The Coral Kingdom

'Makes sense. Save the arrows for the sahuagin and scrags,' Brandon agreed.

'Look!' For an hour or more, Knaff the elder had been observing a strange blot on the northern horizon, until finally he made his terse announcement, calling the discovery to the attention of the others.

'It's one of those damned flat ships!' cursed the captain as soon as he saw the object. He looked critically at the sun, the sail, and then back to the pursuing Manta.

'They'll be on us with hours of daylight to spare,' he announced cryptically.

Robyn came to the stern and looked. 'I could try to raise the wind…' she said tentatively, turning to look at the Prince of Gnarhelm.

Brandon met her gaze, then shook his head firmly from side to side.

'There's only one of 'em now. I think we should take our chances in a fair fight. We're sailing into the heart of their territory, and it doesn't make sense to let that ship hug our tail while we do it!'

'I agree,' Alicia said firmly, turning to her mother. 'And we serve no purpose exhausting you before we get there!' The princess's readiness for battle surprised even herself, but Alicia found herself looking forward to crossing blades with the aquatic horrors on the Manta. After the long days of travel and repair and further travel, her emotions distressed her. Brandon continued to make her nervous, and she couldn't look at Keane without a stab of guilt.

It seemed proper now that they would begin to settle this matter, writing the solution in blood.

True to Brandon's prediction, the Manta had closed to within a few hundred feet by midafternoon. Alicia studied its approach, clearly able to distinguish the long platforms separated by strips of churning sea. Hundreds of fishmen paddled furiously, and the blunt prow of the raft rode up on the swells, the flatship surging forward like a great flying fish.

The humans readied themselves for battle, and it seemed to the princess that her mood was shared by the rest of the crew. She saw no reluctance to face the sea beasts. Indeed, many of the men displayed smiles of grim satisfaction at the prospect of battle.

As the splashing raft drew steadily nearer, the crew of the longship studied their foes and prepared to mount a defense. First to strike were the Corwellian longbowmen.

'Aim for the sahuagin, men!' Hanrald urged. 'Your arrows'll be wasted on the sea trolls!'

The ten Ffolk archers fired volley after volley of steel-headed death from their powerful weapons. Most of the missiles angled with precision onto the unprotected decks and rowing benches of the Manta, and dozens of the scaly fishmen squirmed from the impact of the deadly rain. Their comrades simply pitched the slain over the sides to lighten the load for those remaining. Sharks swarmed among the corpses, relishing the gruesome feast.

The High Queen faced the approaching craft and held her staff in both hands. Alicia, beside her, carried the changestaff for the time being, but her sword rested in its scabbard at her belt. More arrows poured onto the Manta, but they seemed to put little dent in the teeming sea beasts.

Then, to the horror of the humans, the raft surged forward, veering toward the longship's rear quarter. The prow of the Manta, Alicia saw, was not so blunt as she had imagined. In fact, it narrowed to a sharklike snout, and through the froth of the wake, they could see the gray reflection of a metal-tipped ram!

Robyn recognized the impending disaster clearly, and she raised a prayer to the goddess Earthmother. Even through the deck of the longship, past the thousands of feet of brine into the ocean depth, the power of the great druid touched that of her deity and the words of the spell came forth.

'Cadeus, devor-ast!' cried the High Queen, and the command words touched the power of wood. Trees were the most stately children of the goddess, and thus ever susceptible to her will, even after they had been torn from the earth, their timber turned to the uses of creatures such as humans … or sea trolls.

Timber such as the heavy shaft of the ram.

Robyn's spell warped the great beam, twisting it downward and forming a great curl back toward the Manta. The creaking force of the twisting wood shrieked against their ears, but the shaft did not splinter. Instead, it held its new shape, the great timber curling downward into the water, pointed harmlessly toward the ocean floor. The sudden increase in drag slowed the great raft like an anchor, and disaster was averted for the moment. As the Manta lurched to the side, waves of water rolled over the long rowing benches, dragging the craft still slower and carrying many of the sahuagin right off their vessel.

A huge scrag, wild strands of weedy hair blowing around its head, snapped and shouted at the crew members, many of whom scrambled back aboard and returned to their places on the long benches. Slowly the flat ship picked up speed, until it again approached the pace of its quarry.

But though no longer threatened by the ram, the Princess of Moonshae couldn't pull away from the deceptively swift vessel. Keane cast a fireball against the bow of the Manta, incinerating a dozen sahuagin and a trio of scrags-but even that lethal explosion made little dent in the numbers on the wide raft.

The thing was surprisingly huge, Alicia saw-far bigger than she had previously imagined. Not only was it longer than the Princess of Moonshae, but the Manta's tremendous beam also increased its carrying capacity by dozens of times. She counted six of the great rowing benches, each little more than a long pole running fore to aft, straddled by dozens of sahuagin. From the pole the creatures dipped their paddles into the water that slid below them. The Manta had five long slots in its deck for just this purpose.

The sharks swarmed in closer, as if they, too, sensed imminent bloodshed. Several more sahuagin, slain by arrows, toppled into the water, and the ravenous shark pack immediately swarmed around them. The blood in the water drove the fish into a frenzy, and the surface of the sea roiled from the savage orgy of feeding.

'We can't keep this up forever!' Brandon declared, drawing Robyn and Keane aside.

'What do you suggest?' inquired the queen.

'We attack,' the Prince of Gnarhelm stated bluntly. 'We grapple with the bastards. We kill them or kick them off of that accursed raft, and then we burn the thing!'

'They outnumber us ten to one,' objected Robyn. 'That's too rash!'

'More like five to one,' suggested Keane, who was studying the Manta intently. He frowned in concentration. 'Of course, we'll need to leave a guard behind on the Princess. It wouldn't do to have them swim under her and come up on the far side.'

'You're not seriously thinking of this, are you?' pressed Robyn, turning to the magic-user. Then her brows tightened. She knew the time for debate and decision was short, and finally she sighed. 'I don't have any other solution. Let's do it.'

'The sharks. . they might keep the fishmen out of the water,' suggested Alicia, who had joined them.

'Too risky. They kill the wounded, sure, but they're under the control of the same forces. Better to leave the bowmen on the longship. They'll have to use swords if it comes to that. Bring up the casks of oil. We'll need help if we're going to burn the raft.'

Within a few minutes, the plans for the attack had been made. The Manta plunged along to the rear, within long bowshot range, but the archers had ceased shooting some time ago in order to conserve their arrows.

'Now!'

On Brandon's command, Knaff brought the longship into a tight turn to port, cutting across the Manta's path. The monsters howled as they surged forward, once again closing the gap while the Princess of Moonshae veered across the raft's bow. Gradually the ungainly Manta began to swerve after them, but now the longship cut back, carving a broad S on the sea before the plunging raft.

Both vessels had slowed considerably during the maneuver, and when Brandon gave the command, his northmen plunged a dozen oars into the water, bringing the Princess of Moonshae to a sudden stop. As the Manta surged alongside, humans cast hooks and harpoons, each attached to a long line anchored to the longship's hull. Some twenty of these grapples stuck, and in the blink of an eye the two huge vessels lunged together, hulls grinding, lashed in a battle to the death.

Bowmen poured volley after volley into the monsters at the edge of the raft. Keane called upon lightning and fire, raking one bench with a lightning bolt that blasted two dozen sahuagin to pieces. He sent a great fireball to blossom in the middle of the enemy troops, sending many more of them hissing and shrieking into the sea. Next Keane pounded the Manta with meteors, huge stones that splintered pieces of timber from the hull, crushing the scaly warriors struck by the magical bombardment.

'Phyrosyne!' cried Alicia, stamping the base of her staff against the hull, hoping the tree creature could maintain its balance better than it had the first time she had summoned it in the longship.