Under Fallen Stars - Mel Odom [12]
Huaanton reacted hotly. "You're putting words in my mouth."
"No," Iakhovas said, cutting him off. "Laaqueel has prayed about this matter ever since that time. And she fought you regarding this issue, telling you how out of place your demands were. You were out of line asking for a sign that we're carrying on as Sekolah would have us do. We survive, and we survive strongly and in numbers. That's all he's ever asked of us."
"Yet, if we were to follow you, all we would find is our deaths against the surface dwellers."
Iakhovas looked at him, fire dancing in his single eye. "Only the inadequate fail!" he shouted.
That was one of the core beliefs for the sahuagin, Laaqueel knew. All of them had been trained since hatchlings that it was true.
"The brave and strong shall flourish," Iakhovas went on. "The tide of the Great Cleansing is upon us!" He gestured across the amphitheater. "Should you want your sign that you so inelegantly demanded of we who choose to follow Sekolah's true way, then behold and tremble at the power of the Shark God!"
Every eye was drawn across the amphitheater. Laaqueel watched as well, noticing the huge mass that took shape out in the distance. At first it blended in with the deep blue of the sea, then it paled as it came closer. In moments, the great albino kraken hovered above the amphitheater.
The kraken's two longest tentacles drifted out at its sides while the other six coiled restlessly beneath its body. The single baleful eye on the arrow-shaped head, reminding the malenti of her master's, glared red even in the dark waters. Its tentacles were over one hundred and fifty feet long, making it the largest of its kind Laaqueel had ever seen or even heard about.
The malenti recognized the kraken as the one that had guarded the tunnels leading to the king's palace. Brought there as a young creature, the kraken had been fed by the royal guards till it was too big to get out through the tunnels it had been brought through. The guards had kept it on a regulated near-starvation diet that guaranteed it would eat anything that came within its reach.
Only it hadn't acted like that with Iakhovas when they'd encountered it a tenday ago. With Iakhovas, the kraken had acted totally docile.
"There is your sign, Exalted One!" Iakhovas shouted, pointing at the great kraken as it continued to drift closer.
Huaanton stared up at the huge kraken in enraged silence.
Every sahuagin in the amphitheater knew the creatures possessed an uncanny intelligence. A kraken wouldn't normally approach a sahuagin community, Laaqueel knew, especially one that had kept it captive. It had also gotten too large to get out of the caverns below by conventional means, leaving her no choice but to accept that Iakhovas had used his magic to arrange it. The kraken's presence was proof again of the arcane abilities Iakhovas wielded.
"Here is your proof," Iakhovas went on. "Proof that you demanded of our god."
"You stand there and claim the appearance of this beast is a sign from Sekolah," Huaanton thundered with deep clicks and thumps.
"Dare you claim it is not?" Iakhovas stretched his left hand upward The kraken stretched one of its longest tentacles down at the same time, tenderly wrapping the huge, leaf-shaped pod around Iakhovas's arm. "Have you ever seen anything like this?"
Laaqueel knew the display left a distinct impression on the sahuagin community. Except for the guards who'd first seen Iakhovas with the kraken, no one else had ever seen anything like it either. The malenti priestess knew Iakhovas was treading a fine line between accreditation and accusation. Huaanton pushed it over the line.
"Magic," the sahuagin king stated. The charge echoed over the crowd, eliciting small clicks and whistles of quiet conversation.
Laaqueel's heart beat frantically in her chest. She took in