“Ilior!” Selena reached down for him.
He leapt up and grabbed the accommodation ladder. With his weight suddenly gone, the skiff flipped over, clubbing one merkind hard enough that Selena could hear the sound of its skull caving like the shell of a hardboiled egg. Another merkind made a leaping try for Ilior; its fingers scraped the heel of the Vai’Ensai’s boot. He scrambled over the Seven Swords’ rail and drew his sword.
“Gods,” he breathed. He caught sight of Niven. “Who…?”
From behind, it sounded as if a fisherman had dumped a full net of thumping, flapping catch onto the deck. Selena hefted her own blade and turned to face the enemy. She felt the blood drain from her face. The deck swarmed with rotting merkind.
“Svoz!” she screamed. “To me!”
The sirrak appeared with his customary plume of rancid smoke and in his hulking red form. A morning star with a spiked head the size of a cannonball in his hands. He swung it on its chain, and a smile spread over his blood-colored face. “Yessss…”
Selena watched him swing the ball in a deadly arc, but a scraping sound at her feet drew her attention. She brought her sword down on the webbed hand of the shrimp-tailed merman that reached for Niven, impaling it onto the deck. The merkind hissed and showed her a mouth full of broken and bloody teeth. She kicked him full in the face but the blow did nothing to stop him; she doubted he had even felt it. She kicked again but he reached for her with his other hand. She had the terrible certainty that if he touched her flesh, she would fall ill, perhaps turn as mad and corrupted as these once-beautiful beings were now. Then Julian’s blade came down in a silver blur, and the merkind’s head tumbled at Selena’s feet, washing her boots in blood and another, foul, pus-like ichor.
“Use your magic!” Julian pointed to the deck where the merkind writhed in a mass of rotted limbs and tails. “I’ll cover you!”
Selena looked just in time to see Ilior scoop Niven over his shoulder with one hand and brandish his sword with the other. He leapt atop a barrel lashed to the gunwhale, out of the merkind’s reach for now.
With Ilior and Niven safe, Selena held her hands out, one over the other, a span apart.
“Luxari,” she said. Light, collected from the lanterns on the Storm? from the setting sun, from the meager moonlight, coalesced in the space between her hands and was trapped by the water in the air. As soon as the prayer word left her lips a ball of light glowed in her palms. Without hesitation, she sent the orb into the midst of the merkind swarming the deck.
The orb exploded like glass—shards of light sprayed in all directions, and struck the merkind with sizzling bolts. Some writhed in agony, their flesh sloughing off, while others were engulfed in flames that burnt out immediately after. They curled and blackened on the planks, reeking of charred fish. The screams were horrible to hear. Selena’s heart ached for them.
These are not merkind. Not truly. What has happened to them?
Her light globe had killed many and sent those trying to clamber aboard back into the water, screeching and covering their eyes. But a small handful—some with their rotting flesh now burned—came on.
Selena slashed at one merman, slicing his arm off and spraying the air with blackened blood. Ilior bashed another mermaid in the head with the pommel of his great sword when she reached the barrel he stood on. She slumped lifeless to the deck. Julian danced with his scimitars, cutting to ribbons the few merkind left who reached for him, their screams of rage reduced to burbling gasps as they died. But Svoz was terrible to behold.
He chortled with sadistic glee and swung his morningstar over his head before swiping it down, again and again. Merkind bodies exploded in grisly sprays of bone and blood and blubber and scales. Soon the deck was slick with their blood and other, fishy-smelling liquids that looked pale and pus-like in the faint light. In moments, the carnage ended and the only sound was Svoz’s lament that he had nothing left to kill.
Selena lowered her sword. She met Julian’s eye and he shook his head, incredulous.
“The skiff is still here,” Ilior reported from the port rail. “It’s capsized but I think I can turn it.”
“No, Svoz can do it.” Selena scanned the water. “There might be more.”
“Dammit to the bloody Deeps.” Julian watched his Black Storm sail in a messy arc around the Seven Swords. Grunt could just be seen, waving his arms.
“Have they been attacked too?” Selena asked with sudden panic.
“No,” Julian muttered. “They just can’t sail worth a damn without someone relaying the orders.”
“The hazards of keeping a mute crew,” Ilior said with a wry twist to his lips. He hefted Niven more securely onto his shoulder. Julian looked as if he had a ready reply, but said nothing.
Svoz got the skiff righted and the rest of the party climbed in. Ilior laid Niven in the prow before taking an oar with Svoz. Selena sat close to the Healer, relieved to see the stretch of water between them and the Seven Swords grow wider. Quiet had descended again but Selena kept her eyes on the water, as did Julian, who had not sheathed his scimitars.
The Black Storm faced the opposite direction as the Seven Swords now. Ilior and Svoz pulled the skiff up on her port side as Niven lowered the accommodation ladder. Selena reached for it when the waters beneath the skiff began to churn. She fell back, stomach roiling.
“Bloody Deeps,” Julian cursed. His face was ashen and Selena thought hers must look the same.
“This must be my lucky day.” Svoz took his morningstar in hand again.
Selena let out a cry as two merkind sought to climb up the accommodation ladder. She called a small shard of light to each hand and sent them at the two, mindful of hitting the Storm. The daggers of light found the merkind’s backs and burnt holes through their desiccated flesh. They screamed their terrible screams and sank beneath the waves. Still more came.
Svoz braced his immense legs on either side of the skiff. His weapon swept the head of one mermaid off her graying, peeling shoulders but another, this one with the lower body of a shark, leapt from the water, mouth gaping, and struck his exposed midsection. The mermaid’s mouth burrowed into his flesh, and though her own skin hissed and burned and charred off at the touch by Svoz’s heat, she did not stop. Her skinny arms wrapped around him until she was welded to him. A stench of fishy, burnt flesh clouded the skiff and the sirrak’s struggles threatened to capsize the little boat.
Selena watched, stupefied, as another merkind, and another, and another broke the surface. They wrapped their arms around Svoz, and bit deep. He cursed a vile oath and swung his weapon in a wide, erratic arc, nearly swiping Julian’s head from his shoulders. The sirrak lost his balance and fell overboard with a great splash. The merkind swarmed like piranha and the water boiled and steamed as Svoz thrashed and screamed.