about the snake s triangular, flat head. Blau had lied about that, reciting with horror how a snake with an old man s bearded face had held one sailor by the feet while another with the head of an old woman had seized hold of his neck, like a married couple fighting over a muffin, pulling it apart until the jam flowed out.
What a pile of shit that turned out to be, Lukas thought, just as Gaspar-shen dived into the water and the foresails burst into flame. Lukas put over the tiller and hauled on the main sheet, but already the boat felt sluggish and unresponsive, and he wondered if she d been damaged below the waterline.
Take the helm, he told Marikke, and as the boat shuddered and yawed he leaped onto the gunwale, barefoot, his longbow in his hand. The Savage stood beside him with his sword outstretched, the blade glowing with red fire. He was muttering and cursing, and Lukas could feel a prickling in the air, as the sword sucked down energy for a strike.
Now the boat was well alight, and with his arrow nocked, and with the naga s grotesque head weaving and turning not forty feet away, he paused. Almost overwhelming in its intensity, he felt the sudden, harsh joy of losing everything, of letting go the garbage and detritus of his life. For years he had sailed the Sphinx over the Trackless Sea. She carried all he owned. Not seven months before he had finally paid her off. Fine good riddance with this one shaft he would remake himself clean and new. Below him he could hear Marikke s prayer, and he let fly. Guided by Chauntea and his own skill, the arrow pierced under the creature s chin, lodged in the thinnest part of its neck where the scales were weakest. At the same time a crooked branch of fire burst from the golden elf s sword. The air stunk of lightning.
The Sphinx had turned into the wind, all lines loose, all sails flapping. Bring up the skiff, Lukas said. The shifter pulled it close, where it bobbed in the chop.
Another naga lifted its head above the water. Lukas loosed another arrow and saw it bounce off the creature s eye ridge. Bad shot it was difficult to keep his balance with the boat rocking back and forth. He had locked his elbow around one of the main stays and worked his bare toes under a cleat, but even so it was hard to avoid pitching overboard. He saw the creature turn its head, saw its yellow eye brighten as it found the skiff Kip had pulled it alongside, and Marikke was climbing into it. Above Lukas s head, the topsails were on fire. Below his feet, the bow had slid into the waves.
Another shot this one lodged in the creature s nose. It turned to look at him. Enraged, it left the skiff alone, and as its jaws opened and its forked tongue slipped out, Lukas imagined that perhaps he could see something human in its face, not in form so much in its baffled, malign expression. The ridges over its nose were like eyebrows he could see that now. The nose itself was blobby and big. He sent arrow after arrow into it. While the others climbed into the skiff, Kip stepping lightly, trying at all costs to avoid the spray. The Savage caught Lukas s eye, then shouted something that was lost in the flapping sails. He clambered aboard, and Marikke pushed down the daggerboard, raised the little lateen sail, and the skiff was away. It was better like this. Lukas himself would swim for it. He slid his last arrow into the creature s mouth at a range of ten yards, then threw his longbow overboard.
Burning debris rained down on him. He could feel the heat on his cheeks, and knew the water would be cold. Nevertheless, he stripped out of his green wool jerkin, and when his head was free again he found himself looking into the face of another naga, just risen from the deep, its head hanging as if suspended a few feet above him. From this angle he could see its coarse, flat, wicked features lit with fire, and perhaps a smile. The water sluiced from its neck. One ear dripped with seaweed.
Mesmerized by fire, even fire of their own making, the nagas would watch the boat until it sank, and they could turn away. By that time, Lukas hoped, the skiff would have found its way onto the other side of a narrow spit of land that stretched out from the coast, would have made landfall. Gaspar-shen, he hoped, would have already found it, would have guided them inshore.
Now the skiff was a hundred yards away, almost out of sight beyond the circle of firelight and the clouds of smoke. Stupidly, Marikke had brought it around to pick him up instead of racing straight for the beach. Lukas could swim this distance, had done it before. Already they d drifted in enough for him to see the pale line of breakers as they fell on the sand spit. At the limit of his hearing, now that the sails were down, he could hear their rhythmic roar. He could see fire that way, too, torches or flares that spread out in a line as he watched. He waved the skiff off, pointing southward down the beach, and dived.
The problem with his crew was that even in the best of times, any kind of direct order was worse than useless, even if it was disguised as a suggestion. And in this case, already, he had spoken only of possibilities: This might happen, and so you might have to. Even now, when everything was unspooling as he had predicted in his worst imaginings, still it was possible to misunderstand, or to ignore what was best. And of course none of them had spoken about the nagas.
Underwater, in the cold dark, he turned away from the skiff and stroked inshore. He would not come up for air, he thought, until he was out of sight. Then they d have no choice but to do what he wanted.
From underwater he could still see the glow of the burning boat, now behind him. All sound was gone. The water was colder than he d hoped. He dived down deep, then turned, disoriented was that another glow, another source of light below him, or a reflection of the fire on the surface? No matter. A long black tendril uncoiled toward him out of the inky dark and seized hold of his ankle this was bad. Already he could feel a tightness in his chest. Soon he must come up for air.
He kicked. But the tendril had him now, twisted around his ankle. In the blue-green light that rose up from the sandy bottom, he could see it, thin and whiplike, lined with tentacles. Even in the best and most watertight plans, you had to be prepared for unseen dangers. And these particular plans were nowhere near the best set a new standard, actually, for stupidity and porousness oh, well, he thought, kicking as he fumbled for the dagger at his belt. With the hooked blade in his hand he reached back and thought, I hope I don t cut off my foot.
It took a moment for his brain, starved for oxygen, to realize what happened next, when he found himself moving inside a nimbus of blue-green light. Gaspar-shen was there. He hadn t gone ahead to guide the skiff. Or if he had, he d come back. The patterns on his skin glowed with a cold, wet fire. Water-soul, water-breather, he swept out his own knife and ran the blade along the tentacled leg that curled up from below, then caught Lukas s arm in his slippery hand and pulled him toward the surface and toward the beach, where the rollers deposited them gently on the dark sand.
Where are the others? gasped Lukas, when he could speak.
The genasi shook his head. They crouched together on a spit of sand that stretched out from the coast. On the other side, across a shallow bay, a bonfire burned, inland on the wider beach. That s where we were going to meet, said Lukas.
Who is that?
He knew. Black figures struggled on the shore, silhouettes against the fire. The Savage was fighting there, and Lukas watched the silent flicker of his sword, the branches of red lightning. The Savage was a good swordsman.
Behind them, flame still flickered on the wreck of the Sphinx. Lukas turned his head and watched as it slid softly underwater. To the east, over the black mountains of Gwynneth, the full moon was rising, a bright smear on the horizon. There were no nagas to be seen, and whatever foul creature had held him by the ankle, it had pulled back into its hole or cave to nurse its wound. Everything was peaceful, for the moment. Shivering on the cold sand, Lukas looked up at the sky. Malar s Eye, the red star he d used to set his course, looked down at him.
I m hungry, said Gaspar-shen. His voice was thin and high. His breath whistled through inhuman nasal cavities. The lines on his bald head glowed dimly in the quarter light.
You re always hungry.
I would like some custard pastry.
I ll keep that in mind.
For a moment more they watched the play of the Savage s silent lightning. Then suddenly there was another flash of light in another color, a white cyclone of flame. It wasn t just the lycanthropes down there. Let s go, Lukas said. He staggered to his feet, and together they took off at a run, down toward the base of the sand spit and the bonfire there. All was silent as they ran half a mile along the packed sand toward the larger beach. Even with the east wind, Lukas could smell the swamp as they approached.
They would be too late, he predicted. The storm of red lightning had blown over. In the bonfire s glare, as he stood out of breath on the long strand, Lukas could see the damage it had caused. Two dozen shapes littered the water s edge, lycanthropes caught in the act of changing, or else in their pure wolf s shape, their bellies burned and
