The Coral Kingdom

Immediately the shaft began to grow, and as the twin feet appeared, the being braced them to either side of the hull, growing taller and taller until the leafy, branching form rivaled the height of the mast itself.

No earth elemental could serve the Great Druid here, but Robyn's powers drew from a broad arsenal. She barked a command, again calling on the power of her goddess, and this time her servant arose from the sea itself. A foaming, manlike shape grew from the waves beside the Manta, scrambling onto the raft and bashing several sahuagin overboard with watery-but very solid-limbs. Humanoid in shape, it grasped the Manta with two arms, pulling itself aboard the pitching craft where it stood up on two broad, sloshing feet.

The lurching figure of frothing brine possessed real crushing power in its Whitewater fists. The elemental scrambled across the raft and crushed any of the scaled monsters foolish enough to come within reach. Even the scrags tumbled away, battered and broken, from the summoned creature's powerful blows. Under the onslaught, the first rank of monsters fell back, leaving fifty or more of their number dead on the deck.

'Let's go! The path's as clear as it'll get!' cried Brandon, whooping and raising his battle-axe as he scrambled over the gunwale, followed by his crewmen and their Ffolk allies.

Brandon led his shouting northmen, with Hanrald, Alicia, and Brigit in their midst, against a mass of fishmen who had evaded the elemental and surged back to battle human foes. The two forces met in violent melees of hacking and stabbing, chopping, snarling, and hissing bodies. The cursing of wounded northmen mingled with the reptilian gasps of battered sea creatures.

The lurching figure of Alicia's changestaff lifted itself methodically over the rail of the longship, and though it staggered on the planks of the pitching raft, it picked up a squirming sahuagin and snapped the creature's spine with a twist of the tree's great limbs.

From the afterdeck of the longship, Tavish took up her lute and sent forth a martial song. Her fingers struck the strings of the enchanted instrument, a treasure from the tomb of Cymrych Hugh himself, bestowed upon the bard by the will of the goddess. Now she called upon those strings for all the power at their command.

Chords resonated in the wooden box, rolling across the combatants with different effects. The music attacked the creatures of the sea with raw violence, an excruciating assault against their senses. The jarring force of the notes forced some of the sahuagin back, driving many of them to press their hands over their heads in an attempt to block out the horrendous noise. Even the scrags barked and growled, discomfited and annoyed by the sounds.

To the humans, charging onto the pitching deck of the Manta, the music sounded a trumpet cry of courage, urging them forward in a cause they knew must be just. Hoarse northmen bellowed cries of battle, mingling with the bard's vibrant notes, and Hanrald and Alicia shouted the name of Callidyrr as they raised their swords and charged across the heaving planks of the Manta's deck.

A lightning bolt crackled over Alicia's head, blasting a gap in the rank of sahuagin standing ready to meet her. Hanrald's two-handed sword chopped a pair of the creatures in half, while Alicia stabbed one and quickly parried another's return blow. The second one lunged a fatal step too far, and her dripping blade drove through its neck to make her second clean kill.

Alicia saw her changestaff slip and fall, splashing through one of the slots in the hull, but then the limbs extended across the rowing bench, and slowly the stiff wooden shape scrambled back to the Manta. A huge scrag leaped at it, splintering one armlike limb with a crushing axe blow, but the tree being's other arm wrapped swiftly around the scrag's ankles, pulling the beast to the deck. The monster howled in pain as the wooden form twisted its body into a crippled mass of scaly flesh, finally tossing the grotesque thing to the sharks.

'Attack! Take the fight right to 'em!' bellowed Brandon, gathering his crew for a charge.

The water elemental and the prince led the lumbering assault. The humans formed a V-shaped wave with Brandon at the point as they battled their way across the rocking deck of the Manta. Several men fell through the rowing slots in the chaos of the battle, plunging into water churning with hungry sharks, but there was no stopping to save them as the battle rose to a furious pitch.

Alicia's vision focused on an array of fang-studded mouths and ripping, wickedly curved talons. Her blade claimed victim after victim, and she drew comfort from Hanrald's steady presence at her side. On the other side of the earl, Brigit Cu'Lyrran held her own, her silvery longsword streaked with the green, red, and black blood of their fishlike enemies.

Robyn advanced in the rear of the attacking wave, going to each of the sea trolls wounded or temporarily slain in the battle. To these wretched predators she touched the tip of her staff, and the body crackled into flame, sputtering an oily cloud of black smoke into the air. The legs and arms of the horrid beasts shriveled into the flames as the magical fires devoured their grotesque fuel.

Arrows showered overhead as the longbowmen, standing at the rail of the Princess of Moonshae, continued to support the attack. When the assault carried halfway across the Manta, a huge scrag organized a counterattack, a rush of monsters that took the humans by surprise. Several crewmen fell, and Alicia lost her footing on the blood-and-water-slicked deck.

She teetered at the brink of a foaming slot in the deck, sensing the sharks thrashing below, eager for her blood. Desperately she reached out, but her hand slipped across the slick timbers. Then she felt a firm grip under her arm, and Keane pulled her backward, just beyond the thrust of a monstrous scrag. Her feet splashed into the water, and she felt a sharp cut in her calf as a snapping shark narrowly missed a meal.

The mage barked a command word as a sea troll-the hugest Alicia had ever seen-raised a monstrous trident. Keane pointed over Alicia's head, and she saw bolts of magic explode from the mage's outstretched finger, each of the missiles spattering into the chest of the monster, driving it steadily backward until, after nearly a dozen blasts, a mass of sahuagin rushed forward, blocking the magic-user's line of fire. The fishmen swarmed around the water elemental, and though many of them fell from the creature's crushing blows, finally the enchanted being collapsed into water, flowing back into the sea from which he had come.

Brandon personally led a charge toward the huge scrag. The other monsters deferred to the great creature, who wielded a monstrous double-bladed sword. The Prince of Gnarhelm struck at the thing with his axe, and the sea troll slowly, steadily gave ground.

Hanrald and Knaff the Elder stepped in to guard the captain's flanks, while Alicia turned to look back to her mother, intent on protecting her against any monsters who might break through the rank of northmen. She saw a monstrous sea troll fell a crewman and charge forward with an upraised spear aimed straight at the High Queen's heart!

But Alicia leaped across a slot of churning seawater, getting there first, chopping savagely to hamstring the charging monster before it could cast its weapon. The beast fell and she cut its throat, stabbing hard to penetrate the scrag's scaly armor. Quickly her mother stepped to her side, stamping her staff against the sea troll and starting its incineration.

Brandon and the monstrous scrag chopped and slashed back and forth, the northman swinging his great battle-axe with bone-crushing force, the scrag wielding the massive sword as if he were a lumberjack striving to fell a tree with a single blow. Again and again the two metal blades clashed together, neither fighter able to gain an advantage as they leaped and dodged across the blood-slicked planks of the Manta's deck.

Cries of alarm drew their attention back to the Princess of Moonshae, where they saw a dozen sea trolls scrambling over the sides-the type of attack Brandon had suspected. But the longbowmen were ready, throwing down their missile weapons and meeting the attack with cold steel. The ten Ffolk archers battled desperately to hold the longship, and though three had fallen by the time Hanrald reached them with reinforcements, the scrags were all slain or sent bleeding back to the depths.

The huge scrag battling Brandon lunged for the captain, sweeping his great sword through a great arc with enough force to slice a human body in two if it connected. The northman ducked as the blade whistled toward him, barely evading the strike. As Brandon sprang back to his feet, the double-bitted axe whipped upward, the edge biting deep into the scrag's belly. The monster howled and dropped the sword, which bounced off the deck and vanished into the sea. The scrag spun, ready to dive after the weapon, but Brandon's blade struck again, squarely between the monster's shoulders. It fell to the deck with a thud as the Prince of Gnarhelm chopped it again, this time fatally. In another moment Robyn reached them, touching her staff to incinerate the beast before it could regenerate.

Next Keane and Robyn combined to sweep a surging wall of flame across the last corner of the Manta where they still met resistance, finally clearing the enemy vessel of foes. Fires smoldered in many places where Robyn had torched the bodies of the sea trolls, and the frame of the raft itself burned in several spots.