— XIX —
Gubujul had to admit that the trappings of power which attached to the nominal commander of a vast military force exceeded in allure even those that accrued to the position of Paramount Advisor to the Great Lord. In the absence of Kulakak himself, the ranks of dedicated and determined soldiers were left looking up to him. The senior officers of the two armies felt otherwise, seeing the Lord’s hand-picked Advisor as inexperienced and untested. In the course of the long march southwest, however, Gubujul managed to win them over one by one. To some he promised favors of a personal nature, to others promotion, to still others an assurance that despite his position he would not interfere with their decisions on the field of battle.
“I know my abilities,” he informed them, “and I know my limitations. I am here to give you support, not to obstruct your efforts. The last thing any of us want is to return home in failure. Better to die here, in glorious struggle on behalf of all our people!”
His words went down well. They ought to, he reflected. Having survived many years rising through the murderous, self-aggrandizing levels at court, they had been honed to perfection.
Though not in line for the throne—he could never defeat the prospective challengers in combat—his official position was so fraught with uncertainty that it was not actively sought. Living every day on the cusp of death, living or dying at the whim of the Great Lord, was not a way of life that appealed to many. Gubujul, in contrast, thrived on the pressure. Compared to dealing with the Great Lord’s unpredictable moods, supervising a vast military campaign bordered on a vacation.
Regular communications reached him from the Second Army. The intent was to approach Benthicalia from two directions; from the flat, shelving plain at its base and from the deep reef above. A coordinated attack by the two spralaker armies would force the city’s defenders to divide their forces. Gravity would aid his own troops as, once over the outer walls, they cast themselves upon the inner city like grains of sand stirred up by an earthquake. The tremors that would shake and finally destroy Benthicalia would come from the feet of his soldiers.
The senior officers were confident. Few of them had supported the previous limited incursions into the southern reefs, even though these had resulted in the destruction of the town known as Shakestone and the near taking of the much larger community called Siriswirll. The Marshals had always argued for an all-out onslaught in force. Now they felt they had been given the troops to do the job.
“The mersons and the manyarms are swifter and far more agile,” Mud Marshal Cavaumaz had pointed out, “but we are individually strong, and we have the advantage of numbers. If we stick to our strengths we will surely win the day.”
Certainly the First Army was an impressive force. Incorporating soldiers drawn from throughout the many species of spralaker who lived in the northern waters, they covered the reef lines and ridges with their bodies, advancing sideways in endless number. Legions of impressed or engaged eagle, bull, golden, and manta rays transported hundreds of fighters at a time across chasms too deep to scuttle or too wide to swim.
Though they brought supplies with them, both armies felt free to live off the sea bottom, scavenging as they marched. Entire reef systems were scoured of life as the two armies advancing in parallel consumed everything along their route down to the coral polyps themselves. Unallied fish, inadvertent invertebrates, slow-moving mollusks, innocent worms and panicked nudibranchs—all vanished into the thousands of voracious, ever-hungry maws of the two spralaker forces. Small villages unfortunate enough to lie in the path of either army simply vanished. Such pleasant encounters offered the tirelessly marching soldiers welcome diversion in the form of entertaining opportunities to pillage and murder. As for the fate of the residents of these unceremoniously obliterated communities, the usual taking of prisoners was superceded by the need for both armies to continuously replenish their respective larders.
For the one in charge, the long march to the southwest passed pleasantly. Never in any danger, Gubujul essentially had an entire army at his personal beck and call. The day eventually came, however, when the lights of Benthicalia could be discerned as a faint glow in the distance, and the time for relaxation and effortless if minor triumphs was at an end.
Crouching respectfully before him on the last ridge line facing Benthicalia was the trio of spralakers who comprised the First Army’s strategic brain trust. Each had risen through the ranks to assume the exalted title of Mud Marshal of the Hardshelled. Two were crab-folk. Bejuryar was a smaller but no less fearless member of the same species as the Great Lord himself. Cavaumaz was a fiddler, whose great metal-inlaid right claw was ever poised to snip off a piece of any subordinate who disappointed him—or the head of a merson. Smallest but perhaps toughest of all was Taww, a squat lobster whose mastery of tactics had seen her overcome physical inadequacies that would have soon discouraged a lesser spralaker.
“Everything is in readiness, Paramount Advisor.” In a sign of deference Bejuryar dipped his eyestalks forward. “We await only your command to begin the assault.”
Gubujul wished for more light so as to render the jewels he was wearing suitably magnificent. He felt certain that their bioluminescent bezels were insufficient to adequately accentuate his carefully sculpted splendor.
“What word from Marshal Xorovic and the Second Army?”
“They are in position, Paramount Advisor.” Cavaumaz gestured with his oversized right claw. The inner edges of the enormous pincer had been ground to battle-ready razor-sharpness, their gripping edges refined and filed down to killing points. “Xorovic and I have worked together in the past, on traditional smaller raiding expeditions in the far north. We know each other and our mutual stratagems well, and will act as one.”
Gubujul’s multiple antennae bobbed and weaved as his much smaller front pincers opened and closed nervously. The magnitude of what he was about to unleash weighed heavily on him.
“I have complete confidence in you all. I will look on, and be available to give what advice and suggestion I can, but will otherwise stay out of your way.”
Insignia gleaming in the reduced light, Marshall Taww scuttled slightly forward. “We will be relying on you, should the need necessitate, to introduce into the forthcoming clash those special weapons with which you alone have been furnished, Paramount Advisor.”
Nodding, Gubujul glanced reflexively across the stone mount in the direction of his personal retinue. Squatting there among other attendants and servants, four stout spralakers surrounded an oval container that had been fashioned from the upper shells of a pair of captured and long-since consumed hawksbills. Polished to a high, dark brown sheen, the shimmering turtle-shell crate contained certain disturbing talismans the use of which the dread Sajjabax had charged to Gubujul’s care and to Gubujul alone.
The Paramount Advisor quite understood the Marshal’s concern. Knowing what sinister devices the box held and having been instructed in their use, Gubujul was as afraid for himself should he have to make use of them as he was for their intended targets. In fact, he was downright terrified of the glistening container’s contents, though of course he dared not show it.
“Do not worry,” he assured the diminutive Marshal with more bravado than he felt. “If and when the need for such intervention arises, I will be there to support you with a sampling of the supreme sortilege of which only the great shaman Sajjabax himself is master.”
If what lies within doesn’t tear me to pieces first, he concluded bleakly to himself.
O O O
At first there was panic. It was to be expected. While remote villages and far-flung foraging parties working the most distant northerly reefs had historically been subject to occasional isolated attack by roving packs of enterprising spralakers, Benthicalia’s size and strength had kept it from ever being assaulted. That reputation combined with the status enjoyed by the resident and revered Tornal had been sufficient to ensure the city’s security for hundreds of years. Suddenly finding itself threatened by not one but two entire spralaker armies came as a shock that found its residents unprepared.
Order was restored quickly enough, however, as municipal authorities unlimbered long-dormant plans for the city’s defense in the event of such an unlikely assault. A principal reason Benthicalia had never been attacked was simply because it did boast strong, if untested, defenses. When broken, the seals on long disused armories revealed mountains of weaponry. This was rapidly dispersed among an increasingly resolute citizenry. The giant deep-water anemones that thrived atop many buildings were alerted to their forthcoming duties via communication with the fish that lived among them.
Comprised of thousands of coral structures, the maze that was Benthicalia was turned into a death trap for any spralaker that might make it past the city’s outer defenses. Even an aged manyarm, if well-armed, could prove nearly impossible to extract from a hole. Any merson could swim circles around an armed spralaker. Citizens invested with long-established rank were quickly assembled into a determined, mobile fighting force under the supervision of the professionals who were responsible for defending travelers and the general population from marauding sharks and other more conventional threats.
Befitting a community its size, Benthicalia rapidly put into the field two contingents of willing fighters each of which by itself was far larger than the force that had driven the invading hardshells from threatened Siriswirll. Confidence and determination soon replaced the panic that had greeted the initial reports of the spralaker incursion. Now under arms, citizens and soldiers alike prepared to defend their city, increasingly confident in their abilities and in the knowledge that in the collective wisdom of the Tornal they were supported by an accumulation of strategic skills that stretched a thousand years and more into Oshenerth’s storied past.
Like a flat stone caught in a slow but strong current, the bemused contingent from Sandrift and Siriswirll found itself swept up in the frenzied preparations for the defense of the city. Drifting above the ancient, eroded outer wall of coral blocks that enclosed and protected the north side of the terraced metropolis from spralaker attack, the visitors from the upper reefs argued among themselves how they could best be of assistance in the forthcoming clash. As transients they constituted an independent entity that would be allowed to make its own decisions and operate according to its own rules. So long as their actions did not conflict with Tornal-transmitted tactics, they could participate in the forthcoming fight however they saw fit.
While there was little doubt among the visitors that they were obligated to take part in the great battle to come, there was at least one who was not afraid to dissent.
Floating in near darkness high above the city wall, his face visible only because of a necklace of semi-soft luminescent tunicates, Chachel peered into the dark distance and voiced his discontent.
“We helped to save Siriswirll and nearly got killed for our trouble. We’ve come all this way to Benthicalia so that Oxothyr could ask his question of the Tornal.” Turning slightly in the water, he looked to his right. “If the danger that brought us here in the first place exceeds that threatened by this impending onslaught, shaman, shouldn’t you ask your question and see us away from here before chaos erupts all around like the black smokers that surround the city?”
“I might have expected you to say something like that.” Nearby, Jorosab growled his contempt. “I’m only surprised it took you this long. Of course, someone missing half a leg and a whole eye might be expected to be hesitant to go into battle against a fully-equipped army.” When Chachel refused to be baited and simply ignored him, the muscular Sandrift soldier used his spear to gesture at the city behind them. “These people need our help.”
Chachel gazed stonily at his colleague. “So does the shaman.” His attention snapped back to Oxothyr.
Everyone needs my help, the elderly octopod mused tiredly. Individuals like the changeling. Towns like Siriswirll. Cities like Benthicalia. Perhaps all of Oshenerth. With every passing day he was increasingly aware of the burden that had been placed on him by his damnable perception. He would have been happy to be free of it. Yet he could no more ignore what he sensed than he could blind himself to the neediness of those depending on him.
I should have mated, he thought wearily. I should have had offspring. How he longed for the peaceful, scholarly confines of his secure, silent abode in the reef near Sandrift! For the time to study, to learn, to analyze. Instead of private revelation he found himself compelled to spend precious life-hours preserving public welfare. He was only able to rationalize his continuing efforts by reminding himself that if the lands of the reefs fell to the looming threat from the north, his cozy refuge would be overwhelmed as utterly as that of any simple villager or farmer. While not a deciding factor, it was nice when private needs inadvertently benefited the public good.
He could have simply fled. To the distant west, perhaps, and its mysterious but purportedly hospitable waters. He could have taken Sathi and Tythe with him and left the defiant Chachel and the confused changeling Irina and all the bewildered and panicky inhabitants of Sandrift and Siriswirll and Benthicalia and all the other towns and cities of the south to their own devices. But that, in its turn, would have given rise to another problem.
He would have been obliged thereafter to live with himself.
He became aware they were all staring at him, his two anxious famuli included. So many eyes, so many needs—merson as well as manyarm. Knowing they were expecting him to respond, he raised one arm.
“You are both correct. Jorosab is right when he declares that the people of Benthicalia deserve our support.” Penetrating eyes shifted in the dim light. “Chachel is right when he says that we should stay focused on the greater danger. You ask me to resolve the conundrum. I need not do so because it is resolved for us.”
Fittingly, both Chachel and Jorosab looked confused by the shaman’s finding. So did Poylee, who had taken the opportunity to show her support for the hunter’s position by moving closer to him. Not that it mattered to her what position he espoused.
Oxothyr proceeded to explain himself. “The two spralaker armies are almost within striking distance of the city. As at Shakestone, they will be intent on slaughter and plunder. To ensure that they maximize both, they will have sent out flanking patrols in every direction. Were we to try and leave now, even after having gained the Tornal’s answer to my question, the chances of running into such a patrol would be very great. The hardshells are not likely to repeat the mistake they made at Siriswirll and allow the city’s residents to put out a call for reinforcements.”
Chachel remained defiant. “Our people have been hardened by travel and by battle. There is no spralaker patrol we could not defeat.”
Oxothyr was as patient with his explanations as the hunter was keen with his objections. “I do not disagree with your assessment of our fighting ability. Any such success, though, would be conditional upon the length of time required to achieve it. A patrol encountered need only send out a single messenger to request assistance. If we could not defeat our adversaries speedily, we would run the very real risk of being set upon by hastily summoned spralaker reinforcements. Remember that we speak now of advancing armies. This is not Siriswirll.”
As an ordinary (if marginal) citizen of Sandrift, Chachel could think of several additional objections to the shaman’s reasoning. As a highly experienced hunter, he could not. Grudgingly, he conceded the octopod’s point.
“Then we stay and fight!” Jorosab sounded vindicated.
“Only as long as we must,” Oxothyr explained. “The instant I think we can obtain an answer from the Tornal as to the possible whereabouts of the Deep Oracle, we will leave—even if we have to fight our way out. As I said, both of your positions in this matter are valid.”
He hoped his response had satisfied their contradictory concerns. More importantly, he had maintained peace within the group.
Drifting off to one side, Irina had looked on in silence while paying close attention to the debate. The surrounding intermittent light served to concentrate one’s attention and senses wonderfully well. Though she thought she had grown used to the all-pervasive deep-sea gloom, she found herself having to glance down often at the reassuring bioluminescent radiance of the metropolis below. Many of the intense points of blue, green, and red light were in motion as Benthicalia’s inhabitants scurried and swam to and fro to prepare the defense of the city. Viewing the fever of activity from above was akin to watching clusters of stars caught in a whirlpool.
The more she drifted in the pale organic luminosity and the more she thought about Chachel’s objections over staying to aid in the defense of the city, the more she felt herself out of place. High up in the sun-kissed reefs where she was surrounded by gaudy sea life, where everywhere she looked there was a new life form, a new wonder, a new delight, it was easier to come to terms with her mysteriously altered existence. In contrast, and despite the undeniable attractions Benthicalia offered, down in the dark depths the alienness of her changed surroundings pressed in much closer, constricting her thoughts and challenging her perceptions.
She missed her former life. She missed her friends, ordinary everyday entertainment, familiar food, stress-free socializing. She missed going to work in the morning, even though it meant day after day of peering into other peoples’ mouths. She missed knowing what was going on in her world even though there was more than enough happening in this one to occupy anyone’s mind.
Missing all that, she wondered if she herself was missed.
Why couldn’t she have been offered a choice? Why had fate and the sea decided to pick on her? What had she done to so offend Providence that it had caused her to be dragged down beneath the surface to dwell among touchy water-breathing humanoids and frequently inscrutable cephalopods?
Then she remembered that the alternative would probably have been drowning or death from starvation and exposure. Viewed in that light her present circumstances, an incipient war notwithstanding, seemed less of an imposition.
Oxothyr was pointing in her direction. Following the shaman’s gestures, Chachel and Jorosab had also turned toward her. Drifting near the hunter, Poylee favored Irina with the usual half-loathing, half-bemused expression she reserved especially for the changeling from the void.
“What do you think, Irina?” the manyarm mage asked her.
The unexpected and unprecedented request for her opinion left her more than a little startled. “What? I’m not sure I …”
“The shaman wants to know what you think we should do.” Poylee interrupted impatiently, as though explaining to a child. “Not that I understand why he should care, but it seems that he does.”
Irina considered. Maybe Oxothyr thought that because of her alien origins she might bring some unexpected insight to the quandary. Maybe he felt she could access information beyond their ken. Perhaps he hoped she might offer a solution neither he nor any of the rest of them could see. If so, the shaman was bound to find her response disappointing.
“I haven’t got a clue,” she finally declared. Though she was addressing herself to Oxothyr, all heard.
“That’s just what I’ve been saying all along.” Having delivered herself of that opinion Poylee inverted herself, her feet pointing surfaceward, and dove toward the city. Jorosab followed on her heels.
Chachel held back long enough to swim up to Irina. Unlike Poylee his expression was impossible to read, being as it was merely one of many variations of his entrenched stoicism.
“You really have no suggestions as to how we, as visitors to this place, should proceed?” Stolid though his tone was, he could not entirely keep his disappointment from showing.
She shook her head. “Despite what some people may choose to believe, I don’t have any mystical powers, Chachel. To foresee, or predict, or anything else. If I did, do you think I’d have let myself lapse into the condition I was in when you and Glint found me?”
He nodded appreciatively. “At least you are honest. Most would try to boast, or at least to demur in hopes of elevating their standing in the eyes of their companions. I commend you on your candor.” With that he turned and, replicating Poylee’s dive and accompanied by Glint, headed back down toward the lights of the city.
She watched him depart, wondering as she did so why she might wish for him to compliment something more intimate and less esoteric than her integrity. The light touch of a tentacle broke her contemplation and made her turn.
All hypnotically weaving arms and pulsing bioluminescence, Oxothyr had come up behind her. Glowing green and lined with bright blue spots, Sathi and Tythe flanked the shaman like patrol boats escorting a cruiser.
“I did not mean for my question to make you uncomfortable, Irina-changeling.” Uncoiling to its full length in front of her, another arm gestured downward. “As their experience to such phenomena as yourself is limited, so inevitably must be their responses.”
“It’s all right, shaman.” She shrugged. “I’m getting used to it. I just wonder why they think I might be able to do something special when I couldn’t prevent myself from nearly dying before I was brought to Sandrift.”
“I don’t think they believe you can do something,” he replied softly. “I think it is their hope.” Great round, black-gold eyes regarded her in the near-darkness. “As it is mine, for all that I know better.”
“Such hopes are misplaced,” she informed him without hesitation. “I’m only a person, like Poylee or like yourself.” A slight smile creased her face as the two famuli giggled. “Well, maybe not exactly like yourself.”
“But you are not like anyone else, Irina-changeling. You are only like you. As are we all.” He sighed, expelling a flow of slightly warmer water and just the tiniest splotch of phosphorescent ink by way of punctuation. “Come. Time contracts, and as the spralaker armies draw near the open water even here becomes a less friendly venue for casual banter.” He and the two famuli started downward, swimming backward with deliberate slowness so that she could keep up.
“The spralakers,” she ventured as she joined them. “They don’t really have a chance of conquering Benthicalia, do they?”
“We don’t know their full strength,” Oxothyr replied. “We do not know who leads them or what skills they might possess. In the realworld, everything is possible. Merely because one objects to tragedy does not mean it will not occur. Benthicalia’s defenses appear strong, and its people have the leadership of the Tornal. No matter the spralaker numbers or capabilities, they will not find this city as easy to capture as an isolated bommie defended by a couple of manyarms and a few bewildered fish.”
They were nearly back in the city when she thought to ask, “Do they fight on behalf of this singular coldness you’ve spoken of, Oxothyr? Is that what these unusual spralaker incursions are all about?”
“I wish I knew, Irina-changeling. It is one of many things I wish I knew.” Oxothyr did not have a brow to furrow, but the highly flexible skin above his eyes crinkled. “I cannot say if there is a connection between this lesser peril and the greater one I continue to sense.” He turned a vivid pink spotted with yellow. “Be so good as to allow me enough room in which to contemplate one apocalypse at a time, please.”
“Yes,” piped up Tythe. “Your presence and your constant questions crowd out important thoughts in the Master’s mind!”
Sweeping outward, a tentacle whacked the squid between head and mantle, sending the much smaller cephalopod spinning through the water like a misguided torpedo. “I can manage my own intellectual luggage, thank you, famulus.”
The squid’s arms drooped low as he regained control and leveled out. “I apologize, Master. My concern was, as always, for your welfare.”
“Your concern is recognized. Be conscious of your position, lest I tender it to another.” Looking back at Irina, who was swimming downward beside him, he added almost casually, “Would you possibly be open to such an offer? If you remain among us you must one day pick a profession.”
The bubbles that emerged from her throat carried her laughter upward. “I’m pretty good with all the standard dental tools, and I can spot problem areas almost as well as the several dentists I worked for, but I’m afraid I don’t have any aptitude for magic.”
“How,” the eight-armed, slack-bodied shaman asked, cocking one vertically pupiled eye in her direction, “do you know—changeling?”
O O O
Had she not already seen for herself what the spralakers were capable of, Irina would not have believed them able to pose a danger to a city as large and resourceful as Benthicalia. The best of the hardshells could swim but poorly, leaving them always at the mercy of attack from above. Most could only walk, and therefore only attack, sideways. Those crustaceans who could advance in a straightforward manner, such as the caridae and nephropidae, suffered from their own deficiencies. With the exception of Sajjabax’s notably ferocious family, the majority of caridae were more like Gubujul—fragile and easily dispatched. In contrast, the powerful nephropidae tended to be slow-moving as well as slow-witted.
It was left to exceptional individuals such as Gubujul and his Marshals to promulgate strategy, and to the mid-level spralaker officers to maintain control over the surging mass of lesser-minded soldiers. Such troops were brave to the point of recklessness, but they needed constant guidance.
Irina knew nothing of the Paramount Advisor and his general staff as she hovered with her companions above the city’s North Wall and gazed out at what appeared to be a lake of muttering fire. The light came from the emanations of the tens of thousands of bioluminescent salps, corals, fish, and other growths and creatures that the first spralaker army had suborned for its use. Stretching off into the distant dark, it was a sweeping glow that faded only with distance. In contrast, the hair-raising skitter-scratch that echoed across the intervening plain arose from the chattering of thousands of spralaker throats. Passing through water far more lucidly than it ever could through air, it was clearly audible throughout the city.
“There are an awful lot of them,” she whispered worriedly. “More than at Siriswirll.”
“Far more.”
Hanging beside her, Chachel used one hand to make a minor adjustment to his prosthetic right leg even as the other gripped a spear tightly. Three other bone shafts, each equally as long and deadly as the one he held, were slung in a scabbard across his back. Nearby, Poylee clutched her own weapons while Glint brandished a pair of short, powerful bows. The cuttlefish bore four small arrow quivers; one each strapped to his dorsal side, the ventral, left and right. A few dozen cuttlefish and squid so armed could unleash hundreds of short bone or urchin shafts at once even while maneuvering nimbly through the water. No spralaker could match their agility or rate of firepower. On the other hand, an arrow had to hit just the right spot to best a hardshell’s natural armor.
The spear Irina held loosely in her right hand and the short, curved bone sword strapped to her waist felt less foreign now after the battle at Siriswirll. Despite the newfound skill with which they had been employed, in close quarters she would still rely on the knife from her own world, with its titanium blade and composite handle.
Hopefully she would not be called upon to use any of them. Though Oxothyr and Jorosab had volunteered their group to the defense of the East Wall, their offer had been refused. As guests and non-residents, they were not obligated to participate in the defense of the city. It was enough that they were willing to contribute to the reserve forces.
She continued to gaze out at the seemingly endless flickering mass of blue and green light. “I asked Oxothyr, but what do you think, Chachel? Do you believe they can take the city?”
The hunter grunted. “The wall here is old but high and well-built. It is not a temporary defensive structure like the one that was put up by the citizens of Siriswirll.” He paused. “But I have never seen or heard of so many spralakers in one place. And this that we are facing is only one of two such armies. The other, we have been told by our scouts, will likely be attacking the lower terraces. The city must therefore defend itself on two fronts, north and west, much like a hunter caught between circling sharks.” Turning in the water, his features thrown into relief by the city light from behind and below, he met her gaze evenly.
“I honestly cannot speak to the eventual outcome, Irina. I don’t know enough about formal military tactics. I know how to cope with a school of makos, or engage in formal duel with a billfish, but military matters of this scope are outside my experience.” He gestured with his spear. “There is a difference between a hunter and a soldier.”
“I’m neither one,” she murmured softly. “My trade involves healing, not destroying.”
Kicking once, he crossed the rest of the way to her. His voice lost some of its habitual hardness. “You did well at Siriswirll. I saw you thrust.”
She looked over at him. “It wasn’t as hard as I thought. I was fighting oversized prawns and crabs—spralakers—and not people. I don’t know if I could kill a merson, for example.” Suddenly uncomfortably aware of his proximity she glanced to one side, where Glint was looking on patiently and, uncharacteristically, in silence. “And I don’t know if I can ever eat calamari again.”
“What’s ‘calamari’?” the cuttlefish asked curiously.
“Not you,” she was able to explain truthfully. “Right now I don’t want to go there.” She turned back to Chachel. “I’m helping Oxothyr because he’s helping me.”
The hunter nodded somberly, his chin almost touching hers. She was breathing faster. “Poor, honest changeling,” he murmured gently. “Nothing more could be expected of you.” Pivoting in the water, he backed off as he returned his attention to the looming spralaker horde. She swallowed. Something had just happened, and she wasn’t sure what.
“They’ll be coming soon,” he announced in his familiar curt tone. “Don’t forget—with the sidewalkers, aim your spear for the open mouth and your knife for the eyes. Watch always the sideways swing of the main claws.”
“I—I’ll remember,” she assured him. She felt she had to say something else. Something more. Keeping her voice low, she added, “Whatever happens, Chachel, I want to thank you and Glint again for everything you’ve done for me. And no matter the outcome, I want you to know that I don’t think—I don’t think that you’re a hostile, antisocial recluse.”
He looked back at her. She thought he might have smiled, albeit briefly, but she could not be certain.
“Ah, Irina-changeling, that’s where you’re wrong.”
Kicking forcefully, he moved farther away from her and toward Glint. Using every one of his ten arms, the cuttlefish had begun notching arrows simultaneously into both bows. Looking on, she considered Chachel’s words in light of his actions, seeking contradiction. Seeking, and hoping for it.
Finding it, and possibly other revelations, would have to wait until later.
Uttered in unison by ten thousand inhuman throats, a great grating, nerve-tingling ululation had arisen in the north.
The spralakers were coming.