John Ringo - Against the Tide

“No,” Megan said in a small voice. “Besides, he was nuts.”

“Wants to be king of Briton,” Bast said, shrugging. “Lots of others in history with same madness. All Gael mad. Should have met Boadicea, now there was a woman with a problem with servitude.”

“Boadicea?” Megan said then frowned. “She was a Celtic queen in the time of the Romans. I’m sorry, Bast, but pull the other one, that was way before your time.”

“Tell me if I lie,” Bast said, her face straight, holding up two fingers as if in an oath. “Where you think legend of elves comes from? Point is, Malcolm may be crazy but it’s regal madness. Plenty of women have fallen for it over the years. Eight wives of Henry for example, poor girls. Went to the slaughter like so many charging infantrymen in Somme and that’s sort of the point. Women work one way, men another. Men charge the walls for the women, once more unto the breach and all that, women charge the men for the gene. If didn’t fall for Malcolm, pretty, pretty Malcolm with as much power as anyone has these days, then aren’t addicted to men, aren’t addicted to servitude. So, feelings for Herzer are real feelings. Feelings to trust. Hell, not the first to fall for Herzer, I could tell some stories. But first that Herzer has fallen for.”

“What about you?” Megan asked.

“I charge the walls and the gene,” Bast replied with a merry chuckle.

“No feelings like you’re inadequate?” Megan asked. “That, maybe it would be better if you just let the menfolk take charge?”

“Ain’t human,” Bast said, grinning. “Thousand years get tired of saying it. Elves are not humans. Don’t have same wiring. Can play submissive game but not submissive at all. Humans talk about ‘fight-flight.’ Isn’t binary, quaternary: fight, flight, bluff, submit. Every human is different pattern for different conditions, but all humans have all four to an extent. Elves don’t. We have fight, flight and bluff. NO submit. All human interaction works on those four responses, including what you went through. You used bluff as much as anything with girls. With Paul you used submit. Had to. Now you fear it. Don’t. Don’t have to use it, most of the time, but is part of you. Watch it, don’t fear it, know it. Going to be interesting with Herzer, though.”

“Why?” Megan said, blearily. The rum had really started to kick in.

“Most prototypical heterosexual dominant you’ll ever meet,” Bast said with a wicked grin. “Knows it, now, controls it. Understands it and accepts it, now. But under ‘heterosexual dominant’ in the Net has picture of Herzer in armor.”

“But what…” Megan gulped and wished there was more rum. “What if that’s… okay?”

“Hmmm…” Bast said, nodding. “Bed and office two different things. For you has been the same and that’s hard to handle. But with Herzer… you in position of authority and order him, off he goes like good little soldier. In bed… that’s different. Just know that that’s you and not Paul . Understand?”

“Understand,” Megan said, yawning.

“Here,” Bast said, handing her another flask. “Water. Otherwise gonna have spectacular hangover.”

“Thank you,” Megan said, taking a big drink and then lying back on the cot. “I’ll think about what you said. When I wake up.”

“And I’ll see you out on deck,” Bast said, buckling on her sword. “Tomorrow.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Megan giggled.

“Good dreams,” Bast said, covering her with the sheet.

And they were good dreams. Megan couldn’t remember them the next day but she did remember who was in them. And it hadn’t been Paul Bowman for once.

“There’s orcas out there,” Tarree pulsed.

“Yeah, making a hell of a lot of noise, too,” Elayna replied.

“They’re pulling back towards their fleet,” Tarree added. “Dragons.” The New Destiny dragons had learned to attack the mer just as the UFS dragons went after orca.

“I know,” Elayna said. “But why are they sounding? It’s like they want us to know they’re there.”

“No sense,” Herman whistled. The delphino pod leader was one of the senior delphinos, Jason’s equivalent. And she knew him well enough to recognize that he was worried. “Trap feels.”

“Agreed,” Elayna said. “But we’re not falling for it.”

“Not for us trap,” Herman suddenly shrilled. “Ship go!”

“Damn,” Elayna snarled. “That’s what feels wrong. They’re trying to pull us away from the ship .”

“Try not,” Herman said, turning in his own body length and rapidly accelerating to the south. “Succeed did.”

“I hate this damned motion,” Joanna growled. The ship was becalmed, rocking in the waves.

“You’d hate it more if you’d seen the charts,” Herzer replied.

“I heard,” the commander replied. “But the combat fleet was still sailing south towards Edmund.”

“Was,” Herzer pointed out. “Without the mer for communications, we don’t know what is happening.”

“Tell me something I don’t know, me boyo,” the dragon said. “Nor do we know what’s happening under our keel.”

“Yeah, we would lose the mer just when we got…” He paused as he felt a tingling feeling go down his spine. He got up and looked around but there was nothing to cause the sudden feeling of dread. But he stepped towards the aft of the ship, walking slowly between the wyvern and then starting to run. He was going to look a fool if…

There was a sound of breaking glass and a shriek from the stern of the ship. From the captain’s cabin.

“Quit bloody screaming!” Megan said as Baradur chopped at another of the hands that were scrabbling at the broken window. The hands were webbed and covered with fine scales for all they had five fingers. Megan dreaded seeing what they were attached to.

The marine guard plunged into the cabin, boarding pike to the fore, just as the first of the attackers made it past the wee-folk guard. The attackers were armored in scales with faces like frogs or fish but eyes alight with malevolent intelligence, they smelled of seaweed and rot. The first one over the broken out window sprang into the room on long, heavily muscled legs and tore the pike from the marine’s hands, turning it upon its wielder and pinning him to the starboard bulkhead.

Baradur turned in a blur and chopped his kukri into the thing’s arm, nearly severing it, and followed it up with a blow to the neck that left the thing decapitated on the deck. But in the time he had taken, two more had made it through the window.

Megan turned to bolt out the door, only to find the corridor packed with struggling sailors and the strange fish-men that had risen from the deep. She closed the door and leaned against it, trying to think what to do. Shanea, thank God, had quit screaming and was now holding onto her skirt. No help there.

Baradur was a blur, striking from side to side in the narrow quarters. The fish-men seemed to have only their long, hooked talons for weapons but they were using them well and the guard had taken many cuts. His foemen were piled at his feet but in a moment he was going to be overwhelmed.

Megan spoke a few syllables and pointed at one of the fish-men, stilling his heart and dropping him to the deck. She turned to another then another but even that minor use of power was draining and she could see her power-bar dropping into amber and then red as more and more of the creatures piled over the lintel. She could hear scrabbling at the door and leaned into it, holding it shut with her weight and her foot as the things pounded upon it. There were guttural screams from beyond and a sound like melons being smashed as the door was struck with the heaviest weight yet. Her foot slid and a hand scrabbled around the door, pulling at her sleeve.