Under Fallen Stars - Mel Odom [122]
"The Great Shark will tolerate it no longer," Iakhovas said. "That's why you and I were brought together here and now. We will bring them their freedom, and the people of Seros will know what it means to have doom suckled to their breasts like a vampiric child."
Curious and a little afraid to find what he was saying was true, Laaqueel peered into the crystal brain coral.
The image of the sea elf and the old surface dweller astride the seahorse floating down into the ancient city faded from the crystal's depths. In seconds it was replaced with the image of a sahuagin hunting party armed with nets and tridents.
"They are different," Laaqueel breathed, surprise filling her and driving away her own fears and doubts. Their anterior fins radiated from the sides of their heads as did the ones in the outer seas, but they flowed longer, reaching back along the skull until they merged with the dorsal fin at the top of their shoulder blades. Also, their coloring tended more toward blue shades than green. In fact some of those Laaqueel saw were teal and turquoise colored. A great number of them had speckles and stripes, like the markings they had as hatchlings.
Iakhovas touched the brain coral and the image changed again. When it cleared once more, it showed a massive wall lying under a stretch of ocean, only a short distance from the surface. The wall looked smooth, obviously manmade and constructed with care. She knew how massive it was from comparing the fish and the hated sea elves swimming nearby.
"We Who Eat of Seros are held captive in a tiny portion of all that is available. The elves and surface dwellers call the area the Alamber Sea. None of the sahuagin trapped inside it have ever been allowed to leave that area in any great numbers. Only hunting groups in twos and threes have escaped through the sea elf guards that man the wall."
Laaqueel was horrified. "But if they're not allowed to migrate, how do they live? If they're not careful, they could over-hunt an area-"
"And die?"
Laaqueel said nothing. It was too ghastly to put into words. When sahuagin over-hunted a region-which was seldom-there were whispered stories of how they'd turned on each other, eating the young and the weak until the region repopulated and the hunting was good again. It was one thing to eat another after death, or after a blood challenge, but preying on each other as a food source wasn't permitted except under the harshest of circumstances.
"Yes, little malenti. Those of your brethren have had to be careful over the years. The horrors you imagine, they've had to live through. That wall is over a hundred miles long, sixty feet tall, and a hundred feet thick. The sea elves and their allies have kept garrisons along it two miles apart to patrol. They call it the Sharksbane Wall."
Laaqueel burned the name into her memory, knowing it would forever live in infamy among the sahuagin.
"Until now, the elves and their allies have believed that wall to be impenetrable, but no more. I'm going to change that."
"You must tell the others," Laaqueel said, knowing the outrage would fire the blood of the warriors.
"I will. When the time is right. Now I am telling you."
"When we free them, what then? They will be hunted."
Iakhovas nodded. "Yes, they will. Probably more hunted than anything ever before in the history of Seros. The sea elves and most of the other underwater races fear nothing more than We Who Eat."
"That is as it should be," Laaqueel stated proudly, "but they will have many enemies."
"Only the inadequate fail, little malenti."
Laaqueel looked at the long wall revealed in the crystal brain coral. "It is as you say, as Sekolah wills."
"Don't be so taken aback," Iakhovas suggested. "I've not come this far merely to free them from their prison that they might be killed. I've arranged allies for them. Other races in Seros who would like to see the haughty sea elves brought to their knees. The elves have a city there-Myth Nantar."