Troy Denning: The Veiled Dragon

Ruha felt herself rise on a dune, then something bumped into her knee and rubbed past her thigh. Her scream filled the sky with a cry that boomed like thunder. She thrust her jambiya into the water and sliced into a sinuous body, her knuckles brushing along a gritty hide. A huge tail fin slapped her arm, and the creature flitted away.

The witch let out a breath she had not realized she was holding. It had only been a fish-one as large as a man, but a fish nonetheless-and apparently it intended her no harm.

A distant voice came to her on the wind. “Keep yelling, Witch! Do you think I can see you in this murk?”

Ruha glanced toward the voice and saw the blocky silhouette of a small, makeshift raft cresting the next dune. On top of it kneeled two figures, both digging into the water with short sections of deck planking. One of the men appeared rather lanky and gaunt, but the other was stocky and stout, with the jutting brow and swinish snout of a half-orc.

Ruha slipped from the crest of her dune and lost sight of her rescuers. “I am here, Captain Fowler! One dune ahead!”

“What was … booming about?” Now that the sea had risen between Ruha and Fowler, the wind rendered his voice almost inaudible. “Are … hurt?”

“I am well. Something bumped my leg, but it was only a fish.”

Fowler’s voice remained silent for a brief moment, then suddenly rose above all the other sounds: “… yourself! That fish could be a …”

Ruha scowled and tried to pull herself farther onto the beam, but it only twisted and dumped her back into the sea. She tried again, kicking her feet to help lift her weight out of the water. Something slammed into the thick part of her leg. Her arms slipped free of the wet wood, and she felt herself spin and glide away from the timber. She heard a peal of thunder and realized it was her own wail of agony, magnified a thousand times by the magic of her wind spell. A keen, crushing ache erupted in her thigh and raced through the rest of her body, and finally she noticed the teeth. They were clamped around the thick part of her leg, driven deep into her flesh.

Ruha thrust her free hand into the water and caught hold of a gritty dorsal fin. The fish began to work its jaw back and forth, scraping the points of its serrated teeth across her thigh bone. She pulled herself toward its tail and plunged her jambiya into its flank, then dragged the curved blade back toward herself. A torrent of cool, greasy blood gushed from the wound, covering her hand.

The fish dove, dragging Ruha into the black stillness beneath the sea. She could not see its lashing body, but it seemed to be the same creature that had bumped her earlier, about six feet long, with a slender, lashing body and a plethora of long, pointed fins. She twisted her jambiya in the wound and pushed it toward the creature’s underside, praying she would find something that resembled a throat.

The blade struck bone, and the jaws of her attacker closed more tightly, threatening to crush her thigh. The fish whipped its head from side-to-side. Ruha’s flesh tore, and her lungs burned with the need for fresh air. She thrust her jambiya into the side of the beast’s head and slashed through something soft. She felt a rush of frothy water, but the creature seemed to feel no pain. It whipped its body around and went deeper, jerking her after it. A sharp crack reverberated up her spine, followed by a brutal, stabbing pang that seemed to spring from her bone marrow itself. The witch opened her mouth-she could not stop herself-and screamed.

A deafening roar throbbed through the water, striking Ruha’s eardrums with such force that it seemed her entire skull had shattered. Without realizing she had raised them, the witch found her hands clamped over her pulsing ears, the hilt of her dead husband’s jambiya pressed against her temple. The sound had a much greater effect on the fish. The creature’s body went slack, its jaws opened, and it began to squirm about drunkenly, nearly tangling itself in her aba before it scraped its gritty tail across her cheek and vanished into the black waters.

Ruha had a fierce urge to cough and realized that her body had been trying to fill its air-starved lungs with seawater. She clamped her jaws shut and kicked toward the surface-then nearly forgot herself and screamed again when a sharp jolt of pain shot through her thigh bone. Continuing to kick with her good leg, the witch lowered a hand and found a mangled circle of flesh just below her left hip. The water felt alarmingly warm, and she could feel a steady current of blood flowing from the wound.

When Ruha’s head finally broke the surface, her ears were still ringing from her underwater scream. She could not hear the wind wailing, but she did feel its cool touch upon her skin and immediately started to gasp and cough, causing such a roar with her booming voice that she felt it in her feet. Already, she was growing dizzy from blood loss, and she feared she would die before her coughing spasm ended.

Ruha slipped her jambiya into its sheath and set about unbuckling her belt. As simple as the task was, she could hardly accomplish it. With only one leg able to move and both hands required to undo the clasp, she could barely tread water. Her sodden aba kept dragging her beneath the surface, and she feared that if she allowed herself to sink too far, she would not have the strength to swim back to the surface.

From behind Ruha came the muffled, distant-sounding murmur of a man’s voice. She spun herself around and, less than twenty yards away, saw a ragged section of hull planks lashed to three, low-floating oil casks. Atop the makeshift raft stood Captain Fowler and the other man, both shouting at the witch and waving her toward the raft.

“I am unable to swim!” Ruha’s voice roared like a falling wall inside her own head, and both Fowler and his crewman cringed at its volume. “A fish attacked me. My leg is-”

Ruha’s explanation ended in a strangled cry of alarm as a huge, gritty snout bumped into her back. The witch took three deep breaths while the body of the great fish brushed along her flank, its dorsal fin harrowing the water like a ship’s prow. At last, the creature passed, drawing a sharp hiss when its massive tail slapped the witch’s mangled leg.

Ruha stopped fussing with her belt and filled her lungs, at the same time glancing in Captain Fowler’s direction. The half-orc’s eyes were bulging out of their sockets, and he was frantically tying a rope around the waist of his trembling companion.

A mountainous dune rose beside Ruha, and she saw the dark line of a dorsal fin emerging from its face. She closed her eyes and buried her head in the water, at the same time voicing the mightiest, deepest bellow her aching throat could manage. Again, the water throbbed, hammering her eardrums with a terrible, pulsing ache.

Before the witch could pull her head from the water, the enormous fish hit her-but she did not feel its long teeth tearing through her torso. Instead, the beast’s nose slipped beneath her hips, and she slid along its spine until the creature started to roll toward her. With one hand, the witch caught its dorsal fin and pushed away, narrowly escaping being forced beneath the surface. The monster floated belly up for a moment, then slowly writhed down into the sea.

The snout of a smaller fish nosed Ruha’s shoulder; then she felt the rough skin of yet another creature rasping across her foot. “There are more?” she shrieked. “By At’ar, I hate this sea!”

Over the roaring of the dunes came the alarmed murmur of Captain Fowler’s voice, so muted by the ringing in Ruha’s ears that she could not understand what he was saying. She looked up and saw him only ten yards away, pointing in the direction in which the monstrous fish had vanished a moment earlier. Beside him stood the sailor with the rope tied around his waist, staring into the dark waters and stubbornly shaking his head.