Vixa had been so riveted by this interplay, she’d sacrificed vigilance. Several warriors seized her. She struggled, but was too exhausted and too outnumbered to escape.
Coryphene dropped his spear butt to the top of his right foot and, with one powerful kick, launched the weapon at Naxos. The shapeshifter twisted to avoid the flashing spear, but it caught him on the back, just behind his dorsal fin. Coryphene looked on impassively as Naxos thrashed and rolled, trying to dislodge the spear. Vixa heard the shaft snap. The head remained embedded. In a welter of sand and blood, Naxos sped away, inches off the ocean floor.
“Let him go,” Coryphene told his guard. “The sharks shall be his healers.”
The Protector glanced around. Kios and the other sea brothers had scattered. They were gone in the blink of an eye, their chance to support their chief likewise vanished. Coryphene Wallbuilder stood amid the scene of his greatest victory, uncontested master of Urione.
Chapter 14
Four Dargonesti warriors towed Vixa back into the city. They heaved her out of the water and onto a quay. No sooner had her flukes left the water than she felt great heat wash over her. Concentrate, she told herself wearily. Visualize yourself as elven.
Without the water to cool her, the heat of her dolphin form continued to build. She shuddered and closed her eyes, trying to clear her mind of everything except the desire to be elven once more. She felt the strange stretching of her limbs as first arms, then legs returned. Instantly, cold flooded her elven body. Goosebumps rose on flesh that was still fading from dolphin-black to Qualinesti-pale. The quay upon which she lay felt like an ice floe.
Coryphene emerged from the pool. For the first time Vixa saw the many injuries he’d sustained in battle. Slashes, scratches, and violet bruises covered his bare torso and limbs. He beckoned to a waiting elf who held a long cloak of woven seaweed for the Protector. She was surprised when Coryphene had the cloak draped around her instead of himself. Then he helped her to stand.
Vixa’s teeth chattered uncontrollably. Her knees buckled, but Coryphene supported her with one arm.
“I’m ill,” she muttered through blue lips.
“Your body is not meant to take the shape of a sea brother,” Coryphene said.
She shrugged free of his arm. “What punishment do you have planned for me?”
Wiping his wet hair back from his face with one hand, he exhaled gustily. “I am tired, lady. I must bear tidings of our victory to Her Divine Majesty now.” Coryphene stepped away from her. Giving her a brief, unreadable look, he turned away. “I will consider your disposition later.”
“Will you keep your word, Protector of Urione?” she called to his back. “Will you free the dryland captives?”
He gave no sign that he heard, but went to where his guard had formed up, in the archway leading into the city. The narrow street beyond was jammed with hysterical Dargonesti, intoxicated by the defeat of their enemy. Coryphene visibly steeled himself, squaring his shoulders and taking a deep breath, before plunging into the crowd.
He marched away with his warriors. Thousands cheered him as he passed.
The Qualinesti princess pulled the cloak more tightly around her shivering body and made her weary way toward the House of Arms.
The victory over the chilkit transformed the status of Gundabyr and the Qualinesti. No longer were they despised, for the population of Urione knew how the drylanders had contributed to the defeat of the enemy. Hostility turned to generosity. Armantaro and the dwarf could not show themselves in the street without being inundated with gifts and praise.
“If I eat any more, I’ll burst!” Gundabyr said. His vest buttons were straining to contain his protruding belly. Edible gifts filled the House of Arms-dried, seasoned fish, exotic sauces and jellies made from seaweed, live shrimp in tanks of water, Dargonesti nectar-on and on the list went. Armantaro divided the spoils among the remaining dryland captives. It was the best eating any of them had done in a long, long time.
Armantaro was staring into space, preoccupied with his own thoughts, so Gundabyr repeated his complaint.
“Then stop eating so much,” the colonel snapped. He’d eaten very little himself. The fiery sensation in his chest had killed his appetite. He spent his time worrying about his absent princess.
“What in the name of the Abyss has happened to her?” Armantaro demanded. It had been two days since they’d last seen Vixa. She had returned to the House of Arms after the final battle, wan, worn, and barely able to stand. After sleeping all that night and half the next day, Vixa had departed, refusing to tell even Armantaro where she was bound.
Any news the colonel and the dwarf had of the great battle, they’d gleaned from passing soldiers. Vixa had told them nothing. They knew she’d fought as a dolphin. They also knew that Naxos, the chief of the sea brothers, had crossed Coryphene and had been killed for his disloyalty.
“Maybe she’s with Coryphene,” suggested Gundabyr.
Armantaro stood up suddenly. “If he harms her …” the colonel rasped darkly.
“Why should he? She helped win the war, too.”
“If he trifles with her, he’ll wish the chilkit had taken him!” The vehemence of this statement surprised Gundabyr. He hadn’t realized the depth of fatherly feeling the old Qualinesti colonel had for his young commander.
“If she can fight off red-shelled monsters, she can probably handle one blueskin,” Gundabyr said dryly “She did pretty well as a dolphin.”
Armantaro frowned. That aspect of the situation did not please him either. The colonel felt Naxos had manipulated her into becoming a shapeshifter. The more he thought about it, the angrier it made him. He stalked away from the dwarf.
“Where are you going?” Gundabyr called.
“To find Princess Vixa.”
Gundabyr, opening a fresh pot of caviar, sighed. “You know how the blueskins are these days. You’ll be mobbed by adoring Quoowahb before you get five paces out the door.”
This was only too true. Armantaro rummaged through the gifts of clothing piled in the center of the great room. Among these was a fine sharkskin cape covered in silver scales. He whipped this around his neck and pulled the hood up.
“I’ll pass for one of them,” he said confidently. “They’ll leave me alone.”
“Oh, yes, a short albino Quoowahb-that’s you all right. You’re a stubborn cuss, you know that? Here the Dargonesti are finally beginning to make up for their treatment of us, and you want to go and antagonize their leader, a fellow with a temper the size of the whole southern sea. Don’t you remember Nissia, Colonel? Do you want to end up a prisoner again?”
“As far as I can tell, I still am a prisoner. Better fed and warmer, maybe, but a prisoner nonetheless.”
Armantaro swept from the room. No Dargonesti stood guard, so no one challenged him.
The victory celebrations had finally died down, and the streets were nearly deserted. Armantaro kept the hood close around his face. The House of Arms was some twenty levels below the palace. Climbing the wide ramp upward took most of Armantaro’s strength. More than once he had to sit down and gasp for breath. On the floor just below the palace, he left the central way. No sense barging right in-Coryphene’s magical barrier would warn him if anyone entered the palace by that means.
This level housed the armory, the barracks of the Protector’s guards, storehouses of food and drink for the royal residence, and the Dargonesti treasury. Armantaro avoided the well-guarded barracks and treasury, skulking
