Death's Mistress

CHAPTER 14

The air-breathing thieves drifted overhead in their great ship, vulnerable at the boundary between the water-home and the sky. The dark hulk cut across the waves high above, aloof but not unreachable. The interface was choppy and stirred, indicating a turbulent storm on the surface. The fragile creatures up there would be fighting for their lives against the wind and rain, but down here, the water was calm and warm—peaceful. A true home.

The selka were not the ones who had declared war.

The stirring currents carried the faintest echoes from the raging storm. The selka queen could taste the difference in the delicate flavors of salt as water flowed through the fine gill slits at her neck. Though the selka were far from the reef labyrinth where they kept their precious treasure, the queen could still taste the bitter, alien taint of humans in the water.

She swam faster than a shark, stroking along with webbed hands, her beautiful smooth skin sliding through the water. Behind the queen, like a school of predator fish swimming in formation, came her selka army. Enraged, they swooped through the currents with their fin-sharp bodies and claws that could mangle a kraken. The selka queen had proven herself in undersea battle many times, gutting a hammerhead with her hands, spilling its entrails in clouds of murky blood. As a people, the selka remembered the days of great human wars from thousands of years ago … when their race had been created. Those were times of legend, times of enslavement.

Selka history told of how human wizards had tortured and modified unwilling subjects, turning vulnerable swimmers into lethal aquatic weapons to fight in their wars. Back then, the selka had been terrors of the sea, sinking entire enemy navies.

But that had been long ago, and the air-breathing wizard masters had forgotten about the selka. Their discarded warriors—former humans, now changed and improved—had withdrawn into the deep cold waters, building homes in the reefs and on the seabeds. The selka were a free people now, frolicking, mating, exploring. They had their own civilization, unknown to the air breathers, undisturbed and at peace.

Until the humans intruded, until the thieves wrecked the reef labyrinths, took away those things most precious to the selka, losses that could never be recovered. All those dreams …

The selka had killed and devoured two of the thieves that swam down to take the wishpearls. They had seized those divers, holding them down. The queen knew that the weak air breathers would drown soon enough, expended air boiling out of their exhausted lungs, but such a quiet death was not a sufficient price for them to pay. With her long claws the queen had torn open the throat of the first diver, watching red blood gush out in an explosion of bubbles.

The second diver had struggled to escape from the selka soldiers, but he was weak, unable to squirm away. As her people closed in to drink the flowing blood from the first victim’s gaping neck wound, the selka queen saw the wide-eyed terror of the second victim, watched his last breath of air gasp out in terrified astonishment. Before the light could dim from his eyes, she tore open his throat as well and let her people feed.

It was a beginning—and it was not enough.

From the shape of the ship’s hull overhead and the lingering taste that its barnacled wood left in the water, the selka queen knew this was the same vessel that had robbed the reef labyrinth several times. She knew it would come back, and therefore they must stop it. Perhaps if they killed the entire crew and sank the wooden ship, this one battle would be enough. The humans might be wise enough to stay away.

Perhaps … perhaps not. And then it would be all-out war.

Her people were hungry for blood. Human blood had a sharper, brighter taste than fish, and tonight the selka would feed well.

She arced upward, stroking toward the vessel that hung overhead. All told, more than a hundred of her people swarmed up to the hull and grasped the slimy wood with their clawed hands. Kicking and stroking, they emerged into the hostile air and scaled the side of the ship.

* * *

As she stepped over them, Nicci ignored the three moaning, emasculated men on the floorboards wallowing in her vomit just inside her cabin. She still felt weak from the poison, but she took satisfaction from the fact that she had permanently disarmed the would-be rapists. She left them entirely behind.

The Wavewalker shuddered in the throes of the storm, and Nicci stumbled against the wall of the narrow corridor as she tried to make her way to Nathan’s cabin. She wondered if the old wizard had heard the men’s screams, but the howling storm and the lashing wind were so loud she could barely think. Her skull pounded. Suddenly, Nicci doubled over, retching onto the deck. She hoped the wizard could help her, draw out the poison and spill it into the open air.

When she reached his cabin, though, Nicci found the door ajar. He had gone out on deck into the whipping wind and the spray of waves. When she emerged outside, cold raindrops slapped her face, but the frigid shock braced her. The wind flung her hair in all directions. She sucked in a breath and shouted Nathan’s name.

She saw him clinging to a ratline at the base of the mizzenmast. His long white hair hung like wet ropes down past his shoulders. He had wrapped himself in an oilskin cloak, but the storm blew so hard that he was surely drenched. His face was drawn, his expression queasy, and Nicci wondered if the wizard had been poisoned as well. More likely, Nathan was just seasick. He wore his sword at his side, as if to battle the rain.

Nicci stepped onto the wave-washed deck, as if drawing energy from the storm to drive away the lingering effects of the poison. Her black dress was soaked, but she kept her balance. She made her way along by grabbing a ratline to hold herself steady as the ship plunged into the trough of a wave and then rose up again in a sickening lurch.

When Nathan saw her, his face split in a broad grin. “You look ill, Sorceress. The storm is not to your liking?”

“Poison is not to my liking,” she shouted back into the howling noise. “But I’ll recover. Unfortunately, Captain Eli will have to find new wishpearl divers.” She said nothing more.

Nathan gave a small nod as he drew his own conclusions. “I’m sure you took care of them as was necessary.”

Whitecaps foamed over the bow, spilling like a slop bucket across the deck. Several supply barrels broke loose from their ropes, rolled down the deck, smashed into the side wall, and bounced up and overboard to be lost in the waves.

Nathan caught himself on a rope and held on, then let out a disconcerting laugh as he straightened. “A good storm and a surly crew make for a fine adventure, don’t you think?”

Nicci tried to quell the pain that echoed through her skull, the knotting in her stomach. “I’m not doing this for adventure, but for Lord Rahl and his empire.”

“I thought you were supposed to save the world.”

“That is what the witch woman thinks.” She hunched as another spasm twisted her gut. “I will let Richard save the world in his own way.”

The watch lookout had lashed himself to the platform for safety, but he maintained his post to scan for rocks, reefs, or an unexpected coastline. The swaying of the ship made his high perch like the end of an inverted pendulum, and he held on for dear life.

The storm clouds knotted tighter over the night sky, like a strangler’s garrote. Flashes of lightning illuminated the sea and the rigging with jagged slices of liquid silver.

When Nicci heard a familiar shout, she shielded her eyes from the rain to see a drenched Bannon descending from the yardarm on the mainmast. He carried his sword, as if he might find enemies in the sky. It was an impractical choice, but the young man took the blade wherever he went. Nathan watched his young protégé with a measure of pride and incredulity.

Halfway down the mast, Bannon stared out at the roiling sea and yelled something unintelligible. He pointed frantically.

When another large wave crashed against the ship, the Wavewalker tilted at an extreme angle. Water rolled across the deck, sweeping away ropes, crates, and broken debris. One young sailor was caught unawares and slipped from his anchor point on the rail. He tumbled and rolled, scrabbling with his hands until he caught a precarious perch, holding on.

Nicci tried to gather her control of the air and wind, just enough to catch the hapless sailor, to save him. Then she spotted what had struck such a look of terror on Bannon’s face from his high perch.

Just as the clinging sailor lost his grip and was about to fly over the edge in the curling wash of water, a creature climbed over the rail and caught him, a humanlike figure with clawed, webbed hands. The panicked young sailor grabbed for anything, any hope of rescue, and the thing snagged him. The pale-skinned creature grabbed the sailor’s striped shirt and seized his wet brown hair with the other hand.

For a moment it seemed as if the slimy thing had saved him—but then it opened a mouth full of sharp, triangular teeth and bit down on the side of the seaman’s head, taking away half of his face and the top of his skull. As the sailor screamed and struggled, the monster tore open his throat, then cast the body onto the deck, discarding its victim in a wash of blood and seawater.

Nicci knew instinctively what they were. “Selka,” she whispered. “They must be selka.”

Sailors on deck shouted an alarm as a dozen more slick figures scrambled from the depths, climbing the Wavewalker’s hull to swarm the decks.