Realms of War

9

Instinctively, Rytagir lifted his sword and turned aside the sahuagin's thrust as Irdinmai stepped toward it. Her blade sank deeply into the sahuagin's midsection. She used his spine as a fulcrum and cut through the side of the sea devil's body. Blood filled the water.

Mortally wounded, the sahuagin drew back and gave vent to a full-throated blast of rage. Rytagir's ears ached from the pain of the assault.

He swam back and pulled at Irdinmai's arm by hooking his wrist inside her elbow. The glow from the lucent coral shifted and threw shadows of her body over everything.

"We have to go."

She turned and swam after him. The sahuagin outnumbered the sea elves. Corpses of both hung in the water. Dying warriors managed only feeble movements. Both were prey for the sharks.

"Get your people together," Rytagir ordered. "Get them out of the battle."

Irdinmai sheathed her sword and smashed her bracelets in quick syncopation. Evidently the ringing tone created, or the pattern of the sounds, was unique to Irdinmai. At once the sea elves swam to their mistress's side and set up a defensive perimeter.

"Take them to the ship," Rytagir said in the sea elf tongue so everyone would know. "We can better hold them there."

The sea elves hesitated. Irdinmai gazed at Rytagir.

"Now! "Rytagir roared as a line of dolphins intercepted the sahuagin and sharks that came at them. "Now, if you want to live."

Irdinmai gave the order and the sea elves swam for the surface.

Rytagir pricked his finger with a knifepoint and spoke a string of eldritch words. Nearly all of the sharks and sahuagin turned on the ones next to them and started rending and tearing with fangs, claws, and weapons. Death spread throughout the water. Only a few of the sahuagin escaped the spell's effect.

"What did you do?" Irdinmai asked.

"A spell," Rytagir explained as he swam up to meet her.

"Magic?" She looked appalled. "You're a wizard?"

"Only part of my studies, Lady. I don't know many spells. That one is small." Rytagir glanced over his shoulder. The sahuagin still fought each other and the sharks. "The spell puts blood spoor into the water and encourages predators into a blood frenzy."

"We should attack them while they're confused," Rasche said.

"No. That spell won't last long. Swim if you would live. I've got one more trick up my sleeve."

There were a few muttered oaths, but the sea elves swam together.

When he whirled in the water, Rytagir saw that the sahuagin had once again taken up pursuit. He was no longer dependent on the lucent coral alone to see them. Pale gray light from the sky above penetrated the water too.

He reached into his shoulder bag and took out a small bag of sharks' teeth. Then he waited as a score of sahuagin swam at him. Many of them suffered wounds from the hands of their fellows.

"Rytagir!" Irdinmai shouted.

When he knew he could wait no more, Rytagir spoke the words sharply, traced a sigil in the water, and shoved the bag forward. Heat nearly scorched his palm as the spell consumed the bag of sharks' teeth.

A silvery ripple shot through the water and spread out, eight feet wide and almost forty feet down. The enchanted water shredded the sahuagin like sharks' teeth. Bloody gobbets of flesh, limbs, heads, and torsos floated limply in the water after the spell exhausted itself.

The sea elves cursed again, and Rytagir knew they would never trust him again.

"Swim," Irdinmai ordered.

Captain Zahban and his sailors had their hands full repelling the sahuagin. The sea devils tried to board the ship, but the crew fought them off.

"Captain," Rytagir shouted as he broke the surface, "permission to come aboard!"

"Come ahead with ye then," Zahban shouted back. He yelled out orders to his crew, and eager hands swept down to pull Rytagir and the sea elves from the water.

Archers stood to arms and feathered as many of the sahuagin as they could.

"You're a fool for staying," Rytagir said.

"Ain't ever been one to cut an' run," Zahban replied as he cleaved a sahuagin's skull with his cutlass. Blood and brain matter splattered the deck. "But I wasn't gonna give ye much more time, I'll warrant ye that."

The sea elves fell into place with the ship's crew. Together, they fought to keep the sahuagin from the deck.

"Where'd ye bring them beasties up from?" Zahban asked.

"They came up on us unawares," Rytagir shouted. He thrust his long sword through the throat of a sahuagin that had climbed up the side of the ship. Then he kicked it off his blade and back into the ocean.

"From where?" asked the captain.

"I don't know."

"I've never seen so many in these waters."

"There appear to be more coming." Irdinmai pointed to the east.

After booting another sahuagin in the face, Rytagir looked in that direction. There, on the crests of the sea, he saw four strange vessels making for them.

The vessels, mantas, were almost eighty feet across and two hundred feet long. They looked like a shambles, pieced-together craft from several wrecks. As Rytagir watched, several of the sahuagin aboard revealed glow lamps, glass globes stuffed with the luminous entrails of sea creatures.