The worst thing I can do is allow the rakshasa to know I am nervous. Predators can sense fear; it gives them strength and emboldens them. So do the unexpected! Unsettle this monster about which I know so little.
Lifting her head, Melcorka pointed to the rakshasa and forced a laugh. 'Join in, lads! Laugh. Bullies don't like getting mocked!'
Some of the crew joined in, but most were too preoccupied with their own affairs to waste their breath. The rakshasa seemed unmoved.
Melcorka balanced on the prow of the loola, holding Defender above her head. 'I am Melcorka of Alba,' she roared, 'and who dare meddle with me!'
'I dare!' The words formed in her mouth, a deep, clear threat to her very existence.
'Come on then, you demon from hell!' Melcorka challenged. 'Come and face me.'
The rakshasa's laugh was as sinister as anything Melcorka had ever heard.
'Get off the prow, you blasted fool!' Jasweer shouted. 'When we ram, the shock will knock you down!'
That made sense. Melcorka leapt down an instant before the loola crashed into the rakshasa. She had expected an intense jar that would shake the masts and send people to the deck; instead, the loola sank into the dense, rubbery mass that was the creature's body, without any apparent damage to either side.
Jumping back onto the prow, Melcorka slashed with Defender, hoping to cleave slices off the rakshasa to reach something vital. Two tentacles curled around her, one grasping at her legs, the other at her neck. Altering the angle of her attack, Melcorka hacked at the tentacles, slicing them apart before returning her attention to the body of the beast.
In the time it had taken Melcorka to dismember the tentacles, the rakshasa had reared closer to her, with the open beak revealing a deep black chasm that seemed to extend forever. Recoiling in disgust at the rakshasa's stench, Melcorka plunged Defender into the mouth, hoping to strike something vital.
'There, you foul beast!'
There was nothing to strike. The blade of Defender entered a blank space, darkness without end that sucked at Melcorka, so that she teetered on the edge of oblivion. She recovered with difficulty, stared into the black void and slashed sideways. Defender made contact with something that trapped the blade, holding it close. Cursing, Melcorka struggled to pull her sword free.
'What does it feel like to lose a fight, Melcorka?' The words taunted her, eroding her self-confidence, corroding her strength. 'How does defeat sound in your ears?'
'I am not interested in the possibility of defeat!' Melcorka shouted. 'It does not exist!'
The rakshasa's laughter mocked her. 'There is more than one way to lose, Melcorka the Swordswoman, Melcorka of the Cenel Bearnas, Melcorka of Alba, Melcorka, the lover of Bradan.'
The mention of Bradan brought new fear to Melcorka. 'This fight is between you and me, demon!'
The laughter sounded again, tearing at Melcorka's sanity as it wound around her like a living thing, penetrating her mind, until she could think of nothing except the mocking sound and the void that invited her to sink down and down forever into the bottomless chasm that was the interior of the rakshasa.
'Oh naivety, thy name is human, thy errors are in believing you can ever defeat me. Your weakness is my strength, Melcorka.'
Shaking her head to dislodge the words and sounds that confused her brain, Melcorka slashed sideways with Defender. There was no contact and nothing to see except eternal blackness as the rakshasa seemed to envelop her, encompassing her within its beak as its tentacles writhed around, coiling and uncoiling, searching and grasping, taking and tearing. Each tentacle was armed with a dozen circlets of ragged teeth that ripped into Melcorka's skin, worried the flesh and bore deeper into her muscle.
'You can be defeated!' Melcorka yelled. 'I can defeat you!'
With the words, Melcorka heard, faint but distinct, the sharp piping of an oystercatcher, her totem bird. 'Mother?'
The black-and-white bird appeared momentarily, circled sunwise around Melcorka and flew to her right. Unhesitatingly, Melcorka followed, striding into the darkness with Defender held before her like a lance. Two steps and she was back on the solid deck of the loola with the wind in her hair and the writhing monstrosity of the rakshasa before her.
'Now I see you!' Melcorka shouted, slashing with Defender, so two more of the creature's tentacles parted and fell. 'I will kill you piece by piece!'
The jeering laughter was so loud that Melcorka winced. It was a sound like no other as it boomed within her head, dominating all thought. She struck out, circling Defender around her head and then thrusting in front of her.
'Look, Melcorka. Look who I have!'
The rakshasa's voice jerked from her mind. With a sick slide of dismay, Melcorka saw the creature withdrawing into the water, with one derisive tentacle raised in mocking farewell. The tentacle was coiled around Bradan.
Chapter Nineteen
'No! Bradan!' Shouting his name, Melcorka jumped into the water, desperate to recapture her man. She was too late. The rakshasa had already vanished, sliding into the depths from whence it had come.
'Bradan!' Melcorka yelled again, took a lungful of air, thrust Defender before her and dived as deep as she could. She could see nothing of the rakshasa, only the clear water and a few scurrying fish. Melcorka dived until she felt her lungs would explode, frantic in her searching, swimming until faintness forced her to surface.
Gasping, Melcorka glanced frantically from side to side. There was no sign of Bradan, and Jasweer's loola was two hundred yards away, sailing for the fleet. The safety of Rajaraja was more important than that of a stray foreign warrior. Gasping, Melcorka returned to the depths, swimming until she could swim no more and still finding nothing. She surfaced, took a deep breath, dived again, searched and surfaced, dived, searched and surfaced, gagging, with her limbs aching and the breath burning in her chest. She was finished; she could not swim any longer, but she
