Dargonesti lh-3

by Paul Thompson

  “What?”

  “I know you shapeshifted dolphins can hold your breath from here to midnight. Me, I’m running out of wind on these stairways.”

  She clapped a hand to her head. “We need an airshell!”

  “Yup.”

  Dejected, the pair crouched in an alley between two fine houses. Through open windows occupants of the buildings could be seen moving about. Faint music came from inside.

  “Let’s consider this logically,” Vixa whispered. “All an airshell is, is a container for air. We never knew how much air any one of them would have. Right?”

  “Right. So?”

  “A container for air,” she repeated, her eyes distant with thought. “Gundabyr,” she said abruptly, “how many breaths do you take in a minute?”

  “Hammer me if I know.”

  She urged him to find out. Breathing normally, the dwarf counted his exhalations while Vixa counted off the seconds in a minute.

  “Stop,” Vixa ordered.

  Gundabyr reported he’d taken thirty-one breaths. “How does that help?” he asked.

  “It will take me fourteen-no, better say fifteen-fifteen minutes to get from the city to Naxos’s cave, swimming flat out. All we need is enough air to last you-” With one finger, she scribbled on the dusty floor. “Four hundred sixty-five breaths!”

  Vixa stood and tiptoed to the back of the dead-end alley. She explained that what she was looking for was a barrel or sack that could hold enough air to last him until they reached the cave where Naxos was hidden. Gundabyr could take sips of air from the barrel or sack, just as they had taken air from the airshells. The dwarf rolled his eyes.

  The rear of the alley was piled with Dargonesti household rubbish. Some sacks were woven seaweed, useless as it was not airtight. Others turned out to be made of catfish skin. Not bad. Vixa pawed through several such sacks until she found one of the size she wanted. She emptied it of rubbish.

  “It’ll do,” she pronounced. Gundabyr looked more than a little doubtful.

  They stole back into the street. A few residents were out at the other end of the lane but didn’t notice the two drylanders skulking about. At the end of the street, they came to the pink granite wall that was the city’s outer shell, unbroken by the arched openings found on the upper floors.

  Vixa snarled at the bad luck. Time was running out. She’d been worrying constantly about Naxos ever since Coryphene’s soldiers had captured her. What if he was already dead in that cold, wet cave?

  “Over here, Princess!”

  Just a few yards away, Gundabyr had found a staircase leading down to the next level. He descended; Vixa hurried after him. She could see the flicker of light reflecting off water at the bottom of the stairway.

  When she reached bottom, a glad sight greeted her eyes. There were pools in the floor of this level every dozen feet or so. Vixa sat on the edge of one. Before she entered, she said, “You won’t understand me when I’m a dolphin, but I will understand you. Once I change, fill up the bag with air and get on my back.”

  She slipped into the water, picturing her dolphin form. The black-and-white shape was becoming as familiar as her elven one. She no longer felt afraid as her body stiffened. The immobility would pass quickly. She sank beneath the surface. In seconds, she was two-legged no more, but when her dolphin head broke the surface she saw that the situation had changed dramatically. A squad of Dargonesti warriors was coming on the run toward the pool. They had their spears leveled.

  Since escaping the grotto, Gundabyr had been quite happy to stay dry, having no fondness for the water. Now, however, he didn’t hesitate, but leapt into the pool. In a heartbeat, he was seated on Vixa’s muscular back, clinging tightly with his knees. He whirled the sack about his head, filling it with air.

  “Go, go!” he shouted, thumping his heels against her flanks. She shook her head side to side, gesturing with her beak toward the amphora still sitting by the pool.

  “Reorx save me,” groaned the dwarf. He snagged the braided handle of the jug, slipping it over his neck. The Dargonesti were only twenty paces away. Clutching his inflated sack in one hand, Gundabyr grabbed her dorsal fin with the other.

  “Now, go!” he cried. Vixa submerged, taking him with her.

  Behind her, the princess could hear loud splashes as the Dargonesti dove into the pool. Her course was erratic, as the unfamiliar weight of the dwarf on her back made it difficult for her to swim straight.

  They swam through an archway into the open sea. Vixa heard numerous cries as the Dargonesti shouted for her to stop and called for sea brothers to intercept her. She headed toward the ruined wall across the Mortas Trench and thanked all the gods that the spears would not travel far underwater.

  Gray dolphins flashed by her. Sea brothers! Vixa stubbornly stuck to her course. The big shapeshifted dolphins zoomed before and behind her. What were they playing at? she wondered. With their speed and power, they could ram her into submission easily. But they didn’t.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded in the high-pitched water-tongue.

  “No need to shout,” said a friendly voice close by. Vixa cocked an eye astern and saw Kios keeping pace with her.

  “Are you chasing me or not?”

  Kios surged ahead of her. “If we wanted to catch you, Sister, we would.”

  “Then what’s your game?”

  “This is a show, for Coryphene’s troopers. We’ll tell them you evaded us. For now, take me to Naxos.”

  Her only response was to swim harder. Vixa didn’t trust Kios, but what could she do? With Gundabyr on her back, she knew she had no chance to outrun or outmaneuver the sea brothers.

  Six dolphins blasted through the breach in the wall made by the chilkit-Vixa, Kios, and four more sea brothers. Vixa headed directly for the tunnel leading to Naxos’s hiding place, all the while praying she wasn’t bringing him his death.

  As soon as Gundabyr’s head burst into the air, he gave a glad cry. Vixa carried him to the pool’s edge, by Naxos’s hiding place. The dwarf clambered out of the water. Vixa reverted to elven form and joined him. Kios also resumed his two-legged shape, though the other shapeshifters remained as they were.

  Naxos appeared to be unconscious. Most of the color had drained from his skin, and he wasn’t moving. Vixa knelt by him.

  “What’s in that jug?” asked Kios as Vixa unplugged the amphora.

  “The water of Zura,” she said bluntly. “He said it would cure him.”

  “Oh, it will cure his wound. But he will become undead, like the Shades of Zura.”

  Appalled, Vixa shoved the plug back in the amphora. She remembered the bloodless, empty faces of the priests she’d seen in Zura’s temple. Naxos would become like them!

  “What can we do?” she moaned.

  Naxos stirred. “Vixa,” he murmured, “and the Firebringer. Who’s that with you?”

  “It is I, Kios.”

  “Come to finish me off, Brother?”

  “I could. Coryphene would shower me with riches if I brought him your head.”

  “Traitor.” The voice was weak, but the anger very apparent.

  “Ah, the things you say. Where is your famous wit, Naxos? I thought you would trade quips with Death himself when the time came.”

  “I’m too tired to trade anything. Kill me, or give me the water of Zura. I am weary of pain and cold.”

  Kios took the amphora from Vixa. Without hesitation, he dashed the jug against the stone wall. Into the stunned silence, he said, “It wouldn’t do for the chief of the sea brothers to become undead.”

  “Chief?” Naxos whispered. “Am I still?”

  “You’ve never been anything else.” Kios went to the edge of the pool and gave orders to the remaining shapeshifters. The four dolphins submerged. When he returned, Kios brought back seawater in his cupped hands. He trickled this over Naxos’s drying gills. Vixa and Gundabyr rushed to follow his example.

  “Look here, my brother,” Kios said, as the ot
her two continued to minister to Naxos, “you confronted Coryphene in the middle of a battlefield, surrounded by thousands of his loyal soldiers. By the Fisher, Naxos, he’d just led them to victory over the chilkit! I had to profess loyalty to him on the spot. You should have done the same.”

  “Coryphene has no confidence in my sincerity,” Naxos murmured.

  “But he does in mine. If I had defied him, it would have meant civil war, then and there. The time was not right for us to resist, but it soon will be. Coryphene and the queen are leaving the city.”

  “Leaving?” Naxos was stunned. “To go where?”

  “They are marching on Silvanost,” Vixa supplied. “Uriona says she’s received a prophecy that if she is crowned in the Tower of the Stars, she will rule all the elven nations.”

  “Hail, goddess Uriona,” mocked Naxos.

  Kios shook his head. “Don’t be so certain of her madness. I have seen the preparations. They will take ten thousand warriors to the dry land and attack the city of our ancestors. Uriona has persuaded four thousand of the Shoal Dwellers to join the attack as well.”

  Naxos snorted. “Dimernesti nomads can’t be trusted.”

  “No, but they have been promised booty.”

  “What sort of troops does Coryphene have?” asked Vixa.

  “Six thousand spearcarriers, two thousand netcasters, a thousand firelancers, and a thousand picked troops armed with drylander swords. Those include Coryphene’s personal guard.”

  “All infantry,” she mused. “Have they no cavalry?”

  “In the old country, the Waveriders fought mounted on hippocampi, but none of them followed Uriona into exile. The army is all afoot. Except for the sea brothers.” Kios grinned. Weak as he was, Naxos returned the wicked smile.

  “What do you find so amusing?” Vixa asked suspiciously.

  “Coryphene relies on us to be his scouts,” Naxos said.

  “And once he’s on the march, he’ll find that all the sea brothers have vanished,” concluded Kios. He rubbed his pale blue palms together. “We’ll double back and seize the city!”

  “No,” said Naxos, shaking his head. “You can’t hope to hold the city against Coryphene’s army. Better to disperse, live wild in the sea.”

  Gundabyr, who’d remained in the background during this discussion, finally spoke up. “Hey, what about us? How are we supposed to get home?”

  “I sent my brothers for bandages and healing ointments for Naxos,” Kios told him. “They will bring an airshell for you, little fellow. Our sister can carry you to land.”

  They helped Naxos to stand, Vixa supporting him on one side, Kios the other. The wounded shapeshifter felt heavy as oak to the Qualinesti princess. They got him upright, leaning on a boulder by the pool’s edge.

  One of the sea brothers returned, carrying a whelk shell in a bag clutched in his mouth. Kios took Gundabyr aside to adjust the fit of the airshell’s mouthpiece. Vixa had a moment alone with Naxos.

  “Will you be all right?” she asked softly.

  “With my brothers’ help, I think so. You’ve saved more than my life, Vixa. You’ve saved the sea brothers from servitude to Coryphene and Uriona.” That said, he leaned forward and kissed her gently on the cheek, barely brushing her face with his lips.

  Surprised, Vixa raised a hand to her cheek. Color invaded her face. “I–I only wish Armantaro and the others could have lived to escape with me,” she stammered.

  “As do I, Princess.”

  At that moment, the pool erupted as four sea brothers arrived-three sent by Kios to fetch medicines, and the healer they’d brought with them. The four changed to Dargonesti form and came to help Naxos.

  “This airshell should last you two full days underwater,” Kios was saying to Gundabyr. “To be safe, our sister should carry you on the surface as much as possible.”

  “My thanks, Master Kios,” Gundabyr said.

  “For the Firebringer, it is nothing.”

  It was time for them to go. Vixa slipped into the water. Before she transformed, Naxos called out to her.

  “I shall see you again, Lady Dryfoot!” His golden eyes stared into her brown ones.

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to return. My life is on land.”

  Naxos smiled knowingly. It was not his usual arrogant grin, but more personal. “I shall see you again, Vixa Ambrodel.”

  Vixa assumed dolphin form. With the airshell firmly clamped between his teeth, Gundabyr mounted her back and tapped her flanks to signal he was ready.

  Naxos waved as the dolphin and the dwarf submerged.

  Chapter 16

  Sister of the Sea

  No sooner had Vixa and her escort emerged from the dark Mortas Trench than they saw a cloud of mud stirred up on the plain. The seafloor between the ruined wall and the city was alive with columns of Dargonesti, marching in formation. Vixa veered away from the massed ranks, angling up toward the surface.

  From above she could see the Dargonesti were marching away from the city, parallel to Coryphene’s old wall. They were organized into companies of two hundred or so warriors, and there were many companies-a great many-strung out in a long line. Large numbers of dolphins cruised over their heads. Vixa and the sea brothers accompanying her blended in. A slower swimmer than the powerful shapeshifters, she was soon laboring along at the rear and falling behind.

  A company of blueskins grounded their weapons and faced about. As Vixa looked back, other Dargonesti warriors sprang in unison from the seafloor and began swimming vigorously toward her. That was enough. She called ahead to her escorts.

  “Brothers! I need you!”

  There was no response. Vixa tore her frightened gaze from the advancing sea elves. Her escort had disappeared. No sea brothers were in sight.

  Vixa swam upward as fast as she dared. The Dargonesti were surprisingly fast swimmers, considering they had only webbed hands and feet instead of flukes. This fact, added to the weight of Gundabyr that she carried on her back, meant that Vixa could maintain only a moderate lead. She had to stay ahead of her pursuers, but could not go so fast that Gundabyr would be in danger of exploding. Again, she called for the sea brothers.

  All at once a storm of gray muscle and churning tails broke around her. Vixa heard the loud thumps as the shapeshifters rammed the swimming Dargonesti, knocking them out of the pursuit. The warriors were at a great disadvantage, having laid aside their spears in order to swim more rapidly. They were no match for the sea brothers, and dispersed toward the sea bottom. A knot of dolphins formed around Vixa as she raced for the surface. One dolphin broke from the screen and swam to Vixa’s side. It was Kios.

  “Coryphene will hear of this,” she told him as they sped through the water. “He’ll realize you have betrayed him.”

  “Do I care?” Kios replied.

  She noticed Kios and the other dolphins were dipping and rising erratically. “What are you doing?” she called.

  “Beware the netters!” Kios warned. “Beware the netters!”

  Dargonesti soldiers were hovering in the water ahead. Between each pair was stretched a net. The sun’s rays, slanting into the depths, picked out the hooks and weights on the edges of the nets.

  Gundabyr kicked his heels against her flanks. “I know! I see them!” she squeaked and swam harder.

  “Away! Away!” Kios cried. The shield of dolphins broke up. Vixa automatically followed Kios. The Dargonesti netters, accustomed to hunting powerful game fish like tuna and marlin, wielded their nets with great skill. The sea brothers, however, were just as skilled at avoiding the nets, and lured the netters away from Vixa and Gundabyr.

  The water was growing lighter as Vixa neared the surface. The green depths gave way to paler shades, full of the sun’s warmth. The bright orb drew her upward. She pounded the sea with her broad flukes, all thought of the netters gone.

  Vixa broke the surface, leaping eight feet above the waves, with Gundabyr clinging to her for all he was worth. The sun was hot on her slee
k wet hide. She uttered a high, shrill cry and crashed back into the tossing ocean.

  The impact of landing jarred Gundabyr loose. He sailed into the waves, his airshell flying from his grip. Though he flailed the water frantically, he sank like a stone. He’d only dropped a few yards before a dark shape rose underneath him. He felt himself being lifted, and when Vixa vented, Gundabyr got a faceful of salty mist.

  “Pah!” He mopped his face with his hand. He was sitting astride Vixa just behind her dorsal fin. “Watch where you do that!” he told her.

  Vixa understood him just fine, but the only response he heard was a loud treble screech.

  “Apology accepted,” said the dwarf, though Vixa had actually told him to stop complaining.

  She put her tail to the wind, which made the waves break over Gundabyr’s back rather than his face. The drenched dwarf scanned the horizon, squinting into the sun.

  “That way,” he stated firmly. Vixa spoke, but the dwarf shook his head. “It’s no good burping and squeaking at me. I don’t understand. Go that way. It’s north, so we’re bound to hit land eventually.”

  She leapt forward. Gundabyr nearly toppled off. “Yow!” he yelled. He held on tight and squeezed with his knees. Vixa ducked under the surface, then burst into the air, arcing in and out of the water as though born to it. The poor dwarf simply clenched his eyes shut and held on.

  The sun was high and hot, but it felt good to Vixa as she bounded from wave to wave. When her head was underwater, she heard a myriad of sounds: the swish of swimming fish, the click and clatter of crabs and shellfish, the distant booming songs of the great whales. She found she could taste differences in seawater, too. Down deep the water was cool and still. At the surface it was charged with light and life.

  At one point a silver fingerling darted past her, and she dove after it. The fingerling swam desperately to evade her, but Vixa closed in as if pulled by an invisible line. With a sideways snap of her jaws, she swallowed the fish whole.

  Heels thumped her sides. By Astra! She was three fathoms down, and she’d completely forgotten she had a passenger! She arrowed back to the surface.