John Ringo - Emerald Sea

“I’m not Herzer’s girlfriend you freak,” Elayna shot back. “I’m his girl in the local port. Bast is his girlfriend. And when she’s done with you, there won’t be big enough pieces to interest the sharks!”

“I thought at first of just eating you,” the orca continued, “and sending back your heads. Or maybe the tail; there’s good eating in brains.”

“You are sick,” Elayna said with a quaver in her voice.

“But then I thought, ‘is there anything better ?’ ” Shanol continued, ignoring her. “And I’d heard that there were some interesting crosses happening with Changed on land.”

“You’ve got to be joking,” Antja said, deadly serious.

“Why? I have to wonder, what do you get when you cross an orca with a mer?” the orca said, slowing. “And I think we’ve come far enough to find out.”

“An intelligent orca?” Antja said, slapping at him with her tail. “A mer with no morals? I don’t think so. Let me go!”

“You know this is how orcas and dolphins mate,” Shanol said, pinging her with laughter again. “And the difference between consensual mating and rape is hard to tell with us. Me for you and Shedol for Elayna.”

Antja flailed against him with her tail and writhed in his grip, but she could feel his member sliding out of its protective slit even as she did so. Most cetacean males were designed for nonconsensual sex, and she was discovering just how well designed.

Elayna was flailing in the grip of her own captor and Antja had just about given up from exhaustion when the water above the orca exploded.

“Never ride a dragon bareback,” Herzer groaned as Chauncey finally made it into the air. Staying on one with saddle and grip straps was hard when it took off on level ground. As for staying on bareback, the only reason he’d retained his grip on the strip around Chauncey’s neck was his prosthetic. He was bruised across half his body. And he didn’t even want to think about how his balls were feeling.

“Quit to complain,” Bast said. “Look around.”

“There’s a pod of five headed out to sea,” Joanna said. “Ones from fight; lots of blood trail. Sharks on their tail, too.”

“I don’t think that whoever took them stayed around to fight,” Herzer said, sitting up slightly and regretting it immediately; without the straps his seat on the dragon was not stable and it was a long way to fall. Not to mention the… discomfort. “Bast, I may not be too good for you for a couple of days.”

“Bast has remarkable curative powers,” she laughed. “There, to the south. Two spouts!”

“Orcas,” Joanna said, zooming her eyes. “Which group do we follow?”

“South,” Herzer and Bast said together.

“Shanol?” Herzer asked.

“Elayna and Antja,” Bast replied. “It is good that we did not bring Rachel.”

“Yeah,” Herzer growled, kicking Chauncey in the back. “Go!”

The dragons drove their wings as hard as they could and quickly overtook the orcas, who had slowed. They seemed to be struggling with the two mer-women.

“Is that what it looks like?” Joanna said, circling the pair. “Because if it’s not, it’s something very strange.”

“Yes,” Herzer shouted, pulling at the throat-piece of the wyvern and pushing him over into a stoop.

Chauncey had watched Joanna and he threw his wings back in a v, aiming at the right orca with minor corrections of his wingtips.

The stoop had started from over a hundred meters up and Herzer realized that he had just done a very stupid thing. Water, as he had learned as a lad jumping off a cliff on a dare, gets very hard when you hit it at high speed.

“Oh, shit!” he yelled, jumping off the dragon and pointing his feet at the onrushing ocean. As the water came up he pulled his arms into his head, pointed his feet, pinched his nose and mentally kissed his ass goodbye.

Antja was slammed downward by the orca and wondered what he had done to manage that. But at the same time, he let go his grip and his member retracted so she was thankful for small favors. She wriggled out from between the pectorals and headed in towards shore. There was always a reef somewhere around here, and once she got into one of the crevices he could be buggered for all she was coming out.

But she stopped and turned back, remembering Elayna. The younger mer-girl, however, was right behind her. And behind Elayna was a battle royale.

Chauncey had gripped Shedol on the back and was now tearing at the orca for all he was worth, with Bast sliding in and out, her sword flickering like lightning.

Shanol, bleeding from a dozen wounds, had somehow managed to escape from Joanna and was heading for the depths, with the dragon in hot pursuit. Herzer was holding onto Joanna’s tail and working his way up her back, hand over hand.

“Herzer, where do you think you’re going?” Antja said, as loudly as the bone in her forehead would let her.

“Down,” the boy replied, getting a grip on one of Joanna’s spineridges. In a moment they were both lost in the gloom.

Shanol could hear the dragon behind him. He should have been faster in the water than the damned lizard but despite everything it was gaining on him.

“Shanol…” he heard Herzer calling behind him. “She followed the kraken into the depths and killed it. You can’t run. And she can fly above you, so you can’t hide either. Just give up.” The voice was eerie, distorted by the depth. Suddenly a cry rang out behind him and he shuddered. It wasn’t the hunting cry of an orca but something weirder, bass and deadly. He realized it was the dragon. He didn’t know it could do that.

What else didn’t he know about them?

Desperately he dove deeper.

“Joanna,” Herzer croaked. “I can’t breathe.”

There was a rumble under him and he realized that despite the underwater roar she had let out, the dragon couldn’t exactly talk.

“I think it’s the mask,” Herzer said. His vision was going funny. On the other hand, it was getting darker as they went deeper, so maybe it was just that. But the purple spots weren’t part of the light change from the depth, he was pretty sure.

“You may be able to do this, but I don’t think I can,” he muttered. But for some reason he kept his grip on the dragon’s spine. The ridges flattened out along the back and he could only make it as far as the rear legs. That was going to have to be good enough. But he was getting very tired. And it was getting really cold.

The mask wasn’t giving him air. He didn’t know why and he wasn’t sure that even if he let go he could make it to the surface anymore. He realized that he’d just killed himself, but that seemed a small price to pay if he could watch Shanol’s end. He’d always realized there was a bone-deep vengeful streak in him, but he’d never realized it was going to kill him.

Oxygen, that was it. Too much oxygen was deadly. The mask was trying to keep from killing him by giving him too much oxygen. But there weren’t enough other gases in the area for it to mix something else in. At that point, his limited knowledge failed. And he really didn’t care anymore. He could see the orca ahead of him and just as he was sure he was going to pass out, it turned towards the surface. Probably as desperate for air as he was; it hadn’t breached since before the last fight. Then Herzer saw the bottom of the ocean flash by. He had no idea what the depth was around here, but he was pretty sure this mask was not rated for it.

Joanna, on the other hand, seemed to have a limitless lung capacity. She held onto the trail of the orca, her sinuous glide getting her nearer and nearer with each passing second.