Queen of the Depths (26 page)

“You realize,” he said, “that if I kill a shalarin, a slave creature, here and now, no one will question or care about that either.”

“Are you entirely healed? As you gorged on blood, did you take the time to replenish the spells you expended last night? Are you positive you’re a better fighter than I am, and that you could strike me dead so efficiently I wouldn’t even be able to escape these apartments and confide my secrets to someone before I expired?”

He bared his fangs. “There had better be a lot of treasure.”

he locathah spread the mouth of the net bag, and the fish swam sluggishly forth. They were already dying, poisoned by the enchantments the spellcasters had poured into their veins, and that was fine. It made them easier to catch.

Wraxzala kicked forward, converging on the cloud of fish with the other ixitxachitls, and sank her teeth into her share of the bounty. The blood was vile, bitter with power, and she had to clench herself to keep from retching it back up. Pain burned through her guts and blurred her vision then waned.

Afterward, she didn’t feel any different, and wondered if the magic had truly prepared her for the venture to come. Then she sneered at the very notion, for obviously, nothing could do that.

She peered back and forth, at the other warriors, ixitxachitl and slave, waiting here in the shallows with the surface of the benighted sea rippling just a few yards above their heads. Yzil—curse him!—had promised the surviving thralls soft treatment, and his fellow ‘chitls, advancement, and some of the stupider folk in each category looked eager to get started. Most, however, appeared so tense and morose, it was plain they shared Wraxzala’s trepidation.

By the Five Great Deeds of Vengeance, how she wished she’d never threatened the eggs! When Yzil killed His Holiness’s envoy instead of her, she’d believed she’d enjoyed a miraculous escape but now understood the devitan actually had identified her as the guilty party. He’d just opted to punish her in a different fashion.

But this way at least she had a chance. She was, after all, an ixitxachitl and a vitan, blessed by Ilxendren and superior to all lesser creatures. Logically, that ought to mean she and her allies could defeat them, even under adverse circumstances.

She resolved to keep telling herself that until she believed it.

The vitan in charge—she wondered sourly what he’d done to anger Yzil—gave the command, and the company advanced. Soon the seabed sloped high enough that the locathahs, koalinths, and their ilk had to plant their feet and wade with their upper portions sticking up out of the water. At that point, stealth became impossible, and Wraxzala decided she, too, might as well experience the world above the waves. With luck, she might even have a few heartbeats to get used to it before she had to start fighting for her life.

She swam upward, through the heaving interface between sea and air, and onward. Once she exited the water, the medium supporting her felt thin and insubstantial, yet she didn’t fall. In fact, precisely because

it offered less resistance, she had a giddy feeling she might even be able to swim faster above the waves than below.

She zigzagged awkwardly, seeing how much effort it took and how it felt. Other ixitxachitls rose from the waves to either side. Then, on land, among the dilapidated huts, some creature started yelling. She couldn’t understand the words, but it was obvious what was going on. A sentry had spotted the invaders coming ashore.

Hulking bipedal shapes with folded wings, serpent heads, and dragging, writhing tails shambled forth from the shacks. Wraxzala had never seen such brutes before, but according to the wretched, meddling waveservant, they were called “dragonkin.” In these first confused moments, the reptiles failed to understand just how many ixitxachitls and thralls had risen from the depths to threaten them. They evidently thought they could make a stand on the beach and push the intruders back.

The ixitxachitl commander shouted an order. Dozens of locathahs with their goggle-eyed piscine faces, and brawny koalinths with big, scalloped ears and shaggy manes now plastered to their skulls, shouldered and discharged their crossbows. Many of the bolts flew wild. Like Wraxzala herself, the missiles moved differently in air. But some found their marks, and dragonkin fell.

Most of the surviving reptiles scrambled for cover, from which they would likely seek to harry and slow the advance. The invaders would need to root them out before they could pass in safety, but though they’d pay a toll in blood, they could certainly manage it. The real problem was that two other dragonkin turned, spread their leathery pinions, and flew inland … to fetch reinforcements, without a doubt.

Though Yzil had been too cagey to say it in so many

words, Wraxzala understood that, according to his strategy, that was more or less what was supposed to happen. As she and her companions fought their way up the mountainside, they were supposed to lure the enemy forth to engage them.

But by the poison tides of the Abyss, please, not yet! If the wyrms and all their minions descended on the invaders before they even established a beachhead, they’d have little trouble wiping them out.

Wraxzala had absolutely no inclination to imperil herself by chasing the fleeing dragonkin. But unfortunately, only ixitxachitls had any hope of overtaking them, because only they could swim in air. The thralls had partaken of a simpler, less costly enchantment, which merely enabled their gills to function out of water. For they, after all, had legs to provide mobility on land, and their masters had assumed that would prove sufficient.

“No more shooting!” Wraxzala cried. She waited for other voices to echo the order then charged forward. Several other ‘chitls did the same. At least she wasn’t entirely alone.

She raced over the ruined village. The rocky ground rose steeply just behind it. Patches of vegetation clung to the lower slopes.

She still felt clumsy speeding through the air. Every slight flick or tilt of her body achieved too much, and she veered crazily from one overcompensation to the next. But she couldn’t worry about that now.

She peered, trying to pick out a dragonkin, and spied a rhythmic flicker of mottled wings. Unfortunately, the reptile had a considerable lead, in distance and elevation, too.

Only magic could hinder it now. Still pursuing, she rattled off an intricate sequence of rhyming palindromes. The power, as it gathered and poised itself to strike, made a sound like bright, wicked laughter.

A set of shadowy, disembodied jaws appeared directly in front of the dragonkin. The reptile tried to veer off, but the construct leaped at it and caught it anyway. The shadow creature plunged its fangs repeatedly into the dragonkin’s body.

The dragonkin wrenched free and riposted with its spear. The lance plunged right through the shadow-stuff without doing it any harm.

Once the reptile realized it couldn’t strike back, it started veering and dodging, trying to distance itself from its attacker. The flying jaws, however, matched it move for move.

Wraxzala was reasonably certain the construct couldn’t kill the enormous brute, but that wasn’t the point. The harassment was just supposed to keep it in place while she beat her way closer. She was trying to steal up on it, but in this strange environment where all sound seemed muffled, couldn’t tell if she was being quiet or not.

Finally she judged she’d sneaked close enough for a different and perhaps truly devastating curse. She whispered the opening words, and the jaws faded away as the spell that had birthed them exhausted the last of its force.

She hoped the dragonkin would simply attempt to continue on its way. But despite its uncouth appearance, it had brains enough to realize a spellcaster had afflicted it. Now free of the punishment, wounds bleeding, it tilted its wings and wheeled in the air, seeking its tormentor. It spied Wraxzala, snarled, and threw its spear.

Underwater, it was impossible to fling a lance for any distance, and so the attack caught her by surprise. Reflex jolted her into motion, though, and she dived. The spear streaked over her.

She declaimed the final syllable of her invocation. The dragonkin grunted as its body went rigid. Unable

to move its wings, it plummeted and crashed down amid some big, sturdy plants—Wraxzala thought they were called “trees”—on a ledge.

She swam warily downward, peering to see what had become of her foe. If she had to use another spell to finish it off, she would, but hoped the fall had killed it. With a long night of battle ahead of her, she needed to conserve her power as much as possible.

Unfortunately, on first inspection, the thick, tangled limbs and their shroud of leaves confused her eyes. She was used to picking lurking enemies out of a mass of kelp or coral, but here the shapes were different.

Hoping it would help, she swam lower still. With a sudden rattle and snap of branches, the dragonkin exploded out at her. Its talons slashed at her face.

She spun herself out of the way and onto the reptile’s back, between the roots of its wings. She drove her fangs into its neck.

It convulsed, and they fell together. Twigs jabbed and gouged at her as they crunched and bounced through the foliage, finally jolting to a stop at the crossing of two substantial branches midway down.

The dragonkin was hearty. The virulence in her initial bite hadn’t shocked it into helplessness. It fumbled at her with its claws, trying to grab her and tear her loose. But the angle was awkward for it, and it couldn’t manage a solid grip. She ripped open a throbbing artery in the side of its neck, and its life quickly pumped away.

She drank some of it then swam back up above the trees, where other ‘chitls were wheeling and swooping about. “I killed one of them,” she called.

“We got the other,” replied a warrior. He was one of the stupid ones: He sounded gleeful, as if the raid were a game.

Wraxzala wondered just how playful he’d feel when the wyrms emerged from the apex of the volcano. It

would happen by and by. She and her comrades had merely delayed the inevitable.

Tu’ala’keth cautiously raised her head halfway out of the water, ducked back down, and turned to Yzil, who was hovering beside her. “The way is clear,” she said.

“Good.” He and the other ‘chitls in the vanguard swam up into the air to see for themselves.

She rather wished she were able to do likewise, but the ‘chitls hadn’t offered her this particular magic. They claimed they barely had enough for themselves. She suspected they were simply unwilling to share the precious resource with someone they regarded as a “slave creature,” but she hadn’t made an issue of it. During her time with the pirates, she’d had plenty of practice walking and assumed she’d manage well enough.

Trident in hand, her new satchel dangling at her hip, she waded up onto a shelf of granite and took another look around the sea cave. The air was damp and salty, alive with the echoing boom and murmur of the surf. Shells, starfishes, and clumps of weed littered the floor where it sloped down to meet the water. An oil lamp, unlit at the moment, reposed in a niche in the wall, and bits of broken stone lay about the entrance to a passage slanting upward. Someone had smashed away rock to make the path more accessible.

“You were right,” said Yzil. “There is a way up.”

Tu’ala’keth shrugged. “It was not difficult to deduce. The wearer of purple mentioned that in time, he and his fellow lunatics might provide undeath to the dragons of the sea. How could humans accomplish that without workrooms where land and water come together?”

“Well, don’t feel too smug. It’s a narrow way up. I was hoping we could sneak up on them quickly.”

“If we make haste, we still can.”

“Let’s hope so.” Yzil turned toward the other hovering, flitting ixitxachitls, and the locathahs and koalinths still sloshing up out of the depths, and started barking orders.

It took him a few minutes to get everyone organized, and he and Tu’ala’keth led the ascent. The ‘chitl’s broad, flat body all but filled the passage, the rippling edges nearly swiping the walls.

He hesitated at a point where the smoothly sloping floor gave way to a succession of chiseled edges and right angles. “What’s this?”

She smiled for an instant. “Stairs. No inconvenience to you, but I suffered stumbles and stubbed toes before I learned the trick of them. I suspect your slaves will, too.”

Yzil showed his fangs. “If that’s the worst they suffer tonight, they can count themselves blessed.”

Anton had pilfered a few small knives without his captors noticing, but now that he’d figured out where to hide it, he wanted a sword. It didn’t need magical virtues like Tu’ala’keth’s cutlass or Shandri’s huge and thirsty blade. Any hilt weapon that extended his reach by more than a finger-length would do.

Surely somewhere in the caverns lay a dull, notched, rusty, poorly balanced sword nobody wanted or would miss. But he’d crept about for a long while without finding it and wandered dangerously far from his cage in the process. He supposed it was time to give up, for tonight anyway, and to steal some more food and make his way back to his fellow prisoners.

He turned, and a quavering roar shook the tunnel.

It sounded as if it might actually have words in it, but since he didn’t speak the language of dragons, he couldn’t be sure.

Whether it did or not, it roused the entire complex. Echoing voices babbled on every side. Footsteps scurried. Trumpets bleated, repeating the alarm the wyrm had sounded. A sickly blue shimmer and whiff of rot washed through the air as, somewhere, one of the necromancers cast an initial spell.

Intent on covering at least some of the distance back to the prison before the tunnels filled up with cultists dashing in all directions, trying to balance the conflicting imperatives of haste and stealth, Anton trotted as quickly as he dared until red light shined from an irregular opening just ahead.

The spy felt a pang of fear and self-disgust. He’d known a fire drake had claimed that particular side gallery for its lair, but the cursed thing had been asleep ever since he’d first discovered it, and so he’d come to consider this particular passageway as safe as any.