leaving the burning creatures in a zone of fire.
Underwater, gnomefire burned fiercely, but there was no smoke. Instead, huge bubbles of combustive gases boiled out of the flaming paste. The bubbles hit like forge hammers, hot and hard, as the chilkit and dolphins found out. One struck Vixa a glancing blow in her belly, driving the wind from her body. She raced for the city shell and surfaced in one of the lower-level quays. After a moment to catch her breath, she returned once more to the fray.
On both flanks the chilkit line gave way. The firelancers pressed forward, backed by armed Dargonesti.
In the center, Coryphene called for his reserve corps. A thousand fresh sea elves sprang up from hollows in the sandy bottom. The chilkit line fragmented. Individual chilkit were easily mown down by the more numerous, faster-moving Dargonesti spear fighters. Wherever the chilkit managed to re-form to stand off the Dargonesti, firelancers were brought up. Hundreds of chilkit were consumed by fresh infernos.
Vixa swooped in and out of the fight, hammering chilkit, saving Dargonesti who were menaced or who had fallen to the enemy. Over the din of battle, she heard her name being called. She stiffened to alertness.
“Sea brothers, to me!” cried the voice. Vixa found herself turning to obey.
A larger dolphin blocked her path. “Kios?” A raucous dolphin chuckle told her she was wrong. “Naxos!” she exclaimed.
The chief of the shapeshifters bobbed his head in the affirmative. “How do you like battle, little dryfoot? Isn’t this better than sucking air from an old whelk shell?”
“Naxos-don’t you hear the call?”
“It’s only Coryphene. Ignore him.”
“I can’t,” she complained. “I am compelled!” It was true. The call acted like a powerful magnet drawing her toward its source.
Naxos circled her slowly. “It’s a sorcery he uses on the weak-minded. Resist it! You are freeborn.”
“Sea brothers! To me! I command you!” The pressure became stronger, pulling her away from Naxos.
“I must go!” she cried. Resistance seemed impossible. He followed, keeping pace with her.
A thick cloud of dolphins had formed over the center of the battlefield. Amid columns of coiling, bubbling water, Vixa maneuvered to reach Coryphene. The Protector and his personal guard were mounting the dolphins as though they were horses. Coryphene climbed onto a sea brother that Vixa recognized as Kios.
“They have broken!” Coryphene exulted in the water-tongue. “Now is the time to drive the chilkit back into the dark depths forever!”
The triumph in his voice and the victorious cries of the other Dargonesti-dolphin and elven alike-filled Vixa’s brain and set her blood tingling. She joined some of the riderless dolphins who were swooping and swirling around their Protector.
“I am with you!” Vixa chirped.
Coryphene threw down his shield. A warrior handed him three spears. Coryphene raised them in a bundle over his head. “Death to the enemies of Urione! No quarter! No quarter!” he roared.
Less than a thousand Dargonesti, mounted on dolphins, rose up from the battlefield and swept down on the retreating chilkit. Vixa and the other riderless dolphins surged ahead, harrying the fragmented enemy. The chilkit armor was thinner on top and vulnerable to spear thrusts. Coryphene killed six chilkit with his first spear before it broke. He grabbed a second weapon.
“Go on! Go on!” he commanded. “Let none survive!”
Vixa ploughed onward, turning this way and that, helping the sea brothers chase down any chilkit they saw moving. The ocean became so thick with chilkit blood, she no longer tasted the sea’s salt, only a sickening sweetness.
The broken wall at the mouth of the Mortas Trench appeared. Vixa rose and shot through the gap. Below, red-shelled creatures were pouring back down the dark slope, seeking escape from the vengeful sea elves.
Coryphene had no intention of letting them go. He rallied his scattered dolphin riders and ordered the last battalion of firelancers to follow them. Tired but exuberant Dargonesti cheered him and followed in his wake.
Vixa swam mechanically now. Exhaustion was sapping her will. The dolphins, with and without riders, sped deeper and deeper into the black water. A running fight ensued as individual chilkit turned to make their stand in the murky shadows. Their bravery surprised Vixa, who had grown used to thinking of them as cruel and mindless monsters. They were not. They helped their own wounded comrades, defending them from fresh attacks. But they were too scattered to offer an effective defense. Whenever four or five chilkit banded together, firelancers were called to put them to the torch. Soon the trench floor was lit by a dozen burning gnomefires.
Vixa left only once, taking in fresh air. Angling back down to the seafloor, she rounded a bend in the trench and saw a red glow that wasn’t gnomefire. Ripples of unpleasantly hot water washed by her. The floor of the trench had split open, and lava was oozing out of the seabed. The red snake of molten rock filled the rift for miles.
Suddenly, Naxos appeared at her side. “Coryphene means to slaughter them all!” he exclaimed.
“Why? The battle is won.”
“He is drunk with destruction. The chilkit are completely broken, yet still he wages war. Sea brothers are put in danger for no reason!”
“I’ll talk to him,” she said as she shot away from Naxos. She had no idea what she might say, but she had to try.
In the hot, weird waters of the trench, Vixa swam slowly along a line of Dargonesti foot soldiers. At their head she found the dolphin riders, led by Coryphene.
“The day is ours, Princess!” he exulted.
“You have defeated them utterly, Excellence. The battle is over.”
He shook his head. “None must survive. They will only threaten our children someday.”
“Talk to them then. Make peace with them. There’s no need for more Dargonesti lives to be lost.”
“Talk to monsters? You’ve seen them in battle-do they know anything of mercy?” She had no answer.
Vixa swam away. The last chilkit had their backs to the lava flow. Faced with gnomefire on the one hand and lava on the other, they charged the Dargonesti. Many sea elves died in that last charge, perishing in a battle they’d already won. Coryphene pressed the enemy with firelances. The remaining chilkit withdrew to a low mound. Lava flowed around the base and climbed its sides. Coryphene called his warriors back at last.
The chilkit stood fast, holding steady in the midst of the lava stream. Gradually, the lava reached them, and covered them. When the last chilkit was engulfed, Coryphene ordered a quick retreat, for the ocean was near to boiling.
The plain between the Mortas Trench and Urione presented a grisly scene. Thousands of Dargonesti were pouring out of the city now that the chilkit were defeated. They covered the plain, dispatching wounded chilkit with clubs, gaffs, even rocks. Chilkit claws were hacked off as edible trophies, and the bodies thrown on the still-burning gnomefires. Patrolling dolphins kept the sharks at bay while the carnage went on.
Coryphene was spotted as he returned from the trench. Ten thousand arms raised in salute. Ten thousand Dargonesti voices keened in triumph. The Protector accepted the adulation with a wave of his last spear.
The moment of victory was spoiled, however, as a single dolphin hurtled into view. Naxos brushed Coryphene with his powerful flukes, knocking the Protector from Kios’s back.
“Traitor!” Coryphene hissed. “Blasphemer!”
“Whom have I betrayed? You?”
“You have betrayed your lawful sovereign by consorting with the drylanders. You have blasphemed our divine queen, and shared our sacred mysteries with a land-dweller. There she is!”
He pointed to Vixa with his spear. Frightened and embarrassed, she glared at them both.
Coryphene’s loyal troops drew close around him. Naxos taunted, “Leave your guards, Excellence. Face the sea brothers on your own!”
Hundreds of Dargonesti warriors shouted insults and threats at the lone shapeshifter. To her consternation, Vixa realized that none of the sea brothers were coming to their chief’s defense. Not even Kios, his second-in- command, had a word to say for Naxos.
“Face the sea brothers, you say?” Coryphene jeered. “I see only a single traitor who has no brothers.”
Naxos had been swimming with studied nonchalance several fathoms above Coryphene. In a flash of gray, he dove at the Protector. Coryphene stood ready, spear lying in the crook of his right arm. A dolphin Naxos’s size could shatter the armor of a chilkit. If he rammed Coryphene, there was no way the Protector could survive.
