The Coral Kingdom - Douglas Niles [64]
His shadowy figure moved from the rowing bench, toward the gunwale of the Princess of Moonshae. All around, northmen and Ffolk slumbered, while the keen-eyed helmsman-currently Knaff the Elder-studied the starlit horizon and the smooth surface of the sea with cautious diligence.
Crouching, Luge moved low between the benches until he reached the rail behind the shelter of several water barrels. Here he raised his head, peering cautiously over the gunwale of the speeding longship.
Huddled in the shadows of the casks, blacker even than the dim starlight above, Luge reached into a concealed pouch-a flap that had been sewn into the lining of his sea cloak. His eyes widened in surprise-until that moment he had not recalled the pouch's existence, though he had been present when Malawar attached it.
Within, he felt several tiny metallic pebbles. He selected one with his blunt thumb and forefinger and withdrew his hand. A tiny tinkle sounded in the night, too faint to carry even to the ears of the nearby northmen but enough to identify the object as a small bell.
Still wondering why he was doing it, Luge dropped the bell over the side. It splashed into the waters squarely at the mouth of Corwell Firth.
In the water, the bell continued to ring… but now its sound was magnified a thousand-, a millionfold. The tinkle became a pounding dirge, and its weight carried it through the sea for dozens and scores and ultimately hundreds of miles.
* * * * *
Along the vast, kelp-lined ridges and plains of the Coral Kingdom, the tiny bell ringing four hundred miles to the north sounded a call to war. Huge sahuagin armies, camped for weeks along coral reefs, mustered forth, swarming up from the sea bottom, driving themselves northward. The fishmen swam with strong kicks, their companies spreading through the depths, some swimming high, breaking the surface occasionally to observe the surrounding sea, while others swam at different levels, with the deepest swimming more an a thousand feet below.
The huge scrags, long teeth gleaming even in the dingy waters of the kingdom's Deepvale, formed columns, twelve scrags per column, each column more than a match for any merchant crew of humankind. Hulking beasts nearly twice as large as the fishmen, the sea trolls propelled their sleek bodies through the sea with powerful legs and thick, webbed feet. Hair, like loose strands of seaweed, trailed back from round, scale-coated skulls. The columns of the scrags swam in the center of the army, leaving the lesser creatures to scout.
Some of the aquatic warriors bore weapons-silver-tipped spears or curved, shell-studded scimitars-but most relied on their multitudinous teeth and sharp, curving claws. Others trailed nets, hopeful of seizing captives, and a few were armed with bows and arrows, though these weapons would only be useful in the air or at extremely short range when submerged.
A hundred such columns and companies gathered around the palaces of the Coral Kingdom, swarming upward, through waters that passed from purple to blue to aqua and then to the pale green of the surface. The sahuagin veered to the sides when the scrag columns swam, the fishmen cowering away from the mighty and infinitely evil sea trolls.
Other creatures, too, emerged from the depths to swell the ranks of the undersea army. Schools of sharks and sinuous formations of eels took position on the flanks of the force. The sharks were particularly useful, for they ravaged with sudden and bloody attacks any unfortunate dolphins or whales that stumbled into the path of the great army. In this way, the movement could be kept secret from the merfolk and titans, the two implacable enemies of the scrags and their allies.
To the north they swam, faster by far than any human army could march overland, riding a graceful northerly current to increase their pace still more. The army's master was Coss-Axell-Sinioth, swimming among them in the body of the monstrous squid, propelling himself faster even than the sleekest scrag could swim. The minion of Talos relished his new command and knew