Ice Crypt (Mermaids of Eriana Kwai Book 2) (43 page)

I pumped my tail hard. If I swam fast enough, the serpent would have to straighten out to chase me properly. Then I would have only a single head to deal with.

My muscles ached. In my whole life, I’d never swum so fast, or as far as I had in the past tidecycle. I pushed past the bone-deep exhaustion, trying to think.

If Adaro was focused on controlling the serpent, maybe the others could kill him.

With what?

As I swam headlong away from the beach, the current surged rhythmically behind me. The serpent was following.

I nearly banked south, maybe out of childhood habit. Then I remembered the families in the coral. I changed course abruptly. The serpent kept going for a moment, snapping at my wake.

I had no plan, other than to get her away from Eriana Kwai. Where could I go? How could I get rid of something so big?

A warm blast from her nostrils interfered with the rhythm of my tail. One hard puff of air and she could send me off course.

Below, the floor dropped off. I dove, following it.

The serpent’s momentum carried her forwards, biting at nothing. A shadow fell over me. Then a whirlpool stirred overhead as she dove after me.

She groaned, projecting a blast of frustration.

I needed a plan. Where could I take her? Could I kill her? Trap her?

I tried to sense the bottom. The pulses behind me masked any other vibrations. I kept diving, blind.

I couldn’t tell what was there until I almost slammed into the rocks.

I swerved left, saw a black shadow advancing, and flipped back the other way. The second head caught up.

They convened, but not before I twisted out of the way.

With a burst of speed helped by my hands, I followed the rocks.

A cliff materialised ahead, towering over me. Bubbles escaped my lips in surprise.

I turned before I hit it. One end of the serpent tailed me while her body curled around, drawing parallel to the cliff.

She was going to use the cliff face to corner me. I had a moment to act.

Relying on sight, I scanned the rocks. A fissure yawned beside me.

I grabbed the lip before I shot past it, yanking myself inside. The gap barely fit my body.

The black snout slammed into the cliff face. The world shook. Rocks cascaded onto my head.

I sucked back, wedging myself in place. The teeth snapped close enough to touch.

The second head caught up. She stopped snapping to eye me from two angles. The lids closed and opened with a sticky sound, adjusting to my dark hiding place.

Careful calculation projected from her. A murmur emitted from both heads.

Then a nostril pressed against the opening.

Reacting quickly, I pushed my back and tail hard against opposite walls. A bubble of air blasted at me, threatening to shake me loose.

A curved fang grazed my shoulder. She grunted in frustration. I tried to shrink further away.

Her jaws opened and closed, teeth grinding against stone.

Another rock hit my skull. I let one hand off the wall to grab it before it fell. With a grunt, I threw it hard at the serpent’s mouth.

She hissed, retracting with an air of surprise. She coughed up the stone and tossed it aside, pupils narrowing.

Following the stone with my eyes, I caught a glint of light. Something moved a short distance away.

It disappeared in a blink—silent, agile, and much too big to be a fish.

The more I stared, the more I noticed other movements beside it.

At least twenty mermaids, mermen, and children had ducked behind a mound of rocks. They had long, lean frames, with tails a wide range of colours. Piercings glinted on their faces and bodies. That had been what caught my eye. The nearest one had a row of diamonds in her left collarbone. Her hair floated eerily beside her head—kelp buoys were tied to the ends of several braids.

The serpent struck the rocks. Debris swirled around us. I had no escape.

I bit my lip, thinking. She would have to breach at some point. Could I outlast her?

But as I thought it, the second head retreated for the surface.

My pulse thudded in my ears. The Host could wait outside this rock for an eternity.

Spio’s voice came to mind
: If you need help, ask for it.

I peered past the serpent. The merpeople held spears and maces.

Either these strangers helped me out of this, or this was where I died.

I stopped holding in the panic that had been building in my chest, and screamed.

“Help me!”

The serpent gave a low hiss at the noise. Her forked tongue reached for me. It tasted my skin, warm and slimy, trying to wrap behind me and pull me out.

I trembled as I held myself in place, leaning hard against the walls.

The merpeople glanced at each other, unmoving.

Did they not understand? Did they speak a different dialect? Even then, anyone could see I was desperate.

They didn’t say a word.

“Please,” I shouted.

The mermaid with the kelp braids nodded to the others. They turned away and, grouping together like a school of fish, began retreating.

“Wait,” I shouted.

I gaped after them. They were going to leave me here to die.

But I had felt their resentment, confirming what I’d feared—that I was a part of Adaro’s kingdom. I was the enemy.

Angry now, I gritted my teeth. We were allies. They couldn’t abandon me.

In a last, desperate attempt, I blurted the only thing that came to mind.

“
Para la reina
!”

I wasn’t sure why I said it. I didn’t know what it meant, or if I’d even pronounced it right.

They stopped.

The lead mermaid turned, eyes wide. I stared back, trying desperately to convey everything I had done—every intention to make peace, every plot against Adaro.

The serpent picked up on my focus. She blinked, turned her head.

The mermaid’s lips curled into a grin. Her skin rippled, transforming. Her teeth lengthened into an impressive row of fangs.

She raised a webbed fist and shouted, “
Para la reina
!”

The group echoed the war cry. They launched from the rocks, spears and maces raised.

The serpent opened her jaws, hissing. Bubbles erupted from the slits in her nose. The second head came to meet them.

Mermaids, mermen, and children fought with equal skill, slashing at the rock-hard scales. They darted around her vast body, under and over, swarming like flies.

I yanked myself out of the crevice and dove into the fray.

Except I had no weapon.

The serpent’s heads swivelled, unsure of which target to choose.

The lead mermaid swooped in front of me before I could make it far.

“Go,” she said. “We will distract it, but it is too much. We will not hold it for long.”

For a moment, the words flowed by without meaning. She had that low, pronounced dialect I’d heard once before.

“Do you understand me?” she said.

“I—yes. Thank you.”

She searched my face. The others continued to weave tantalisingly in front of the serpent’s noses.

“Who are you?” said the mermaid.

Who was I? Not a soldier, anymore. I was a rebel. A rogue mermaid, alone and wanted for treason.

“Nobody,” I said.

She inclined her head. Next to her long frame, the sharpness in her bones, and that imposing aura, I felt like a child.

“I do not think you are nobody,” she said. “Will you come with us?”

A merman shouted as a set of massive jaws nearly closed around his fin.

The mermaid raised her weapon, preparing to dive in.

“I have to go back,” I said, pointing towards Eriana Kwai.

She nodded, backing away. “When you are ready, come find us.”

Beneath her powerful presence, I felt her sincerity. She wanted me to join them.

Was that what I wanted?

This was the resistance I’d been searching for. These were the merpeople I belonged with—more than anyone in Adaro’s kingdom.

Hope bloomed in my chest. I had to find Spio. I refused to believe Adaro had caught him. My friend was out there somewhere, and together, we could join this group.

I nodded once.

“I will.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The Battle for Eriana Kwai

Arms wrapped around my waist. I screamed in protest, but Tanuu threw me over his shoulder like a bag of sand.

“Put me down!”

I punched him in the back, hearing him exhale with every blow.

“We gotta get you to safety,” he said between grunts.

He made it to the shipwreck before tripping over the rubble and falling. We splashed into ankle-deep waves. I pushed myself off his shoulder, fuming.

“It’s going to eat Lysi!”

I leaned towards the sea as if to swim after her.

Annith grabbed my arm. “You don’t have a tail yet.”

Tanuu cringed at the word.

Blacktail seemed about to place a hand on his shoulder, but stopped.

“We shouldn’t take her from the water,” she said. “Not if she’s transitioning.”

The rising tide battered the last standing piece of the shipwreck, spraying us with each wave.

“At least hide over here,” said Tanuu.

I humoured him by pulling myself behind the piece of hull, out of Adaro’s sight.

We needed to do something, and fast. Every second we sat here, the serpent could be closing in on Lysi.

I leaned over. Adaro was within shooting distance.

“Someone go get crossbows,” I said. “The training base has enough iron—”

I ducked back as Adaro whirled around, crimson eyes flaring.

But he was looking past us, into the forest.

Then I heard it: a low, vibrating rumble. Something thundered in the distance, like a herd of galloping horses.

We turned.

My father burst from the trees, face shining with sweat. A hunting bow and arrows were clenched in his fists. My mother came behind him with a bucket of iron bolts. They stopped at the edge of the beach, panting, staring wildly around.

“Papa!”

For a brief, absurd moment, a childish feeling overcame me that everything would be all right now that my parents were here.

More arrived. Twenty, thirty, a hundred people flooded from the trees and spilled onto the beach.

They saw Annith, Tanuu, Blacktail, and me, collapsed behind the shipwreck in the ankle-deep tide. They saw Dani, lying bloody on the highest rock, Adaro behind her with his hands and arms dripping in blood. Some of them pointed to the black shape rising and falling in the distance.

Someone roared. The rest echoed. With a deafening outcry, hundreds of my people flooded onto the beach.

They carried hunting weapons, shovels, bats, anything they could find, iron or not. Even the widow from the Massacre Committee wielded a cast-iron skillet.

At the front of the crowd, Anyo stretched out his arms as though ready to conduct an orchestra.

“Fire!” he shouted.

Before Adaro could react, a shower of hunting arrows rained down on him. The wood wouldn’t kill him, but they knocked him backwards.

He regained his balance and straightened. His lipless mouth parted, flashing his pointed teeth. He raised a thick arm high in the air.

“No,” I shouted, panic building.

I saw her coming, a shadow beneath the surface. Ripples spread from her armoured back, growing rapidly closer.

“Mama, Papa! Run!”

They couldn’t take on the serpent, no matter how many there were.

“Aim,” bellowed Anyo.

Before he could tell them to fire, a monstrous head rose from the water. It reached high overhead, casting a long shadow over the beach and my people. The jaws parted, a string of saliva stretching from top fangs to bottom. She expelled a burst of air, sending hot droplets of seawater across the beach.

The roars turned to screams. Most people stopped running. Many rushed back towards the trees. A few faces remained determined—my parents among them.

“Run!” I shouted.

I pulled myself in their direction, as though I could protect them. They couldn’t die because of this. Not at Adaro’s hands.

Another shout rose over the din.

“Aim!”

Texas arrived on the beach, flanked by the girls who’d been ready to depart for the Massacre. They stood where the grass met the rocks, each wearing her new uniform. All twenty aimed together, holding their brand new crossbows with perfect form.

“Fire!”

A shower of iron bolts arced through the air.

All twenty hit the serpent in the face. They bounced off with
clinks
like metal on metal. She blinked, shook her head like a dog, and let out an earth-shattering roar.

Attacking the Host would get us nowhere. We needed to kill her master.

“Get the merman!”

My words were drowned by screams as the second head emerged from the water, and the serpent descended on the crowd.

With so many options for prey, she seemed not to know who to clamp her jaws around. She settled with swinging her heads through the mass of people, sending them flying. Several people screamed as they were launched into the air, scattering like leaves in the wind.