Kulothunga laughed. 'She is right, except it won't be a rakshasa breathing fire.'
Two Thiruzha scouts raced between Bhim's ship and the leading thirisdai, firing arrows uselessly at the massive hull of the Chola vessel. The thirisdai sailed on, brushed the first scout aside without a quiver and capsized the second with her ram.
'Bhim's next,' Melcorka said.
Melcorka was wrong. Although the scout ships had only lasted a couple of moments, Bhim had used the time to alter course and call up two of his larger vessels to challenge the thirisdai. While arrows whistled in both directions, marines clustered around the strange machine on the thirisdai's deck.
'What are they doing?' Melcorka asked.
'Watch and learn, woman of Alba,' Kulothunga said. 'We of Chola have much to teach you.'
The machine was like a giant funnel set on the base of a chariot. Ignoring the arrows that felled some of their number, the marines pushed the device toward the bow of the ship. When the shipmaster snapped an order, two middle-aged men ran forward, with a body of marines protecting them with a barrier of shields.
'These men are engineers,' Kulothunga explained. 'They will operate the machine.'
Guarded by the shield-carriers, the engineers pointed the end of the funnel toward the nearest Thiruzha vessel, and it gushed out a clear liquid.
'What's happening?' Absorbed in the machine, Melcorka barely noticed the arrows that were falling on the deck of the loola. She brushed one casually away with Defender.
As some marines fell under Thiruzha arrows, others took their place to protect the engineers. Within a few moments, the liquid caught fire and a long tongue of flame leapt from the machine toward the enemy ship. Melcorka heard the terrified screams on the unfortunate Thiruzha vessel, with men either fighting the fire or retreating in panic. One seaman, his clothes and hair ablaze, leapt into the sea. Others followed, with prowling sharks waiting in the water.
'In the name of…!' Melcorka said. 'I've never seen anything like that before.'
'We are Chola,' Kulothunga said. 'We are the most powerful empire in the world.'
The other Thiruzha vessels steered away from the horror, so the sea was a mess of retreating Thiruzha ships and triumphant Chola vessels. The thirisdai continued on, slow, ponderous and dangerous, with Thiruzha vessels scattering before it, until one brave Thiruzha scout vessel rowed close, with her archers trying to pick off the engineers that operated the flame machine.
'That's our target,' Jasweer shouted. 'Protect the thirisdai! Come on, lads and lassies – Jasweer's Sharks are needed!'
Jasweer had no need to manoeuvre. Steering straight for the Thiruzha scout, she shouted, 'Up oars' and rammed it in a grinding crash of splintered oars and crackling timber.
'Marines!' Jasweer shouted. The loola's marines poured over the bow, slashing and thrusting at the scout's crew.
'Come on, Kulothunga!' Melcorka leapt across to the scout.
Melcorka only had time to see the thirisdai sail serenely past before three Thiruzha warriors attacked her.
Melcorka ducked the swing of a sword, cut off the swordsman's legs and stepped over the body to deal with the second and third attacker. By the time she had done so, Kulothunga stood grinning over the four men he had killed.
'You are good, Melcorka, but I am better.'
Melcorka did not know what made her turn. One minute she was standing triumphantly on the deck of the scout, and the next, she saw the rakshasa rearing from the water. The creature was exactly as she remembered it from her previous encounter, a great, round head with glaring eyes, a snapping red beak and ten pulsating tentacles that reached from the water onto the thirisdai.
'Kulothunga!' Melcorka yelled and hefted Defender.
A second rakshasa emerged from the sea in a cascade of water and froth. Its tentacles snaked aboard the thirisdai, feeling for purchase along the deck. While some men ran in panic, the marines and engineers struggled to turn the fire-machine to face the monster. Standing square on his quarterdeck, the shipmaster roared orders for the archers to 'shoot those damned monstrosities off my ship!'
'Archers!' Jasweer screamed. 'Fire at these things, aim for the eyes!'
One tentacle lifted a thirisdai oarsman high into the air and tossed him backwards into the sea. Another arm swept along the deck, knocking three marines off their feet as the engineers succeeded in pointing the fire-machine at the monster.
'Come on, Melcorka!' Kulothunga shouted. 'There is more work for our swords!'
The engineers operated their weapon, with a stream of liquid pouring onto the first monster. When it closed its eyes and extended two tentacles towards the flame machine, the engineers promptly ran. Two brave marines stepped in to take their place.
'No!' The shipmaster roared. 'Don't use the flame! You'll burn the ship as well!'
The order was too late, as the marines set flame to the liquid. Within a moment, the creature was enveloped in fire, with its tentacles writhing in the air, and then, still burning, it pulled itself along the deck, lifted the machine from the deck and threw it away. The marines scattered, with the creature curling its tentacles around them. It tore one man in half in a shower of blood and intestines and thrust another into its great beak of a mouth.
'Steer for the monsters, Jasweer!' Kulothunga shouted. 'Let me kill them!'
'I'll not hazard my ship!' Jasweer yelled. It was the first time Melcorka had seen her rattled.
'It's our duty to protect the thirisdai,' Kulothunga reminded her. 'We are expendable. Steer for it!'
'May Shiva protect us all!' Jasweer's voice shook. 'Helmsman, steer for these things.'
All this time, the Chola archers had continued to fire, with their arrows thudding into both rakshasas without effect. The burning rakshasa plunged into the sea, emerging a moment later with the fire doused.
'Arrows cannot hurt them and fire does not kill them,' Kulothunga said in wonder. 'How do we destroy these rakshasas?'
'I do not know.' Melcorka ran her hands along the blade of Defender. 'Let's see if we can do better.'
'Shiva go with you!' Jasweer shouted, as she steered
