“I can’t!” Anavaiel sobbed, “I just can’t!”
“Not in this dress,” Tanys said, “I’m sorry, but it will have to come off.”
Anavaiel looked around at the others, flushing pink, but then she nodded.
Tanys hooked her knife through the laces of Anavaiel’s dress as cut them away. The shoulder seams parted with the lightest touch from the enchanted steel of Tanys’s blade. The weight of the sodden fabric pulled it free of the girl’s slender limbs, leaving her clad in only a gossamer shift that billowed like milk in the dark water, concealing nothing of the princess’s body beneath. She squeezed her eyes shut, blushing furiously to be so exposed before so many strangers.
“I… I still can’t swim,” Anavaiel whispered.
“You don’t have to,” Brynn said, bobbing to the surface beside her, “My friends will do that for you.”
Tanys and Anavaiel gasped when they say that Brynn was being supported between two large gray-green eels beneath his armpits, they had his upper arms clamped loosely between rows of needle-sharp teeth, and though he was trying to put on a smiling face, the slight tension around his eyes and the little stains of red spreading through his shirt sleeves told Tanys that the eels’ teeth were as sharp as they looked.
“Take a deep breath,” Brynn said.
“I can’t…” Anavaiel said.
“Take a deep breath!” the beastmaster shouted.
Anavaiel sucked in a terrified breath and then suddenly disappeared beneath the surface as two large eels dragged her under.
“Oh, fuck that!” Berra groaned.
Brynn nodded at the big gladiatrix next, and she had only time enough to draw a single breath before they drug her under as well. The last part of her to submerge was a single upraised middle finger.
“I don’t need an eel to do this,” Tanys said.
Brynn’s eyes went to the carpet of red ants that was even now linking its limbs together to form a bridge over the surface of the dark pool. “Your turn,” he said.
“You bastard,” Tanys hissed and then gulped a breath of air as two massive eels wriggled up under her arms and seized hold of her with their teeth.
Dark water swirled through her hair as they pulled her under. She winced at the pain of the eels’ teeth pressing through the tough spidersilk of her bodysuit, and she felt a pang of sympathy for what the nearly naked princess must be feeling at the moment. She tried feeling any sympathy for the completely nude Berra, but could not muster it.
The light faded as the eels pulled her into some sort of underwater tunnel, and soon the only senses that remained to her were the churning boom of water in her ears and the icy chill of water rushing over her skin.
At last, her lungs began to ache, and she wondered if she would be able to hold her breath long enough to make it through this cave. Then a mad thought sprang into her mind, that there was no tunnel… that Brynn had chosen to drown himself, and the rest of them along with him, rather than being taken alive by the ants. Would it not be fitting that a beastmaster’s final wish would be to give his body to nurture his own beloved pets.
Once sparked in her air-starved brain, this idea blazed forth like an absolute certainty, and Tanys began to struggle, fighting the eels, trying to force them to let her go. They only clamped down harder, their teeth sinking into her flesh through the silk as their squirming bodies thrashed against her side. She even tried to dominate their minds herself, but Brynn’s will was too strong to overcome.
When she had at last almost resigned herself to becoming eel food, she saw a dim light ahead and the blurry outline of something in the water above. She felt a strong current buffet her face, and she blinked, trying to make out what it was.
The current washed over her again, and she saw the well-muscled legs of a nude gladiatrix scissoring through the water in front of her. A moment later, Tanys emerged, gasping for air beside a cursing Berra.
“I’m gonna fucking kill your new boyfriend!” Berra howled. She splashed her fists angrily down in the water, trying to get a parting strike at the two eels that now slipped away, leaving her to swim for herself.
“Shut up and look,” Tanys called out as her own eels abandoned her.
Something vast and leathery floated inside the great sea cave where they found themselves. Like a great living island, the sea beast slumbered, moving its titanic flippers sluggishly through the choppy waves. A trio of young ghasts were hanging from a wide rope net from the large wooden houda that saddled the creature’s back, and they were working together to pull the dripping Princess Anavaiel from the water.
“More of ‘em there!” one of the young men shouted, pointing at Berra and Tanys, and now Naietta who had surfaced just behind them.
“Looks like Brynn collected ev’ry whore on the island ‘fore he made his run,” one of them laughed.
“Don’t make me tear your balls off, boy,” Berra grumbled as the young ghasts helped her onto the net.
The ghasts went even paler than usual and held their tongues as they helped pull the other survivors from the water.
“Where’s my tiger?” Tanys demanded as a young female beast handler helped her onto the open foredeck of the large houda.
“Ghodn’s below, mistress,” the girl answered, “along with the other animals.”
“How many did Brynn bring?” Tanys laughed.
“Everything we could fit aboard, mistress,” she answered.
Tanys shook her head, chuckling as she wrapped her arms around the shivering princess who huddled against a bulkhead, sharing a flask of water with Berra.
The young beast handler fetched them a pile of blankets that smelled like they had been used for animal bedding, but they were dry and warm, and Tyll soon added her warmth to the pile as she crawled in with the rest of them to recover from the chill of their subterranean swim. Jorva and Naietta shared a single blanket and a loving embrace as short distance away.
Brynn gave them a weak smile as his people helped him and the other ghast refugees aboard. Tanys smiled back at him as she cradled Anavaiel’s head against her breast.
“Hey!” Berra called out, catching Brynn’s attention as he started to turn away. He gave the gladiatrix a questioning look.
“Fuck you,” Berra growled, “… and thanks.”
Brynn laughed. “Fuck you too… and you’re welcome.” He gave Tanys another smile and then began issuing orders to his crew.
Tanys looked over to see a slim, shivering young man, clad only in a dripping loincloth, standing by himself against the railing. He had used the blanket they had given him to cover his head, allowing only a shadowy gap through which he could peer down at the deck between his feet.
“Vael,” Tanys called to him.
The faceless boy lifted his head, and she glimpsed his eye through the gap in his makeshift hood.
“Come here,” she said, lifting her blanket by way of invitation.
Vael hesitated, trembling more now than even the cold could account for.
Tanys held the blanket open still, letting in the chill as she waited for him.
Beside her, Tyll groaned in frustration. “The master gave you an order, boy!” she shouted, “Now get your ass over here and snuggle up before I beat you!”
Vael jumped and then rushed to comply. Tanys closed the blanket over him as he pressed his icy skin against hers and nestled in beneath her arm.
“Master?” Tanys asked, giving Tyll a sidelong glance.
Tyll snorted and gave her a slight smile before looking away.
“Don’t get any ideas,” Berra grumbled, “but… if you really do get us to Zhad… well, I’ll polish your damned toenails.”
“We’re going home?” Princess Anavaiel whispered, looking up from Tanys’s breast with weary eyes.
Tanys lifted her eyes as the great sea beast gave a groaning bellow, and they pulled free of the cavern. The light of day spilled across the foredeck, causing the ghasts to shield their eyes and flee below. A booming wind whipped across
the deck, fluttering the edges of their blankets and smelling of salt and rotten fish. Tanys grinned, breathing in the sweet scent of freedom.
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The Isle of Torment Page 20