two drylanders skulking about. At the end of the street, they came to the pink granite wall that was the city’s outer shell, unbroken by the arched openings found on the upper floors.
Vixa snarled at the bad luck. Time was running out. She’d been worrying constantly about Naxos ever since Coryphene’s soldiers had captured her. What if he was already dead in that cold, wet cave?
“Over here, Princess!”
Just a few yards away, Gundabyr had found a staircase leading down to the next level. He descended; Vixa hurried after him. She could see the flicker of light reflecting off water at the bottom of the stairway.
When she reached bottom, a glad sight greeted her eyes. There were pools in the floor of this level every dozen feet or so. Vixa sat on the edge of one. Before she entered, she said, “You won’t understand me when I’m a dolphin, but I will understand you. Once I change, fill up the bag with air and get on my back.”
She slipped into the water, picturing her dolphin form. The black-and-white shape was becoming as familiar as her elven one. She no longer felt afraid as her body stiffened. The immobility would pass quickly. She sank beneath the surface. In seconds, she was two-legged no more, but when her dolphin head broke the surface she saw that the situation had changed dramatically. A squad of Dargonesti warriors was coming on the run toward the pool. They had their spears leveled.
Since escaping the grotto, Gundabyr had been quite happy to stay dry, having no fondness for the water. Now, however, he didn’t hesitate, but leapt into the pool. In a heartbeat, he was seated on Vixa’s muscular back, clinging tightly with his knees. He whirled the sack about his head, filling it with air.
“Go, go!” he shouted, thumping his heels against her flanks. She shook her head side to side, gesturing with her beak toward the amphora still sitting by the pool.
“Reorx save me,” groaned the dwarf. He snagged the braided handle of the jug, slipping it over his neck. The Dargonesti were only twenty paces away. Clutching his inflated sack in one hand, Gundabyr grabbed her dorsal fin with the other.
“Now,
Behind her, the princess could hear loud splashes as the Dargonesti dove into the pool. Her course was erratic, as the unfamiliar weight of the dwarf on her back made it difficult for her to swim straight.
They swam through an archway into the open sea. Vixa heard numerous cries as the Dargonesti shouted for her to stop and called for sea brothers to intercept her. She headed toward the ruined wall across the Mortas Trench and thanked all the gods that the spears would not travel far underwater.
Gray dolphins flashed by her. Sea brothers! Vixa stubbornly stuck to her course. The big shapeshifted dolphins zoomed before and behind her. What were they playing at? she wondered. With their speed and power, they could ram her into submission easily. But they didn’t.
“What are you doing?” she demanded in the high-pitched water-tongue.
“No need to shout,” said a friendly voice close by. Vixa cocked an eye astern and saw Kios keeping pace with her.
“Are you chasing me or not?”
Kios surged ahead of her. “If we wanted to catch you, Sister, we would.”
“Then what’s your game?”
“This is a show, for Coryphene’s troopers. We’ll tell them you evaded us. For now, take me to Naxos.”
Her only response was to swim harder. Vixa didn’t trust Kios, but what could she do? With Gundabyr on her back, she knew she had no chance to outrun or outmaneuver the sea brothers.
Six dolphins blasted through the breach in the wall made by the chilkit-Vixa, Kios, and four more sea brothers. Vixa headed directly for the tunnel leading to Naxos’s hiding place, all the while praying she wasn’t bringing him his death.
As soon as Gundabyr’s head burst into the air, he gave a glad cry. Vixa carried him to the pool’s edge, by Naxos’s hiding place. The dwarf clambered out of the water. Vixa reverted to elven form and joined him. Kios also resumed his two-legged shape, though the other shapeshifters remained as they were.
Naxos appeared to be unconscious. Most of the color had drained from his skin, and he wasn’t moving. Vixa knelt by him.
“What’s in that jug?” asked Kios as Vixa unplugged the amphora.
“The water of Zura,” she said bluntly. “He said it would cure him.”
“Oh, it will cure his wound. But he will become undead, like the Shades of Zura.”
Appalled, Vixa shoved the plug back in the amphora. She remembered the bloodless, empty faces of the priests she’d seen in Zura’s temple. Naxos would become like them!
“What can we do?” she moaned.
Naxos stirred. “Vixa,” he murmured, “and the Firebringer. Who’s that with you?”
“It is I, Kios.”
“Come to finish me off, Brother?”
“I could. Coryphene would shower me with riches if I brought him your head.”
“Traitor.” The voice was weak, but the anger very apparent.
“Ah, the things you say. Where is your famous wit, Naxos? I thought you would trade quips with Death himself when the time came.”
“I’m too tired to trade anything. Kill me, or give me the water of Zura. I am weary of pain and cold.”
Kios took the amphora from Vixa. Without hesitation, he dashed the jug against the stone wall. Into the stunned silence, he said, “It wouldn’t do for the chief of the sea brothers to become undead.”
“Chief?” Naxos whispered. “Am I still?”
“You’ve never been anything else.” Kios went to the edge of the pool and gave orders to the remaining shapeshifters. The four dolphins submerged. When he returned, Kios brought back seawater in his cupped hands. He trickled this over Naxos’s drying gills. Vixa and Gundabyr rushed to follow his example.
“Look here, my brother,” Kios said, as the other two continued to minister to Naxos, “you confronted Coryphene in the middle of a battlefield, surrounded by thousands of his loyal soldiers. By the Fisher, Naxos, he’d just led them to victory over the chilkit! I had to profess loyalty to him on the spot. You should have done the same.”
“Coryphene has no confidence in my sincerity,” Naxos murmured.
“But he does in mine. If I had defied him, it would have meant civil war, then and there. The time was not right for us to resist, but it soon will be. Coryphene and the queen are leaving the city.”
“Leaving?” Naxos was stunned. “To go where?”
“They are marching on Silvanost,” Vixa supplied. “Uriona says she’s received a prophecy that if she is crowned in the Tower of the Stars, she will rule all the elven nations.”
“Hail, goddess Uriona,” mocked Naxos.
Kios shook his head. “Don’t be so certain of her madness. I have seen the preparations. They will take ten thousand warriors to the dry land and attack the city of our ancestors. Uriona has persuaded four thousand of the Shoal Dwellers to join the attack as well.”
Naxos snorted. “Dimernesti nomads can’t be trusted.”
“No, but they have been promised booty.”
“What sort of troops does Coryphene have?” asked Vixa.
“Six thousand spearcarriers, two thousand netcasters, a thousand firelancers, and a thousand picked troops armed with drylander swords. Those include Coryphene’s personal guard.”
“All infantry,” she mused. “Have they no cavalry?”
“In the old country, the Waveriders fought mounted on hippocampi, but none of them followed Uriona into exile. The army is all afoot. Except for the sea brothers.” Kios grinned. Weak as he was, Naxos returned the wicked smile.
“What do you find so amusing?” Vixa asked suspiciously.
“Coryphene relies on us to be his scouts,” Naxos said.
“And once he’s on the march, he’ll find that all the sea brothers have vanished,” concluded Kios. He rubbed his pale blue palms together. “We’ll double back and seize the city!”
“No,” said Naxos, shaking his head. “You can’t hope to hold the city against Coryphene’s army. Better to disperse, live wild in the sea.”
Gundabyr, who’d remained in the background during this discussion, finally spoke up. “Hey, what about us?
