light. Though I was reasonably sure we were on the right track, I very much doubted we were going to discover the opening before time ran out.
It was Dandrios who called, 'I found it!'
We all hastened to join him where he stood waist deep in water by the left wall. Ducking down, I groped about and took the measure of a hole four feet high and twice as long. Large enough to admit even a crab if it didn't mind cramped quarters.
'Good work,' said Hylas to Dandrios. 'Of course, we don't know that this is the right opening. We'll need to send a scout in.'
I said, '111 do-'
A vast rustling sounded through the cavern. The rest of the crabmen were returning. The men cringed and gathered themselves to flee in the opposite direction.
'All right,' Hylas said briskly. 'Apparently we've no time for reconnaissance. Everyone through the opening. Quickly, before the crabs have a chance to spot us.'
The men gaped at him. 'But Captain,' one of them quavered, 'you said yourself, we don't know this is the right hole… or if there's even any air on the other side!'
'True enough,' Hylas said. He wore a soaked, plainly tailored wool tunic and breeches like the rest of us, and the water had plastered his artfully barbered chestnut curls to his head. Somehow, at that moment he didn't need burnished armor or a magic sword to look like a cavalier. 'We do know this is our last chance for victory. Our last chance to save the village. I'm not going to throw that chance away, and if you're the warriors I think you are, you won't either.' He discarded his pick and lantern and disappeared beneath the water.
'You heard him,' I said.
I dropped my own more cumbersome gear, followed my commander into the hole, and for the next while, wondered if any of the militiamen had been fool enough to come after me. In the lightless passage, I couldn't tell.
I swam on and on, periodically bumping my head or extremities against the rocky sides of the tunnel. My lungs soon burned with the need for another breath, and I had to fight a panicky urge to turn and swim in the opposite direction. Even had I been willing to turn tail, I'd already come too far to make it back alive.
After some time I could dimly make out Hylas, silhouetted against an oval of lesser darkness. He passed through the opening and swam upward. I did the same, and my head came up into air. Gasping, I peered about.
We'd emerged in a high-ceilinged chamber whose sloping sides formed a sort of natural amphitheater around the pool in the center. Part way up the rock perched an altar of crimson coral. Poised in front of it, green-black, scaly arms upraised, its delicate fins weirdly beautiful, a sahuagin was performing some sort of ritual. It seemed entranced with ecstasy or simple concentration.
Turning his head in my direction, Hylas pressed his finger to his lips, expressing his desire to take the creature by surprise. As silently as we could, we swam in its direction.
Alas, we'd forgotten that there might be other foes about, and if so, they were as likely to be lurking under the dark water as wandering about on the rocks. I suddenly sensed something rising at me and wrenched myself around to face it, but I was too slow. The crab-man grabbed me by the leg and pulled me under. Kicking, I struggled to break free before it snipped off my limb or drowned me.
It convulsed and released me. When I got my head above water, I saw that Dandrios had stabbed it. He and the others had followed me.
Hylas bobbed up beside me, blood streaming from a gash on his jaw. 'Get the sahuagin!' he panted to anyone who could hear.
We swam for the shore. Another crab darted at us, and Dandrios turned to intercept it and keep it off our backs. In the end, only Hylas and I managed to drag ourselves up onto the slope. Everyone else was busy fighting the creatures in the water.
By now the sahuagin was well aware of our intrusion, and so were two more crabs that scuttled down the rocks to meet us. Still starved for air, blinking the stinging salt water from my eyes, I scrambled up and yanked my short sword from its scabbard. I evaded the crab's first attack, stepped in, and thrust, wounding it in the flank. The monster hopped backward and poised its claws to threaten me anew.
I could see Hylas from the corner of my eye. He too had made it to his feet and was battling the other crab.
The beasts fought well. Still, I fancied that Hylas and I would prove a match for them. The sea devil, who'd remained before the altar, began to weave its webbed hands in mystic passes and chant in its sibilant, grunting, inhuman tongue.
Plainly, it was indeed the sorcerer-thing we'd come to slay, and if we didn't do so immediately, it was likely to strike us down with a spell. Hylas and I attacked our opponents fiercely, striving to kill them so we could rush their master before it completed its incantation. They, conversely, played for time, adopting a defensive posture that posed less of a threat but made them damnably hard to get at.
I dropped my guard, inviting an attack, and my crab couldn't resist the opportunity. It grabbed for me, and I recklessly dived under its pincers and plunged my sword into its belly.
The creature fell, and I charged up the incline- until a gigantic invisible hammer struck me down.
I felt as if a huge hand were squeezing me. It was all I could do simply to expand my chest and breathe, and
I feared the pressure would crush me to pulp in time.
The magic was assailing Hylas as well. He was staggering and seemed about to crumple. In no hurry now, his opponent reached for him.
Grunting with pain and effort, Hylas threw his short sword at the sea devil. The blade spun like a wheel, and the point plunged deep into the monster's globular eye. As the brute fell backward onto the altar, the power that gripped me faded away.
By that time, the crabman's claws were about to snap shut on Hylas. I shouted, and, startled, the creature faltered. Hylas scrambled back from the beast and we killed it together.
After that, aching and exhausted though we were, we had to aid the men still fighting in the water. In the end, our side prevailed. In fact, once we hauled ourselves up onto the shore, we determined we'd been lucky. Only two more men had died. Others were cut up pretty badly, but I thought they could recover with proper care.
Not that they were likely to receive it. A minute later, scores of crabmen began to surface in the pool.
'No,' Vallam moaned. 'It isn't fair!'
Clumsy with the pain of his gory wounds, Dandrios floundered around toward Hylas and me. 'We killed the sahuagin that enslaved them,' he said. 'They aren't supposed to want to hurt us anymore.'
'We're still intruders in their nest,' said Hylas, rising. 'I fear all we can do is sell our lives as dearly as possible.'
We formed a circle to guard one another's backs, but though the crabs climbed up onto the slope, they kept their distance.
A particularly large specimen ascended to the altar, picked up the dead sahuagin, and cast it aside, thus uncovering two red coral carvings I hadn't noticed before. One represented a crabman, the other a jellyfish. Evidently these were instruments of subjugation that worked in concert with the disks.
The crabman broke them in its pincers. Its fellows clacked their claws together in what seemed a frenzy of celebration, then the big one gestured to us, inviting us to make our way back to the pool.
'You were right,' Hylas said to me, wonder in his voice. 'They are more than animals. They understand that we liberated them, and they're letting us go.'
'Apparently,' I said, scarcely daring to believe it. 'Let's get out of here before they change their minds.'
After our escape, we learned that the majority of the diversionary force had survived their mission. Port Llast still had a functional garrison, if only barely so. Hylas spent another three days in town, long enough to make sure the jellyfish was truly gone. On the morning of his departure, we conferred in his study, attending to a few final pieces of business.
'It's strange,' he said when we'd finished. 'Now that it's time to go, a part of me wishes to linger. But you no longer need me.' He grinned. 'If you ever did.'
I grinned back. 'No common man-at-arms would ever admit to needing an officer, but you did come in handy
