At the same time, both Ran Ai Yu and Hrothgar dived for the falling chain. The Shou merchant fell to her knees under the onslaught of pain from her broken arm but smiled when she saw the chain in the dwarfs hands.
“The sword?” Hrothgar shouted to Devorast.
The red-haired man kicked at the side of the larger eel’s head, trying unsuccessfully to push it away from the ruined section of deck. Even as he kicked, Devorast grabbed at the other end of the chain, which flew through the air around him made wild by the giant demon-fish’s frenzy.
Devorast still had the machete in his hands.
“Yes!” Ran Ai Yu yelled to the dwarf, Devorast’s intentions playing at the edges of her mind. “My sword! Hook to the sword that chain!”
The dwarf seemed to understand, though Ran Ai Yu was having some trouble trying to translate her desperate thoughts into words in the Common Tongue.
Not sure what else she could do, Ran Ai Yu backed up, and when her heel caught the edge of something heavy, she went down. Her broken arm bounced against the deck, and she had no choice but to scream. The cry gave her a mouthful of rain water, but it also bought Devorast a precious heartbeat’s worth of time.
The larger of the two creatures reacted to the sound, jerking its head up from the deck and opening its mouth in a silent roar.
Devorast chopped across with his machete, lodging the blade deeply into the edge of the creature’s jaws.
It didn’t react at first to the wound, and again there was no blood, but then the blade must have touched something insidesomething that made the lightning spark from its mouth. There was a small explosion of blue-white light then a constant rippling of lightning bolts that arced and twisted, danced and blazed between the depths of the wound and the rusty old blade.
The dwarf cried out in incoherent triumph and Ran Ai Yu saw the chain hooked around her heirloom blade.
The smaller of the fish continued to whip its head this way and that, but the blade held firm, and the chain held just as firmly to the sword.
The monster battered the very air with its head, sending the chain whipping around fasttoo fast for Hrothgar to avoid. Ran Ai Yu rolled away, shielding her eyes, but she still saw the chain hit the dwarf in the side of the head and hit him hard.
Hrothgar went down in a shower of sparks, and his right leg spasmed when he sprawled unmoving on the deck. Blood poured from a deep gash on his forehead.
Ran Ai Yu scrambled to her feet but had to dance back when the chain flashed across her vision, missing her own head by the length of an eyelash. Sparks of burning lightning danced between the links, making the chain all the more terrifying.
The dwarf rolled over and grunted. He sat up and Ran Ai Yu dived on him, pushing him back onto the deck. He must have been very weak still from the blow to the head, otherwise her thin frame would never have moved the sturdy dwarf anywhere he didn’t want to go.
“Devorast!” Hrothgar gasped.
“The chain!” Devorast called at the same time.
Without thinking, Ran Ai Yu reached up and tried for the wildly swinging chain. One attempt after another failed, but finally the chain hit her palm with bruising force and she wrapped her fingers around it. Her arm tingled and sparks began to play around her wrist.
Devorast was there, though she couldn’t imagine how he’d made it across the section of ruined deck.
He took the chain from her with a cryptic smile and said, “Close your eyes.”
His voice was so calm, Ran Ai Yu was certain in that moment that the red-haired man was insane.
She didn’t close her eyes and so was able to see him swing the chain over his head with one hand while pulling with the other in an attempt to hold the thing steady.
The smaller fish fought against him like a horse resisting the yoke.
The larger fish left off worrying over the machete in its jaws long enough to make another try for Devorast.
Just like it had the fleeing craftsman, the great jaws came down around Devorast and the man disappeared into the thing’s mouth from the waist up.
But he was still holding the chain, and
Everything went blue and there was a sound like an animal grunting but so loud it rattled Ran Ai Yu’s eardrums. The sound was so alien, it made her scream. Her vision went white, then black. There were flashes of images like shockingly realistic paintings:
Devorast flying through the air, his face twisted with agony and his body contorted in a massive, all-over convulsion.
Hrothgar jumping out of the way of whatever was happening, but not sure which way to go, so just… jumping.
The two enormous demon eels, connected by the length of chain, lightning meeting lighting from steel blade to iron chain to steel blade.
Lightning meeting lightning.
Blue meeting white.
The giant fish bursting.
Blood.
Electricity.
Screaming.
Ran Ai Yu screaming.
Then merciful darkness and comforting silence.
36
10 Uktar, the Yearof the Helm (1362 DR) First Quarter, Innarlith
Though the attack by the still-unexplained and unidentified demon eels had set back their schedule some,
Ran Ai Yu’s ship was ready to depart less than four months later.
“She is fine ship,” the Shou merchant said.
Devorast, whose eyes continuously darted from rail to mast to deck to rigging, always checking for the tiniest imperfection, nodded. Ran Ai Yu did her best to detect any trace of pride in his manner but saw none. He appeared satisfied, but that was all, as if he’d known all along how the ship would turn out and was in no way surprised by his success. Ran Ai Yu found it impossible to feel the same.
“I have never seen like of it,” she said, running the tip of a finger along the rail and admiring the way the light rain beaded on the ceramic surface.
“No ship like it has ever been afloat,” he told her.
“It will be a long voyage back home,” she said, “and we will stop in many ports along the way. You will be busy building more very soon, I know.”
“There’s no need,” he said. “It’s been built already. Let others do it again.”
“Ah,” she said, “I see. You are the first but will sell the plans and”
“I have no intention of selling the plans,” he said. “You have a copy I made for you, to aid in any repairs you may require should circumstances dictate, but I will destroy mine.”
Ran Ai Yu found herself at a loss for words, less because of what he’d said but because he actually noticed her confusion.
“I have built the best ceramic ship I know how to build,” he said. “I will find a new challenge.”
“You will turn away gold bar after gold bar after gold bar,” she said. “It is bad trade. Bad… business.”
