Роберт Асприн - Forever After

Coolly assessing the situation, Domino leaped from the top of a boulder with all the strength of her cavalry-bred thighs. Making herself into a torpedo with the trident at its tip, she pinned one of the Hydra’s heads to the lake bottom. Whipping out her saber, she ducked under more flames and took a swipe at the next-closest head.

Behind her, Spite had joined the fray, pummeling the Hydra with powerful forehooves. The unshod edges were as sharp as razors and where they hit blood welled up through the Hydra’s heavy green scales from crescent-shaped cuts.

The water was red now from more than the trident’s light. Yet, as Spite had warned, the Hydra was rapidly healing the wounds that they had inflicted upon it. Knowing that they could not truly harm it, the Hydra could fight until exhaustion made one of them careless.

Brandishing her saber, Domino sprang upward. At the height of her arc she took an unorthodox two-handed swipe at the centermost of the heads she was fighting. The blade swiped cleanly through scales and flesh, grated on bone, and when she gave an added, savage tug it cut cleanly through the neck.

Blubbering like a manic teakettle, the Hydra focused two heads on her, furiously blowing flame. Twisting with an agility of which a true seaborn could be proud, Domino avoided most of the flames. Even so, the back of her tunic was burnt into ash, but the freshly sheered neck stump was solidly cauterized.

Spite’s trumpet of delight suddenly died into a few embarrassed coughs. The flailing hooves fell still and more amazingly, the Hydra ceased its attack. Poised to behead another neck, Domino broke off her swing and slowly turned to face whatever new enemy had appeared.

A female figure stomped across the sea bottom toward them. The skin of her face was fine and delicate-like seaweed that has crisped to tissue paper in the sun. Unlike Spite’s skin, which was a healthy, uniform green, this creature’s was mottled olive. Nor did her hair, stringy and matted, hung with a variety of sea detritus, add to any overall impression of health. Yet, despite this, the angular female thumping across the lake bottom radiated a vitality and fecundity that was as tangible as the cold caress of the water that eddied around her.

Recalling Spite’s words, Domino thanked her patron deities that she was a woman, for the mere thought of what service the Sea Hag might have otherwise demanded of her was enough to shrivel into impotency what she didn’t have.

From the corner of her eye, Domino could see Spite shifting shape again, the upper part of its/his/her body becoming a female form, the bottom remaining fishy, so that the hippocampus became a mermaid.

“Mom had revamped the Hydra,” Spite whispered as soon as she had a human mouth. “Originally all it had were stocky legs. I worried that you had drowned when I had to swim out of range to share my water breathing magic with you.”

The Sea Hag cupped her hand behind an ear that was truly shell-like: the irregular, lumpy shell of an oversized oyster.

“Whispering isn’t polite, child,” she said, bulging eyes like luminous pearls orienting on Spite. “You were raised with better manners.”

Grasping the trident, the Sea Hag wrenched it from both the sand and the Hydra’s neck without apparent effort. Holding it, she surveyed Domino, who realized somewhat uncomfortably that she was still standing on the Hydra’s back.

“Domino Blaid,” the Hag said, drawing out the “o” unreasonably, “we can’t have this, you know.”

“Ma’am?”

“You charging down here and assaulting my creature. Poor baby was only doing its job and you come down here and hack its head off and burn it and frighten it beyond belief.”

She stroked the nearest head which flicked a forked tongue at her in a gesture that would have been kittenish except for the eight-inch fangs through which the tongue glided.

“It was attacking Spite,” Domino explained, jumping down next to her erstwhile horse. “I didn’t have any choice.”

The Sea Hag stared coldly at the mermaid. “Spite taunted the Hydra unreasonably. It’s powerful, but not very bright and rather short-tempered.”

Domino reflected silently that short tempers seemed to run in the Sea Hag’s family.

“No matter,” she said aloud, “Spite is an ally and I stand by my actions.”

“You have gone to a great deal of trouble just to put something useless in an inaccessible place,” the Sea Hag mused. “I could overlook it for the amusement value if you hadn’t permanently damaged the Hydra.”

“You can’t punish us for attacking a guardian, Mother,” Spite retorted. ‘That’s why you put it there.“

“Well,” the Sea Hag considered, “actually, I did expect it to stay unharmed, That’s why I selected a Hydra, a creature that not only regenerated but could grow new heads as needed. I don’t like having my creations hurt. Now, as to the matter of your punishment…”

“Wait!” Domino commanded, “I believe that I can set this right, but I need your permission to return briefly to the surface.”

“Oh, no,” the Sea Hag actually chuckled, “what kind of guppy do you think I am? Your purpose here has been served. You would only use the opportunity to flee.”

“I am not stupid,” Domino retorted coldly. “Even if I escaped now, your reach is greater than this lake. I would rather die honorably than exist in fear of your eventual revenge. Secondly, you have already hinted that you know that the scroll I planted here was a dummy. A simple messenger with that news and I would be as efficiently undone as you could wish. Thirdly, Spite is within your power and, as I have stated, I will not abandon an ally — even a cantankerous one.”

“Pretty speech,” the Hag replied, “and I admit that I am curious. You may go but no farther than the glass-bottomed boat within which even now your men watch from the surface.”

“There will be delay,” Domino said, “while they send for what I request.”

“You will return here,” the Hag stated. “They can drop you a weighted parcel.”

Domino wasted none of the Hag’s patience when she got to the surface, but dictated a fist to Rafe.

“Make certain that Chase realizes that I’ll need powders or pills, not liquids,” she said. “Now, I must return.”

“Domino,” Jord said, reaching to clasp her hand, “please be careful. What you’re doing is dangerous.”

“That’s a soldier’s job, sweetheart.” She said, “I’m just glad that you’re safe. I’d be happier if you would stay ashore. Who knows what the Sea Hag may do?”

“My place is with you,” he insisted stubbornly, “and you can’t have Rafe put me ashore. I rented the boat.”

Accepting defeat, Domino kissed Jord’s hand and saluted Rafe. As she sank back to the depths, she could see the boat skittering toward shore like a crippled water bug.

The Sea Hag pursed her lips approvingly as Domino rejoined them. Spite had retaken the hippocampus form, Domino suspected as much as to avoid talking to its mother as to be ready for fight or flight.

The Hag fanned a deck of scrimshaw cards. “I realize that you’re not Spotty Gulik, but would you care for a game to pass the time?”

Several hands of Go Fish and Old Maid later, a canvas-wrapped package was lowered on a line from above.

“Nice rope,” the Sea Hag commented as Domino untied the package. “You’ve been busy.”

Domino grunted as she undid her bundle, but she did remember her manners enough to cut several feet of rope off and present it to her hostess.

“Now,” Domino said, “if you will request that the Hydra swallow these pills, we can get under way.”

“What’s in them? The hag said, squinting at the large tablets.