this ship was perfectly smooth and very hard-it had been grown from crystal and provided no handholds for the scrags to grasp. Nor could the creatures break through it with their teeth or talons. They would be forced to fight, and on elven terms.
A small, grim smile tightened Anarzees lips, and she nodded first to the small Circle of High Magi, then to the archers who stood waiting by blazing fireboxes. 'It won't be long,' she murmured. 'Begin chanting the spell. Light the arrows… now!”
Even as she spoke, several pairs of scaly hands clutched at the rail. The archers dipped their arrows into the fire and took aim. Anarzee lifted one hand, her eyes intent upon the swarming scrags. Timing was crucial-if the archers fired too soon, the creatures would simply fall back into the water, where the flames would die and the creatures' arrow-torn flesh regenerate.
The sea trolls moved fast, and they often moved together like enormous, schooling fish. In the span of two heartbeats, all the scrags had swarmed aboard. It was a large hunting party-over a score of full-grown trolls.
Anarzee dropped her hand and shrieked, 'Now!'
Flaming arrows streaked toward the scrags, sending them staggering back toward the side of the ship. Some of the creatures began to climb the rail, instinctively heading for the safety of the waves.
But at that moment the magi's spell was unleashed. With a sound that suggested a hundred goblets shattering against a wall, the crystal vials embedded in the rail exploded and released the fluid that bubbled within. A wall of flame leapt up all along the ship's rail, barring the scrags' escape and setting alight many of those that had escaped the archers flaming arrows.
Shrieking and flailing, the burning trolls instinctively darted away from the eldritch flame behind them. Elven warriors rushed forward to meet them, armed with protective spells against the heat and flame. They fought with grim fury, determined that no scrag would break through their line. Slowly, inexorably, they pressed the dying trolls back into the flames.
It seemed to Anarzee that the fire and the battle raged for hours, but she knew it could not truly be so. Trolls burned quickly. Behind the warrior elves, the Circle continued chanting the magic that sustained both the fighters and the flame-and that kept the fire from breaking past the wall of elven warriors. Sooner than Anarzee had dared to hope possible, the battle neared its end.
It was then that the sahuagin came. The first one to board the ship did so not of its own will or power. Shrieking and thrashing, a sahuagin tumbled through the wall of flame-no doubt having been picked up bodily by its comrades and thrown through the magic fire. Like a living bombard, the sahuagin hurtled toward the elven defenders.
A startled elf managed to bring his sword up in time, impaling the creature as it fell. But the weight of the fish-man brought the elf down, too.
The sahuagin might have been unwilling at first, but it knew what to do now. Claws and teeth scrabbled and tore at the pinned elf's face and neck. By the time the elves pulled the creature off their brother, the sahuagin horde had claimed its first kill.
Other sahuagin followed in like manner, tossed up onto the ship by the unseen creatures beyond and falling like hideous hail upon the deck. Some of them survived the fall, and the battle began anew.
Anarzee spun toward the magi. 'The flame wall slows them down, but it cannot keep them out! What else can you do?'
The white-haired male who served as Center pondered briefly. 'We can heat the water right around the ship itself to scalding. What creatures this does not kill, it will drive off.'
She frowned. 'And the ship?'
'It will be at risk,' the mage admitted. 'The heat will make the crystal hull more brittle and fragile. But even if the sahuagin were to understand this weakness, they could not stand the heat long enough to take advantage.'
'Do it,' Anarzee said tersely, for there was little time to waste in speech. A sahuagin had broken through the fighting. Its black, webbed feet slapped the deck as it raced toward the magi's Circle.
The priestess snatched a harpoon from the weapon rack and braced it against her hip. At the last moment, the creature veered away, slashing out with its claws-not at the armed elf woman, but at one of the chanting magi.
Anarzee leaped at the sahuagin, thrusting out with all her strength. The harpoon sank home. She dropped the weapon at once, sickened by the dying creature's screams, which were echoed by a hellish chorus of the scalded sahuagin in the seething sea beyond.
For a moment, it all threatened to overwhelm her-the scent of burning troll flesh, the slick wash of elven blood and vile ichor upon the crystal deck, the pervasive cloud of evil that surrounded the sea creatures. The priestess closed her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath.
In that brief moment, all was lost.
The dying sahuagin seized the nearest weapon-the still-smoldering, severed hand of a troll that lay on the deck nearby. With all its remaining strength, the sahuagin hurled the hand at the white-haired mage who acted as Center to the circle of spellcasters. The sahuagin's aim was true, and the scrag hand clamped around the elf's throat in a killing grip. Smoking black talons sought the vessels of life, and plunged in deep.
When the Center died, the magic of the Circle simply dissolved. The wall of fire that warded the ship flared high, then disappeared. The billowing steam from the magically heated sea wafted off to become just one more fleecy cloud in a summer sky. In the sudden silence, the elven magi looked about, dazed and disoriented, as they struggled to emerge from the disrupted spell.
At that moment a dull, clinking thud resounded through the ship, and then another. The sahuagin survivors had returned to renew the fight. The sea was too vast, too alive with movement, for the heated water to remain a barrier for long.
The captain of the elven fighters ran to Anarzee's side. 'The sahuagin have metal weapons,' she said urgently. 'It is possible that they will break through the weakened hull. If we are thrown into the water, we can do nothing to fight them.'
'Not as we are,' the priestess agreed.
In a few terse words, she told the captain of the desperate plan that was forming in her mind. The warrior nodded her agreement without hesitation, and hastened off to prepare her fighters for what might befall them. This ship and the elves who sailed it were doomed, but if the gods were willing, they might yet serve the People of Evermeet.
Anarzee fell to her knees and began the most earnest prayer of her life. She called upon Deep Sashales, not for deliverance, but for transformation.
As she prayed, the air around her seemed to change, to become unnaturally thin and dry. Her hearing took on new dimensions, as well. She could hear the terrible thuds and crackles that bespoke the shattering hull, and the whoops and cackling laughter of the triumphant sahuagin. But mingled with this airborne cacophony were other, subtler and more distant sounds-sounds from beneath the waves themselves.
As water lapped over the deck and soaked the kneeling priestess's robe, Anarzee found that she did not fear the depths, or the creatures in them. She leaped to her feet and ripped off the encumbering garments of a land- dwelling elf. Snatching up a harpoon with a newly webbed hand, the priestess-now a Sea elf-leaped from the dying ship and into the waves.
All around her, the new-made Sea elves fell upon the sahuagin with weapons and magic. This wonder cheered the priestess and sped her in battle, for naturally born Sea elves did not possess magic! This was what was needed to defeat the Coral Kingdom. Why had she not seen it sooner? As magic-wielded sea People, what a force they would be for Evermeet's defense!
Only much later, when the sahuagin were defeated and driven away, when the exhilaration of battle slipped away and the euphoria of victory faded, did the full realization of her sacrifice strike home.
Anarzee did not regret what she had done, nor did any of the other elves cast recriminations upon her. All were pledged to protect Evermeet, and they were resigned to do so as fate decreed.
But oh, what she had lost!
That evening, the Sea-elven priestess slipped from the waves to walk silently upon the rocky shores under Craulnober Keep. As she anticipated, her Darthoridan was there, gazing out to sea with eyes glazed with grief. She stopped several paces from him, and softly called his name.
