He swam forward, determined to rout the sahuagin from their grim task. As he raced through the water, the natural instincts of his adopted form took over. This time when a gill-man began weaving his trident and droning, the shark focused his thoughts on the endangered little girl, shutting out the sounds that only moments before had seemed like a lullaby. Catching the chanting creature off guard, the shark darted under the trident and slammed his snout into the sahuagin's belly, pushing him backward into one of his fellows. The pair floated, stunned and unmoving, above the ocean floor. The two remaining sahuagin turned their attention to the shark, which had veered away and was building up speed to come in for another attack. Galvin felt a rush of pain as a trident jabbed deep into his side, just below a fin. Blood mingled with the seawater. He tried to ignore the pain, to press his attack; he was rewarded when he felt his teeth close about a gill-man's tough hide. Tearing like a savage animal, the shark shredded the sahuagin's armorlike scales and dug his teeth deeper into the torso. All the while he shook his head back and forth, turning the sea black with blood. The gill-man tried to extricate itself from the death grip, but it was no use. Again pain shot through Galvin's flank, this time originating closer to his tail. Another trident jab, his mind screamed, feeling the barbs still embedded in his flesh. The shark opened his mouth, letting the dying sahuagin float to the ocean floor. In a pain-maddened frenzy, Galvin turned on the remaining gill-man, who was attempting to flee. He sped after the sahuagin, closing the distance with two swishes of his tail. Gleefully the druid rolled his eyes back, ready for another kill. Stop! Galvin's mind screamed. The druid fought to regain control of himself, to quell the bloodlust overtaking his soul. Isabelle. Save Isabelle. The shark slowed his pace and turned back toward the pinned contraption. Galvin continued to focus on Isabelle and the spider-bat, trying to avoid looking at the sahuagin corpses floating in his path. His thoughts were filled with self- recrimination. It wasn't uncommon for a druid to be overwhelmed by the animal instincts of a creature he imitated, but Galvin could never quite reconcile his love of Me with the strange, savage things he did when he transformed-even if such violence was integral to everyday life in the forest or the sea. Sadly the druid clamped his jaws about the trident that pinned the spider-bat to the seabed. One yank and the weapon was free. Next he worked to get the
trident free of his own hide. Then he quickly tugged the net loose from the spider- bat. Peering through the cracked glass eye, he saw the frightened little girl. Water was seeping into the construct; it sloshed all the way up to Isabelle's shoulders. Galvin locked his jaws on the spider-bat's good wing and laboriously dragged it toward the surface. His wounds, though not serious, were painful, and he found himself thinking of the old man and Isabelle to keep himself moving. The druid's shark head broke the waves some time later, and he squinted in the face of the bright sunlight. The search for Isabelle had taken him well into the next day. With the contraption in tow, the druid started the long swim back to shore. Galvin resumed his human form in the shallows of the Dragon Reach, near Drollo's tower. He pulled the spider-bat a few feet up onto the sand, then lay back, ready to let exhaustion take him. His side ached from the trident wounds. Fortunately, they were more painful than life-threatening. Just a brief rest, he thought, closing his eyes. Clunk, clunk ka-thonk! The sound roused Galvin and he watched the contraption's lid fall open. A blond-tressed head poked out. A sheepish, wide grin covered the girl's face. “Hi!” Isabelle beamed between yawns. “Who're you?” “A friend of your grandfather's,” Galvin said softly, rising sluggishly to his feet and extending a hand to the soaked girl. She grabbed it and scrambled out of the spider-bat. “Will he be mad?” she asked quietly,