sister. The military conference had made Chatir forget Lillia’s weekly visit.
“Come in.”
Lillia swept in, her alabaster face radiant with recent motherhood. “You sound tired,” she said. Lillia always spoke her mind.
“We had a conference about the human invasion,” Chatir said. “It worries me.”
“Only that no-account Assan makes your voice sound so. You must not hide behind other problems when the main one is him.”
It was Lillia who had encouraged Chatir to apply for basic training despite their parents’ disapproval, and she who had supported her through the mersoldiers’ ridicule and lust. Lillia, Chatir had often thought, would guide the merrealm well in Ianoc’s place. Yet there was one piece of her advice Chatir could not follow, no matter how she tried.
“Don’t think about him, Chatir.” Lillia took up the brush and began to smoothe her sister’s hair. Chatir closed her eyes; still tears escaped. Then Lillia’s arms were cradling her in their soft comfort.
{****}
That night Chatir woke to a sound she had not heard since she was in basic training: alarm bells.
“Zurolind is under attack!” someone screamed below when she reached her window.
Chatir grabbed her geluvial and pushed off through the window. It was not her usual way to exit Castle Zurolind, but this was an emergency.
She had expected legions of white-clad humans like ghastly skeletons drifting through the deep, but the courtyard was empty, save for mersoldiers.
A shadow eclipsed the moonlight. Chatir looked up to see the hulking shape of a ship and an orb, shining amber and orange, catapulting through the water!
A cannonball!
Chatir just had time for that instant of recognition before it smashed into Castle Zurolind. A boom like a hurricane breaker pounded the depths.
Dark silence followed the cataclysm.
In a frantic effort to calm herself, Chatir tried to remember what she knew about cannonballs.
Assan, expert on all things human, said that being submerged in water killed cannonballs, though if they were lugged to the surface, one would be in for an explosive surprise.
It did not surprise her that these cannonballs were live. Ever-discontent, humans were always inventing or modifying things with magic. They were the ones who had created the sunshells that allowed communication between air and water dwellers.
Another round followed, and another, renegade suns stabbing their brightness through Chatir’s eyes. Shockwaves ran through the water and struck her like blows from an unseen enemy. Chatir pressed herself against the castle in the hope that its solidity would offer her some shelter, but to her dismay, the massive bricks themselves were trembling.
Another cannonball crashed into Castle Zurolind, followed by a crack so loud it seemed Chatir’s own chest were being torn apart. “No,” she whispered as a hunk of castle fell away. The oranges and reds of additional shells illumined the silhouettes of merpeople attempting to escape. Chatir darted into their midst and attempted to make herself heard above the panic, to direct servants and nobles to safety. However, she was but one mersoldier in this chaos.
The Brigades could manage this crowd. But where were they? The captains were in council with the king tonight, Chatir remembered. While she was deemed worthy to pledge her life to Zurolind, she was denied the privilege of speaking directly to the king. The monarchy, Lillia had observed, was the only organization in Zurolind more archaic than the military.
Chatir almost dropped her geluvial. She had never so much as entered the War Room where the other captains and the king had their discussions, so it had not been on her mind. But the council itself was held on this side of the castle! The king and the other captains were in danger! She had to go to them –
Several cannonballs shot past Chatir, so close they warmed the water around her. It was like feeling the sun through the shallows. Chatir’s pulse leaped into a rhythm as choppy as the water. She darted into the tail end of the mercrowd. Every so often, she would turn back. Still the cannons fired.
“Stop it,” she whispered. “Stop it! Stop!”
Some in the crowd turned to look at her. Chatir gripped her geluvial so hard that her arm shook. She was drowning in helpless frustration. This foe was beyond her ability to fight. Neither her courage nor desire could save Castle Zurolind.
Chatir drifted to the outside of the crowd and began to overtake them. “You, boy!” she called to a youth wearing the light fish scale armor of a soldier in training. He turned but could not stop; the crowd was sweeping him along with them. Chatir sheathed her geluvial and forced her way through to him.
“Where are the Brigades?” she demanded.
“They went to defend the fortress. The humans came back.”
With his words, Chatir understood the humans’ strategy as clearly as though she had listened to their plans. They had sent humans to the fortress to lure out the Brigades. And now...
The crowd had covered half the distance between the outer fortress and the castle. Looking to the fortress confirmed what Chatir had dreaded: flicker-flashes bright in the night waters, decimating the fragile coral and the fighters who had rushed to its defense.
Chatir let herself sink away from the crowd. Surely the captains had gone to the fortress too, if any of them had survived.
What could she do, caught in this pincer attack between fire and fire? Chatir turned desperate eyes back to Castle Zurolind. Even after she had looked for several minutes, no cannonballs appeared. It seemed the waters had resumed their usual rhythm.
Though Chatir made for the castle as fast as she could, she could not outdistance her fears. Suppose Castle Zurolind was entirely in ruins?
By the lights of the anglerfish, Chatir discovered that the east side of Castle Zurolind still stood. The knowledge filled her with such relief she almost grabbed one of the ghastly light sentries and kissed it.
With the help of a page boy and several anglerfish, Chatir found her way back to the damaged part of the castle. Now that the heat of battle had passed, it was obvious why the west side had taken so much more damage. Merfolk, like most other sea creatures, found the human preference for solid buildings with a definite entrance and exit, confining. For that reason, the king and court had always resided on the west side. Chatir had often wondered if Castle Zurolind had been assailed with cannonfire while it was still on land. She marveled that the west side of the castle was still standing.
Someone tugged at Chatir’s hand. She disentangled herself from her thoughts, but there seemed to be no one before her, at least until she looked down. It was a merchild with her long violet hair caught in two long braids. “My mother was inside the castle when the attack started.” Her lip quavered; her wide eyes pleaded with Chatir to make things right again.
Chatir gazed across the ruins of walls and towers, the court’s scattered ornaments and furniture. Weariness pressed on her as though she had descended to the depths the anglerfish usually called home.
“It has been quite a night,” Chatir addressed the small group of merfolk who had trailed behind her through the courtyard. “But I am afraid that it is not over yet. Please help me search...for survivors.”
Chatir’s first priority was to find King Abin and the captains. Although the War Room was intact, no one was inside. When she had searched the rest of the castle without success, Chatir joined the merfolk in the arduous hunt through the rubble.
Some hours into their search, the merchild found her mother, bruised and shaken, but otherwise well. But clearing the bricks and beams was so slow. Chatir feared that it would be too late for any who were truly buried beneath. Those helping were servants, not soldiers. Several were children, and two were elders.
Chatir wondered if the attack at the fortress had ended and if so, how the Brigades had fared. She would have to leave Castle Zurolind soon and check. It was her duty as captain to gather the captains and mersoldiers who were left. Then there would b
e councils to hold. Zurolind faced a critical decision: to fight the humans or flee them.
Chatir let the stack of bricks she had moved fall to the sand. That was if the king let her attend the meetings, of course.
Light swept over her. Chatir turned. “Egudar!” Several Third Brigade mersoldiers were with him. Relief rushed through her. “I am so glad to see you. Where is Assan?”
“Where else?” Egudar cleared his throat in a startling harrumph. Chatir had worked with him long enough to know he would say no more. If she had stopped to think, she would have known the answer, too.
Before acquiring the sunshell, Assan frequently shirked his duty to satisfy his curiosity regarding all things human. These days, his disappearences brought him to the surface, wherever Meyroth was. He was often disciplined for his truancy but never discharged. Egudar was not the only mersoldier who felt Chatir went too easy on the flighty merman.
“As to the battle, you must have glimpsed the cannons from afar.” Egudar bent to gather an armload of bricks.
“Yes,” Chatir whispered. “I saw their terrible destruction firsthand.”
“The humans destroyed the west fortress entirely. The east one took some hits but still stands.”
“How did the Third Brigade fare? Do you have word of the other captains?”
“I know not of the captains. The Third Brigade, as you may recall, was guarding the east fortress tonight.”
In the mayhem, Chatir had
Captain's Sacrifice Page 2