Mervidia (44 page)

Chants of “Red Tridents” filled the room for several moments, before Zane turned and began swimming for the ballroom doors.
Domo Slone and Captain Raygo scrambled to get them open and out of the way of a hundred armed merwin, charging after their leader out of the room, through the foyer, and out into the city.

As Lachlan swam by the highborn pair
, he couldn’t help but smile to himself. They weren’t bothering to hide their looks of nervousness anymore.
Getting a glimpse of what you’ve gotten yourselves into making Zane king, are you?
the seifeira asked silently.
Get used to it. Everything is going to change the instant the Fangs settle on his head. A new age is coming, and Zane is going to drag Mervidia into it, whether it likes it or not.

Chapter Forty

Lachlan gently handed the merwin to Nayan, trying his best to transfer the unconscious
neondra to the jellod’s arms without jostling him. Nayan placed a webbed hand over the wounded merwin’s chest and closed her eyes for a moment. Lachlan saw a dim golden glow surround the machi’s hand for a moment and then fade. When she opened her eyes again, they were filled with sorrow. The jellod looked at Lachlan and shook her head gently. The neondra was dead, beyond her ability to heal.

Lachlan’s shoulders fell.
The seifeira sank in the water, his wide strong tail brushing the sand beneath him.
Another one,
he thought.
How many is that?
he wondered.
How many merwin have died trying to fight that thing?

Scores of lanterns were visible in the distance, illuminating the giant squid.
Two of its enormous tentacles were wrapped around a decrepit domicile, crushing the abandoned Ghet building beneath its weight. It was hard to tell which was fouling the water more, powder from crumbling stone and coral or the blood from the dead and dying merwin trying in vain to drive the squid away from the city. In the cloud of debris, Lachlan saw one of its two clubbed feeding tentacles, different from the other eight tentacles that it used for movement, hook a fleeing merwin and shove the flailing ethyrie into its maw.

Already the Red Tridents had tried a dozen different tactics
to subdue the creature or drive it off, but none seemed to have had any effect. Attempts to concentrate their attacks on the giant squid’s head had proven futile. The monster’s enormous tentacles were far faster than anything that size had a right to be. Countless merwin had been crushed in the constricting coils of the thing’s long limbs. They had even tried singling out one of the tentacles in the hopes of maybe severing it and driving the creature off. The other nine appendages had been lethally effective in defending the tenth. Several attempts had been made to attack the giant squid on multiple fronts simultaneously, but they had met with similar unsuccessful results. Their numbers were too few to overwhelm it.

Lachlan looked at Nayan and her cot
erie of machi healers. Merwin littered the seafloor around them. A protective circle of Palace Guards surrounded the jellod and her apprentices, as they applied their sorcerous arts to those wounded merwin who had actually returned from the battle alive. Those who did not survive their initial encounter with the giant sea creature were left where they had died; flotsam caught up in the swirling eddies of the futile war being waged against the colossal squid. Those who could be pulled out had been brought here to Nayan and her fellow jellod. Those who were able to be saved had been given as much healing as the machi could spare and then sent back to the Royal Palace. A makeshift infirmary had been set up in the expansive building’s lower ballroom to house those who were too injured to fight.

The number of survivors was depressingly low.
The majority of the wounded merwin who were taken into Nayan’s care were simply made comfortable while they died.

Zane came swimming up out of the darkness, a thin line of blood following him in the water.
Raygo was close behind, as he had been since the neondra had been confirmed as king by the Coral Assembly. As Zane came closer into the light cast by the machis’ orihalcyon lanterns, Lachlan saw a gash along the neondra’s tail.

“Captain,” Lachlan said
. Forgoing etiquette in his anxiety, he grabbed Nayan by the arm and dragged her along behind him. “You’re wounded,” he said to Zane.

The leader of the Palace Guard darted forward to intervene between Lachlan and the King, but Zane waved the
ethyrie off.

“It’s nothing,” the
neondra replied, dismissing the seifeira’s concern.

Shooting the seifeira a reproachful look, Nayan
gently removed her arm from Lachlan’s grasp. Undulating towards the king, she said, “Sire.”

“It’s nothing, Nayan,” Zane repeated.
“See to my merwin.”

“But Sire,” the
jellod protested.

The King looked hard at the machi.
“See. To. My. Merwin.”

To her credit, Nayan only
partially blanched at the scathing command. She bowed her head and returned to overseeing the care of the Red Tridents.

“Captain?” Lachlan asked.
There was desperation in his friend’s eyes that he had never seen before.
Zane always has a plan,
he thought,
and a dozen backup plans in case the first doesn’t work. Now, he has nothing, and what’s worse is that he’s realized it.
The new king was a hairsbreadth from giving up.

Zane retrieved a rolled up scroll of white
manta ray skin from a long pouch on his belt and spread it out on the ground in front of him, curling up his glittering red tail beneath him to make a seat of sorts on the seafloor. A map of the city, drawn in spell-sealed octopus ink, unfurled before the neondra. Zane drew a small bone dagger and began lightly scratching marks on the preserved skin. Lachlan floated down beside his captain.

“The Yellowtails have routed the sharks here and here,” Zane made notations on the skin as he spoke.
“Unfortunately, the sharks have broken through here, here and here. Penn has had to draw soldiers from here and here to make up for it,” the neondra made more marks on the pale white surface, “which means we can’t expect any help from them for a while. I had hoped that we might be able to delay the squid long enough to get reinforcements from the Yellowtails, but that isn’t going to work. We’ve been able to contain the creature to the Ghet for now, but we won’t be able to last much longer. The losses we’re taking are far too heavy to hold out and once we fall…,” Zane let the words hang in the water. He didn’t need to explain to Lachlan what would happen. Between the sharks and the giant squid Mervidia would become a burial yard.

“We could evacuate the city,” the
seifeira suggested.

“And go where!?” Zane snapped, glaring at Lachlan.
“Even if there was time, which there isn’t, we have no place to flee
to
! The Deeps would kill us as surely as that thing!” The king thrust his hand out, pointing angrily at the giant squid in the distance. “It would just take longer.”

“My apologies, Captain,” Lachlan offered.
“I was only suggesting a possible solution. You’re correct. It was a stupid idea.”

Zane took a deep breath, and Lachlan saw a trace of red in the water as the
neondra exhaled through the vents in his sharkskin vest. The blood of his soldiers inhaled as he fought beside them. “No,” Zane said, crestfallen. “You have my apologies, Lachlan. I should not have taken my frustration out on you. No idea at this point is a stupid one. Clearly, none of the plans
I’ve
come up with so far have proven successful.” There was a clear tone of defeat in Zane’s words, and Lachlan was taken aback by his captain’s uncharacteristic pessimism.

“You have a lot of pressure on you, Sire,” Lachlan responded after a moment, finally remembering to use Zane’s new title.
“It’s understandable. Your first day as king should not have been like…this.” The seifeira indicated the tragic scene with a wide wave of his webbed hand.

“No,” Zane said sadly.
“It shouldn’t. But that’s no excuse for me to blow up on you like that. You were just….”

“Blow up!” Lachlan blurted out, an idea blossoming in his mind.
“Pressure!” Forgetting himself momentarily, the seifeira grabbed the King of Mervidia by both shoulders. “That’s it!” Zane’s confused look snapped Lachlan out of his exhilaration. “Kopawe!” he exclaimed.

“The volcano near my family’s house?” Zane asked, still not seeing the connection that Lachlan had made.

“Exactly,” the seifeira replied.

The
king’s expression became one of impatience. “What are you going on about, Lachlan?” Zane demanded, his anger rising once more. “There’s a giant squid destroying Mervidia, and you’re spouting nonsense.”

Lachlan took a moment to collect himself and get his excitement under control.
“I may have a way to drive the creature off.” When Zane said nothing, only giving the seifeira an expectant look, Lachlan continued, “Kopawe spits sulfur and scalding water into the sea around it.”

“Yes,” Zane responded,
clearly still not comprehending what his friend was getting at. “Its minerals and warmth are what maintain the kelp beds near House Ignis.”

“But, those are just vents,” Lachlan continued.
“Closer to the mountain itself the water is much,
much
hotter and the sulfur is a
lot
thicker, is it not?”

“Yes,” Zane said, nodding.
“Plus there’s the hot liquid stone that spews out of it from time to time. When we were younger, Marin and I were almost…,” the King’s voice trailed off as memory led to realization. His expression of confusion and irritation turned to one of hope.

“Sire?” Lachlan asked, his smile growing broader.

Zane frowned. “But, how would we get it there?” he asked, his earlier frustration returning.

“The same way we attracted it in the first place,” the
seifeira responded. “Leave a blood trail for it to follow.” Lachlan became silent, letting his captain think. Zane was a gifted strategist on the field of battle. All he needed was enough time to put the pieces together.

“Captain Raygo
,” Zane called, gesturing for the ethyrie to attend him. The waiting merwin moved forward obediently. “Nayan,” Zane called, drawing the jellod away from overseeing her apprentices. He waited until both merwin were close before he laid out his plan.

Raygo and Nayan listened in silence for several moments, as th
e King explained his proposal.

“I hate to leave you defenseless, Nayan” Zane said once he was done, “but I need the Palace Guard if this has any hope of working.” As the King looked at the machi, his expression was one of concern.
Lachlan had seen his captain act that way before. He was issuing an order that he knew might not sit well with one of his soldiers. Zane was adept at phrasing his commands in such a way that it acknowledged the other merwin’s trepidation but also conveyed the fact that the neondra was doing what he thought best. When all was said and done though, it
was
a command being issued.

“I understand, Sire,” Nayan replied immediately.
“We will do what must be done. Mervidia must come first.”

Lachlan curiously regarded the
jellod, his surprise mixing with admiration. There was a quiet, hidden strength that lurked within the machi.
It would be very easy for someone to mistake your calm resolve for weakness,
Lachlan thought.
An unwise merwin would underestimate you at their peril, I think.
The seifeira found himself smiling at the jellod. If she noticed it, she did not react.

“Besides, Sire,” Nayan continued.
“We are not
wholly
defenseless.” The jellod’s bulbous lower body billowed out from her trim waist, the gelatinous bell spreading out from its usual spherical shape to a conical one. Scores of long tendrils slithered out from underneath.

Zane and Lachlan involuntarily backed away from the
jellod. Though the scalloped tendrils appeared to be smooth, both merwin knew that each one was covered with thousands of tiny stingers capable of injecting an excruciatingly painful toxin. Nayan smiled at her king. “Should the need arise, we can defend ourselves and the wounded.”

“I never doubted you could,” Zane said, returning the
jellod’s smile and glancing briefly at Lachlan. The seifeira shrugged his shoulders, mirroring his captain’s grin. “Still,” the neondra said, his mirth disappearing, “I would feel better if you and your machi relocated to the Palace. It would be much safer than out in the open water like this.”

Nayan returned her lower body to its usual globular shape.
“Of course, Sire,” she said, bowing slightly. “I’ll begin making preparations to move immediately.” The jellod swam swiftly away to begin issuing commands of her own to the machi who were assisting her.

Zane turned to Raygo who was still waiting patiently in the water for orders from his king.
“Tell the others,” the neondra said. “We move as soon as Nayan and her healers depart for the palace.” Zane turned to Lachlan. “Harvest the meat and make sure it leaves enough of a trail for the squid to follow. The Palace Guard will keep the sharks away.”

“Yes, Sir!” the merwin responded, putting his fist to his chest in salute.

“And pray to the Deeps that this works,” Zane said, his eyes hopeful but worried. “If it doesn’t, my first day as king may be Mervidia’s last.”