Dream Storm Sea (9 page)

15

Terror Croc

Fangs flashed white in the starlight. Water flowed into a long maw that closed on the sacrificial boat. The vessel was whisked into the air by a sinuous momentum. A glimpsed leg—tiny compared to the length of the creature—then a waterfall of spray.

The boat splintered with the sound of a house under the weight of a flood. The creature shook its snout, and a piece of planking whistled by Hiresha.

The enchantress found herself unable to move. The water sloshing in the bottom of the boat froze her feet. She could not help but think their vessel was the same size as the one pulverized.
The creature could gobble us faster than a tea cake, and the mast wouldn’t do more than scratch the roof of its mouth.

“Gorgeous!” Emesea grinned and leaned over the side. “Look at her sunbeam markings. Wish we could’ve seen her at day. And watch her move! What a ripple of muscle. Sends shivers up your thighs, doesn’t it?”

A curving wall of leathery flesh plowed whitewater into waves. Alternating shades of light and dark sped by on the flank of the creature. Its head had plunged out of sight, but water was being disturbed in a line toward the boat as if a god had thrown a spear.

Hiresha gasped a breath. “Is this your dragon?”

Emesea snorted as she tied something around her wrist. “Left this croc a tasty blood trail to shore, and now I’m going to have to bruise her. A shame.”

Hiresha scrambled against the far side of the boat, knowing she could not fall asleep in time to escape.

“Row!” Emesea pointed to the bench. She bent to wrap a rope around her ankle.

Hiresha rowed.

Emesea lifted the anchor stone above her shoulder. Her body undulated to keep balance in the shifting boat. “Pull me out if she booms.”

“If
what?
”

The sea opened in a cavern of fangs. The reek of a thousand dead fish wafted out in a hot gust.

Emesea lobbed the stone at a tooth. It shattered in pulpy fragments.

The creature roared. Waves lapped against the boat in time to the sound.

Emesea dove off, towing an oar. She disappeared into the blackness and did not resurface. The rope spooled out after her.

Coils of the creature slanted out of the sea then slammed down. Whitewater covered everything and rocked the boat away.

The enchantress threw her back into the paddling. She reflected on her chances of reaching the coast south of Oasis City alone.
Not if there’re more specimens of that size.

Sea spume hid the creature’s head, and Emesea had not surfaced. Hiresha expected the former to devour the latter. She could not bring herself to feel too sorry for Emesea.
This was her idea, the maniac.
More concerning was the rope attached to Emesea’s leg. Once the woman was gobbled down, the line would reel in the boat.

Emesea had left her sword for some reason. Blades of obsidian were fit into a lengthy block of wood. Hiresha could use it to hack off the rope.

I should stop rowing and do it now. She was as good as dead when she jumped in the water, with only an oar besides.

Something held Hiresha back. The oars seemed to grip her hands.

Part of the creature flared, and a tree-trunk-shaped organ within its length shone an angry red. Ribs blocked the glow of magic in black curves. Water boiled around the creature, frothy spikes of white. A shock-wave burst outward, and the boat tipped then crashed. The timbers creaked. Leaks spurted. A rattling pulse traveled up Hiresha’s body, shaking loose her oars, and when it reached her head it pummeled her ears with sound.

Hiresha had thought the creature had roared before, but that must have been but a growl. A rumbling explosion like the cacophony of a collapsing tower, it split her world in two. By the time her vision refocused, Hiresha was dry-heaving over the side of the boat.

Fish floated to the surface, belly-up. Some fluoresced green or pink, but those lights faded. The sea turned into a swaying graveyard. Hiresha searched for signs of an oar bobbing into view, for sight of Emesea, but saw nothing.

“The rope.”

The thought came to Hiresha as if spoken. She kneeled and pulled. Water flicked into her face with every tug. She did not savor her task of towing in Emesea’s body, but the woman had asked it of her. As reckless as Emesea had been, she had stopped the sea creature from chomping the boat to bits. At least for the moment.

The creature had wallowed away. The curving crest of a wave warned of its returning. Its maw opened, and schools of dead fish flowed inside. The banquet of casualties did not spread all the way to the boat. Hiresha had rowed far enough that she could entertain hopes the creature would miss her. Her arms spun about each other, wrapping the rope around hand and elbow.

           I can save Emesea’s remains from being digested. I owe her that much.
Hiresha could only be amazed how Emesea had not hesitated to dive in to her death.
Curious how hard it is to distinguish bravery from insanity.

An oar popped from the water. A cord bound it to a slack hand, and Emesea’s eyes stared without seeing. Trying to pull the body aboard threatened to tip the boat. The enchantress noticed two grey stones tied to the woman’s belt. Hiresha freed them, and they sank into the darkness.

Hiresha wrapped the rope around the mast and levered her legs against it. After that, dragging in the corpse by herself proved easier than she would have thought possible.

The body landed on a bench, and water sprayed from its mouth. It gasped. Emesea breathed in and pushed herself upright, her face beaming like a newlywed bride. She punched the enchantress on the shoulder, still smiling.

“Sorry you couldn’t have been down there with me.” Emesea’s words sounded groggy and faint in Hiresha’s buzzing ears. The woman clapped her hands to her belt. “By the liver-gorging gods! What happened to my stones?”

No person should have been able to face that creature and live.
“The blast—Your survival is an offense to probability.”

Emesea wiped a dark fluid leaking from her ears and tasted it. “Just hearing a chord of bliss right now, but you better’ve said sorry for tossing my ballast stones overboard. You did, didn’t you?”

“I had to—”

“Poor dumb beauty,” Emesea said, gazing at the creature that was scooping the dead fish into its mouth. “She can’t look down. Just stay below her and pummel her ribs. Must’ve broken a score or more. Would be too easy if not for her boom.”

“I suspect your heart stopped for a minute there. Or is that your definition of ‘too easy?’”

Emesea seemed not to hear. She let down the sail and tied a few ropes. Wind filled the patchwork cloth, and the boat traveled away from the creature’s feeding grounds.

Hiresha collapsed against the mast, not even caring about the bilge water soaking its way up her dress. She expected sleep to carry her away. She remained in a state of dazed exhaustion, a giddy sickness of whirling stars. The enchantress could have led herself to her dream laboratory, but she hated to think of waking up to find herself in a stomach without even knowing what manner of gilled beast had eaten her.

“Was that creature the Murderfish?”

Emesea lifted a hand from a rope to cup her ear. “I almost heard that. Speak up. This isn’t a doily-choked parlor.”

The enchantress’s chest hurt as she gathered her breath. “Did we just escape the Murderfish?”

Emesea tilted her head back and laughed. She kicked her legs in mirth. After calming herself, she opened her mouth to speak, but all that came out were giggles.

Hiresha picked a crustacean off her dress and flicked it from the boat. “You should try not to move so violently after a concussion, if you’re the type to avoid brain damage.”

“Sorry but—heehee—that was just a darling terror croc. The Murderfish is a legend. My dragon told me about her.”

“If that terror croc was endearing, I’d hate to see your ‘modestly offensive.’”

Hiresha sat up and scanned the horizon, hoping to spot land. A darkness without reflection stretched to their right. To the left, dream storms had crept closer in shifting clouds of tangerine and fuchsia.

The enchantress frowned at the storms. “We should return to shore.”

“We need to go further. Jaraah will send out riders in the morning.”

“It’s reaching the morning that concerns me,” Hiresha said. “And if you have any gems for me I could enchant this boat to fly over the sands to Oasis City.”

“I have a few more ballast rocks.” Emesea nudged a leather sack. “And you should keep your voice down. Sound travels far underwater. My dragon could hear a great platehead’s belch from a mile away.”

“Tell me, how far away might some abyssal monster hear a woman’s incessant laughter? Far enough to build up an appetite on the swim?” The quickness of Hiresha’s thinking surprised her. She had never felt so lucid when awake, except when near Tethiel.

Emesea’s mouth puckered with embarrassment. “You should’ve stopped me.”

“Oh, so I’m responsible for your semi-voluntary mirth eruptions?”

“I can do anything but hold back.” Emesea hefted her sword, tossing it past the prow then catching it as the boat caught up. “That terror croc is going to make this voyage more exciting. One of ‘em booms, and the whole sea hears it.”

“Might the sound encourage other predators to avoid this coast?”

“Some will be curious what could make a terror croc squeal. Might be hungry for scavenge.”

The breeze washed coldness over Hiresha’s damp skin. “All the more reason to return to shore.”

Emesea nodded and plied the oars. The boat surged and sprayed with every stroke. She kicked an empty gourd toward the enchantress. “The boat feels sluggish. We’re riding low in the water. Bail out some of this.”

Hiresha tilted the gourd so bilge water flowed down its neck. She upended it over the side. She glimpsed something that startled gourd out of her hand. A segmented eel of jaundice yellow swam beside the ship. Except it ended in a stinger, a spike that flicked up out of the water as the creature wormed forward.
That’s no eel. It’s a tail.

A giant scorpion swam with the boat. And more than one. Fluorescent bodies bigger than men flowed beneath the waves. One reached the bobbing gourd. A claw cut from the water, and spines clamped down on the gourd, shattering it to flakes.

Emesea held out another gourd. “Drop a few more, and you’ll be bailing out the boat with your hands.”

“What are they?” Hiresha cringed at the scorpions. They shed a light reminiscent of mushrooms rotting in cellars.

“Fisherman’s bane. Their sting makes a man feel he’s burning alive. Jumps overboard to douse himself, and that’s the end of it.”

“Can’t you kill them?” Hiresha bailed water over the edge of the boat. She took care to hold only the base of the gourd. It was well she did because a stinger struck the gourd’s neck. The force knocked it from the enchantress’s hands.

Emesea snatched the gourd from the water. “Best not to squash them. Their blood eats away at wood.”

“Have they followed us since the terror croc?”

A claw latched onto the side of the boat, tipping it. Emesea flicked the pincer away with an oar. “You have to admire their persistence.”

“Will they damage the ship’s hull?”

“No, but they’re calling something that will.”

“Excuse me?”

“Put your ear close to the water and you’ll hear their claws clacking up a song.”

“I’ll abstain from being stung in the face, thank you very much,” Hiresha said. “Not that the scorpions will be able to follow us on land in any event.”

A dream storm shimmered green to their left.

Hiresha asked, “Wait, why is the shore no closer? We’re heading the wrong way.”

The ship had no rudder. To turn it, Hiresha dipped in an oar. The ship started to angle toward the darkness of land to their right. She was clouted by Emesea.

“Guards will be waiting for us in Oasis City.” Emesea returned to her rowing. “Those camel lovers will be patrolling the desert. I couldn’t put down more than two at a time, and you’re sensitive about killing.”

The enchantress rubbed her numb shoulder, where the other woman had punched her.

“The land won’t take us anywhere you want to go. At sea, we only risk our own blood.”

“I’m against senseless killing, and the same is true for senseless dying,” Hiresha said. “We’re surrounded by scorpions clicking their claws for dinner. Oasis City has to be north of us now. I should think it the lesser risk.”

“Was a day away from being executed there in a sand pit, myself. And didn’t you have some trouble in the city tombs?” A sea scorpion clawed at an oar but Emesea wrenched it free. “These fisherman’s bane will tire soon enough, the hungry darlings.”

While Hiresha was thinking how she could force the landing, she noticed one scorpion lagging behind. The boat scooted away from the segmented body of sickening yellow. Its stinger dipped out of sight into the water.

Might we outrace these scorpions? And all the sea’s dangers?
Hiresha would prefer not to land only to meet a patrol of city guards. Not without gems.