Darkwell - Douglas Niles [12]
"N-Newt, don't! Stay back here with me – with me!" Without turning around, Tristan pictured the tiny sprite, Yazilliclick, cautiously peering from the hatch to the hold, his antennae no doubt quivering anxiously. The two faerie creatures had spent most of the voyage belowdecks, but now the chaos of the battle had aroused them.
"Newt, why don't you keep watch on the waters off the stern?" suggested the king. "See that they don't sneak up on us from behind!" And incidentally, he added silently, stay out of the way.
"Well, okay," the faerie dragon agreed, with a suspicious look at Tristan.
Quickly Newt buzzed away, and Yaz popped out of the hatch to follow him. The sprite was a small, humanlike creature, about two feet tall and distinguished by a small pair of gossamer wings and two antennae that sprouted from his forehead.
The young king turned his attention back to the battle, to see that the longship was very close now. He could clearly make out several northmen in desperate combat with the monsters, while other sahuagin held back from the fight.
"Shoot those farthest from the humans," said Tristan. "Now!"
The four bolts flew through the air, each finding a target in the mass of scaly bodies. The red-haired northman in the center of the deck cried out a challenge, and his crewmen pressed the attack. The crossbowmen reloaded quickly, and loosed a second volley as the Defiant started to turn, barely a hundred feet from the raider now.
These bolts, too, found home in the slick bodies of the fish-men. The spined heads of the sahuagin bristled as they turned to face the Defiant, hissing their rage and clashing their weapons.
Daryth and Robyn joined Tristan at the gunwale. The king climbed up on the rail, bracing himself with a hanging rope. The Sword of Cymrych Hugh was like a feather in his hand – a thirsty, violent feather. He saw perhaps two dozen northmen still standing, though the numbers of the sahuagin had thinned as well. And the red-bearded captain still led his men boldly, striking to both sides with his broad-bladed axe.
The two ships drifted closer as Dansforth smoothly maneuvered his vessel through a sharp turn. Then the Defiant paused, parallel to the longship and barely twenty feet away.
The rolling of the swell dropped the longship into a trough. Tristan looked down into the hull and saw a pile of bodies, white skin and green scales intermingled in death. At the same instant, he pushed away from the gunwale, swinging on the rope until he lost momentum. He hung poised over the longship for a moment, and then let go to land lightly among the bodies. He heard Daryth land easily behind him.
On the deck of the Defiant, Robyn chanted a prayer to her goddess, then waved her staff in the direction of the sahuagin. Suddenly the outline of fish-men bodies glowed white, outlined in cool, magical fire. The reptiles hissed their rage, though several cowered back in fear. They slapped and struck at the flames without success, though the fire did not appear to cause them harm.
The red-bearded northman bellowed a challenge of brute violence, cleaving a sahuagin to the waist with his axe. His comrades let loose a shout and attacked.
A great, green sahuagin lunged at the High King. Its toothy jaws gaped, and the spiny ridge along its backbone stood erect as sharp claws clutched at Tristan's throat. The white fire flickered and flared around the creature's ghastly shape, making a clear target. The vicious claws swept toward the king, but the silver sword found the throat of the monster first. Pink blood sprayed Tristan as the reptilian attacker clutched the lethal wound, still staggering toward him as it died.
The High King whirled toward the other sahuagin, the Sword of Cymrych Hugh marking a gleaming arc through the air before him. The northman leader crushed a green skull with his massive axe, and suddenly the fish-men lost their heart for battle. In one motion, still outlined in eerie flame,