Philip Athans - Whisper of Waves

Though the sword was of fine craftsmanship and had been in her family for six generations, it was not enchanted. Ran Ai Yu had heard tell of creatures that could only be injured by a blade forged with the Weave, but she’d never found herself face to face with one, and the prospect scared her more than the fangs, the sheer size of the monsters, or the lightning.

Hrothgar slammed his mallet into the side of the smaller beast and Devorast grabbed up a machete from a scattered pile of shipwright’s tools that littered the deck. Armed thus, Ran Ai Yu knew it was but a matter of time before the giant eels had tenderized them with their lightning only to eat them in one or two gory bites.

“It will not kill them!” she shouted even as Devorast’s machete sank deeply into the larger fish, producing no blood and not even a quiver of the eel’s skin to mark its presence.

She could see by the twitch in Devorast’s eyes and forehead that he was drawing the same conclusions as she.

“Well then what in the name of Clangeddin’s steaming bile do we use on the damned things?” the dwarf bellowed.

Ran Ai Yu had no answer, and she looked to Devorast.

The red-haired man banged his machete against the blazing white fangs of the larger fish, sending sparks of lightning scattering all around them. His arm jerked and he grimaced in pain. The huge creature snapped its head back and Ran Ai Yu thought it looked the same as the way Devorast’s arm had jerked.

“The mouth!” she said to the dwarf, but the weapon he was using was made of wood.

Still, Hrothgar struck at the smaller monster so hard he lost his footing on the rain-slick deck. The demon-fish took no notice of the hammer blow to its fangs and quickly bent to take the dwarf in its powerful jaws. Hrothgar looked up into the face of his certain death and opened his mouth to scream.

Ran Ai Yu dived head first at the dwarf, barrel-rolling in midair with her sword held straight out in front of her. The monster fish opened wide its jaws to eat the dwarf and instead got the Shou blade lodged between two teeth.

Lightning discharged from the crease at the edge of the monster’s mouth and smashed into Ran Ai Yu. Pain flared through her body. Her jaw clenched, her chest tightened, her back arched, and her hands wrapped around her sword pommel so tightly she feared her arms would break, then they tightened some more.

Her left forearm snapped like a dried twig, sending another spasm of pain through her still-seizing body. Her vision dimmed and blurred and she was certain she was dying-passing out at least, and that would surely mean a hideous death.

She opened her eyes as wide as she could and only with the greatest effort of will she’d ever managed did she draw in a deep breath. It was enough to keep her awake, but her twisted, broken arm couldn’t hope to hold onto her sword and it stayed lodged in the monster fish’s gums.

The thing drew its head up, which revealed Devorast facing down its larger cousin.

Devorast glanced back at her and they made eye contact long enough for Ran Ai Yu to see the concern in his eyes. She knew it wasn’t a feeling he was entirely familiar with.

A shadow fell across her face and she looked up to see the smaller fish, her family’s blade still protruding from its mouth, falling toward her.

It means to smash me, she thought.

Ran Ai Yu couldn’t move at first, and when she finally put out her arm-the arm that bent at an agonizingly unnatural angle-to push herself into a roll, she screamed in pain.

It was Hrothgar’s turn to save her, and he did so by jamming his mallet to the deck head first, with the handle sticking straight up. The massive fish came down on the edge of the handle, which was too blunt to pierce its skin, so it succeeded in stopping the enormous bulk with barely a handspan to spare. Ran Ai Yu was not crushed.

Hrothgar grabbed her uninjured arm and pulled when the smaller fish reared up again, its too-intelligent eye lolling down to find its target once more below it. Lightning flickered around the sword in its teeth. The obscene blue-green folds of skin that sufficed the demon for lips twitched and quivered in time with the arc of blinding light.

Rather than try again to smash Ran Ai Yu or Hrothgar, the smaller fish shook its massive head. Fins like prayer fans fluttering at the sides of its neck. The sword bobbed and shook, and longer, brighter arcs of electricity played around it, but it appeared to be firmly embedded.

A strange noise like the tinkling of bells demanded Ran Ai Yu’s attention and she reluctantly tore her eyes from the thrashing giant.

Devorast whirled a length of chain over his head as the huge fish tried once, then one more time to bite it out of the air.

He looked at the Shou and bellowed, “If I miss, catch it!”

His eyes flickered to Hrothgar, who nodded. The bigger fish, having grown weary at last of toying with its prey, came in fast with its huge jaws agape.

Devorast let fly the chain but had to jump away at the same time to narrowly avoid being bitten in half. The chain flew toward the Shou long sword that the smaller demon-fish still hadn’t managed to tear from its gums. Had he not had to jump away, it might have hit its target, but instead it fell to the deck.

The larger fish smashed deck planks to splinters, biting at the still unfinished ship out of pure frenzied frustration.

At the same time, both Ran Ai Yu and Hrothgar dived for the falling chain. The Shou merchant fell to her knees under the onslaught of pain from her broken arm but smiled when she saw the chain in the dwarf’s hands.

“The sword?” Hrothgar shouted to Devorast.

The red-haired man kicked at the side of the larger eel’s head, trying unsuccessfully to push it away from the ruined section of deck. Even as he kicked, Devorast grabbed at the other end of the chain, which flew through the air around him, made wild by the giant demon-fish’s frenzy.

Devorast still had the machete in his hands.

“Yes!” Ran Ai Yu yelled to the dwarf, Devorast’s intentions playing at the edges of her mind. “My sword! Hook to the sword that chain!”

The dwarf seemed to understand, though Ran Ai Yu was having some trouble trying to translate her desperate thoughts into words in the Common Tongue.

Not sure what else she could do, Ran Ai Yu backed up, and when her heel caught the edge of something heavy, she went down. Her broken arm bounced against the deck, and she had no choice but to scream. The cry gave her a mouthful of rain water, but it also bought Devorast a precious heartbeat’s worth of time.

The larger of the two creatures reacted to the sound, jerking its head up from the deck and opening its mouth in a silent roar.

Devorast chopped across with his machete, lodging the blade deeply into the edge of the creature’s jaws.

It didn’t react at first to the wound, and again there was no blood, but then the blade must have touched something inside-something that made the lightning spark from its mouth. There was a small explosion of blue-white light then a constant rippling of lightning bolts that arced and twisted, danced and blazed between the depths of the wound and the rusty old blade.

The dwarf cried out in incoherent triumph and Ran Ai Yu saw the chain hooked around her heirloom blade. The smaller of the fish continued to whip its head this way and that, but the blade held firm, and the chain held just as firmly to the sword.

The monster battered the very air with its head, sending the chain whipping around fast-too fast for Hrothgar to avoid. Ran Ai Yu rolled away, shielding her eyes, but she still saw the chain hit the dwarf in the side of the head and hit him hard.

Hrothgar went down in a shower of sparks, and his right leg spasmed when he sprawled unmoving on the deck. Blood poured from a deep gash on his forehead.