tapal's center handle and spun the weapon around so that it lay along his arm. Before the morkoth could move, confident that it had him in its thrall, the young triton raised his hands with the keen blade wrapped around the outside of his arm.
Flyys punched forward with all his strength. He felt the tapal's blade bite into flesh, and blood swirled into the water around him, obscuring his vision. Still, he saw the morkoth's head leave its shoulders and float away. The head glanced off one of the claw coral spires, shearing away flesh in a long strip. Before it had a chance to settle into the silt, the nearby small scavengers were already at work.
The other morkoth gathered, drawing closer.
Flyys shrugged the tapal through the water to spread the blood cloud out farther and tried not to be sick. The morkoth was his first kill. The young triton had never expected to experience the nausea that filled him as his gills drew in the bloodstained water. The taint of old copper raced through his breathing passages. He glanced up at the approaching morkoth group and set himself. The numbness that had threatened to fill his body had left as soon as the morkoth died.
'Hold!'
The great voice filled the surrounding area. Immediately, the morkoth drew back, opening the way for another morkoth which descended upon the young triton's refuge.
Flyys studied the newcomer. The young triton's fear tripled when he noticed the human-shaped hands at the ends of the morkoth's four arms. Where the pincers signified the warrior class among the kraknyth, human-shaped hands nearly always denoted a morkoth mage.
Flyys's education included lessons in spellcraft as well as warcraft. So far he'd only learned the spell for identifying magical things, to better search the wrecked ships that the surface dwellers lost in battles and storms. All Serosian races that worked magic raided the fallen ships surface dwellers didn't ransack themselves, or lose in the currents. Flyys had been told his own magic was strong and that his potential would be marked by the mages in Pumanath.
'Ignorant whelpling,' the morkoth snarled in a voice hoarse with age. Taking a small piece of metal from the conch shell belted at its side, the morkoth mage gestured and spoke arcane words Flyys didn't know. The metal flamed despite the surrounding water, disappearing into a haze of blackened bubbles that roiled to the surface.
Flyys felt the spell slam into his body, vibrating along his bones. He couldn't move, couldn't blink. At first he thought he'd been struck dead, then he realized his heart still hammered in his chest and his gills still drew in water.
'Get him,' the morkoth mage commanded.
One of the morkoth warriors swam down and wrapped two of its tentacles around Flyys's upper body. Though he fought against the spell, the young triton remained bound.
Frozen in place, he watched helplessly as the morkoth swam to the surface with him.
The shadow of a ship lay heavily on the turquoise water, sketching its shape along the surface. He recognized it as a cog, a craft well designed for trading along the shores of Seros. Turned to float partially on his back, Flyys saw sailors clustered along the side. A net was quickly lowered, then he and the morkoth mage were drawn up.
The young triton fought to regain the use of his limbs, but couldn't. He knew from his studies that the spell he was under wouldn't last long, but it lasted long enough for the sailors to secure him to the mainmast with loops of rope.
As the sailors finished their knots, feeling returned to Flyys's body. He pulled hesitantly against the ropes and found them too tight to escape. Under the glare of the morning sun and left out in the breeze, his skin started drying almost at once.
'Khorrch,' a man bellowed.
The morkoth turned and gazed up to the ship's stern castle. 'Yes, Vurgrom,' it replied in the human tongue.
Flyys spoke the language himself. Everyone who traded in Seros learned the human tongue. With the enmity that existed between the undersea cultures at times over Seros's long past, it proved to be as common a tongue below the waves as above it. He also recognized the name.
Vurgrom the Mighty was chief of the pirates among the surface world. He was also the man Flyys and his companions had been sent to spy on. Though Vurgrom hadn't been on board the ship they'd invaded during the night, his minions had been.
'This is one of them?' Vurgrom walked down the steps leading up to the stern castle. He stood tall and broad, with a huge chest that sloped down to a massive stomach. Still, he moved lightly enough on the ship's rolling deck that Flyys knew the bulk would throw off most of his opponents. Vurgrom's reputation was fierce and savage, built on the number of deaths he'd ordered over the years. Many of them he'd taken part in himself.
'Yes,' Khorrch answered.
The wind stirred the wild red hair on the pirate captain's head, ruffled the long, untamed beard. He stopped in front of Flyys. 'He knows where the Eye is?'
The young triton tried not to let the fear inside him show, but he knew that the morkoth mage and the pirate captain both sensed it in him. He swallowed hard, feeling his mouth and throat dry as his gills sucked in air instead of liquid.
'I believe he does,' Khorrch said. 'When the Taker was banished all those thousands of years ago by Umberlee, stories and tales of him were passed among those who lived in the sea. No one race got everything, and each was given something to protect-something that would keep the Taker from regaining his full strength. Our legends of the Taker tell us the longmanes were given some of the secrets of the Taker's missing Eye.'
Flyys struggled against the ropes that held him but still didn't find any slack. Though he was not a great believer in the menace that the Taker represented-primarily because the evil his people guarded against was even larger-he preferred death to talking.
' 'Some of the secrets'?' Vurgrom repeated irritably. 'I thought they knew what we needed to find out.'
The morkoth drew itself up to its full height on its six tentacles, but it still didn't stand as tall as the pirate captain. 'They know where it is,' Khorrch declared. 'Without it, all the things we've gathered here in the Sea of Fallen Stars will be useless.'
Vurgrom switched his glare back to Flyys. 'I don't suppose you'd be willing to tell us on your own, would you, boy?'
Flyys wanted to answer but he didn't trust his voice. He felt certain it would crack and shake.
Vurgrom smiled, sunlight dancing from the gold hoops in his ears. 'We could let you stay out here and dry out, boy.' He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. 'I got lads here wouldn't mind betting on how long it takes till your skin starts to peel off. Maybe we could even hang you out on the prow. The gulls, they get scent of you, they'd be down for a little snack.'
Despite his best efforts not to, Flyys shivered at the prospect. He knew he wouldn't be the first triton to be treated in that fashion. However, it was preferable to being ripped apart by the morkoth.
'Time is of the essence,' Khorrch stated.
Vurgrom crossed his huge arms over his barrel chest and said, 'Aye, I know. Iakhovas is a harsh taskmaster.'
'But his rewards are good,' Khorrch pointed out.
Vurgrom smiled, a rictus of humor that belonged on a shark's mouth. 'Get it done, then.'
Expecting the morkoth to use its hypnotic powers or perhaps magically command him to speak, Flyys closed his eyes and prayed to Persana to deliver him from his fate quickly. One way or the other.
Khorrch spoke words of power that started small fires under Flyys's skin. The young triton's eyes snapped open, commanded by a force outside himself. He watched in swiftly growing horror as Khorrch took a small copper piece from the conch shell at his side.
The morkoth laid the copper piece on one of his human palms and continued his spellcasting. His voice rose, and he curled his fingers over the copper piece, holding tight. In the next instant the copper piece vanished in a brief burst of flame. Khorrch opened his palm, revealing unblemished skin.
Then Flyys felt as though someone had buried a spear in his head, bursting through bone and flesh. He screamed and shivered against the ropes.
