Ice Crypt (Mermaids of Eriana Kwai Book 2) (31 page)

Our current veered west, so we switched to an adjacent one. I thought about Coho and Ephyra, and how they would be in Adaro’s guard. As long as they stayed away from the sharks, they didn’t need to get hurt.

“So who gets the iron?” said Pontus.

He eyed the trident still clutched in Junior’s fist.

“You three, since Lysi and I are shark-taming,” said Spio. “I’m going to suggest you fight for it.”

For the hundredth time, I felt guilty for letting my iron hook get blasted away.

Spio must have read it in my aura, because he punched me in the shoulder. “Come on, buddy. There was nothing you could have done.”

Junior held out the weapons to Pontus.

“You and Nobeard should take the iron. I can snap his neck with my bare hands.”

“How modest,” said Pontus.

Junior flexed his baby-dolphin-sized arms.

“I’ll take the hook,” said Nobeard. “I have a feeling it’s my destiny to fight with a hook.”

That left the trident to Pontus. He wrapped both fists around it with a hungry gleam in his eyes.

Though Junior probably could have snapped Adaro’s neck on strength alone, he settled with taking Pontus and Nobeard’s maces, one in each hand.

Then the line of guards hit our senses.

“All right, here’s what we’re going to do,” I whispered, producing the roll of rawhide. “Surround me, weapons out. I came here a captive, so I’ll leave a captive.”

“Ah,” said Spio. “The boys’ army proved too much for you.”

“I was too much for it,” I said, tossing back a lock of matted hair. “Junior, hand them this and tell them you’re royal guardians on a transport order.”

Junior took the rawhide hesitantly.

“Why me?”

“You look the scariest.”

He unrolled it. “These are assembly instructions”

“That’s not important. I hope. The story is that you were instructed to bring me back to train for the Battle for Eriana Kwai.”

I handed Spio my weapon, so he and Junior held two each. Nobeard and Pontus still had their iron.

They fell into place around me. I set my jaw and, thinking of Strymon’s smug face, summoned all the rage I could. The guys mirrored my mood.

The floor grew shallower, locking us between surface and rocks.

As we neared the line, I began shouting.

“I tried to tell you cods I’m better off up north! I was trained to fight
humans
.”

“Shut up,” said Pontus, baring his teeth. “It’s not our problem where you’re stationed.”

I snarled.

We stopped in front of a guard—a different one from last time. His thickness was comparable to Junior’s. I sensed more guards on either side, hovering just within range.

Junior puffed himself up. “Royal guardians on a transport order.”

The guard’s eyes raked over our group. He lingered on me, and then on the iron weapons.

My heart pounded.

“This is a girl,” said the guard. “Why was she here?”

“She’s to return to Eriana Kwai,” said Pontus.

“Why?”

“King’s orders,” said Junior. “We don’t ask questions.”

The guard was unreadable. He reached out. His hand closed around the rawhide.

Don’t be difficult
, I thought.
Your buddy didn’t check it on the way there.

Junior didn’t open his fist. The guard had to pull the roll free.

I glanced around, pretending to look for an escape. Spio picked up on it and jabbed me with his stone spear.

“Ouch!”

Rubbing my side, I shot him a glare that wasn’t entirely staged.

“Think I’m letting you escape again?” he said in his best tough-guy voice. “You already pushed your luck with that stunt back at the camp. They’ll be picking iron out of the coral for the next year.”

The guard eyed the iron weapons again.

“Eriana Kwai, you say?”

“Yes, sir,” said Pontus. “She’s to be used against the humans.”

“Her specialty is irontechnics,” said Spio.

I turned slightly so my scar was more visible.

The guard grunted. He hastily shoved the rawhide back at Junior and waved us through.

Spio made to prod me again as we moved forwards, but I grabbed the end of his spear, making a silent promise that I would get him back for this later.

We crossed the border and kept moving, picking up speed. Soon, we were flat out, opening as much distance as we could between the guards and us.

By the time we needed breath, we were long out of range.

We paused at the surface, panting hard.

“Nice work, Lysi,” said Pontus.

Spio hesitated in giving me back my weapon. I snatched it from him with a flourish, but he submerged before I could jab him with it.

We continued northwards, travelling in silence and changing currents when we found a faster one.

The route was not without other travellers. It wasn’t long until we crossed paths with a pod of transient orcas. We dove, sinking to the twilight level to make sure they wouldn’t chase us.

After that, we overtook rays, marlin, and a blue whale with her calf. I checked behind us compulsively to ensure we weren’t being followed.

The next time ripples hit us, we stopped. Merpeople. Their group was small, their presence too meek to be our target. Something bulky floated in their midst—a weapons hold, maybe.

They drew closer, riding a different current than us. They must have been heading south.

We dove to avoid them.

“Weapon supplies,” said Pontus once we’d risen again. “It’s most likely, if they’re headed for the Moonless—”

“We shouldn’t have taken the main current,” said Junior. “There’s too much traffic. We’re going to be seen, if not mauled by the next pod of whales.”

“This is the only option,” said Pontus. “The target is somewhere along this current.”

“But if we have to keep diving, we’ll never—”

“Stop,” I said, holding out my hands.

They did.

I’d felt something else. I turned my head, concentrating.

“Frenzy?” said Spio.

Faint vibrations carried from somewhere far ahead. Then they disappeared.

“Moving away from us,” I whispered.

I advanced until I felt them again, and then stopped. The guys followed.

“The target?” said Nobeard.

I ran a palm along my arm, as though to rub the feeling deeper into my skin.

“I think so,” I whispered.

We clumped together, advancing in silence. The closeness would make our group feel like one entity, easily mistaken for a whale.

We followed, trailing as far back as we could without losing the group. The distorted murmur of conversation met my ears.

I searched for Adaro. I didn’t know what to feel for. I could recognise my brother from afar, or a cousin or friend—but not a stranger.

Swimming that close together, I felt the guys’ fear as my own. I tried to block it, focusing on the group ahead.

There were at least ten merpeople. Our distance made it impossible to pick out a single identity. Adaro would be in the middle, masked by the surrounding guard. The best I could do was identify gender—and they were mostly male.

Next to me, frustration seeped from Pontus. He was having as much trouble as I was.

I gave up on trying to find Adaro and scanned the vibrations as a whole, searching for anything helpful.

There. Something familiar. What was it?

I felt it out for a moment, until I was confident I hadn’t imagined it.

I slowed, pulling the others back. They turned to me.

When we’d lost the feeling of the distant group, I whispered, “It’s them.”

“How do you know?” said Pontus.

“I recognised Coho.”

A pause.

“You’re sure?” said Junior.

“Yes. I don’t know how. I just know. It’s him.”

I couldn’t explain it. There was something familiar in his aura, and that was the only feature in the group I could distinguish.

“Works for me,” said Spio.

“All right,” said Pontus. “Now, we tail them until we find our sharks.”

Tightly clustered, we followed. We stayed out of range so they wouldn’t sense us, relying on the knowledge that they were heading north.

The sun crept across the sky. We ducked closer a couple of times to make sure we hadn’t lost our group. I kept my feelers on Coho and the female presence beside him.

We breached often so we could keep an eye for gulls above the surface.

My stomach growled. I ignored it, irritated that my body was thinking about food at a time like this.

Finally, something notable grazed my skin. I nearly cried out in excitement.

The guys felt it, too. We stopped, senses tuned to something on the left.

The faintest of vibrations—but it was huge, chaotic, moving towards us.

“Uh, crap,” said Spio.

“Yup,” I said. “Dive.”

Not a frenzy. Dolphins. They wouldn’t be harmful, but this pod must have been three hundred in size. They breached and splashed noisily, heading straight for us from the west.

I recognised their pale bellies and dark, shaded backs as Pacific white-sided dolphins. I hadn’t seen a pod of those since leaving home.

We dove to get out of their way.

“Why don’t we use them?” said Junior, watching their white bellies pass overhead.

“Are you kidding?” I said. “They wouldn’t fall for the bait.”

“Tempting, though,” said Spio, rolling onto his back.

As they passed, I thought of Axius and his dolphin ranch, and felt a pang of guilt and sadness. He might have been a giant whale turd, but he hadn’t deserved to die.

The dolphins noticed us—Spio, in particular, with his bag wafting the scent of death in all directions. But they had no use for us.

Their chatter filled the water, cheerful and expressive. Distinct auras passed over my skin—a pregnant female, serene and happy; a young male, frustrated in his pursuit of a mate; an older male, annoyed by a playful tag-along; three babies enjoying a game. Most were hungry. They were after a meal.

I placed a hand over my stomach, wishing I could go with them.

We waited until the dolphins cleared our range, then rose to the northwards current again.

“Too bad this area is so foreign,” whispered Spio. “Back home I always knew where the frenzies happened.”

“I know,” said Pontus. “This is scaring me. Notice how much colder the water’s getting?”

I bit my lip. I’d been too focused on the group ahead to notice, but the water had gotten a lot more comfortable.

“You think we’re almost home?” I whispered.

“We’re dangerously close.”

My gut twisted. I’d finally be home like I wanted.

But getting home wasn’t enough anymore. It was like Spio had told me when I first arrived at the military base:
Our duty as soldiers isn’t to Adaro. It’s to merpeople.

I had to get home, yes. But I was a soldier, and I had a job to finish.

“Maybe we can think this out logically,” I said. “What kinds of landmarks do frenzies normally …”

My jaw dropped. I whirled around, staring eastwards.

“What?” said Spio.

“The dolphins. They’re familiar with this area. They know exactly where to find food.”

Spio turned in their direction, mouth agape. Then his face broke into a grin.

“All right. Lysi and I are going to follow the pod. You guys swing wide and get ahead of the target. We’ll bring the party to you.”

“Aye aye,” said Nobeard.

He, Pontus, and Junior took off one way while Spio and I went the other.

This had to work. Where else would a giant pod of hungry dolphins be headed in such a hurry?

We followed the trailing bubbles and caught up to the pod. The dolphins eyed us as we passed, but they remained mostly aloof. We kept going until we swam parallel with the leaders.

Then, I felt it—the faintest of ripples, but a definite change in the current.

We breached quickly. In that moment above the surface, I glimpsed white flecks in the distance. A league away, gulls were diving in.

Pulses in the current raced across my skin.

“Yup,” said Spio. “That’s what I call chaos.”

I grinned. Predators lay ahead. With a burst of speed, we broke away from the dolphins.

Soon, a single-minded presence hit me like a wall.

I couldn’t tell what type of shark—but maybe that didn’t matter. The smell of hunger and blood trickled towards us.

We swam at top speed, opening as wide a gap as we could between the dolphins and ourselves. We needed time to gather the sharks and get out of there before they arrived. We had a league to do it.

At last, the frenzy came into sight.

A few striped dolphins did the brunt of the work, driving a school of herring against the surface. Birds plunged in, snatching what they could and scrambling to avoid the snapping jaws. I glimpsed a lone swordfish—and best of all, the predators we came for.

Six sharks darted in and out of the ball of fish: four threshers, two great whites.

Every instinct told me to turn and flee. All six were large and healthy, with full sets of teeth that could slice a mermaid’s skin like iron. They projected such a powerful desire to kill that I swore my lungs compressed just looking at them.

The great whites drew my attention first—mouths gaping, bodies as thick as small whales. But the striped dolphins kept even further back from the threshers than the great whites. Despite their adorably large eyes, the threshers had tails as long as their bodies, which they snapped over their heads to stun the herring before devouring them. Even the smallest one was longer than me, and managed to knock out three fish at once.

I glanced back. Our dolphin pod was distant, but wouldn’t be for long.

Spio turned to me. He held out a hand.

“Lysi, I feel like our entire friendship has led us to this moment.”

I clasped his hand, watching the sharks gnash at the baitball and at each other.

“You ready?”

I pushed the hair out of my face. “Like you said: I spent my childhood preparing for this.”

We let go. Spio opened his bag. The stench of death was powerful enough to wrinkle my nose.

A bright cloud of blood rose between us. I backed away so as not to coat myself and become living shark bait.