“You can’t harm me with that weapon,” the Blue Lady stated.
“Perhaps not,” Iados replied grimly as he dispatched one of the sea shambles that had scrambled on board, “but I can be a distraction.”
“Only until you’re dead.” The Blue Lady lunged at him again as Shang-Li gathered himself.
Iados batted the spear aside with his shield and sword again and again, moving backward constantly and taunting her. “Perhaps you can’t harm me with that weapon either.”
Growling in rage like an animal, the Blue Lady continued her attack. Moonlight glinted from the force of her attacks. Amree attacked once more with a spell that seized the Blue Lady and lifted her from the ship in an invisible grip. The Blue Lady freed a hand and waved. Crackling waves of power dispelled the invisible grip and she dropped to the pitching hull.
Shang-Li closed on her, attacking with the enchanted blades of the fighting sticks. She managed to block most of the blows, but she gave ground at every attack and some of them got through. In seconds she was bleeding from a half-dozen small wounds.
She levitated from the deck and shouted, “Enough!” With a gesture, a storm gathered and black clouds obscured the pale moonlight. In the space of a drawn breath, gale force winds whipped across Swallow and tore at her exposed sails. Waves crashed against the hull. Timbers creaked and Shang-Li grew afraid the ship was going to be torn to pieces. Blue energy coursed down Swallow’s length again and again.
Amree touched a necklace tight against her throat, then flung out her other hand. Deadly red missiles streaked from her fingers and underscored the darkness surrounding them. The missiles crashed against the Blue Lady and jolted her, drawing forth screams of pain and rage. Amree prepared herself again, still clinging to the necklace. Then a sea shamble stood up on the hull and wrapped its misshapen arms around her.
“Iados!” Shang-Li yelled across the thunder and crash of the waves. “Get Amree!”
Without hesitation, the tiefling hurried to the side of the ship’s mage, but a dozen sea shambles stood up on the hull.
A small, lean figure struck out of the darkness. Kwan Yung launched himself from the deck and swung a sword at their foe. For a moment, the Blue Lady fell back, then she stretched forth a hand and invisible force wrapped around Kwan Yung and lifted him from the ship’s hull. She held him aloft and cursed.
Shang-Li’s heart sank. He had known his father wouldn’t be safe on the ship, but if things went badly, as they looked like they were going to do, he’d assumed he would be dead before he saw anything happen to his father. Standing bowed by the storm lashing Swallow, Shang-Li blinked through the stinging salt of the sea spray and tried to figure out his next move.
At the prow of the ship, Red Orchid and Thava still battled the squidbut it was impossible to tell how the battle was going. Thava either had hold of the creature by one tentacle and was fighting her way toward the center mass, or the squid held her and was drawing her toward its mouth.
The Blue Lady turned her beautiful face toward Shang-Li and smiled. “I still have use of you, manling. I can still be generous. I will let you live if you lay down your arms and swear allegiance to me. But I will no longer spare your father.”
True fear pierced Shang-Li. All those years Kwan Yung had appeared implacable and invulnerable. But Shang-Li knew that wasn’t so. His father was mortal, and he was the bravest, most stubborn man Shang-Li had ever known. He couldn’t imagine a world without his father in it.
“Or,” the Blue Lady said, “you can trade your life for his. Perhaps he’s as good a scholar as you are when it comes to deciphering Liou Chang’s books.” She paused and gloated as sea shambles and Nine Golden Swords warriors clambered over the hull and massed for an attack. “Lay down and die, manling, and I will let your father live. Choose!”
Shang-Li focused and drew the calm into his body that his father had always instilled in him, and he drew upon the stubbornness that he knew came from his mother and her people as they lived unfettered in the forests of their homeland. Both had taught him skills, and neither had raised someone that would quit. He felt the turbulent power coursing through his fighting sticks.
“No,” he said. “You’re going to have to choose.” He joined the fighting sticks into the staff as he sprinted forward.
Just in front of the line of sea shambles and Nine Golden Swords warriors, Shang-Li planted the staff and vaulted over their heads. The storm winds howled and crashed into him as he left the ship’s hull. He landed atop a sea shamble, ran across two more, then flipped into the air. He flicked the blades out at both ends of the staff and thrust it toward the Blue Lady’s heart.
Surprised by the attack, the Blue Lady drew back in the air, unmoved by the winds that she had summoned. Her hold on Kwan Yung failed and he dropped to the ship’s hull.
Shang-Li dropped to the deck and gathered himself again. Then he sprang once more to the attack, chasing the Blue Lady forward toward the prow and the writhing mass of tentacles that Thava and Red Orchid battled.
“You forfeit your life, manling.”
Remaining focused on the Blue Lady, Shang-Li bashed a Nine Golden Swords warrior from his path, knocking the man back into the rough sea, and gaining speed. Swallow moved more sluggishly beneath him and he knew she was taking on water. Either the canvas air pocket ripped or the sailors hadn’t been able to keep the opening sealed.
More red missiles struck the Blue Lady and lit her up in scarlet fire for a moment. Shang-Li took heart in the knowledge that Amree still lived, and if she lived there was hope that Iados did as well.
Hurt and distracted, the Blue Lady searched for Amree and threw out a hand. By that time, Shang-Li had reached the ship’s prow and ran out of hull. Surefooted as a deer, he leaped for one of the squid’s rising tentacles and caught it with one hand. As the creature flicked its tentacle, Shang-Li took advantage of the power and movement and launched himself at the Blue Lady. He gripped the staff in both hands and aimed one of the blades at her heart.
The Blue Lady moved at the last instant and the staff missed piercing her heart, instead passing through her chest just below her shoulder. No longer able to maintain her levitation because of Shang-Li’s additional weight or the pain from the wound, she dropped into the sea.
Shang-Li clung fiercely to the staff as he plunged below the waves. At first he held his breath, then he remembered the water-breathing potion was still in effect. He breathed in easily and moved with fluid grace despite the water.
The Blue Lady flailed at him, striking his face and smashing his cheekbone. Shang-Li’s eye swelled shut immediately and he breathed through the incredible pain. He kept his fists locked around the staff. As they sank in the depths, the Blue Lady drew a dagger and attacked him, plunging it through his leather armor into his chest, seeking his heart. No effort was made to keep him alive now. The dagger bit deeply.
Afraid that if he pulled the staff from her he would lose her and she would be free in her element, Shang-Li separated the staff into fighting sticks again. One of them held fast to the Blue Lady, and the other came free in his hand. Both of them glowed with black fire.
They struck again and again as they sank. Blood streamed around them as they dropped toward the azure glow of the Blue Lady’s realm. Finally, she stopped moving, and Shang-Li didn’t have the strength to strike again. He had no strength left in him and knew blood spewed from him. Sharks circled and drew near.
Then strong arms wrapped around him from behind and a soft cheek pressed against his face. Amree disengaged Shang-Li from the Blue Lady, then swam up with him toward the surface. With his head back, Shang-Li saw the moonlight growing brighter. Then he saw nothing at all.
EPILOGUE
Two days later, Shang-Li sat in a longboat with bandages covering his wounds. The few healing potions they’d had had saved his life, but until they were able to reach a cleric or get more potions, he had to heal naturally. Pain flooded his every waking moment.
“Easy, easy,” Red Orchid shouted as longboat crews pulled at Swallow. Ropes connected them to the ship and they gradually righted her as other crewmen shifted the ballast in the ship’s hold. But Swallow came up to the
