wandered. She and Assan were both different, and so they became friends in basic training. He had remained fascinated with humans through graduation. “And I became fascinated with you,” Chatir whispered in the silent cavern. “I told myself that protecting the people and realm was still important, but in reality, I had forgotten.”
Only now could she open her eyes. “For years, I have shut them to fill with dreams of you…but now…
“Zurolind needs me.”
Still Chatir feared the unknown, and there were so many unknowns before her: the enigmatic leviathans whose aid she must invoke; the fate of Zurolind; and that greatest mystery, beckoning...
Chatir closed the book. The hope that called to her heart, was not for herself, nor even her brigade, but for the sake of her people.
The directionless feeling that had troubled her since Assan had chosen Meyroth fell away before a sense of purpose as sharp as her geluvial.
“I will protect you…all of you,” Chatir whispered.
{****}
To summon the leviathans, Chatir first had to locate the box containing their effigy. The ancient tome described it as “just large enough for a lady’s pearls, its lid embossed with an image of twin leviathans, their tails entwined.”
While the mersoldiers searched, Chatir copied the incantation that would bring forth the leviathans. Her simple letters seemed a child’s work compared to the book’s elaborate calligraphy. Three times, Chatir reviewed her cramped handwriting, finding mistakes each time. Spells, she remembered from her history class, would not work correctly if the caster uttered the wrong words. The fourth time, Chatir found no errors.
Still her doubts persisted. Save for the light spell that all mersoldiers learned, Chatir had never practiced or learned magic, and she doubted she had any great ability. All she had was her own desperate need, and that of Zurolind.
Once the box was found, the mersoldiers stole out of the castle. They took the sunshells with them but left the War Room doors wide open. Chatir still required time to cast the spell and lay her plans. The treasure would provide a crucial distraction.
They halted a safe distance from castle and ships, though in sight of both.
“Keep your distance,” Chatir instructed the brigades. “When I open this box, I want there to be plenty of room.”
They obeyed with laden glances questioning her yet-unexplained plan.
“Just because a spell is cast doesn’t mean it won’t fizzle,” Captain Heilios pointed out, nodding to his own advice as though he had practiced magic all his life. Nonetheless, as Chatir pulled back the lid, he darted back. Chatir thought of clownfish scuttling to hide in the skirts of an anemone.
Inside, Chatir found a piece of flat metal, barely recognizable as the leviathans. This, she set on the sand. The crucial moment had come for the reading of the spell. Chatir took several deep breaths.
Into the ancient words, she poured all that she was. Still they tangled on her tongue, and fear swept over her. Suppose the leviathans could not come to Zurolind’s aid?
A gasp rose from the brigades. Chatir looked up from her paper. An aura, faint like moonlight behind a cloud veil, surrounded the metal leviathans. The light bent and twisted to form coils upon coils, armored in scales like sea-green mirrors. The brigades gaped, even Chatir, who had known what she summoned.
The head was last to take form. It made Chatir think of a pike, only with sharper angles at the jaw and chin, or perhaps the beak of a bird, those fish of the surface. Both sides of the leviathan’s proud head bore curling horns, surrounded by countless spikes that also protruded from its neck and back.
The leviathan’s size alone made Chatir tremble. All her senses screamed for her to flee. Yet at the same time, she was compelled to come closer.
The leviathan bent to examine Chatir with its eye was as big as her head.
“Chatir!” Assan and Egudar called at the same time. The two mersoldiers glared at one another.
The leviathan lowered its head. Chatir had not thought her heart could beat faster. Yet the great jaws remained slack, unmoving.
Egudar started to come to her aid, with Assan close behind. Somehow Chatir brought up her hand. “Stay back.” Their faces mirrored her disbelief. What madness had she plunged into?
The leviathan shifted its coils, a subtle movement, as the change of tides. Shock shot through Chatir when she realized the great creature bowed to her.
“Your power is scant.” The leviathan was speaking to her!
Chatir’s mouth fell open. Behind her, the brigades said nothing and gave no sign that they had heard or understood. Perhaps it was a special bond between summoned and summoner.
“But your need is as great as it was in that long ago time.”
The leviathan used the ancient form of Zurolind’s language. However, Chatir was only faintly aware of this, as though an unseen translator guided their conversation.
“My brother could not come,” the leviathan continued. “Not without more power. But I am here to do your will.” The leviathan’s voice was waves crashing against great rocks.
“Thank you,” Chatir murmured. “Our loss would be certain without your aid.” She turned to the brigades. The time had come to reveal her strategy.
“Zurolind cannot hope to outlast the humans,” Chatir declared. “We have two unexpected advantages: this leviathan and the sunshells. Using them, we will engage the humans on their own ships.”
From the fringes, Captain Heilios sputtered his disapproval.
“I know what you are going to say, Captain,” Chatir said. “And you would be right. Most of us will not return from this mission. But if you ask me, it is better to die with honor in our sworn duty than to flee like a school of minnows. With the leviathan as our ally, furthermore, Zurolind may well live on after us.”
“It is only a chance,” Captain Heilios finally choked out.
“Then let us seize it!” Chatir pointed her geluvial at the two brigades, gazing intently at the faces of friends and acquaintances. “Remember, Second and Third Brigade, you are the hope of Zurolind!”
{****}
In the end, a little over half of the Second Brigade and the entirety of the Third declared their intention to fight under Chatir’s lead. Captain Heilios and several of his favorites fled while Chatir consulted with the mersoldiers to refine their strategy. Meanwhile, the rest of the Second Brigade hovered nearby in miserable indecision.
“Suppose they serve as watchmen while we are fighting?” Assan burst out, interrupting Egudar. “Hasar and the others might return!”
Egudar growled at the golden-haired mersoldier. “Most of us don’t consider you a genius, Assan. Your scatter-brained ideas can wait until I’ve finished.”
“Forgive me, Egudar,” Chatir said, laying a consoling hand on his arm, “but I think it is quite a good idea.”
For a few minutes, the discussion diverged as Chatir and the non-fighting Second Brigade arranged their signal, to be given if Hasar and the other brigades returned. When that was settled, they initiated the first part of their plan: sending scouts to determine their enemy’s numbers. This party consisted of Radien and several others, the mersoldiers’ self-professed swiftest swimmers. They returned with wide eyes and pale faces.
“Seven ships lurk above.” Radien’s voice quavered. “There is no wind, but their mages fill their sails.”
“Six ships are small but swift. The last is tremendous, many times larger than the leviathan. It also carries their cannons,” another mersoldier explained.
“That is excellent information. Thank you.” Chatir’s throat ached, and her chest felt very heavy. The time for words was nearly spent. “This is the hour, my comrades in arms. I am honored to fight alongside you.”
With grim faces, the mersoldiers formed three companies. Chatir pulled herself astride the leviathan, which had informed her through their link that it would accept no other riders.
The mersoldiers did not have far to go b
efore the biggest of the human ships rose like a colossus atop the waves. As the leviathan followed them to the surface, its muscles pulsed beneath Chatir’s hands and arms. It seemed in one instant, the seafloor dropped away, and they were breaking free of the water.
Chatir shivered in the night breeze. Under its touch, the sunshell’s magic awoke and changed her violet tail to those bizarre human appendages: legs and feet.
They surfaced near one of the small ships. Wind and spray lashed Chatir’s face as the great sea serpent charged the ship. As they drew closer, the leviathan raised its head, sending Chatir sliding down its neck. She clung for dear life with her arms and legs, praying that the leviathan would not crush her against their target.
For an instant, they came so near the vessel that Chatir saw the humans’ faces on the deck, pale despite the ruddy light their lanterns cast.
The leviathan opened its great maw. Its scream brought tears to Chatir’s eyes. In the faint lanterns, she saw the humans gape and their eyes turn dark with fear. Chatir shut her eyes against the awful sound, not daring to release her grip on the beast’s neck. The leviathan pivoted so fast, Chatir’s stomach lurched. It seemed that under the heart-shriveling howl, she heard a tearing, crushing crunch, then silence.
Chatir opened her eyes to amber lights adrift in darkness that intensified the humans’ screams and pleas.
It was well to talk of honor, but this would be a grim night.
The second ship fell much as the first
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