by Dante King
He glared at Kumi, who looked down at the ground, shamefaced.
If looks could have killed, his would have knocked her dead.
“Because things have changed,” I said. “The guild has taken the Depthless Dream Trident. The power of that relic will be enough to let them destroy everything you hold dear.”
“Let them try,” Jonnik said with a sneer. “It won’t be the first time.”
“You don’t believe in the trident’s power?”
Jonnik leaned forward until his face almost touched mine. “I don’t believe in those precious guild shits. They talk a good talk, just like you, but talk is cheap.”
I didn’t flinch as I stared into his eyes. “Yeah, it is. But I’m not the one talking big here.”
Jonnik laughed and took a step back. “Is that a challenge?” he bellowed and held out his tentacles as the crowd cheered. “Are you telling me, you whiny, fancy pants, word-wielding guild tosser, that you think you can beat me in a fight?”
I stole a glance at the braying crowd. It was clear there was only one way to impress them.
“Bring it, squid boy. Maybe you’ll listen to me once I drop you on your ass in front of your merry band of pseudo pirates.”
“I accept your challenge.” Jonnik grinned. “Let’s duel, you and I.”
Chapter Twenty
The pounding of a huge log drum sounded across the Shredded Scale Isle and out to sea. Twenty Wilds carried the log drum above their heads. An adrenaline-filled drummer sat astride it and pounded away with irrepressible enthusiasm.
The drum’s rhythm set the pace for my footsteps as I marched alongside Kumi and followed Jonnik and his procession of Wilds. We marched along the sands to the island’s east coast and down to the south shore.
“You made a mistake coming here, Princess,” Jonnik boomed. “Once I’ve dealt with your little friend here, I’ll send what’s left of you to your father.”
Boats approached from the shallows, summoned by the sound of the drum. They appeared from the islands scattered across the sea to the south and brought other Wild chieftains and their scattered clans. Some vessels were identical to the seahorse-carved guild craft. Others were more primitive—rafts of bound reeds, logs canoes, or simple sailing junks. They gathered off the coast ahead of us like a shoal of strange surfaced fish. The occupants banged their oars against the sides in time to the drum until the whole world seemed to be full of that hard, menacing beat.
“Now it’s a party,” I said dryly. “Do you need an audience every time you’re challenged, Jonnik?”
“It’s a tradition.” The chieftain shrugged. “An occasional public execution keeps the lads entertained.”
The horde of Wilds stopped at last on the south shore of the island. Sand gave way to pebble beaches and rock formations that stretched out into the ocean. Tidal pools hovered at the water’s edge and teemed with anemones, crabs, barnacles, and other creatures that thrived at the boundary of sea and land.
Jonnik strode into a pool the size of a sports hall and waded to the center. He spread his tentacles wide as he turned to face me.
The drumming stopped, and silence suddenly fell amongst the tribes of spectators. Jonnik’s people crowded around the edge of the pool along the landward side, jostling for better viewing positions. Boats moved closer from the ocean to get a better look.
“No weapons!” Jonnik called out. “Just flesh and magic.”
“Don’t worry, sweet man,” Nydarth said as I unbelted the Sundered Heart and handed it to Kumi. “With or without me, you’re a match for this slab of fish.”
I took a deep breath and stepped out into the tidal pool to face Jonnik. I’d spent last night chasing off simple lampreys and starsquids with my magic. But it was a different thing entirely to fight a Wild Augmenter who apparently had a thing for pulling the limbs off his opponents. I banished the thought as I drew to a halt 15 feet away from the chieftain. Qihin City’s survival rode on this fight.
Jonnik’s tentacles hung by his sides as their tips rested in the water. I didn’t except a starting bell. The roar of the crowd was all Jonnik needed as he started chanting and lifted his tentacles. Water flowed up with them and formed waterfalls that seemed to run without end.
Jonnik whirled one of his tentacles around his head then flung it forward to point at me. Water flew from the tentacle’s tip in a huge mass that roared toward my chest. I jumped aside and reached out with the Crashing Wave technique to redirect my opponent’s attack, but I was too slow.
The chief shifted his tentacle, and the water redirected toward me. The full force of the attack crashed into my chest and threw me off my feet. I fell back in the pool and, for a moment, I was completely submerged. Every sight and sound distorted as it came through the water. I leaped back to my feet as salt water ran off me.
Jonnik had vanished and left only a few ripples as proof that he had ever been there.
I waded out toward where he had stood at the center of the pool. I knew I was at a disadvantage in the water, but this fight seemed like it could only take place inside the pool. Whether I liked it or not, I would have to best a fishman on his home turf.
The spectators cheered their leader. They clearly knew what Jonnik was planning. I recalled the vampiric anglers and realized that the chief had pulled a similar trick by obscuring himself in a body of water.
Something stirred in the water to my right. It was little more than a flash of movement, but I turned and blasted the ripples with an Untamed Torch. Steam boiled off the water, but I didn’t find my target. The crowd howled with laughter as I muttered a curse and searched for my opponent.
Another movement, this time to my left. I let a spray of low-Vigor Stinging Palm thorns free to conserve my energy. They splashed fruitlessly into the water, and I heard a splash behind me.
I jumped clear just as Jonnik’s tentacles swung down where I had stood. I landed in the water again, rolled forward through it, and spun around to face him. Jonnik disappeared back under the surface before I could get more than a glimpse of him. The water wasn’t deep enough to fully submerge him, so his technique must have dissolved his body and made it one with the water.
I summoned a thin coating of Ice Armor over my chest. I thought that I would have a few moments to recover, but I hadn’t banked on how fast he could swim. I could see the water shimmer and figured the blur was Jonnik, almost invisible beneath the surface. There was a flash of movement, and then he burst out in front of me.
I blocked a strike with each arm, but I only had two arms, and he had six tentacles. Three hammered me in the sides with all the power of a heavyweight champion. My frozen chest plate absorbed most of the blows’ strength, but the thin coating of ice cracked beneath his tentacles. I aimed a kick at his belly, but he caught my leg with the last tentacle and flung me backward.
I splashed through the water and hit a patch of submerged rock. My ass was going to be bruised in the morning, but the shock of the impact seemed to shake something loose in my brain. I realized that I was playing to Jonnik’s strengths, not my own. I could do better.
I got to my feet again and instinctively raised my arms to block another attack. Jonnik bellowed with laughter as he formed whip-liked strands out of the water and hurled them at me. One hit me in the shoulder, another in the belly, and a third wrapped around my neck. My Ice Armor cracked and fell away.
The whip tightened around my throat and threatened to cut off my breath. I forced myself to ignore it. Instead, I focused on my Vigor and on the sensation of the water around me.
I pushed through my internal channels of Crashing Wave technique, and a thick wave rose around me all the way to my head. It absorbed the water of Jonnik’s whips, and I heard him curse as I launched the wave. It rushed across the pool, flung Jonnik from his feet, and crashed over the far side into the sea. Boats full of spectators rocked wildly as the aftershocks hit them. Their cheers doubled in volume as they scrambled to rebalance their crafts.
&nbs
p; “Sounds like I might have just become the crowd favorite,” I said.
Jonnik stumbled back to his feet, then vanished under the water. A ripple of motion flittered toward me. I tapped into my Vigor again and let the element of acid flow. It rushed out along its channels and through my skin to form a green miasma around me.
The chieftain erupted out of the water and abruptly stopped. He screamed as his skin started to burn. The huge Wild clenched his eyes shut to stop the stinging cloud. I summoned a Plank Pillar beneath his feet and caused it to grow rapidly. It flung him backward, and he flew through the air end over end.
Jonnik struggled to rise again. His skin was reddened and blistered, his eyes bloodshot, his teeth bared. I had him figured out. And I wasn’t about to give him an opportunity to regain the upper hand.
I blinded him with another Acidic Cloud. He gasped and choked as he flailed at the fog to disperse it. Jonnik tried to run out of it. I let him. All I needed was a moment of focus.
The water around the chieftain exploded into foam as I lifted it with Crashing Wave. I poured my Vigor into the attack and staggered as all the water rushed out from around my legs. I managed to lift him high into the air as he squirmed futilely in the column of water and howled curses.
I made a Plank Pillar erupt under my feet, and the wooden platform shot me up and out of the pool. I balanced on my makeshift perch and pulled the column of water toward me with a mighty effort. Then I somersaulted off the Plank Pillar as Jonnik tumbled through the air. My heel and all the weight of my spinning kick crashed into his head. The chieftain plummeted into the pool with an explosion of water.
I landed over Jonnik before I rolled him onto his back with a kick. The water lapped around us as Jonnik stared up at me with wide and red-rimmed eyes.
“How’s that for a ‘word-wielding tosser’?” I asked.
Jonnik spat out a mouthful of acidic water. “Only an idiot continues fighting when they’ve lost. Well fought. You win.”
“You going to listen to what I have to say?” I held out my hand, and he wrapped two of his tentacles around it. I planted my feet and heaved him up.
The Wild chieftain slapped me on the shoulder and a huge, toothy grin spread across his face. “Fuck, but you’re good at that. I don’t say it often, especially not to guild-trained pricks, but I’m impressed.”
“Maybe you need to get out more,” I suggested. “But you’re pretty impressive yourself.”
“Crabshit. You saw my tactics a mile away. Save the pretty words for someone who’ll care.”
He grabbed my hand and raised it high in the air as he looked around at the crowd of spectators who howled their approval. I winked at Kumi as she gaped at me.
“We have a winner!” he bellowed. “You bastards better cheer for Ethan Murphy lo Pashat!”
The sound rolled around us and out across the ocean in a wall of noise that shook the treetops and sent the seagulls soaring away in alarm.
I freed my hand and strode into the center of the pool with arms raised on a cocktail of excitement and adrenaline. I tried to wave the noise down, to get everyone quiet so that I could be heard, but they kept their adulation on full volume. It was exhilarating to have such praise thrown my way, but I wasn’t here for the glory. I’d come here with a mission, and I couldn’t get it done if no one listened to what I said.
“Quiet!” Jonnik roared.
Silence fell along the shoreline at last.
“I’ve come to you with an opportunity,” I shouted, making sure I could be heard all the way to the furthest boats. “And with a warning. The Resplendent Tears Guild is growing more powerful and more aggressive with every passing day. Right now, they’re threatening Qihin City, but once they’re done there, they’ll come for you. You know better than I do what they think about Wilds and what they’ll do if they seize control of the Diamond Coast. Your way of life will be at an end.
“But while this is the moment of peril, it’s also your chance to change everything. King Beqai and the Qihin Clan are preparing to attack the guild. I invite you to join them in that attack, not as subjects of the King and his clan, but as equals in a fight for freedom. This is your chance to stick it to the Resplendent Tears, to drown everything that’s rotten in that guild and see if there’s anything left worth saving. This is your chance to control your own destinies.
“Who’s with me?”
Jonnik roared with laughter and turned his voice into a primal howl of warlike intent. The crowd exploded in a cacophony of shouts and chants.
Another chief stepped forward on a huge raft near the shore. Her hair rattled with a ceremonial headdress made of bird and fish bones.
“You all know I hate Beqai!” she shouted. “But that won’t stop me shoving an oar up Horix’s ass. I’m in!”
“Let’s tear the fuckers down!” screamed another chief with rings through his lips.
The entire audience roared their approval as the drummer took up his heavy sticks and pounded a rhythm like a racing heart. A smile spread across my face.
I’d done it.
The Wilds were going to war.
It took two hours for Jonnik and the other chieftains to assemble their forces.
Gulls soared over our heads and followed the boat carrying Kumi and I back toward Qihin City. That, or they followed the fleet that came behind us. It was a host of Wilds armed up and ready for war. Some were in boats while others swam with swift, confident strokes. A few even rode dolphins, squids, or giant turtles. I’d gone in search of an army.
And I was coming back with one.
I laid a hand on the hilt of the Sundered Heart Sword and felt Nydarth’s presence.
“Your kind words are always appreciated,” I said inside my head.
“You’re welcome, sweet man,” she replied. “It’s always a pleasure to be there for you.”
“Don’t you get frustrated?” I asked. “Being stuck inside the sword the whole time, not able to come out and explore the world?”
Nydarth laughed. It was a deep, luxurious sound like honey across my senses. “Oh, my sweet man. So kind of you to ask; so many don’t think of the welfare of their weapons. Yes, it is frustrating, but the end is in sight. Now that you’ve brought me from the cave and started wielding me in battle, I’m growing in power. Every day, I feel my strength returning, just a little at a time. But it is enough to let me know that my day will come. Soon, I will be able to materialize in this plane of existence, and when I do, you’ll be pleasantly rewarded for all your help.”
I recalled a dream that Nydarth had inhabited months ago, and our ‘interactions together.’ As presents went, that one would be worth the wait.
The docks of Qihin City were even more crowded than when we’d left. Large transport barges had been hauled out of storage and brought down to the ocean. Shipwrights and their assistants crawled all over them, caulked holes in the hulls, and cleared off barnacles and moss. Some boats were already loaded with equipment for the attack. Ballistae were pushed to the fronts of the transports to create a ranged siege unit that could attack from the ocean.
Warriors were assembled across the docks. Guards watched for signs of attack or infiltration. Other soldiers lined up with their packs, shields, and weapons in readiness to board their transports and head out for war.
Kumi found a space at the docks between a battle-ready war junk and a fishing boat loaded up with arrows. We climbed free of our vessel and joined the throng of fighters.
King Beqai stood front and center of the dock, surrounded by a band of officers and court officials. He stood on a barrel to see over the heads of those around him as he directed the preparations for the attack.
“Must be strange to see him like this,” I said to Kumi.
She surprised me with a fierce hug. “He wouldn't have done it if not for you.”
We made our way down the dock and forced a path through the columns of troops and clusters of porters as they carried supplies back and forth. Beqai spotted u
s and immediately ordered his attendants to make room.
“Father,” Kumi said with a respectful bow. “We have been out to Shredded Scale Isle to talk with the chieftains of the Wilds. Some of them have agreed to fight alongside us against the guild.”
“I am surprised Jonnik listened”
“Ethan defeated Jonnik in single combat.”
“Why, the Radiant Dragon disciple grows more marvellous by the day. I cannot hope to show how grateful I am. Every last blade will count in this battle. How many did you find? A dozen? Twice that?”
“Think bigger,” I said as I pointed down the dock.
Wilds swarmed out of the water across the boats and into the city. A trail of them ran up the docks as their numbers slowed at the edge of the port. Jonnik stood at their head and bore the wreath of colorful flowers that marked him as the chief of his people. A dozen more chiefs brought up his rear and wore their Wild marks and their signs of office with pride. Their army trailed behind. There had to be more than a hundred of them, every fighter armed with weapons and Wild Augmenting power.
The locals parted to let them through. Tension clouded the air as the menacing bandits strode unmolested across their city docks and up to the king.
Jonnik stopped a dozen yards from Beqai. He snorted, spat, and looked up at the king on his barrel.
“I ain’t bowing,” Jonnik said. “We come as equals or not at all. You got a problem with that, we can all fuck off back home.”
Beqai looked down at the impertinent Wild, and his eyes narrowed. Then, he jumped off his barrel in a surprising burst of agility and landed in front of the chieftain.
“No bowing,” he said. “That honor is earned, and I did not earn it from you. I failed you at the time you needed me most. I let your people be persecuted by the Resplendent Tears while I obsessed about a single path I thought could bring me harmony. But it is not a king’s place to find his inner peace. It is a king’s place to protect his people, something I have neglected for too long. I only hope that I can earn your trust again.”