Continuing to kick with her good leg, the witch lowered a hand and found a mangled circle of flesh just below her left hip. The water felt alarmingly warm, and she could feel a steady current of blood flowing from the wound.
When Ruha's head finally broke the surface, her ears were still ringing from her underwater scream. She could not hear the wind wailing, but she did feel its cool touch upon her skin and immediately started to gasp and cough, causing such a roar with her booming voice that she felt it in her feet. Already, she was growing dizzy from blood loss, and she feared she would die before her coughing spasm ended.
Ruha slipped her jambiya into its sheath and set about unbuckling her belt. As simple as the task was, she could hardly accomplish it. With only one leg able to move and both hands required to undo the clasp, she could barely tread water. Her sodden aba kept dragging her beneath the surface, and she feared that if she allowed herself to sink too far, she would not have the strength to swim back to the surface.
From behind Ruha came the muffled, distant-sounding murmur of a man's voice. She spun herself around and, less than twenty yards away, saw a ragged section of hull planks lashed to three, low-floating oil casks. Atop the makeshift raft stood Captain Fowler and the other man, both shouting at the witch and waving her toward the raft.
'I am unable to swim!' Ruha's voice roared like a falling wall inside her own head, and both Fowler and his crewman cringed at its volume. 'A fish attacked me. My leg is-'
Ruha's explanation ended in a strangled cry of alarm as a huge, gritty snout bumped into her back. The witch took three deep breaths while the body of the great fish brushed along her flank, its dorsal fin harrowing the water like a ship's prow. At last, the creature passed, drawing a sharp hiss when its massive tail slapped the witch's mangled leg.
Ruha stopped fussing with her belt and filled her lungs, at the same time glancing in Captain Fowler's direction. The half-ore's eyes were bulging out of their sockets, and he was frantically tying a rope around the waist of his trembling companion.
A mountainous dune rose beside Ruha, and she saw the dark line of a dorsal fin emerging from its face. She closed her eyes and buried her head in the water, at the same time voicing the mightiest, deepest bellow her aching throat could manage. Again, the water throbbed, hammering her eardrums with a terrible, pulsing ache.
Before the witch could pull her head from the water, the enormous fish hit her-but she did not feel its long teeth tearing through her torso. Instead, the beast's nose slipped beneath her hips, and she slid along its spine until the creature started to roll toward her. With one hand, the witch caught its dorsal fin and pushed away, narrowly escaping being forced beneath the surface. The monster floated belly up for a moment, then slowly writhed down into the sea.
The snout of a smaller fish nosed Ruha's shoulder; then she felt the rough skin of yet another creature rasp- ing across her foot. 'There are more?' she shrieked. 'By Afar, I hate this sea!'
Over the roaring of the dunes came the alarmed mur mur of Captain Fowler's voice, so muted by the ringing in
Ruha's ears that she could not understand what he was saying. She looked up and saw him only ten yards away, pointing in the direction in which the monstrous fish had vanished a moment earlier. Beside him stood the sailor with the rope tied around his waist, staring into the dark waters and stubbornly shaking his head.
The witch filled her lungs with air and spun around to see a huge black fin slicing toward her, albeit on a some- what crooked course. She pushed her head beneath the water and, summoning her voice from deep down in her bowels, bellowed. Again, the sea pulsed with her fear and anger, and again the great fish rolled on its back.
Ruha turned toward her rescuers and saw six more of the beasts floating with their bellies toward the sky. They all had wedge-shaped snouts and small, pitiless black eyes and shovel-shaped mouths. She began to pull herself through the surging waters. Her head was spinning from the loss of blood, and she did not know how she would find the strength to reach the raft before the monsters recovered and swarmed her again.
The witch had taken no more than three strokes before Captain Fowler grabbed the reluctant sailor by his collar and belt, and pitched him into the sea. The man splashed down two yards away. Ruha expected the fellow to turn away and swim for the raft, but instead he cast an angry glance in her direction and thrust out his hand. She stretched forward and caught his wrist, digging her fingernails deep into the flesh of his forearm. The sailor scowled, but rolled onto his back and started to kick his legs. Captain Fowler hauled on the rope, pulling them back toward the raft.
Ruha looked over her shoulder and saw the stunned fish already beginning to twitch and squirm. She wrapped her hand into the short length of rope holding up the sailor's dingy trousers.
'Cover your ears!' The man cringed at the sound of Ruha's booming voice. 'And keep kicking!'
After the sailor put his hands to his ears, the witch pushed her face beneath the surface and let out another bellow. The concussion once more stunned the small fish into inaction, but the monster was too far away. Its fins continued to flutter, and its immense body slowly rolled in the water.
Ruha felt Fowler's thick hand in her hair. He twisted his fingers into her unbound tresses and lifted her out of the water. It was a painful way to be hauled from the sea, but the witch did not complain. She grabbed a lashing and scrambled completely aboard, hissing in pain as she dragged her savaged leg across the wet planks. She rolled onto her back and saw the sailor clutching the edge of the raft, struggling in vain to pull himself aboard.
Behind him, the huge fish had righted itself and was already swinging its snout toward the raft.
'By the burning face ofAt'ar!' Ruha snarled, swearing her oath in the name of the fiery Bedine sun goddess. She thrust her hand into her aba and rummaged through its blood-soaked pockets. 'That monster has troubled me enough!'
The sailor looked back toward the great fish. The crea- ture was half-submerged, snaking a slow, crooked path toward the raft. Captain Fowler reached past Ruha to grab the man's shoulder, but the fellow shook his head and swam away. At first, the witch did not understand what he was doing; after his initial reluctance to help her, he hardly seemed the type to draw a sea-monster away from his companions. Then, when the beast did not change course, she noticed the slippery red ribbon she had left on the raft planks. Perhaps lions and jackals could not follow blood trails through water, but they did not breathe the stuff.
Fish did.
Ruha withdrew two small packets from her pocket, one filled with sand, the other with lime. She poured the con- tents of both packages into her palm and spit on them.
As the witch mixed them together, Captain Fowler took a boarding axe from his belt and stepped forward to meet the advancing fish. She grabbed the half-ore's leg and pulled him roughly back.
'This fish belongs to me. Captain.' Though Ruha was trying to speak quietly, Fowler flinched and instinctively retreated from her thunderous voice. She drew him to her side. 'Help me stand.'
The captain glanced at the approaching monster, which had now submerged almost completely. Only the tip of its dorsal fin still showed, slicing across the face of a heaving dune. Fowler slipped a hand under Ruha's arm and pulled her up.
The dorsal fin was only five yards away when the ris- ing dune swallowed it. With Fowler's help, Ruha retreated to the back of the raft. A dull buzz started to drone in her ears, and swirls of dark fog swam along the edges of her vision. The witch had lost too much blood to be standing. Her knees buckled, and, had it not been for the captain's support, she would have fallen.
As Ruha struggled to call her spell to mind, a huge gray snout burst from the water and crashed down on the corner of the raft. A pair of tiny, wide-set eyes flared briefly; then the monster squirmed forward. The raft listed toward the trough of the dune, and the witch feared they would flip over. Her vision narrowed to a black tunnel. She reached out and slapped the fish on the nose, smearing the sand mixture over its rough hide.
The fish twisted sideways, temporarily preventing the raft from tipping farther, and opened its mouth. The beast's teeth were as large and ugly as spearheads, and
Ruha knew they would tear her into bite-size pieces with a single snap. She uttered the incantation of a stone spell, at the same time hurling herself backward into
Fowler's arms. They fell onto the deck together, leaving their attacker's great jaws to clap shut on empty air.
