Anthtology - Realms of the Deep

The priestess turned her voice to steel, using the pain that she felt but never letting it touch her words and make them weak. "Don't speak disrespectfully of me, Prince Maartaaugh. Sekolah has chosen me priestess of his faith. You may keep your opinions of me, and of my birth, but never of my calling. I live to serve Sekolah, and I will die in that service if I need to." With the merest thought, she flicked out the claws sheathed in her slender elflike fingers, baring sharp edges.

"Most Sacred One," Iakhovas addressed her.

Laaqueel kept her gaze locked on Maartaaugh. "Yes, Most Honored One." She watched the prince's guards over his shoulders. They were no problem. The sahuagin crew who worked under her had already surrounded them.

"Release him," Iakhovas ordered.

"As you command." Carefully, Laaqueel stepped back, setting free the wrist she'd captured so quickly and forcefully. She felt the currents flowing over Tar-jarea's deck, wrapping around her, spinning warm and cool water together. She kept her eyes on Maartaaugh. "You will understand this, prince. No one may lift a hand against my king while I live."

Maartaaugh gazed at her angrily but didn't say anything. In the sahuagin culture, the females fought alongside the males with the same ferocious skill. However, the only positions of importance the females held within the sea devil society were as priestesses.

Laaqueel had often thought it was only that way because the males didn't like the idea of handling the hated magic that was contained even in Sekolah's gifts.

Maartaaugh threw his arm toward the wall growing ever larger as Tarjana hurtled forward. "Even if we survive the crash, you'll doom us to the untender mercies of the sea elves manning the garrison."

Iakhovas looked past the man and said, "We won't touch the wall."

"By Sekolah's unending hunger," Maartaaugh exploded, "we can't miss!"

Laaqueel stared at the wall, watching as it loomed over them. The Sharksbane Wall had been constructed thousands of years ago by the sea elves and mermen of Seros. The sahuagin-true to their nature-had warred almost incessantly with the other underwater races. As a result, the sea elves of the Aryselmalyr Empire and other races joined to build the Sharksbane Wall.

The wall was one hundred and thirty-five miles long and stopped sixty feet short of the surface of the Sea of Fallen Stars. Sea elves and their comrades manned the garrisons strung along the top of the wall. It had been constructed to confine the Serosian sahuagin to the Alamber Sea, the easternmost arm of the Inner Sea.

For thousands of years, the Sharksbane Wall had stood as proof against-and insult to-the Serosian sahuagin. Now, Iakhovas had sworn to bring it down and free the sahuagin trapped behind it.

Laaqueel felt the steady strokes of the rowers as they powered the great galley beneath the sea. With sahuagin manning the oars, the big ship shot through the water. The wall was now less than two hundred yards distant. Even if the rowers worked at it, she didn't think they could keep Tarjana from breaking up against the barnacle- and coral-infested wall. She focused on Iakhovas's words, holding them as truths the way Sekolah had indicated she should.

Without another word, Maartaaugh turned to glare at the huge wall.

All of the prince's life, Laaqueel knew, Maartaaugh had lived in the shadow of the Sharksbane Wall, letting it define so much of his life. Personally, she found even the thought of that confinement horrible. Sahua-gin were meant to be free, able to go where they wanted and kill what they pleased.

Her priestess training let her know Iakhovas was working powerful magic. She felt the rush of soundless noise vibrating in her ears.

Tarjana shot to within fifty yards of the Sharksbane Wall. The vessel contained magic, Laaqueel knew, Iakhovas put great store by the ship. It was a mudship, capable of traveling on or beneath the sea, and even across dry land. Precious little more than a handful had ever been created by magic all but forgotten.

Iakhovas had attacked Waterdeep, the stronghold of the surface dwellers on the Sword Coast, to get the talisman of diamond and pink coral that controlled the ship. He'd arranged the near destruction of Baldur's Gate to get the ship itself.

Despite her confidence in Iakhovas, Laaqueel's gills still froze, locked tight as they plunged to within ten yards of the Sharksbane Wall. She prayed, calling out to Sekolah though she knew those prayers fell on deaf ears. The Shark God had freed his chosen people into the currents of the seas, but he'd never intervened directly hi sahuagin lives.

Maartaaugh stood resolute, his attention snapping back between the unforgiving wall towering over them and Iakhovas. His men stared at him as if awaiting his order to abandon ship.

The rhythm of the oars remained steady. The ship's crew had learned to obey Iakhovas during the wild ride through volcanic fissures from the Lake of Steam to the Sea of Fallen Stars. Perhaps that voyage had even caused the volcanic eruption of the mountain peak known as the Ship of the Gods when they'd arrived and destroyed Vahaxtyl in the process.

Without warning, Laaqueel felt the surge of magic washing over her, as sudden and as biting as heated slivers rammed under her nails. She struggled to bring in water through her gill slits.

Tarjana's prow suddenly pierced the Sharksbane Wall like a claw coral's edge through unprotected flesh. The magic galley sped through the wall unchecked, pulling her crew after. It took all of Laaqueel's willpower to stand on the deck as the rough wall rushed at her. She watched the sahuagin in front of her seem to melt into it, then she followed. A chill like none she'd ever known knotted her muscles and made her joints ache. In the blink of an eye clear ocean suddenly spread before her and she knew they were on the other side.

"Elves!" a lookout croaked.

Feeling her heart hammering inside her chest, Laaqueel glanced up. Limned against the lighter cast of the pale green sea above, the priestess spotted dozens of sea elves swimming through the water in pursuit. Like the sahuagin, the sea elves of Seros had differently colored skins from the sea elves she was familiar with, most of them reflecting blue splotches ac well. They swam, closing rapidly. '• "Prepare to defend and repel boarders!" Iakhovas roared, racing back to the stern of the ship and up the stairs. "I don't want any of them who reach us to survive!"

Laaqueel followed her king but her eyes never left Maartaaugh. No matter what else happened during their quest, the priestess knew, she'd made a powerful enemy.

The sahuagin crew rushed to do Iakhovas's bidding. All of them had tridents and nets, but dozens of others carried crossbows made from whalebone. Less than a moment later, the royal guardsman in charge ordered them to fire.

The quarrels sped through the water. Several of them buried deep in sea elf bodies. Streamers of scarlet blood twisted through the water as the sea elves kicked out their lives.

More elves overtook Tarjana, locking onto the galley with their fingers as some of them tried to secure ropes to the railing. Sahuagin sawed the ropes in half with the sharp edges of their tridents. Others lopped off fingers and hands mercilessly. Still other sea elves were captured and torn apart, their flesh divided equally between every sahuagin within reach.

Come, little malenti, Iakhovas said into Laaqueel's mind. When she'd discovered him, he'd planted one of his eyelashes deep into her side. It had traveled by magic and lodged next to her heart. The quill also allowed them to talk unheard by anyone else. She still wasn't sure how much control it gave him over her, but he had used it to threaten her in the past when she'd still doubted him.

In the years before she'd risen to high priestess, her faith had been all she had. She'd been strong in it because she'd had to be. In the end, that faith and refusal to accept anything less had led her to the prophecy of One Who Swims With Sekolah.