had signaled his fellow slaves by beating the floor with a rock. Seconds after his alarm sounded, a troop of Dargonesti warriors burst out of the pool, weapons in hand. One, with a golden sand dollar on the front of his helmet, boomed out, “All prisoners line up! Take a shell and proceed outside!”
Slowly the tired slaves rose. When they didn’t move fast enough to suit their captors, a squad of sea elves came down the aisle, prodding the laggards with spear points. Harmanutis and Vanthanoris glared at the seven- foot-tall Dargonesti. Garnath straightened his soggy shirt and muttered, “Twice in one day! You owe me, Brother!” A muffled grunt from the barrel was the only reply.
The Qualinesti stood shoulder to shoulder, their proud bearing in marked contrast to the ragtag look of the rest of the slaves. When he reached the water’s edge, Harmanutis addressed the Dargonesti who wore the decorated helmet, who he assumed was an officer.
“What’s happening?” he asked. “Where are we going?”
“No talking!” snapped the Dargonesti.
With no other option, the two Qualinesti fit their airshell mouthpieces into place. They were still wearing their weighted belts as they walked down the steps and into the cold water. As soon as their ears were submerged, they heard a riot of strange noises. It almost sounded like … a battle?
The Dargonesti soldiers drove the mass of prisoners forward. They quickly left the road to the city and turned toward the great mountain. Dark gray shapes hurtled overhead. The chorus of clicks and bubbling beeps revealed that these were dolphins, all heading in the same direction.
Suddenly, the Qualinesti saw a wall looming over them. Made of great blocks of stone, the wall rose sixty feet from the seafloor. There was a gate in the center, and four unfinished stumps of towers at the top. Unused blocks of stone were piled here and there. Crowded among the waiting blocks were hundreds of armed sea elves, facing the wall.
Floating aimlessly in the water above the Dargonesti were the injured and the dead. Some were missing arms or legs. Some were missing heads. Dolphins circled around, tugging Dargonesti wounded away from the battle and fending off prowling sharks. Blood drifted like smoke, coloring the water ahead.
Atop the wall, between the centermost towers, Dargonesti were fighting. The inside gate on the wall was open, and the Quoowahb were herding the slave workers into the breach.
As the Qualinesti, who were at the rear of the line of prisoners, reached the blocks lying on the seafloor at the base of the wall, something dropped among them from above. The prisoners scattered. Mud swirled around the Qualinesti warriors, and Harmanutis was knocked backward and trampled on. Once he got clear of the stampede, he saw what had caused even the sea elves to flee so frantically.
A chilkit had landed in their midst.
The creature reared eight feet tall, fiery red armor on top of pale gray flesh. Four jointed legs stood out from its thick, barrel-shaped body. A torso encased in a crimson carapace was attached forward of the legs, and the torso had two pairs of arms. The lower pair ended in articulated fingers sporting sharp talons. The upper pair was even more fearsome. A massive set of scissorlike claws tipped each of these arms. The chilkit’s head was hard to discern-its torso simply came to a blunt point. Whip antennae sprouted from this point, and four wide-set black eyes protruded on flexible stalks below the antennae. Lastly, a vertical mouth, surrounded by horny palps, opened and shut as the chilkit forced seawater through its gills.
Harmanutis backed away. He feared no normal enemy, but this was a monster indeed, and he had no weapon. The chilkit scuttled forward, attacking the nearest man. The human scrambled madly, grasping the sandy bottom with both hands. The monster strode over him, its hideous claws upraised. Harmanutis watched in horror as the chilkit seized the man in both claws. The terrible pincers closed, cutting the slave in half.
Vanthanoris, also scrambling away, found himself atop a massive block of cut stone. Other prisoners followed, until they were spilling off the sides. The chilkit advanced toward the block and swept a dozen slaves from the side with a backward swipe of its claw.
Vanthanoris heard the staccato call of the dolphins, and a school thirty strong rushed in. Like a fleet of battering rams, the dolphins bore into the chilkit. Van lifted his head in time to see that the animals were wearing special helmets studded with shards of rock crystal. The chilkit backed away, slashing and grasping at the dolphins. The racing creatures eluded it and drove their spiked helmets into the monster’s armored hide. Now it was chilkit blood that darkened the water.
From behind, Harmanutis heard an especially loud, trilling whistle. He saw a powerful dolphin ram full-tilt into the chilkit’s chest. Armored claws closed around the muscular gray flanks; then all was lost in a welter of churning sand and blood.
Something nudged Harmanutis. He turned and saw a dolphin hovering behind him. Why did they always look like they were smiling? It nudged him again with its snout, then sank to the sand by his feet. The Qualinesti warrior got the message. He widened his stance, and the dolphin glided between his knees. The animal gave a warning shake, so Harmanutis held on to its dorsal fin. The sleek creature shot away with a few strokes of its powerful flukes.
From above, the struggle with the chilkit was easier to see. The monster that had dropped among the prisoners lay on its back, dead. Sharks tugged at its lifeless limbs. Harmanutis’s mount swam higher, and he saw a wedge-shaped formation of Dargonesti warriors pushing chilkit back to the wall. The blue-skinned sea elves made a startling contrast to the bold red chilkit. One by one the attackers were isolated and battered to death by Dargonesti wielding stone-headed maces.
One group of chilkit held fast, and they got behind a building block and used it to ram a phalanx of sea elves aside. Harmanutis’s dolphin mount saw this and nosed sharply down. The corporal almost lost his seat, but held on to the dorsal fin with both hands. The dolphin twisted and bore in for a ramming attack on the back of the chilkit nearest them. That was enough for Harmanutis. He let go, and the weighted belt he wore caused him to drop slowly to the seafloor.
He was on his feet promptly as he touched bottom, for to his astonishment he had seen whom the chilkit was attacking. A small knot of sea elves stood between the monster and two smaller figures. These two had airshells in their mouths.
Princess Vixa and Colonel Armantaro!
Harmanutis tried to shout a war cry, but the only result was a gurgle of bubbles past the mouthpiece of his airshell. He lost his footing and pitched down on his face.
The chilkit grabbed the shaft of a sea elf’s spear and hoisted up the unlucky fellow. The warrior held his grip for an instant too long and toppled forward, into the monster’s claws. The chilkit tossed the lacerated foe aside to face the next soldier, who used his shield to fend off the monster’s talons. Undaunted, the chilkit bored in, bowling the elf over by sheer bulk. Now, only one fighter stood between the towering chilkit and the two Qualinesti elves.
This sea elf carried no buckler, but wielded his short-handled spear in one hand, like a dueling sword. He jabbed at the chilkit’s eyes, and the creature backed off warily. The Dargonesti advanced quickly, thrusting with both hands. His opponent tried to snag the spear with its claws, but the warrior shifted his aim only slightly, deftly avoiding the claws. The needle-sharp tip of his spear pierced the chilkit through a chink in its body armor. A strangely emotionless cry broke from the monster. It gave ground. The Dargonesti shoved his weapon farther in. Talons reached for him, but found only water. The sea elf twisted hard on his spear shaft until there was a distinct crack as the spear tore into the creature’s vitals. Its arms dropped and it toppled over. The victorious fighter recovered his spear.
Harmanutis had at last fought his way through the mud and blood and reached his princess’s side. Vixa clapped him on the shoulder. Her eyes and Armantaro’s spoke eloquently. The corporal pointed to the milling mass of slaves and soldiers still fighting at the base of the wall, the last place he’d seen Vanthanoris.
The three Qualinesti started toward that spot, but before they’d taken more than two steps, Vixa’s wrist was seized. She was yanked around, and found herself face-to-face with the Dargonesti who’d single-handedly defeated the chilkit. Harmanutis charged to her defense, but the Dargonesti leveled his spear point at the corporal’s chest, bringing him up short. They could see the fierce face inside the helmet. It was none other than Coryphene.
Coryphene’s throat worked, and a loud series of clicks rang through the ocean. Soldiers and dolphins not otherwise engaged gathered around him. He gave Vixa over to four warriors, then bade the rest accompany Harmanutis and Armantaro. The Qualinesti were tempted to resist this separation, but Coryphene placed a proprietary hand on Vixa’s airshell. The two veteran warriors subsided immediately and were herded back to the
