Without any help, Talis realized with a start. “Dug, the lanes. We’ve got this.”
The mermaid was tied off, still tangled in the net and hooked on a cleat. Scrimshaw wasn’t about to do anything to her the mermaid hadn’t already managed. Dug nodded, placed the vial in Talis’s waiting hand, and returned to his post, stepping on the mermaid’s tail where it blocked his path up the deck. The creature barely noticed.
The glowing object cast a light that seemed to cut through the dismal air, as though there was a small piece of sunshine in the palm of her hand. But it was cool to the touch. The driving rain felt warm in comparison, though she was hot from the struggle and steam was likely gathering off her head and shoulders, as she saw it rising off of Sophie. She shook the vial, and Scrimshaw flinched, catching xist-self as xe started to reach out for it.
“Answer the question,” Talis said, her voice rigid with the command. “What is this?”
Sophie began dragging the bundled mermaid toward the railing. At the movement, Scrimshaw blinked against the rain as though roused from a trance. Xe pulled xist feet under xist hips, curling up in a miserable huddle. “I am not—”
“Not supposed to say?” Talis cuffed xin, grabbed xin by the collar in her free hand, and pulled xin up. She felt xist limbs jangle like a wind chime in her grip. Xe probably wouldn't survive the throttling xe deserved, so she shoved the object in xist face instead. “I'll just bet you aren't.”
She had a long list of things she wanted to say about Yu’Nyun secrets, but her words were cut off by a series of sharp thuds behind her, hitting the deck in rapid succession. She wheeled around just in time to see five new arrivals swooping toward her and Scrimshaw. Even at a distance their eyes seemed to flash with the reflection of the green light.
There were too many. Her adrenaline tried to react, to flood her veins again, but she only felt dizzy. Blood pounded in her ears and the droplets of rain around her seemed to slow. Still, the pack of mermaids crossed the deck at full speed, closing in fast on her and Scrimshaw. With only Sophie between them, struggling with the netted mermaid which had begun to thrash again at the sight of its reinforcements. It lifted and pivoted on the upper half of its tail, twisting free as Sophie’s hands were pinched in the net and she let go with a cry of pain. Free again, it surged across the deck.
But not toward Talis and Scrimshaw. The first mermaid pulled against the net to growl and hiss at its own kind. They reared up in outrage, and then moved again, attacking the bound beast with claws and fangs. There was a confused muddle of flapping wings, and then the former lay in a tangled heap at the mercy of its own kind. It blinked slowly, blood bubbling from its lips, as the others descended upon it, its eyes locked on the vial in Talis’s hand until they finally dimmed.
“Hide it, Captain Talis,” Scrimshaw pleaded, xist voice a whisper in her ear. “They will not stop coming.”
She growled at xin, raised xin up again with the impulse to rattle xist neck, then she pulled back her other arm and pitched the vial over Wind Sabre’s railing.
The mermaids at once and together abandoned the final insults they were visiting upon their victim, and dove after the prize. Leading their group, the largest one’s blood-tipped claws picked the vial out of the air before it dropped from sight, and curled protectively around it. The other four attempted to tear the item from its grip, slashing at its forearms and face, and the tail where it curled up protectively. The wings were assaulted next, shredded with tooth and claw.
The outcome was inevitable, the danger mounting. Through the roaring wind Talis heard the song of more panicked mermaids, moving from the depths of the storm toward the commotion off their port stern. But rather than fight as viciously to defend the vial as it had to gain it, something in the large mermaid’s features softened. The mad anguish that seemed a perpetual part of their bone structure dulled as it cradled its hands to its heart. It seemed to give up, for a moment, before realizing the danger it was in. It extended the tattered wings, curled the tail in a coil, then dove with the driving rain into the depths, out of sight beyond the railing.
The others, including several newcomers, flattened their wings against their shoulders and vanished in pursuit.
Panting, Talis dropped Scrimshaw’s collar, giving xin a chance to settle back on xist feet.
“Help her,” she told xin, tilting her head to indicate Sophie, who struggled to drag the mermaid’s dead weight to the rail.
Scrimshaw hesitated, thought better of whatever xe was going to say in protest, and went to Sophie’s side. Together they lifted the mermaid’s body by the shoulders, yanking on the netting there, until they pushed the balance of its weight over the edge and it slid off, taking the ruined netting into the drop with it.
“Still like them?” Talis asked Sophie as she leaned against the rail, panting from the effort. The humor was forced, ruined by the treachery of Scrimshaw’s little item, but she wouldn’t get a chance to make the joke again, and the ironic comment had been building in her mind where she knew it would fester if left unspoken.
Sophie needed a minute before she could answer. “Oh, come on, Captain,” she huffed, catching her breath through a wide grin. “That was nothing.”
“Right,” was all Talis said.
Tisker had slowed their momentum while they were off course, but now she felt the ship picking up speed again. Scrimshaw stumbled a bit, unsteady as the
