Under Fallen Stars - Mel Odom [5]
The young triton had never seen what was about to happen, but there had been plenty of stories about it. The event was only one more reason to make war against the kraknyth.
Slowly, the female morkoth's abdomen flexed. Scaled flesh peeled back, opening like a mouth. A wicked appendage with a spike at the end slid free. It wavered for a moment out in the open as if uncertain. Female morkoth never had the opportunity to practice the maneuver. It was only done once, and it was guided by instinct.
Flyys tried to move but couldn't. In the next heartbeat, the appendage flared out and stabbed deeply into the young triton's abdomen. He screamed at the pain and felt warm blood seep down his midsection and thighs. The appendage writhed within him, seeking out the various internal organs, not damaging any of them.
The female morkoth held him as if in a lover's embrace. The appendage pulsed as it began laying her eggs, scattering them among his internal organs. Flyys tried to fight against it in vain. He gazed into the female morkoth's black eyes, almost hypnotized, and watched as they dimmed, watched as life left it.
When all of the eggs were laid, the female morkoth fell backward, dead before she hit the deck. The appendage wrenched free of Flyys.
Filled with horror, the young triton gazed down at his wound. As he watched, it closed up and sealed, healing instantly as the final part of the cycle pumped into him. After all, it wouldn't do to have a host body die or become infected before the eggs could hatch.
"Get rid of it," Vurgrom commanded.
Reluctantly, his men came forward. They grabbed the dead female morkoth and heaved it over the railing. The splash barely carried above the ship's creaks and the sails snapping overhead.
Khorrch peered into Flyys's eyes. "You've been given a great gift, longmane."
"You've killed me," the young triton whispered hoarsely.
"Mayhap," the morkoth mage admitted. "Even should you live after the young hatch inside you and eat their way free, you would only be reimplanted with eggs or killed outright."
Flyys knew it was true. The morkoth young would feed on his flesh and tear their way out of his body. Even if he could get free of the morkoth, he knew of no spells or mendicants that would kill the morkoth young and let him live. Still, if he could get free, he might survive their birthing.
"You may know where the Taker's Eye is," the young triton said, "but you'll never get it."
"The Taker will."
"Your precious Taker," Flyys said, the certainty of his own doom freeing him from the fear that had filled him, "will turn on you in the end. He is only after those things that matter to him. You and the other kraknyth are only a means to an end."
Murderous rage gleamed in the morkoth mage's eyes. "You lie."
"You yourself said that no one undersea race knows all about the Taker's past or his future," Flyys went on, "but we know this. You will pay for your greed and for your mistakes.
Myth Nantar shall never reopen."
"Enough prattle," Vurgrom declared. "We've got leagues to go if we're to get where we need to be." He gestured at his men. 'Take the triton belowdecks and stow him."
Flyys waited until they untied him, then tried to break free. He preferred death now to birthing the morkoth young, but everything he'd been through had left him drained. One of the pirates slammed the flat of his heavy cutlass against his head and consciousness abandoned the young triton.
I
Claarteeros Sea (Trackless Sea)
17 Tarsakh, the Year of the Gauntlet
"Meat is meat!"
The roar of sahuagin thumps, ticks, pings and whistles that served as their communication filled the walls of the open amphitheater, almost deafening Laaqueel as she stood in the sahuagin king's retinue. It was pure bloodlust, fired from their king's promise of the coming deaths in the amphitheater.
As a malenti, an accident of birth among the sahuagin caused from being born too close to a community of sea elves, she immediately stood out from the hulking