Anthtology - Realms of the Deep

Yet when it seemed her faith would be strongest because she had found the truth in the prophecy, lakho-vas had stepped forward and assumed kingship of her people. Nothing but war had ensued. Now he was bringing it here to Seros. He'd told her their journey to the Sea of Fallen Stars had been to free the Serosian sahuagin.

And I will, priestess. Iakhovas's deep voice echoed inside Laaqueel's mind.

The malenti spun around and glanced at her king. He stood in the galley's stern and plucked a sea elf from the attackers swimming overhead as easily as harvesting a clam from the ocean bed. A thrown trident vibrated when it sank into the wooden deck. Laaqueel's lateral lines registered the discordant sensation even amid the other disturbances taking place in the water around her.

Between heartbeats Iakhovas's right arm blurred, becoming something edged and sharp, something that somehow looked more right on him. The razor edge sliced the captured sea elf's throat. Blood sprayed into the water, drifting into a fine mist.

Laaqueel drew in more water through her gills and tasted the coppery flavor of blood. The hunger that rose in her was the part of her that was most sahuagin. She took a trident from the railing near the steering section, then half walked and half swam to join Iakhovas.

Still having doubts, Most Sacred One? Iakhovas asked. battle raged around them. Sahuagin fought vi-.5\v, raking sea elf flesh to the bone with claws, fangs, and tridents. Even as savagely as the sahuagin fcoght, casualties floated away with spears and knives m them, yanked from Tarjana by the current.: Less, Laaqueel admitted, than I've ever had. And her words were true. The doubts were less. What bothered her was that they existed at all after everything lakho-vas had done.

Doubts are fear, little malenti, Iakhovas told her gently. He seized another sea elf that dared attack him and sliced off one of the elf s arms with hardly any effort at all. The amputated limb floated away, attacked almost immediately by a nearby barracuda that had joined the battle. Not ever fearing doesn't test you. Having fear and conquering it, that's what makes you strong.

Laaqueel knew what he said was true. Her studies had shown her that, but it was frustrating that prayer to the Shark God couldn't take those doubts from her completely. She whipped the sahuagin net from her side, spun it expertly, and threw it at a nearby sea elf.

The sea elf yelped in pain and surprise as the net wrapped around him and sank barbed hooks deep into his flesh. In the space of a drawn breath, he was tightly bound and bleeding from dozens of small wounds. Helplessly, the sea elf drifted toward the ocean bed. If one of his companions didn't free him, the smaller scavengers in the area would nibble him to death in hours or days.

Iakhovas spun again, sliding an arm over Laaqueel's shoulders and shoving her to the side. A trident slammed into the deck where she'd been standing.

The priestess kept her footing with difficulty. Even as she realized how inflexible and coarse Iakhovas's skin was in spite of his appearance, he took his arm back. No man or even sahuagin felt that tough.

Iakhovas ducked and ripped the arm-ridge across the front of a sea elf, disemboweling him. Glistening intestines spilled into the water in ropy snakes that wrapped around another sea elf guard.

Laaqueel spun, meeting a sea elf's swimming charge with a raised trident.

"Die, you traitorous bi-" The sea elf s scream ended abruptly as the trident tines crashed through his chest.

Laaqueel felt the man flopping like a fish at the end of the trident. She popped the claws of her left hand free and ripped them down the sea elPs face and across his throat, then she slung the trident and twisted it viciously, yanking it free of her opponent's chest.

In only a few moments, Tarjana cleared the attack zone. The last of the captured sea elves were put to death. With savage joy, the sahuagin crew ripped their enemies apart.

"Meat is meat!" they screamed as they dined on gobbets of flesh.

Even Prince Maartaaugh and his retinue joined in the post-combat festivities. The savage glee the Serosian sahuagin exhibited mirrored that of the outer sea sahuagin.

"Will you eat, Most Sacred One?" Iakhovas held out a bloody chunk of flesh that had once been part of a sea elf s face.

"No," Laaqueel replied, feeling her stomach unsettled despite the hunger that gnawed at her. She didn't know what was causing the unaccustomed sensation, but she had noticed her diet changing over the past few days since their arrival in the Inner Sea. "Thank you, Most Honored One."

For a moment she thought she saw confusion travel across Iakhovas's face, but as quickly as it had arrived the expression was gone-if it had ever really been there.

Laaqueel's lateral lines picked up sudden motion coming from behind her, disrupting the flow of current over Tarjana's deck. She turned, holding the trident before her.

"We passed through the wall," Maartaaugh cried out in unmistakable disbelief. The prince stared at lakho-vas. "What magic wrought this?"

Laaqueel's throat constricted in momentary panic. All sahuagin hated magic; and the Serosians were no different. By revealing Tarjana's nature as a mudship Iakhovas also risked igniting a mutiny.

"This is not magic," Iakhovas said simply. "This is Sekolah's will, a gift the Shark God gave to my people to free We Who Eat beneath the Sea of FaUen Stars."

Slowly, the dread and fear on Maartaaugh's face drained away, replaced by amazement. "The Sharks-bane Wall can no longer hold us."

Iakhovas regarded the prince with his dark gaze. "The Sharksbane Wall cannot hold me. Soon it won't be able to hold you."

Maartaaugh gazed around the great galley with new appreciation. "This is how you traveled through the volcano and arrived at Vahaxtyl."

"Yes, but only because Sekolah willed it."

Laaqueel relaxed slightly, sensing that the prince offered no threat. She gazed behind Tarjana, barely able to make out the bodies of sahuagin and sea elves hanging in the water near the Sharksbane Wall. Ocean predators had already gathered, stripping flesh from bone.

"Where do we go now?" Maartaaugh asked. "You've never said."

"To Coryselmal," Iakhovas replied. He handed the prince the piece of meat he'd offered Laaqueel.

"The ruins of the elven capital?" Maartaaugh took the meat and chewed only briefly before swallowing it. Blood coated his fangs for a moment. "Why?"

"To do as Sekolah has directed," Iakhovas answered. "There can be no other reason."

"You'll find what you need to destroy the Sharks-bane Wall there?"

Iakhovas nodded. "We will."

Maartaaugh gazed out at the sea around them. "Only twice, both times when I was much younger, have I ever been beyond the Sharksbane Wall."

"Soon," Iakhovas stated confidently, "you'll be living and slaying in these waters."

The headache pounded fiercely at LaaqueePs temples. Despite her prayers, the pain continued unabated, lasting for hours at a time. She swam easily, holding her arms at her sides and undulating her body. Not even the cool currents drifting in from the Vilhon Reach helped take the agony away.

The malenti priestess glided through the water less than twenty feet above the rock-strewn silt that covered the ocean floor. She only had to swim around coral reefs higher than that a handful of times in the last few hours. The older coral reefs had been crushed in the gigantic upheaval that had smashed the elven city of Coryselmal nearly sixteen centuries ago.

According to the conversations she'd heard between Maartaaugh and Iakhovas, the earthquake that had reduced the once proud sea elf city to rubble had struck without warning. Seventy-five thousand sea elves had perished in the carnage that followed. An undersea plateau, shoved by the underground stress, broke through the eastern half of the city and buried the other half in rubble and mud. Few had survived. Like the coral colonies and other sea creatures, undersea vegetation in the area was sparse.