’s teeth clenched in determination as the stern of the longship followed the rest of the vessel under the surface of the sea.

  She looked along the length of the hull, upward through a column of air, like seeing the blue sky through a window or from a hole deep in the ground. Then foaming brine closed over the rudder, and the ship slipped below the surface of the green, rolling water.

  Suddenly, and pleasantly, the turbulence around them settled. No longer was the water white and frothing. Instead, it flowed past them above and below in a smooth green wall. Only where the mast broke the dome overhead did a line of wake app
ear. To the rear of the ship, a foaming trail bubbled as water closed behind the Princess of Moonshae while she moved through the sea.

  The helm masking the longship’s proud figurehead propelled them forward, and if they moved slower than on the surface, no one thought of complaining. The dome of air remained over the crew, the air pocket shaped very much like a second hull, the same shape and size of the longship’s.

  “She’s girded for war now,” Keane observed softly, with a long look at the silver-helmed figurehead. He might have spoken of the whole ship, Alicia thought. They were all ready for war.

  Grim-faced crewmen sat at their benches, staring at the green water flowing past a few feet from their faces. Awed by the powerful magic, none of the sailors broke the silence. Instead, they clutched weapons close at hand and maintained a wary watch on the sea.

  We can do it! Alicia felt the strongest thrill of hope she had known since their quest began. They sailed under the sea! With a moment’s guilt, she admitted to herself that she had never fully convinced herself that the helm would work. Of course, there remained the matter of finding her father and vanquishing any of his captors who stood in their way, but these seemed minor concerns to the princess. Anticipation consumed her. Her emotions surged closer to joy than they had in several bleak months.

  A gray shape flashed through the green water, catching her eye with a start. She thought she saw another, and then a third. Alicia strained to look. Illumination in the boat was weak, filtered as it was through a steadily increasing blanket of brine, and she wondered if the shapes had been products of her imagination. Then she saw rows of teeth inside a gaping mouth lunging from the water toward her face!

  “Shark!” cried the princess, drawing her sword as she quickly stepped backward. The complacency of her earlier mood vanished in the instant of attack. Inches from her skin, grotesque jaws snapped shut with a loud slap, but before she could stab with her weapon, the hateful snout disappeared into the water.

  “Help!” shrieked a crewman, and Alicia whirled to lay horrified eyes upon the northman writhing in pain, the jaws of a huge shark clamped on his shoulder. He twisted and screamed, trying to lunge toward the center of the hull. The rear half of the great fish remained in the water as it struggled to pull the fellow from the hull.

  Several of his comrades leaped to his aid, driving the shark back with blows of sword and axe, and finally the fish released its victim. The man collapsed to the deck, groaning piteously, as blood spurted from torn skin and flesh.

  “Over here—look out!” Shouts of alarm rang through the hull. The Princess of Moonshae shuddered repeatedly to the bumps of dozens of blunt heads bashing into the timbers of the hull.

  Water exploded into the boat across from Alicia. She turned just in time to see several huge sharks almost thrash free from the green sea. Their jaws closed over the arm and head of a stunned northman, and before the wretch could even scream, they dragged him back into the protection of the briny liquid. The princess whirled just in time to stab a shark that had lunged at her unprotected back. A scream from the bow told her another crewman had not been so quick or so fortunate.

  “Stand them off!” shouted Brandon, chopping wildly at the churning water with his axe and driving one of the piscine carnivores back, but only for a moment. Another fellow, one of the Corwellian bowmen, screamed as a huge shark dragged him into the water.

  Robyn stood in the stern and made a snap decision. Turning to the transom, she dove into the water. At the same time, she called upon the power of the goddess, a power she had used often before, but never in this way.

  She shifted her body into the form of an animal with the ease of long practice, but this time—as her limbs turned to fins and her head formed a long, bullet-headed snout—she forced herself to grow. Her size expanded far beyond the limitations of human mass. The power drained her resources but infused the druid with might now, when she needed it most. There would be time later to recover, or so she hoped.

  Quickly Robyn grew, her shape stretching, narrowing to a driving muscular tail. Patches of white and black appeared across her skin, and the powerful flukes of her tail drove the great mammal forward. Air exploded from the hole at the back of her neck, and she opened a cavernous mouth, knowing that teeth had multiplied and grown there, longer and sharper than any shark’s.

  The ravenous killers still swarmed around the Princess of Moonshae, intent upon their quarry—so much so that the swift onslaught of a killer whale into their midst came as a complete surprise. Robyn attacked with savage fury, her love for her husband and daughter magnified, it seemed, into a consuming maternal rage by the great body encasing her.

  In seconds, a dozen sharks floated, ripped and lifeless, in the wake of the onrushing mammal. More suffered the crushing bite as the whale surged on, and many not killed were left crippled in the water, irresistible prey for their cruel and ravenous fellows. Great jaws slashed and crushed, and though many of the fish turned to snap at the whale, they couldn’t slow her driving attack. The druid felt the tearing pain of sharp teeth raking her flanks, slashing her fins and tail, yet she drove forward in relentless onslaught.

  Sensing the need for air in her great lungs, Robyn propelled herself upward, drawing the enraged sharks into slashing pursuit. She rose quickly, beating them to the surface and exploding into dazzling sunlight. Exhaling with a burst of steam, the great mammal then drew in a large lungful of air. Then, twisting gracefully in the air, she dove into the midst of the shark pack.

  Crushing with her powerful tail, biting and slashing with her massive jaws, the killer whale again tore through the savage fish, again ignored frenzied jaws that ripped at her own skin. More and more of the sharks turned toward easy feeding on the carcasses of their mates, slain by the deadly whale. Those who still dove after the longship Robyn pursued, attacking without mercy, biting to at least cripple each shark that came within range of her jaws.

  Finally the harrying carnivores fell away, discouraged and defeated by the druid in the body of a whale. They circled in the distance, menacing and patient until Robyn rushed at them. Then the fish scattered in the face of her ominous approach, and by the time the whale turned back to the longship, the sharks had lost interest in their mission. The survivors returned to partake of the feast that their heavy casualties had provided them.

  The Princess of Moonshae continued to descend away from her, but the druid circled warily for several minutes, ensuring that the vicious fish did not return. Finally, convinced that they would remain content with their current spoils of battle, she rose once more to the surface, breaking into the sun and spouting steam from her nostrils. Drawing a deep lungful of air, she lifted her tail to the sky and dove.

  Like a sleek harpoon she plummeted into the depths, soon making out the incongruous shape of the proud longship coursing forward through its alien environment. The killer whale swam to the ship, and as she reached the pocket of air, Robyn allowed her body to return to its human form.

  Wearily the queen tumbled into the longship, where she barely felt welcoming hands lift her to the deck, laying her down gently and spreading a warm blanket across her. As if from a great distance, she saw that her legs and arms were covered with bites, many of them bleeding. The whale hadn’t escaped the battle unscathed.

  Then, as Alicia and Tavish knelt to tend her wounds, darkness rose around her and the High Queen slipped away.

  * * * * *

  Again Tristan’s lungs felt as if they would burst. All around him pressed dark water, dragging against his body from the force of his movement. He clung to the strap of leather, feeling the sea rush past his body, sensing the impenetrable depths yawning for great distances around him. Yet still he held on and held his breath … until at last his lungs could stand it no longer.

  Then, as he had been instructed, he exhaled.

  He felt the cloud of bubbles ripple along his chest and knew a momentary panic at his lack of air. Then he felt a body beside him, hands seizing his h
ead and other lips pressing to his own. Eagerly Tristan opened his mouth and inhaled, feeling a welcome rush of oxygen enter his lungs.

  That’s one, he told himself as he again determined to hold his breath as long as he could. One of the mermen had given him air—another precious minute or two of survival here in the alien deep.

  Marqillor had explained it to him: Each merman could breathe underwater, through the use of gills located at the nape of the creature’s neck. Though the creatures also had lungs, these organs were not used when a merman swam underwater. Thus the aquatic humanoid could take a lungful of air and hold it, just like any human swimmer, except that the air would not be depleted by use, since the merman didn’t need it.

  But Tristan did. Again he reached the limit of his endurance and gasped out a cloud of bubbles, and another merman swam before him and gave him the gift of air.

  Two, the human silently tallied.

  Marqillor had also explained the limitations. While all the mermen had taken a breath of air before they left the dungeon, they could not generate additional oxygen in their lungs while they swam. The use of the gills bypassed the air-breathing organs entirely. Thus Tristan could count on but one breath from each of his companions, and he knew they had to swim for several miles.

  There were thirteen mermen in the party. Marqillor hadn’t been specific about their destination, except to promise him that there would be air in Kyrasti, the domed palace of the Coral Kingdom.

  All Tristan had to do was make his thirteen precious lungfuls last that far.

  The king of the Ffolk held on to a leather belt around Marqillor’s waist, so that none of Tristan’s energy was expended in swimming. Even if he had two good hands, he could never have hoped to approach the speed the merman attained with no difficulty while hauling his ungainly human cargo.

  Vaguely he sensed that it grew darker around them, and he knew they swam down some kind of tunnel. He saw turbulence ahead and heard strange cries ringing through the water, followed by the sharp clicking sounds of underwater combat. The mermen had stumbled upon several sea troll guards and swam into the midst of the guardpost, furiously attacking their hated foes. Marqillor’s warriors slammed into the larger creatures, bashing them with their muscular tails.