'Then come.' Iakhovas stepped into the sea and swam out of the cave. He followed the line of the slope upward until he reached the point above the cave. He landed on his booted feet.
For the first time, Laaqueel noticed that Iakhovas's clothing was no longer ripped where the fins had come through. He looked as human as he ever had, only one of the lies he wove so skillfully around himself.
'Swim away from here, Most Sacred One,' he addressed her. 'This is going to be very dangerous.'
Remembering how he had fought for her, how he'd even stayed death's hand, Laaqueel hesitated. 'Will it be dangerous for you?'
Iakhovas glanced at her, his single eye glowing with a feral light. 'Do you care then?'
'Yes.'
Deep laughter rolled from Iakhovas's throat. Laaqueel turned away and leaped up into the sea. Confusion swirled within her. She never knew for certain how to best handle Iakhovas. Any care on her part seemed to be perceived as weakness.
'Little malenti,' he called out gently behind her.
She floated in the ocean above him, looking at how small he seemed against the great expanse of the sea floor. Yet his destruction had ravaged the Sword Coast, won him a savage kingdom, and that was only what she knew for certain about him. Even now there were other intrigues she knew he had underway with the pirates of the Nelanther Isles and their counterparts in the Inner Sea.
'I offer my apologies,' Iakhovas whispered for her ears only. 'I thank you for your kindness. It is truly something I've never become accustomed to. Now go farther.'
Laaqueel swam higher. When she was more than a hundred yards away, she felt the thunderous ripple that started on the ocean floor below. She floated, adjusted the air in her bladder, and started downward.
Great sheets of silt-filled clouds roiled up from the seabed, all but obscuring Iakhovas. Around them, the other sahuagin immediately scattered, flitting through the water like a school of frightened fish.
Piles of coral smashed thousands of years ago, dozens of feet of accumulated silt from the mouth of the Vilhon Reach, debris from smashed buildings and homes, and shipwrecks all boiled up. In seconds, the area was forever changed.
Wanting to stay away from the clouds of silt so she wouldn't breathe them into her gills and irritate the membranes there, Laaqueel swam higher. She hung in the water above the edge of the contaminated sea.
Long minutes passed. The sahuagin search parties gathered close as the debris settled well enough to see the sea floor again. Where the slope had been, a deep hole plunged straight down into the earth. It resembled an anthill, the earth and other debris piled up concentrically around the opening.
Laaqueel wondered if Iakhovas had somehow gotten trapped in a landslide below the surface. Maybe he wasn't as infallible as she'd believed, or, perhaps, feared. She tried to sort through the confused knot of worry and relief that filled her, but had no success.
Only heartbeats later, Iakhovas emerged from the raw womb opened into the earth. The smile on his face told Laaqueel everything.
'That is the Akhageas Garrison,' Maartaaugh declared. He stood in Tarjana's bow, at Iakhovas's side. 'It's one of the oldest garrisons the cursed sea elves built when they erected the wall.'
Laaqueel stood on the other side of her master. Night had purpled the sea over the garrison atop of the Sharks-bane Wall. Still, her vision was good enough for her to spot the sea elves patrolling the area in scout groups.
The garrison was constructed of coral, stone, and shells, the same building materials used in the construction of the wall. It stood two stories tall and had heavily shielded arms that branched out in each direction across the top of the wall. Huge nets lay in piles, ready to use against any sahuagin transgressors that dared try to cross the wall. The elf and merman guards wore silverweave armor and carried spears and tridents. Heavy wardings also protected the structure, complemented by the mages assigned there.
'It is one of the sea elves' most heavily fortified and manned garrisons,' Maartaaugh continued. 'We could choose another that isn't so well equipped and supplied.'
'No,' Iakhovas stated without hesitation. 'This is the place. We do not have our choice in this matter.'
Maartaaugh turned his-black eyes to Iakhovas. 'You suggest that Sekolah is not powerful enough to accomplish this?'
Iakhovas coldly met the man's gaze full measure. 'This is the nature of the Shark God,' he stated coldly. 'Sekolah put this object in our hands to accomplish what we're setting out to do, but there is a blood price attached to that success that must be met. Only the strong shall survive, as Sekolah wills.'
Maartaaugh scowled deeply, obviously not happy with the situation.
Laaqueel watched the two men, aware of the shift in power that had occurred between them. The Serosian prince had been awed by the display of power at the mouth of the Vilhon Reach, but he hadn't given himself over entirely to Iakhovas's way of thinking.
'I can't guarantee the other princes will agree to this,' Maartaaugh stated. 'The last time We Who Eat attempted to overrun the Sharksbane Wall, the sea elves turned us back with their magic, then hunted my people mercilessly for more than a tenday. Thousands died. We had no place to run.'
'Then we will persuade them,' Iakhovas said confidently. He held up the scythe-shaped object. This is their freedom. They'll fight for that.'
'Only if they truly believe.'
Iakhovas turned his single eye on the sahuagin prince and said, 'They'll believe.'
Despite the passage of days since the city's destruction, Vahaxtyl still resembled a war zone. Huge cracks ripped through the terrain, leaving shelves of rock and ridges overlapping each other. Huge coral stands lay tumbled and gnarled. Laaqueel searched the rubble as she stood at Iakhovas's side.
The sahuagin populace of the city and kingdom sat along the jumbled ruins and ridges. The city's amphitheater had been buried when the Ship of the Gods had exploded in volcanic fury. No true gathering place remained so they held their meeting among the ruins of the city. Some cleaning had been attempted, but the priestess knew the general consensus was that the city had been lost. With that loss, over the last few days, some of the sahuagin belief that Sekolah had made them strong enough to survive their present circumstances had begun to die.
Iakhovas's voice boomed out across the distance, carried by the currents. He stood at the makeshift table the four surviving princes had ordered built when they'd convened with him during his earlier meeting after the arrival in Seros. It was also where Iakhovas had killed and rended Toomaaek, one of the princes who'd stood against him.
Gravely, Iakhovas declared, 'It is time that We Who Eat were once more set free.'
Unease drifted through the sahuagin ranks. Laaqueel listened to the cautious clicks and whistles of the hesitant among the crowd. Fear gnawed at her stomach, afraid that, despite all the lengths they'd gone to, the Serosian sahuagin wouldn't be able to rise to the challenge Iakhovas presented them with. It was one thing to dare to dream, but another to act. The Serosian sahuagin had been penned up for thousands of years, exposed to a way of living that went against their very natures. How could they be touched by that and not be affected? She prayed silently to Sekolah, asking only that the true natures of these people assert itself.
'You won't be alone in your battle to take the wall,' Iakhovas promised. 'I will lead you, and I will teach you to be true warriors once more. There will be no more barriers to your destinies. This I swear. All of Seros will tremble again at the knowledge that We Who Eat are free as Sekolah meant for us to be.'
The hesitant clicks and whistles died away in the crowd, but Laaqueel knew the doubt still lingered. As priestess of the Shark God, she felt she needed to say something to shore up their belief. Before she could, Iakhovas raised the scythe blade he'd dug out in Cory-selmal.
The strange metal caught the green light streaming down from the ocean's surface above, and the blue-cut runes flashed like lightning.
'I bring you power!' Iakhovas roared. 'A gift from Sekolah himself. A fang in the throat of our enemies.
With this, I will bring down the Sharksbane Wall.' He thrust the scythe blade up.
Without warning, crimson fire exploded from the twin tips of the scythe blade and shot a hundred feet and more upward. The crimson fire pooled above the meeting place, above the ruin that had been left of Va-haxtyl. The fire twisted and roiled, turning outward and inward at the same tune, steadily growing larger even as it continued collapsing in on itself.
