John Ringo - Emerald Sea

But others were swarming on the wyverns and the lesser dragons had to break off to the south, pursued by at least twenty of the great rays. The rays were, in turn, pursued by Joanna.

The rest of the ixchitl gathered around the mer, trying to strike into the formation past the spears.

Herzer, Bast and Edmund had released the dragons at the first sign of attack and now formed a reinforcement team at the center of the hemisphere. But the group could not press past the ixchitl, without going under them and risking their nematocysts. By the same token, the ixchitl were finding it impossible to break the line of spears held by the mer-men. It seemed as if it was a stalemate until one of the delphinos squealed a distress cry, pounding his sonar to the southeast, into the deep. Rising out of the deep was a leviathan of tentacles and beak. The kraken had returned.

“Jason!” Edmund bellowed. “We’re going to have to break low and proceed to the second phase. NOW.”

The bottom of the mer burst open like a flower, sweeping up and under the ixchitl to the west, braving their toxic harpoons in the face of the greater threat. The delphinos burst through their formation, doing their best to catch the harpoons, with most of them hanging back by command.

The mer-women and older males dropped their burdens and broke under the mer-men, swimming as fast as they could for the entrance with the delphinos screening ahead of them, pounding the sand to check for a second ambush of the rays.

Herzer grabbed Herman as he went past, holding onto the big dolphin’s dorsal fin with his prosthetic since there was no way that a landsman could keep up in this fast-paced underwater battle. He heard a scream from his side and looked over to see a harpoon pulsing poison into Elayna’s arm.

His sword swept out without thought and slashed through the cord, then he grabbed one flailing arm and held on. The big dolphin had sensed his movement and slowed to allow him one moment to recover the girl but now accelerated hugely, heading as fast as he could for the shallows. Herzer felt as if both his arms were going to be torn from the sockets but he somehow retained his grip on sword, girl and delphino.

As the delphino came opposite the shallows on the near side of the entrance he turned to the side sharply and threw Herzer and his burden off into the shallows. Without a word he then sped to the west, following his pod.

The mer-men, in apparent panic, were now streaming through the entrance to escape the combination of the ixchitl and the kraken. In the same apparent panic they made the same wrong turn in the tricky shallows as the mer-women, and ended up in a small, landlocked bay on the southwest side of the entrance.

There was no escape. The sides were relatively steep and while they could climb out onto the land they could never struggle over the steep cliffs around them. And the ixchitl controlled the only entrance to the sea. Unless someone came to their succor, the kraken could easily enter the relatively shallow bay and pluck them from the sides.

All of the ixchitl had followed them into the bay, even the group that had been pursuing the dragons, and the kraken waited at the entrance to the narrows, apparently preferring the deeps to the shallows that might be dangerous to his depth-adjusted design.

Herzer dragged Elayna farther up the shore, far enough that the kraken could not pull her to her death, and looked across the narrow entrance to the bay. It was almost exactly as he’d remembered it from his reading of the maps and he waved at Edmund, on the far side of the entrance, as he pulled the heavy package off his back.

“We still lost too many,” he called.

“No plan survives contact with the enemy,” Edmund replied. “This one came damned close. At least, it will, if you’ll hurry up.”

Herzer unfurled the monomolecular net from his back and took a section of it, whirling it around his head until it had good speed, and hurled it across the entrance.

At the splash, some of the ixchitl turned towards the sole opening to the bay, but Edmund had already splashed out into thigh-deep water and was scrambling back to the far shore.

The heavily weighted net quickly sunk to the bottom as Herzer and Edmund pounded the ends into the ground with the stakes they carried.

The ixchitl began to swim back and forth in the bay, flashing their bellies at each other. One jumped into the air to cross the net but the water on the far side was shallow as well and Herzer waded thigh deep before he spitted it to the sand below with his sword. The adamantite cut through flesh and cartilage, ripping a huge gash in the ixchitl, which was reduced to thrashing in the shallow water.

Another got a run up and jumped the net into slightly deeper water just as a shadow passed over the pool and Chauncey landed on it with both talons. One bite tore through the head of the ray and it, too, was left quivering as Donal landed next to the feasting wyvern. The latest arrival turned to the bay of penned rays and spread his wings, hissing in hunger and clashing his jaws as if to catch one in the air.

The kraken, seeing the dragons in water that was just deep enough for it to maneuver, jetted forward but stopped as Joanna landed in the inlet in water that was over her back.

“Hi,” Joanna said. “Wanna play? I like calamari.”

The kraken seemed to consider this for a moment and then jetted backwards in a cloud of black ink.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Joanna shouted leaping to the land and then running forward to get up in the air. “I’m hungry , damn it!” she bellowed.

She pounded her wings, ascending like an elevator and then turned over, pointed at the kraken, which was still, apparently, visible. She folded her wings back and, still accelerating, arrowed into the water like a dart.

“Commander!” Edmund yelled, but the dragon had already submerged.

“Well,” Herzer said, bending to Elayna, “I guess we get to answer the eternal question.”

“What?” Elayna asked, wincing.

“In a fight between a sea serpent and a kraken,” Herzer said, seriously, “which one wins?”

Joanna had timed the dive perfectly and even as she started to slow in the water her mouth closed over the body of the squid.

It was the foulest taste she had ever experienced, a combination of ammonia with a hint of long-dead fish. But she bore down and felt something pop in its vitals.

It wasn’t a killing blow, though, and the great kraken writhed in her grip, wrapping a tentacle around her neck and others around her wings, body, its beak tearing at her, searching for something that wasn’t invulnerable wing.

Joanna’s eyes bugged at the pressure from the tentacle and she shifted her grip to its base, ripping it off after a long struggle with the rubbery tissue. She spat the still-writhing tentacle out and bit down again, looking for something vulnerable, ripping at it with her talons, as the jets of the beast churned and they shot into the depths. She could feel the water growing colder and the light change from light blue to dark and then the deepest twilight. The pressure on her lungs was building enormously as she struggled to rip with talon and teeth.

Commander Gramlich, she thought, her brain growing foggy with the pressure and cold, this was not the smartest thing you have ever done in your life.

“I can’t feel my arm,” Elayna said, lifting it up from where it lay bonelessly on the sand.

“Daneh says it’s only a paralysis agent,” Herzer said. The bonelike harpoon was deeply embedded in her arm, though. “I think we should wait to try to get that out.” He took his sword and cut the dangling cord off.

“Okay,” she replied. “Thank you.”