'Hence your strategy,' Hylas said sourly. 'Don't attack, simply repel the enemy when they make a foray.'
'As you say.'
'Had it occurred to you that the crabmen were simply going to whittle down your force a bit at a time until they overwhelmed you and massacred the townsfolk in the end?'
'I thought I was buying time until reinforcements could arrive,' I said. 'Even now, knowing they won't be coming, I can't see a sound alternative. If you can, I'd rejoice to hear it.'
He scowled. 'When I do, you will. Dismissed.' As I turned away, I heard him murmur, 'Curse this wretched place.'
Hylas was taken aback when I led him to the window and showed him the line of folk waiting in the street.
'Petitioners,' he said flatly, repeating what I'd told him a moment before.
'Yes, sir,' I replied. 'As First Captain, you hold authority in all matters, civil and military alike.'
'I know that,' the knight said irritably, 'but isn't there a bailiff or reeve to attend to this sort of thing?'
There were, but I'd instructed them to make themselves scarce. 'As you keep remarking,' I said blandly, 'Port LJast is a small town.'
'Very well,' he sighed. 'Show them in one at a time.
The first supplicant, a young but careworn widow, smelled of blood and hobbled in with the aid of a crutch. A crabman had maimed her, and the wounds were slow to heal. Six children with pinched, hungry faces followed along in her wake.
When she stood before Hylas, she tried to curtsey, and nearly lost her balance. The knight sprang from his chair, darted around his desk, and took hold of her arm to steady her.
That isn't necessary, mistress,' he said. He looked at me. 'Fetch a chair.' I did, and we saw her safely seated. 'Now, how can I help you?'
The widow swallowed. 'It's the dole. We don't want to ask for more than our fair share, but it's never enough to see us through the tenday. I have so many little ones,' she concluded apologetically.
'Now that the fishing boats can't go out, First Captain Dothwintyl thought it prudent to ration the food supply,' I explained.
'Well, I want this woman and her family…' Hylas faltered as his head caught up with his heart. 'Do we know exactly how much food there is, and how quickly the village is running through it?'
'Ill get the ledgers,' I said.
My notion was that by rubbing Hylas's nose in the town's woes, I'd show him that the defense of Port Llast was a mission worthy of his talents. To some extent, it seemed to work. Over the course of the next few days, he received the villagers courteously, and did his best to ameliorate their difficulties.
Yet it was plain that he was still impatient to return south, where a dashing cavalier could win renown. Indeed, it was possible that my efforts only made him even more eager to crush the threat to the settlement quickly. I feared that, his'previous experience notwithstanding, he'd eventually insist on assaulting the crab-men's lair, and the men shared my apprehension.
Instead, he hit on another plan. Alas, it was just as reckless.
The broad-beamed merchant cog was no warship, but at least it could carry more men than a fishing boat and was more maneuverable than a barge. As, sail cracking, timbers and rigging creaking, we put out to sea, the catapults on the cliffs looked down on us. The contraptions might well have annihilated a flotilla of pirates, but they were useless against the present foe.
I peered over the side, saw what I'd feared to see, and went to speak to Hylas. He stood at the bow, his red plume and cape fluttering in the wind, seemingly oblivious to the resentment in the faces of the men.
'Have you looked at the water?' I asked. Tester day's storm stirred up the bottom, just as I predicted You can barely see below the surface.'
'The murk may hide ordinary fish,' he replies serenely, 'but I'm sure we'll be able to spot a sea monster.'
'Not necessarily,' I said, 'not soon enough. This if the wrong day for this venture.'
'The town is hungry,' he snapped. 'We have to kil the creature so the fishermen can fish. You and I have already had this discussion.'
'Yes, Captain.' Then, wondering why I even both ered, I added, 'At least take off your armor.' I'd left my helmet and brigandine in the barracks and so had the other militiamen.
'This is how knights of the Fury go into battle,' Hylas replied. 'I'll be fine.'
Very well, I thought. Whatever comes, it's on youi head. Harpoon in hand, I returned to the gunwale and studied the gray-green, heaving surface of the ocean.
For the next hour, nothing happened, and I dared to hope that nothing would. Then we heard the scratching. When I went below to investigate, the ship had already begun to take on water. I scrambled back up the ladder and found Hylas waiting to hear my report.
'Something's clinging to the hull,' I told him, 'picking it apart.'
'The leviathan?' he asked.
'I doubt it,' I said. 'As best as anyone could judge observing from shore, it attacks a ship ferociously, not surreptitiously. I think we have crabmen trying to scuttle us.'
'I…' He hesitated, and I could see how he hated acknowledging that, landlubber that he was, he didn't know what to do next. 'What do you recommend?'
'I see only one way to deal with them as long as they're on the bottom of the boat. Some of us will to have to dive down and dislodge them.'
He nodded. 'See to it.'
I picked three men to accompany me and gave instructions to the rest, then it was time to pull off my boots and slip over the side.
The frigid water shocked my flesh, and the salt stung my eyes. Clutching my harpoon, kicking, I impelled myself beneath the barnacle-studded hull, and my comrades trailed after me.
It was little easier to peer through the cloudy water now that I was immersed in it, but I eventually made out the crabmen dangling from the keel, ripping and prying at the caulked timbers. Grateful there were only two, I swam to the nearest and thrust with the harpoon.
The water stole some of the force from my attack, but I still pierced a joint in the crabman's natural armor. Caught by surprise, the creature twisted toward me, just in time for one of my companions to spear it in the mouth, whereupon it relinquished its grip on the hull.
Jabbing, relying on the length of our weapons to keep us clear of its claws, we drove the crab from beneath the ship, while the other militiamen did the same to its fellow. As soon as the beasts were in the open, harpoons showered down into the water, several finding their mark.
By now my chest ached with the need to breathe, but I didn't care to venture out into the rain of lances, so I turned to swim back under the boat. Just in time to behold our true quarry streaking upward from, the depths.
It was like a jellyfish with a soft, white, undulating body half the size of our vessel. Scores of thin, translucent tentacles swirled around it. Even startled as I was, I wondered that such a creature could be so cunning. How had it known to attack precisely when every single member of the crew had his eyes turned in the opposite direction? Then I noticed the crabman swimming along at the larger monster's side, and surmised that it was directing the creature's efforts.
No sane man would care to swim closer to this duo, but with my lungs ready to burst, I had no choice. I kicked upward, and luck was with me. None of the jellyfish's arms flailed into me.
As I broke the surface, glistening tentacles did the same. Shooting up into the air, they lashed back and forth across the deck above me. From my vantage point, I couldn't tell precisely what they were doing up there, but I could tell from the screams that they were wreaking havoc.
The next instant, a figure of shining steel and gaudy scarlet tumbled over the rail, his glimmering sword flying from his grasp when he struck the water. Weighted by his armor, Hylas sank like an anvil.
If I balked, it was only for a second, then I dropped the harpoon, drew a deep breath, and dived after him.
By rights Hylas should have plummeted all the way to the bottom, but he managed to grab hold of a section
