Ice Crypt (Mermaids of Eriana Kwai Book 2) (44 page)

Others attacked. After the initial shock of seeing the leviathan, more people raised their weapons. The serpent was met with showers of bolts, blades, rocks, anything people could throw.

The second head closed around one man’s entire body. She tossed him in the air and swallowed him, sending a shower of blood across the beach.

I searched for my parents, who had ducked into the trees to avoid what might as well have been a flying boulder. My father was firing rapidly while my mother handed him ammo.

I turned to my friends. “Tell everyone to focus on Adaro. And someone get me a weapon.”

Blacktail and Annith took off into the crowd.

I glanced desperately towards the water. Where was Lysi?

The serpent raised her head, eyeing the masses below.

Behind Texas and the Massacre warriors, more girls arrived. Blondie led the pack of younger trainees.

Another cascade of bolts hit the serpent.

Tanuu cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed at them. “Get the merman! The merman is controlling it!”

A few people heard. They passed along the message in frantic shouts.

Something tingled around my waist. My skin felt hot, like I’d sat too long facing a fire. I lifted my shirt.

The skin at my hips was broken. Or rather, covered in odd lines. Skin faded into … into what? I ran my fingers along it.

Scales.

My breath caught in my throat. For a moment, I thought I might faint.

I unzipped my pants. This was not the time for modesty.

“Tanuu, help me take these off,” I said, struggling with my paralyzed legs.

He looked taken aback.

“Come on,” I said. “You’ve been wanting to get me out of these for years.”

“Really, Meela?”

He knelt to help.

He cried out when he saw the scales at my hips.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I was in a lot more pain a minute ago.”

When the next wave retreated, revealing my legs, my stomach lurched. The scales travelled partway down my thighs. At the top of my legs, the skin had joined, flimsy, like the wings of a bat. The rest of my legs were still human.

“No offense,” said Tanuu, “but that looks disgusting.”

Annith and Blacktail returned with crossbows and quivers. I grabbed a weapon and slung a quiver over my chest.

“We told Texas to …” Annith trailed off when she saw my pants floating beside me. Her mouth fell open as the next wave ebbed, revealing my deformed legs.

“Aim!” shouted Texas.

We turned. All one hundred trainees raised their crossbows—this time, at Adaro.

My breath caught. Their aim was too good for all of them to miss at once. This was it. They were going to kill him.

“Fire!”

Adaro’s crimson eyes flashed as he noticed the crossbows pointed at him. With a movement too fast to see, he flattened on the rock.

The serpent ducked in response to the movement. She turned to her master.

Even as Adaro flattened out, a handful of bolts hit his chest, arms, and face.

I cried out in victory, lifting my crossbow in the air.

Adaro roared—but to my horror, the bolts did not sink through him. They bounced off like hailstones, not even breaking skin. He sat up, teeth bared.

“But …” I said.

“Aim!” shouted Texas.

Fury twisted Adaro’s face. He raised his arms. A torrent of seawater rained down on us. The heads loomed over the beach, one of them directly above me.

I notched a bolt and, ignoring the instinct to fire at the beast descending on us, aimed my crossbow at Adaro.

“Fire!” shouted Texas.

I pulled the trigger and dove sideways. I caught a glimpse of open jaws a mere arm’s length away. Blood dripped from glistening teeth. They snapped closed around empty water where I’d been lying. The pulse in the waves sent me crashing into the shipwreck.

Crossbow in one hand, a bolt in the other, I sat up and found chunks of wood floating all over the place. Waves pummelled what was left of the broken ship, spraying me and everything around it.

Several bolts buffeted Adaro. They fell away as though made of foam.

How could he still be alive? Iron was the one sure way to slay a sea demon. This had always been the case. I gripped my weapon tighter, feeling like everything had turned inside out.

Where were Tanuu, Annith, and Blacktail?

Abruptly, Adaro scrambled forwards and plunged into the tide, where he sat submerged up to his shoulders. Shielding his head with one arm, he raised the other to the serpent.

At the blind command, the serpent lunged without an apparent plan.

Had the serpent gotten my friends? Were they trapped beneath the rubble?

I reached for a bolt. My quiver was light. I’d lost several in the waves. I cranked the lever and dropped the bolt against the shaft. In one motion, I aimed and fired. It hit Adaro in the collarbone, jolting him but not breaking his focus.

Someone spluttered behind me. I spun. Tanuu had been carried into the broken hull. He dog paddled out, wheezing.

“Meela, where are the others?”

“I don’t—”

Beside us, someone rose from the water with an enormous gasp.

“Lysi!”

I reached for her, overcome with relief.

A high wave splashed against the shipwreck. I held my breath beneath its spray.

Lysi pulled me away from the debris.

“Iron doesn’t kill him. We tried to explode the mine at the Moonless City, and then tried again with the Trident of Terror and the Iron Hook of Doom.”

Before I could ask her to clarify that loaded statement, the serpent swiped and Lysi threw herself at Tanuu and me. We fell into the waves, briny water splashing up my nose. I made a conscious effort to keep my crossbow away from Lysi.

I surfaced, coughing. Wood splinters rained down on us.

“There!” said Tanuu.

Blacktail and Annith were on their feet, crossbows pointed at Adaro. Someone else had joined them. Fern. Of everyone on the beach, they were closest to the half-submerged merman. They fired rapidly, their bolts hitting him in the chest, throat, and face.

“You already tried iron?” I said. “When? Who’s
we
?”

“Never mind,” said Lysi.

Still, the impact of all the projectiles forced Adaro down. He turned as though to swim away, and stopped. Annith, Blacktail, and Fern had closed around him, trapping him between the boulder, their crossbows, and the rest of my people. From such close range, the girls’ bolts drew blood, sticking into Adaro’s flesh like darts.

The serpent gave a low, breathy groan, shaking her heads again like a wet dog. She turned to her master, waiting for a command.

I glanced back in search of my parents. They’d moved away from the safety of the trees.

“Be right back,” said Tanuu.

He took off, splashing up the beach.

I fired at Adaro again, hitting him in the shoulder.

Lysi scanned the beach, wide-eyed. I followed her gaze.

Many people attacked the serpent, launching themselves at her indestructible body. At the treeline, the Massacre trainees fired at Adaro, along with anyone else with a crossbow or hunting bow. Not everyone had practiced aim, but enough did that a continuous stream of bolts and arrows pummelled him from every direction.

Though nobody paid us any attention amid all the chaos, I was glad Lysi’s tail was masked beneath the waves.

As I thought this, the heat returned, flaring in my thighs. I looked down. The debris-filled water reached my waist. I ran a hand over my legs. My thighs had merged—smooth and scaly, one solid tail. It stopped at the knees, where that bat-like skin knit them together. Even the vague sight of the scales and their broken feel beneath my fingers made my stomach flop.

I had a tail. I would never have legs again. I would never walk or run again.

Tanuu returned with a hunting bow.

“Iron’s about as effective on him as wood, right? Least this way I’ll actually hit him.”

“Sounds fair,” said Lysi.

Tanuu let loose an arrow. It hit Adaro in the head.

The leviathan groaned as though in frustration. All four eyes were trained on her master.

Annith, Blacktail, and Fern had waded so close to the boulder that each shot had the force of a cannon fire. I was about to yell at the girls to be careful, because Adaro’s next command to the serpent would be to deal with them—

Then it dawned on me.

Adaro was too overwhelmed by the attack to command the serpent. She watched him, awaiting instruction.

“Keep him busy!” I said. “Look at the heads.”

As long as Adaro was occupied, we were safe from the serpent. She would not strike until her master told her to.

I fired another bolt.

“Then what?” said Lysi.

Before I could consider this, Tanuu let out a bark of laughter.

“He’s gonna have to run!”

He was right. The answer seemed to be in numbers.

People had taken advantage of the serpent’s immobility. They boldly splashed closer.

When the next shower of bolts, garden tools, and a baseball hit Adaro, the sheer volume submerged him completely.

Annith, Blacktail, and Fern leapt aside, aiming their weapons into the water.

“Get out of there,” I shouted, but the girls didn’t need telling. Already they were boosting each other onto the boulder with trained speed.

A burning sensation erupted in my palms. I gasped, dropping the crossbow. It landed on my thighs—on my tail—where the burning continued.

I swiped it away in a panic, like a poisonous spider had landed on me.

I couldn’t touch it anymore. I would never be able to touch it again. Not crossbows, bolts, or any other iron.

A disturbance hit my tail. I flinched, expecting to see the Host advancing on us. But she wasn’t there. I’d felt the ripples from Adaro retreating.

He had disappeared from sight, but I felt him. He was swimming away.

The serpent gave a deep groan. I caught the scent of her breath, thick and briny, more powerful than ever.

She followed. Her armour glistened in the feeble rays of sunlight. Whirlpools appeared and disappeared, each time further from the beach.

The disturbance in the water dimmed as they retreated.

“Yeah, you’d better run!” said Tanuu.

His voice rang. His pulse changed as he said the words. He was excited.

How did I know this?

The crowd roared.

I felt their elation. It bled through the air, thick and tangible, meeting my mind in the same way sweetness bursts across the tongue.

I heard their feet splashing, and just as much, felt the vibrations in the water as they chased Adaro away from Eriana Kwai.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
A Journey Ended

The serpent lingered in my senses long after she had disappeared. I waited several moments, until the horizon returned to emptiness and the currents revealed nothing but fish. Finally, I peeled my gaze away from the ocean.

Though the commotion on the beach had faded, it looked as though a storm had blown through. Wooden splinters, broken trees, and weapons littered the rocks. Seawater drenched everything up to the treeline. Hundreds of humans nursed their injuries and hugged each other.

They projected pain. Bones had been broken. Lives had been lost. The air reeked of blood.

Then there was the girl on the highest boulder.

Most stared, but no one approached the blood-soaked rock. The corpse had been in the line of fire. Her uniform was shredded, her body punctured with iron and wooden arrows.

A thickset man stormed down the beach. Every thread of his focus pulled towards the girl on the rock. He waded in. His back and shoulders expanded and compressed rapidly.

A long moment passed as he stared at Dani’s body.

His emotions blended, hard to read, as the girl’s had been.

The crowd fell so silent that I barely sensed them beneath the wind and waves.

“Who did this?” shouted the man.

A woman splashed in behind him. Her anguish hit me before she made a sound.

“Dani! Baby!”

The woman stumbled through the tide, trying to run faster than the water would allow. Her breaths rattled with sobs.

The man didn’t turn. He stayed facing his daughter.

Rage and grief drifted towards me on the wind.

Beside me, Meela lifted a hand to her cheek. She caught the tear before it fell.

Beneath the water, I grabbed her free hand and squeezed. She held on tightly.

“Who’s responsible for this?” the man shouted.

His eyes found Meela.

I tensed, ready to dive if he realised what I was. But with my tail hidden beneath the surface, he didn’t notice.

“Adaro,” said Meela, barely audible.

“What?” said the man.

Tanuu came to her rescue. “It was Adaro. The merman. He killed her so he could have control of the serpent.”

“What do you—how would killing her—why does my daughter have to do with this?” he demanded, voice breaking on the last words.

His wife clambered onto the boulder, kicking off her shoes for grip.

“Dani had control to begin with,” said Annith. “She …”

Annith faltered, glancing to Meela.