away from the pearls. The humans were sending reinforcements. The Third Brigade had faced steep odds before, but with these swelling ranks, the battle would be decided swiftly: a massacre.
“Fall back!” Chatir screamed, sweeping above the fight. “To the castle!” She only hoped Assan had not taught his beloved human girl how to decipher words spoken underwater.
The Third Brigade shot past her. Chatir came last, scanning the area for stragglers. As she did, arrows hummed through the water. “Impossible!” Chatir whispered. For centuries, only mersoldiers had known the secret art of auladil, the underwater crossbow.
Assan, Assan, Chatir thought as she closed the distance between her and Castle Zurolind. What had that fool done?
As Chatir entered Castle Zurolind’s outer courtyard, her mind raced. The castle interior was not fitted for defense. And why should it be? No shark or other sea creature had ever breached it. And had they, those walls would have been as a reef or sunken ship to them, as they were to the merpeople, an open structure not meant for permanent habitation.
Yet now, somehow, they had to keep the humans out!
Inside, Chatir slowed, her gills burning. Peering over the edge of the wall revealed that the humans were still coming. They did not swim in formation as mersoldiers did. Weights worn on their bodies allowed them to imitate surface conditions, even underwater. Thus, they marched on the sand, and the great clouds they kicked up turned their lights foggy. Suddenly they stopped. Though Chatir wondered at this, there was no time to deliberate!
In the courtyard, the two brigades were clustered together, with Captain Heilios at the center. The mersoldiers gazed at him in confusion and dismay. Chatir thought their stunned looks were due to battle weariness and the enemy’s advantage until she heard just what Heilios was saying.
“There is no shame in abandoning a game that you are certain to lose,” Captain Heilios said. “In admitting defeat, you are free to begin another game, which may result in a better outcome. If we follow our fellow brigades and families to sanctuary--”
“That is a coward’s plan!” Egudar roared.
Chatir had never believed that courage was one of Heilios’s attributes. But proposing to flee at a time like this? She had to rally the troops! “It is our duty as soldiers of Zurolind to defend our home with our lives! That is the oath we took as soldiers and again as captains!” she added with a meaningful glance at Heilios.
Several mersoldiers of the Third Brigade nodded vigorously, and in Egudar’s case, shouted their agreement.
“What honor is in certain death?” Captain Heilios protested. “I warn you,” he said, shaking his finger at the mersoldiers, “should you remain here, you will die! The enemy comes armed to our doorstep in numbers that surpass ours, even if all our Brigades were assembled. If you remain outside, you will be slaughtered! And the castle is a death trap. Are you fool enough to flee into a sunken ship to escape a shark? No? What of a being more cunning than any shark, as these humans are? No, our hope lies in removing ourselves from danger.”
“We are the last line of defense between Castle Zurolind and the humans,” Chatir protested. “Remember, this is the third night. The King’s Brigade and the First Brigade must return at any time, and Hasar with them!”
A murmur passed through the brigades. Even in the middle of his life, Hasar was regarded as a hero who could change the tides of battle.
“You delude yourself!” Captain Heilios turned his back on Chatir. “It may be many days before they can come! Perhaps they are fighting humans blocking the way to Zurolind! As we are, we cannot hope to win this battle!”
“We don’t need to win.” As she spoke, Chatir edged into the castle interior. “Just survive until they come.”
“She’s right,” Egudar said, perceiving Chatir’s intention at once. “And all of you know it!”
The mersoldiers crowded around Chatir until only Heilios and a few of his loyal favorites remained.
“What idiocy is this? Did cannonballs explode near your heads?” Captain Heilios’s contempt smarted like a skate’s sting.
“I am not obligated to explain myself to you, Heilios,” Chatir answered cooly. “Trying to make you understand honor is a losing game.”
As Chatir swam past him into Castle Zurolind’s interior, she noticed, with considerable satisfaction, the wordless open and close of his mouth, like a gasping beached fish.
Inside Castle Zurolind’s grand hall, lights darted through the slender windows. Suddenly the castle itself trembled. “The humans must be firing again.” Chatir fought to keep her voice steady.
For their final stand, the brigades needed a room with a door they could bolt. The idea came to Chatir sluggishly, falteringly. Merfolk did not hide behind doors and walls. But to have any chance of surviving the human attack, Chatir had to think like one.
But her focus kept returning to those unexpectedly decisive moments in the courtyard. She had thought the most important thing was to prevent Captain Heilios from persuading the brigades to desert, but increasingly, that seemed a mere distraction. If she had only thought to order the brigades to the barracks, they would hold a better position now.
But perhaps the humans’ fire would have killed them on their way.
Regardless, Chatir’s choice had trapped the brigades, just as the king and captains had been during the last raid.
The king! The War Room!
“Where is the War Room?” Chatir called out.
“Show her the way, boy!” Captain Heilios’s voice gave Chatir a start. So he had decided to come along after all.
The young mersoldier Captain Heilios had designated hurried to come before both captains.
“You must be a recent addition to the Second Brigade. I don’t know your name,” Chatir said.
“Radien is my name, Captain.” His voice still clung to the music of childhood, though it cracked on the word Captain. Chatir guessed he had just completed his training.
“Thank you, Radien. Lead on,” Chatir directed.
“Captain Chatir,” Captain Heilios remarked as they set off down the dark tunnel of corridors, “Must you to enter the War Room? Even in these extenuating circumstances, protocols must be observed.”
“Well if I don’t, you should stand outside with me,” Chatir hissed through clenched teeth. “I may be a woman, but at least I’m not a coward!”
The rest of their trek took place in silence.
The water around Chatir seemed to turn cold. Suppose Radien had become lost? Castle Zurolind was notoriously difficult to navigate when lighted, and it had not been since the queen left. Having lights now would surely alert the humans to their location.
Would Captain Heilios let them wander off-course out of spite? What if he just led both brigades around in circles until the humans came and killed them all?
For the entire agonizing trek, Chatir was accutely conscious of the outside noises: splashes, cannonballs sizzling and exploding. Sometimes, though she knew it was impossible, she thought she heard the shuffle of human feet.
The heightened shaking of Castle Zurolind filled Chatir’s mind with images of cannonballs blasting off pieces of castle and shattering the merpeople’s homes in the reefs. She was on the verge of risking a light when Radien stopped.
“Here,” he whispered.
Two great doors rose before them. Beyond lay a room filled with relics. The council’s table rested on great stones harvested from the shore during high tide many centuries ago. The tabletop was a turtle shell, a gift from an ancient ally whose fall into obscurity had happened before any now-living could recall. Each merman on the council had his own seat wrought of shells that long-forgotten magic had coaxed and transformed into a stool. The captains, though permitted to enter the chamber, could not occupy the chairs; they had to stand.
In all of Zurolind’s history, Chatir was the only woman to enter this chamber. She was making history in a room filled with it.
“Truly, these are the end time
s,” Captain Heilios muttered. “A woman in the War Room!” Some mersoldiers, chiefly those close to Captain Heilios, looked uncomfortable. Several gave him disgusted or disbelieving glares. Most paid him no heed.
Chatir bit back her scathing rage and swallowed her sorrow. The battle would not wait.
She began with an investigation of the entire chamber. The west side of the castle had never been sturdy to begin with, and after the cannonball assault, many “porous” areas had been widened to dangerous-sized holes. The entire outer wall was a morass of cracks.
“The first thing we must do is secure our position,” Chatir announced. “Gather anything you can to fill in these holes. Do not fear the wrath of the Court. This is a matter of survival.”
“Such disrespect for our objects of yore,” Captain Heilios protested.
Chatir ignored him.
Captain Heilios hung back without helping, though when the mersoldiers blocked one of the holes with two council chairs, he made a strangled noise.
“You have done well,” Chatir complimented the mersoldiers with a nod of satisfaction. “They are the perfect size.”
Small victories could not change the fact that there were too many holes to fill. How did one choose, Chatir wondered. As she inspected the area, a faint gleam caught her attention. It seemed to be coming out of cracks in the wall. How had she not noticed it before? Then she remembered the statue the mersoldiers had dragged away to fill another gap. It had portrayed a merman and
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