Joni narrowed her eyes and looked at me coldly. The expression on my face must’ve betrayed my amusement.
“The first thing you must learn is to assume the posture of attention. Hands at your sides. Tails long. Chin down.”
I did my best to reflect the image she described. This whole military thing wasn’t something I was accustomed to—but I’d have to play along, at least for the sake of the other wyrmriders. The last thing they needed was some land walker coming in undermining their chain of command.
“You must remember that at all times the beast between your thighs resists being tamed.”
“The beast I used to have between my thighs was quite ravenous as well,” Pauli, who’d draped himself around my shoulders, whispered in my ear.
I snorted.
Joni stared daggers at me. I bit my tongue, trying to suppress my laughter.
“It is only on account of my presence that these beasts will heed the bit and bridle. Lose sight of that, and the wyrm will not hesitate to make a meal out of any of you.”
I grimaced. Being well averse to the strategies of war on account of my hours of tutoring with Oggie, the Fomorian Merfolk had a major vulnerability—Joni herself. If Anne Bonny figured this out, all she’d have to do is take Joni out and the rest of the Fomorian army would effectively become wyrm food. It was well known in ancient warfare that if the king or general was struck down, the rest of an army could be defeated with relative ease—not only would the soldiers lose morale at the sight of their leader’s demise, but they’d lose his—or in this case, her—leadership. The situation here, though, was even more dire. This situation would be more akin to if an ancient general was killed and all the soldiers immediately fell on their own swords.
“Mount your beasts, cast your tails portside. Maintain a firm grip on the reins and always move with confidence. The wyrm can sense trepidation, reluctance. Even tamed by my presence, they remain beasts, true to their nature. Seem to them weak, in any way, and you appear as prey. Every thought, every movement, when aback a wyrm must be deliberate, seeping with confidence.”
I glanced at the ragtag bunch of Merfolk who’d gathered. They didn’t appear to be the most confident bunch. Take Shelly and Finn, for instance. Shelly’s goth vibe spoke nonconformity—she knew her role here. She knew the importance of serving. But she looked nothing like the take-charge kind of beast tamer that Joni was describing. And Finn? You could still see the pain of loss in his face. I knew firsthand that if you have a loved one who is attacked, not to mention killed, it’s difficult to face whatever force was responsible. Trepidation is natural. It’s a defense mechanism, conditioned in our psyches, to act cautiously, not confidently, when facing something we know to be dangerous. Sure, we might be able to put on a good face in practice, give the wyrm a good go—but how would Finn, or any of us for that matter, react when facing Bonny’s sharks, or whatever other kind of reanimated sea life she might have doing her fighting for her.
Joni’s eyes glowed blue as a few beefy Mermen led several wyrm our way. These creatures dwarfed all of us. A single one, it seemed, if it lost control could easily take us all out in a matter of moments.
As more of the wyrm were brought near, a blue glow—subtle before—grew more intense in Joni’s eyes. It was the same blue glow she had when we first encountered her.
Fomorian magic… Isabelle remarked.
I nodded. Didn’t know much about this particular brand of magic. Joni was the only one I ever knew who could wield it—and aside from the one night when she and Roger saved Ashley and me from zombies when I was nine, I’d never seen her use it. But Joni was a siphon… and we were among the Fomorians. The magic must’ve been all around us. Here, it was her source, probably her only source of power. At least until Isabelle and I arrived—we brought something else.
I instinctively looked for a stirrup to help mount my wyrm—but then I remembered we were in water and I didn’t have feet. I gently flipped my tail and swam into place, draping my tail portside as directed.
Pauli, of course, couldn’t mount his own wyrm. No way to grab the reins. He joined me instead, wrapping himself around my waist and up my back—ensuring he’d be able to continually fill my ear with snide remarks and innuendos.
“About time you started riding the worm,” Pauli said, undoubtedly referring to the fact that I was still a virgin.
“Any advice? You’ve ridden more ‘worm’ than anyone I know.”
“Just remember, it’s all about the motion of the ocean!”
“So size doesn’t matter, after all?” I asked.
“Oh it matters! God does it matter! But after that…”
I chuckled and took hold of my wyrm’s reins tightly.
“Just a soft flick of the tail against its hide is all it takes,” Joni said, “and the wyrm will move forward. Flap your tail again, and it will move faster with each strike. So start gently, get your feel for it, and go from there. Pull the reins to the left or right to turn, and tug them back to slow it down and stop.”
“So just like riding a horse?” I asked.
Joni smiled and nodded. I glanced at Shelly, who was shaking her head. Everyone else was staring at me.
Apparently the idea of riding horses struck them as strange. I suppose if I were at a ranch and taking horse-riding lessons and someone said, “Just like riding an underwater sea dragon,” I’d respond in a similar way. Not that they didn’t know I wasn’t from around here—but as Shelly had told me before, many of them didn’t know what to think about land walkers, and as Titus had warned, some might not take kindly to our presence at all. I was actually a creature of myth, of legend, to most of these Merfolk—I was as odd to them as they would be to anyone walking the streets of New Orleans.
“When you’re ready, give your wyrm a soft kick with your tail and go from there. I want each of you to experiment. Just make sure to maintain a direct line of sight between your position and mine, lest the wyrm risk losing its connection to me.”
Thankfully it wasn’t like there was a lot to obscure line of sight in the sea—unless you were near the surface, of course, where there were deep canyons and gullies, even mountains of a sort around which one could get lost. But so long as we maintained some height above the surface, keeping a line of sight between our wyrms and Joni wasn’t something I thought would be too difficult. Still, it was another fact to keep in mind—something that could make us vulnerable in a battle.
I gave my wyrm—who I oh so creatively nick-named Wyrmie—a gentle “kick,” more like a slap, with my tail. In an instant we were charging through the water. The force against my face was intense. I pulled the reins to the right. Wyrmie turned sharply.
Gentle, Annabelle!
“I was gentle!”
As gentle as an oaf!
“I don’t even know what an oaf is, so your metaphor is meaningless.”
I tugged—a bit more gently this time—the opposite direction, and this time Wyrmie gradually banked left.
There we go…
“Who made you the wyrm-riding expert, anyway?” Isabelle’s matronizing was mildly annoying. I don’t know why it got under my skin now, I’d been dealing with it for nearly a decade. In spite of the fact that her earthly life was barely half the length of mine, she seemed to think a century and a half as a ghost made her more “experienced” in the ways of the world.
If I ever needed any advice haunting someone, she’d be the first I’d ask. But when it came to piloting a sea dragon, she had no more expertise than I did.
I tugged hard on the reins.
Wyrmie reacted harshly, thrusting his (was it he? I don’t know… I thought of it as a boy, but I hadn’t bothered to check the relevant anatomy) head back, nearly tossing me from its back.
“Bitch, what was that?” Pauli asked.
I chuckled. “Sorry, Isabelle was getting under my skin.”
I’m always under your skin… literally.
“And today she has jokes.”
>
Pauli was laughing. Apparently he thought her “under your skin” joke was funny. I mean, it wasn’t even true. Your soul isn’t under your skin literally—for a girl who was born in the 19th century, she sure had a way of misusing the word “literally” as badly as any millennial.
“What was that?” Joni asked as she and her wyrm swam next to us.
“Just pulled a little too hard, I guess.”
“Even when you make a mistake, the wyrm can’t know it. Make it look like it was exactly what you meant for it to do.”
I nodded. “I think I have a better handle on it now. Tug gently…”
Joni nodded and winked. “Doesn’t take much! Keep practicing. This time, practice weaving between the coral. Just remember to stay in my line of sight.”
I nodded, gently “kicked” Wyrmie with my tail fin. I felt Isabelle infuse me with a jolt of magica—to maintain my Mermaid tail—just as Wyrmie accelerated forward.
“Isabelle… did Joni tell us how to dive down and up?”
Try pulling the reins down maybe?
Made sense. I tugged down, and sure enough, Wyrmie plunged toward the bed of coral beneath us. Navigating the coral was a bit tricky—a little tug left or right would let Wyrmie know which direction I wanted him to go. Still, if I neglected to tug one way or another, he’d move in whichever direction he wanted. It meant keeping focus, anticipating each move, as the wyrm somehow knew how to slither and twist his whole body—which might have been half a football field long—without touching any of the coral even once.
“Crazy how he moves like that!” I said as we moved quickly through the coral.
“It’s just instinct,” Pauli said. “I can do that too… can’t explain how. It’s like my body just sort of knows to follow the path my head took before it.”
I gently pulled the reins up, and the wyrm turned its head up and we rose above the coral. I looked over my shoulder, spotted Joni, and made my way back to her position. Her wyrm was larger than the rest—though none of them were small by any means. It made it a bit easier to pick her out of the crowd with so many other wyrmrider recruits practicing in between.
“Not bad!” Joni said enthusiastically. “Now can you drive and use your soul weapon?”
I bit my cheek. “That’ll take some practice…”
Joni raised her hand as if to silence me.
I cocked my head sideways. “What is it?”
“It’s Agwe. A distress call. Looks like you’ll have to practice in the field.”
My eyes widened.
“Wyrmriders, assemble!”
I heard a number of them reply per protocol, “Yes, La Sirene,” though not at all in unison. One by one the wyrmriders who’d barely had an hour to practice lined up.
“One more instruction. Pinch your wyrm by the back of its neck, and it will bite. Now, everyone on me! We must return to the city. Fomoria is under siege.”
Chapter Nine
My heart raced as we charged in V-formation behind Joni. I wasn’t sure how this was going to work, but I was reasonably certain she wouldn’t remain on the front lines. Too risky. I gave Wyrmie an extra flip of the tail and charged to the front of the group.
“Stay toward the back,” I told Joni. “We can’t risk you being taken down.”
“I’m the only one with any experience fighting these things. I can’t sit back and let…”
“I’ve killed a few myself,” I reminded her. “In fact, I think I’m the only one who has actually managed to kill any of them permanently.”
Joni took a deep breath, nodded, then raised a hand to halt the troops.
“Shelly and Finn, you two are on Annabelle. Make sure nothing gets to her. The rest of you, on me.”
“Yes, La Sirene,” the wyrmriders responded in unison.
Shelly and Finn pulled up either side of me. “What makes you so important?” Finn asked. “Other than the fact that you’re an outsider with an apparent death wish.”
I smirked. “Beli,” I said—summoning my soul weapon.
“Wicked!” Shelly exclaimed, seeing my blade form in my hand. The blade itself was shiny, and red, green, and white energies danced around it—each corresponding with the fire, earth, and air elementals that had combined to form Beli, the elemental dragon who was my blade, my crossbow, or whatever weapon the occasion demanded.
“What is that?” Finn asked.
“I possess the aspect of Ogoun,” I explained. Based on their blank expressions, it seemed they had no clue who he was. “The Loa of war. This weapon allows me to traverse between our world and the eternal realm. It cuts straight through the fabrics of space and time. When I strike something with it, especially something undead, well it makes it fully dead. Sends them straight to hell.”
Shelly’s jaw was almost on the seafloor. “It’s so beautiful.”
I shrugged. “It is. But not so much so to them… when it’s slicing them directly into the netherworld.”
Finn shook his head. “There’s too many of them. Even if it works, you won’t be able to take them all out. They’ll overwhelm you.”
I smiled wide, willed Beli to reform into a crossbow—which he gladly did in a moment’s time. In this form, he still glowed with his elemental energies. Most of it, though, was concentrated on the bolt that was loaded inside of it. Ammunition that Beli seemed to magically replace in an instant with every fire.
“I rescind my previous comment,” Finn said. “That thing is glorious. Still, could be even better.”
I rolled my eyes. “How do you figure?”
“Mount the thing like a cannon on your wyrm’s head. Tie it to a trigger on your reins.”
“Holy shit,” I said. “That’s brilliant.”
I bit my cheek. I had to visualize it for Beli to see it. So far, I’d really only wielded Beli in three forms—aside from his natural dragon form, which to date had only worked while we were in Guinee—the sword, the stake, and the crossbow. Wyrm cannon… How do you even begin to imagine something like that? Suddenly my mind was filled with ideas. All I had to do was give Beli the idea and, at least when he’d formed new weapons in my mind before, he took over most creative control in terms of design. So far, he had yet to disappoint.
“Here it goes,” I said, trying to cast a mental picture of what I needed in my mind so Beli could duplicate it.
I felt the crossbow dissipate—instead my wyrm reins began to glow with each of Beli’s constituent elements. The energies coursed from the reins to the bridle.
I laughed out loud. “How about that. I wonder what this does…”
I squeezed the reins a little in my hand. Suddenly, a torrent of green flames poured from the wyrm’s mouth, narrowly missing Joni just ahead of us.
She turned at me with wide eyes—clearly taken off guard by the near miss.
“Now that is not only glorious, it’s fucking divine!” Finn exclaimed.
“Merfolk have the F-word?” Pauli asked.
“Of course we have the F-word,” Finn said. “What do you take us for? Brutes?”
I smirked. Beli had somehow infused the bridle with magica that allowed my wyrm to spit flames of a sort—magic flames that I was sure would have the effect I desired.
Joni’s shocked expression had evolved into a wide-eyed grin. She gave me a quick nod as Shelly, Finn, and I moved toward the front of the pack.
“We’ve got this,” I said as I passed Joni. She was laughing out loud. If our fight against the zombie sharks before hadn’t convinced her—now she knew we had more than a shot against these fuckers. We were going to annihilate them.
At least that’s what I thought until we drew near the city. I could see the spires above what, from a distance, appeared to be a great, gray cloud. As we drew nearer, it was clear that what we saw was no cloud at all.
So many sharks, Isabelle said, her voice somber in tone.
“Good thing we have Beli breath. We’re going to need it.”
I felt Pauli constrict my wais
t. He was nervous. I couldn’t blame him. Even with our Beli-Wyrm combo, this was going to be a chore.
“Why doesn’t this Anne Bonny bitch just come out and fight herself?” Pauli asked, probably not expecting I’d know the answer.
I shook my head. “If she gets taken out, her whole army falls. These sharks are under her control. But she’s got to be nearby.”
Suddenly I felt Pauli release from around my waist. A streak of rainbow light darted across the water—he’d transported somewhere. “Where the hell did he go?” I asked out loud.
No clue, Isabelle said. Maybe to go get some intel ahead of the fight?
I sighed. It was frustrating he didn’t bother to say what he was trying to do before he disappeared. I suspected he’d left to try to find Anne Bonny—our conversation beforehand suggested he might. If she really was around here, and if it was true that taking her out would also dispel her undead shark army, it actually made sense that Pauli might try to locate her. We had a better shot at defeating these things—even with Beli at my disposal—if we could zero in on Bonny’s location.
Joni pulled up beside me. “I have an idea.”
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
“There’s a canyon about a mile toward the other side of the city. I’m going ahead alone. They won’t be able to resist pursuing me.”
“Do you think that’s smart?”
“They’ll go after me, and stop attacking the city—at least for now. Come with me, then use your newfound ability to take them out as they enter the canyon.
I grinned. I’d seen this strategy before… in a movie. “THIS IS SPARTA!” I shouted.
Joni cocked her head sideways. “The 300? Lord, it’s been a long time since I saw a movie.”
“Same strategy,” I said. “It’s smart. I’m game. You sure you can outrun them, though?”
“Wyrms can move about twice the speed of a shark. But I need you, Shelly, and Finn, to go ahead of me. Wait in the canyon so you can be ready to unload on them as the swarms enter the ravine.”
Watery Graves Page 6
