they stepped off and drew their swords.
“Up the ladder one at a time,” the male commanded. “If anyone even looks like they’re thinking of causing trouble, they’ll taste steel.”
“Or get an arrow through the heart,” the woman added.
“How can we climb in these manacles?” one of the prisoners, a man, asked.
“There’s enough slack in the chains for you to make it if you go slowly,” the male raider said.
“What if we fall?” someone else asked.
“I suggest you don’t,” the female raider said. “Now move it!”
It took a little prodding from the raiders’ swords, but the prisoners closest to the ladder began climbing. Some cried as they ascended, others mumbled prayers, but most were quiet, as if resigned to whatever fate awaited them topside. Since Zabeth and Makala were next to the wall of the hold, they were among the last to stand and start toward the ladder.
“After you, Grandmother,” Makala said to Zabeth.
The elderly shifter gave her a smile, a wink, then started up the rope ladder with surprising agility for one of her years. Makala didn’t like seeing that wink. Earlier, Zabeth had said something about waiting for the right moment to take action against the raiders. The old woman couldn’t be foolish enough to try something now… could she?
Makala hurried up the ladder after Zabeth. She didn’t think about the raiders still in the hold with their swords drawn, didn’t think about the archers with their arrows nocked and aimed at her. Her only concern was to remain as close as possible to Zabeth so she could intervene if the woman tried anything heroic and stupid.
The cool night air deckside came as a shock after spending an unknown number of hours imprisoned in the Nightwind’s hold. At first Makala found it bracing, but then, weak from hunger and still hurting from the injuries sustained during her abduction, she began to shiver. The prisoners from the raid on Port Verge were already being offloaded one at a time, directed by armed raiders to “Move along now,” in single file down a gangplank onto a wooden dock. There was enough light from the moons and the Ring of Siberys for Makala to get a basic idea of their surroundings.
She took her place in line and followed Zabeth down the gangplank. The three elemental galleons of the Black Fleet had docked next to a steep cliff that Makala estimated v as a hundred feet high. She could make out the striations in the craggy stone of the cliff wall, as well as the silhouettes of trees lining the top. An opening in the shape of a half circle was carved into the base of the cliff, and the dock continued through the opening and stretched into the darkness beyond. All three of the ebon ships had dropped anchor and were disgorging their prisoners, all of whom were being herded along the dock and inside the cliff, prodded by the point of a raider’s sword if they moved too slowly. People sobbed and chains jingled as the prisoners shuffled toward whatever waited for them within the darkness of the cliff. Makala glanced back over her shoulder. They appeared to be in a secluded cove of some kind, the cliff curving around to cut off the view of the sea and hide the Black Fleet’s home port from any passing ships. Despite her current situation, Makala was impressed. This looked to be a perfect base of operations for the Black Fleet.
The light from the moons gleamed on the dark water of the cove. Makala had the impression of shadowy forms moving near the edge of the dock just beneath the water’s surface, but perhaps it was just her imagination. The lingering after-effects of her head injury conspired with the night and moonlight to create an illusion. Still, she decided not to get too close to the dock’s edge.
“Eyes front,” a raider growled and pricked her lower back with his sword.
Makala had to bite her lip and curl her hands into fists, fingernails digging into the palms, to channel her anger so she wouldn’t whirl around and break the sword-happy idiot’s neck.
Ahead of her, Zabeth moaned and stumbled to her knees.
“Get up!” one of the raiders snapped.
Makala stepped forward to help the old shifter woman, but the same raider who’d pricked her back said, “Mind your place, missy, or you might find yourself taking a moonlight swim, and believe me, that’s something you’d prefer to avoid.”
The raiders nearby who had caught the comment laughed, and Makala knew she hadn’t been hallucinating when she thought she’d seen something swimming in the cove.
As much as she wanted to go to Zabeth’s aid, she knew the raiders would never permit it and that she’d likely just cause trouble for Zabeth and the other prisoners by attempting to defy their captors. She gritted her teeth and remained where she was while the sword-happy raider stepped around her. Zabeth knelt with her head hung low, trembling and swaying from side to side, as if she were going to faint any moment. The raider toed her in the rump, not gently, but not hard enough to be considered a kick, either.
“Come on, old woman, get on your feet. We’re not going to carry you in.”
“That’s not a woman!” another of the raiders shouted. “Can’t you see she’s a shifter?”
“Nothin wrong with that!” yet another raider called out. “Ernard likes ’em old and hairy!”
More raiders burst out laughing this time, and Ernard, less than thrilled at being the source of amusement for his companions, kicked Zabeth again, much harder this time.
There was only so much that Makala was willing to let pass. She started forward, intending to fulfill her earlier fantasy about wrapping her manacle chains around a raider’s throat and strangling him. Before she could do so, Zabeth turned to look up at her tormentor, her face transformed into a more savage, bestial aspect. She bared her fangs, growled, and brought her claws up into the juncture between the raider’s legs. The man screamed, blood gushed onto the dock, and Zabeth grinned.
Though the raider had been severely wounded, the man still possessed enough presence of mind to raise his sword so that he might strike back at Zabeth. Makala lunged at the raider and caught his sword arm with her manacle chains. She shifted her weight, yanked hard, and the bleeding raider dropped his sword as he spun off the dock and into the water. He hit with a loud splash and disappeared beneath the surface. Makala saw movement under the water as several large somethings swam from under the dock toward the spot where the raider had sunk. Everyone on the dock, raider and prisoner, watched the water now, and one of the raiders said, “That’s it for Ernard, then,” without the slightest hint of sorrow.
“Better this way,” another raider said. “Who’d want to go on livin’ after gettin’ tore up down there?”
The water burst into a foaming froth as Ernard broke the surface, shrieking in agony and terror. Several large dark shapes had attached themselves to his body, and it took Makala a moment before she recognized what they were-crabs, but not ordinary crabs. These were much bigger, about the size of a large shield. The creatures tore vigorously as the raider’s flesh, oversized claws cutting like razor-sharp blades through skin and muscle, all the way down to the bone. At the rate they were going, it wouldn’t take long for them to strip Ernard’s body clean.
The dock shuddered as if something huge moved beneath it, and a shadow slid out from under the dock toward Ernard, a big shadow.
“Looks like Mama’s hungry,” a raider said, and though the woman’s tone was one of dark delight, there was an edge of queasiness to her voice as well.
The crabs, as if reacting to some silent signal, abandoned their prey and disappeared into the water. Still screaming and bleeding from dozens of wounds, Ernard sank beneath the surface, but he didn’t stay down for long. Water roiled and Ernard burst back into view, caught within the claw of a gigantic crustacean. This, then, was Mama.
The claw squeezed and Ernard’s screams were silenced as the raider fell back into the water as two separate pieces. The surface surged upward and Makala had the impression of a dark craggy shell, a pair of beady hate- filled eyes, and ferociously working mouth parts. Then Ernard was gone, and Mama submerged. The dock shuddered again, and Makala realized the gigantic she-crab had once again taken het roosting spot among the dock supports beneath their feet. How many of the she-crab’s children clung to the supports along with the mother, hungry and ever alert, hopeful that another tasty morsel would fall off the dock and into their waiting claws?
No one made a sound as the ripples caused by the submerging she-crab slowly subsided, but once the water was calm again, one of the raiders stepped forward, grabbed Zabeth by the elbow, and hauled the elderly shifter woman to her feet. Makala expected Zabeth to attack the man just as she had Ernard, but her bestial features were gone. She was just a frightened, exhausted old woman who could barely remain on her feet.
