Mel Odom - Wrath of the Blue Lady

“No!” the Blue Lady shouted. She abandoned her mount and swam ahead of it.

“That squid is going to be a problem,” Iados grumbled. “You might have mentioned that she had that.”

The sharks reached Swallow first and attacked immediately. Shang-Li swung both fighting sticks, sinking the blades into the predators’ flesh again and again. Streamers of blood trailed through the water. Iados split one of the sharks open with his sword. Thava swung her axe and caught another in the teeth, then the heavy blade cleaved away the top half of the shark’s head.

The sailor in front of Shang-Li screamed in horror as a tentacled thing struck him in the face and a shamble grabbed him around the legs. Before Shang-Li could reach the man and offer help, the tentacled thing thrust an appendage through the man’s eye and deep into his brain. Racked by death throes, the man released his weapon and stopped fighting. Unable to do anything else, Shang-Li cut the dead man free.

Red Orchid grew large and fierce at the prow. Her arms reached nearly ten feet in length and she broke and ripped Nine Golden Swords warriors and sea shambles alike as she battled.

The Blue Lady swam for Shang-Li and avoided Red Orchid. “How did you escape?” she howled.

Shang-Li ignored her. The water was already getting hard to breathe, and the darkness around him told him that they were rising out of the safe zone. He held onto his fighting sticks and slashed at a Nine Golden Swords warrior that tried to impale him with a sword.

The Blue Lady’s eyes blazed. She spun and threw a hand toward Swallow . Something shimmered through the water, then Swallow rocked violently onto her side. Blue lighting coursed through the ship as Red Orchid worked to right her.

“Shang-Li!” Iados scrambled up the line that led back into the ship’s hold. “Come on!”

“You’ve doomed yourself, manling.” The Blue Lady swam and effortlessly paced the rise of the ship dragging Shang-Li after it. “If you want to live-if you want your father to live-you’ll surrender yourself and the books to me now. You can’t get away.” She threw another spell at Swallow . This time, in spite of the sea, part of the hull caught fire.

Amree swam from the hold. She had a rope tied around her upper body. She gestured toward the hull and another shimmer quieted the flames, leaving only scorched planks behind. Then the ship’s mage spun toward the Blue Lady and flung out her hands. Bright sparks shot from her fingers and raced across the distance.

Before the spell reached her, the Blue Lady waved again. Something glimmered in front of her and the bright sparks extinguished with horrific cracks less than a foot in front of her. The bright explosions and sound seemed to leave her dazed. Recovering, she hurled another spell at Amree, but blue electricity from the ship’s hull streaked out to intercept it.

Choking on the black water, Shang-Li watched as the squid wrapped its tentacles around Red Orchid and tried to pry her from Swallow . Red Orchid fought valiantly, but Shang-Li knew the squid was too large and too strong. Red Orchid would be ripped free of the ship and destroyed.

Brazen and bold, confident that she couldn’t be hurt by him, the Blue Lady closed on Shang-Li. “I can let you live, manling. Give me what I desire, give me the secrets of those books and I will let you live. You and your father can be liaisons for me with the surface world. You can have good lives.”

No longer able to breathe, Shang-Li couldn’t answer. Instead, he struck with one of the fighting sticks. The Blue Lady put up an arm instinctively to block the blow and keep it from her face. The blade glowed with black fire, and cut deeply into her arm.

Howling in pain and surprise, the Blue Lady fell back. She clutched her wounded arm to her and glared at Shang-Li with murderous rage. “Now you have failed. There will be no mercy. I will destroy you all.”

Shang-Li grabbed the rope and started up toward the ship. Swallow tossed and jerked out of control as Red Orchid desperately fought the squid. The blackness masked the ship from him and he couldn’t clearly see how far he was from the hold. He climbed the rope as his lungs threatened to burst in the water he could no longer breathe.

Strength flagging, Shang-Li tried to hang onto the rope that shivered like a captured snake seeking escape. He hauled with one arm and reached with the other. The sea pressed against him now as the magic protecting the Blue Lady’s lands waned. Pressure built up in his ears and he grew afraid they would burst. Pain throbbed through his skull and his lungs threatened to turn him inside out.

Then the rope jerked forward. For a moment he thought Swallow had shifted and nearly knocked him loose. With the next jerk, he realized that something-someone-was hauling him in. He focused on conserving his strength as the ship took shape before him. The huge shape of the monstrous squid wrapped around Red Orchid like some kind of obscene growth. Blue lightning flickered along the ship’s hull.

Just when he was certain he could no longer hold his breath and his strength was fading, Shang-Li banged against the edge of the broken hull and slid inside. His head broke the water and he sucked in a lungful of air. Before he could recover, Thava yanked him up with one big hand and handed him a flask with the other.

“Quickly.” The dragonborn pressed the flask against Shang-Li’s lips while he was still taking deep breaths. “The water-breathing potion.”

Remembering the damage that could be taken during a swift rise from the depths, Shang-Li took the flask and drank the contents. Almost immediately his breath turned to normal and the pressure in his ears from the ocean pressure subsided.

Swallow jerked again.

“The giant squid has Red Orchid.” Shang-Li started for the hold, then saw that the air-filled canvas blocked the way.

“You can’t go that way.” Iados scowled. “We’ve got to hope she can hold her own until we reach the surface.”

“She will.” Amree spoke confidently. “Red Orchid is strong.”

Two heads, both of them belonging to sea shambles, thrust through the opening in the hull. A sailor harpooned one of them and forced it back outside. Thava stomped the other shamble’s head flat, breaking bone and smearing blood on the hull. The corpse slipped back through the water.

Shang-Li stumbled through the water and over the loose ballast covering the ship’s hull as Swallow tossed. “Red Orchid’s taking a beating.”

“She’s keeping us right-side up.” Amree watched the air-filled canvas with concern.

“How much longer before we reach the surface?”

“I don’t have any idea of how deep we were or how fast we’re rising.”

Iados cursed. “Not nearly fast enough.”

Kwan Yung stood nearby. He locked eyes with Shang-Li and nodded. Another blow, this one from the Blue Lady Shang-Li was certain, rocked Swallow . All of them save for Kwan Yung and Amree feel to the floor. A half-dozen or more sea shambles clustered around the hull break like barnacles and tried to force their way inside. Shang-Li seized the fighting sticks and joined the battle. In short order the sea shambles were dispatched.

A moment later, pale light dawned against the canvas straining against the hold.

Swallow popped up, then settled back down into the water and rolled over onto her starboard side. The rent in the ship’s side showed a patch of blue sky and white clouds.

“We made it.” Iados’s words sounded like a cheer.

“Not yet.” Shang-Li climbed the floor of the ship and up the wall until he reached the rent. Thava and Iados followed at his heels.