Waterfire Saga, Book Four: Sea Spell: Deep Blue Novel, A (37 page)

The mermaid had blond hair, and the black-and-white tail of an orca. She wore a sleek black dress, a fitted sealskin vest, and a pearl necklace. A sword of Kobold steel hung from a scabbard at her hip. She held her head high, exuding confidence and power.

As the mermaid swam to the open patch of seafloor between the camp and the Carceron, Sera blinked, barely believing her eyes. The fear she’d felt evaporated. A feeling of triumph surged through her veins.

“Astrid
did
it! She got the talismans.”

She started toward her friend, overjoyed, but a few yards away, she stopped short. Another figure was making its way down the seamount.

Sera recognized him. He’d come for her once. Through her mirror. He’d tried to kill her. He too had blond hair, and he wore it cropped close to his head. He was without sunglasses now, and she could see his eyes, as black and bottomless as the abyss. He walked instead of swam, for he was a human. Or had been once.

He joined Astrid. They smiled at each other.

“Astrid,” Sera said. “Astrid…
no
.”

Astrid didn’t reply. She threw a cold glance at Sera, then trained her gaze on the Carceron.

With a sickening jolt, Sera saw the truth: Astrid had betrayed her. She’d betrayed all of them. The things she’d said during the last convoca were all lies. She’d only said them to get the Black Fins to the Carceron with their talismans. Astrid had asked Sera how many troops she’d had and then given Orfeo that information, which was why his troops outnumbered hers.

Astrid was Orfeo’s now. And Sera knew why. He had given her something no one else could: her magic, and her pride.

And now she was about to give Orfeo something in return: the talismans, her friends’ lives…and Abbadon.

O
RFEO WALKED UP TO SERA. He bowed.

“Serafina, Regina di Miromara, at last we meet in person. It’s an honor,” he said. “Your bravery and resourcefulness, and that of your friends, are remarkable. No one else, not even myself, has managed to find the other five talismans.”

Sera did not return the bow, or the pleasantries. “You can’t do this, Orfeo,” she said. “You can’t unleash suffering on the entire world just because you’ve suffered.”

“Actually, I can. I vowed to get my wife back from the underworld, if it took me all of eternity. And now I will.”

“Not without a fight.”

Orfeo smiled. “I thought you might say that. Knowing you, you’ll have prepared some brilliant military strategy, much as your mother would have. The logical choice would be for you and your fighters to head for higher waters and attack from there, knowing that my cadavru are not as strong in the water as your troops. But that would be a mistake, because
they
are,” he said, pointing above him.

Sera looked up. The waters above were filled with dragons. They hovered menacingly.

“Razormouths,” Neela said fearfully.

“Indeed,” said Orfeo, turning to her. “I believe, Your Grace, that you’re acquainted with one of them—the dragon queen herself, Hagarla. She’s carrying a grudge, I’m sorry to say. She’s never quite gotten over the theft of her moonstone. I’ve told her that it’s hers the minute I’m finished with it.” He smile broadened. “And that
you
are, too. But enough chatter. I want the talismans.”

“You’ll have to kill me for them,” Sera said, raising her crossbow.

Orfeo nodded. “As you wish.”

“A
TTACK!”
ORFEO ROARED.

“Forward, brave fighters!” Sera commanded.

With rallying shouts, guttural growls, and high shrieks, the armies of the living and the dead rushed together, swords clashing against shields, spears and arrows hurtling through the water, songspells flying.

Above them, Hagarla and her dragons dove, shrieking as they hurtled toward the fray. The humpbacks rushed in and blocked them. Sera heard Kora’s war cries. She saw Lena and her catfish charge into the battle. Seaweed trolls, sand trolls, and ice trolls thundered past, swinging their giant clubs.

Sera fired her crossbow at Orfeo, but he evaded the arrow. Becca and Yazeed were battling cadavru. Ling was whirling vortexes at Astrid, who was flipping them around and throwing them back at her.

Ava, holding a dagger, tried to fight, too. She turned this way and that in the water, pointing the blade in the direction of any noise she heard.

Terrified for her, Sera grabbed her and pushed her down behind a rock. “Alítheia, protect Ava!” she shouted. The spider came pounding toward them, then crouched over the rock, swiping at any cadavru who came close.

Sera rejoined the battle in time to see Orfeo throw a vicious stilo at Neela. Neela blocked it with a water wall, then returned fire with a fragor lux. He ducked, and it exploded against the wall of the Carceron. Then he countered by whirling a silt cloud at her, to blind her, but Neela somersaulted out of the way. Waterfire followed, and then another stilo. Neela ducked and dodged, parrying his songspells, throwing her own, trying to get closer to him.

I need to help her!
Sera thought frantically.

She tried to get to Neela, but every time she moved toward her friend, a rotter rushed at her, pushing her back. She used songspells and her sword to fight the creatures off, but as soon as she’d knocked one’s head off with a stilo, or cut it in two with her sword, another took its place. They were everywhere.

Sera saw, with an anguished clarity, that her troops were being beaten, and not only by rotters. Ceto and his fellow whales were using all their magic to hold off the Razormouths, yet some of the dragons had broken through their line and were slaughtering Black Fins. Sera could hear death screams. The water was turning crimson.

Yazeed swam up to her. His face was covered in blood from a gash in his forehead. Ling and Becca were right behind him.

“We’re getting massacred,” Becca said, panting. “We’ve got to fall back!”

“To where?” Sera cried. The land around the Carceron was nothing but a rocky flat.

“We’ll retreat to the south. There’s got to be somewhere to—” Her words were cut off by a roar so terrible, they both had to cover their ears.

“Abbadon!” Becca cried fearfully. “It must’ve gotten out!”

“No!” Ling shouted, pointing overhead. “Look!”

Yazeed tilted his head. “No way,” he said. “I do not
believe
this.”

High up in the water, Guldemar—the Meerteufels’ chieftain—was careening toward them at breakneck speed in a bronze chariot pulled by six gray hippokamps. He was driving the animals insanely fast, cracking a whip over their heads again and again. Rising up off the seafloor behind him like a lethal rogue wave was a nightmare come to life.

“Gå! Förstör det onda!”
Guldemar shouted over his shoulder.
Go! Destroy this evil!

Sera knew this nightmare. Guldemar’s throne had been cast in its image. It was the stuff of legends, a mythical beast that the Meerteufel could call up in times of great peril.

Hafgufa, the kraken.

W
ITH A FURIOUS SHRIEK, Hafgufa ripped into Orfeo’s army. She attacked the Razormouths first, biting heads off, gouging wounds into flesh with her yard-long claws, severing limbs with a crack of her scaly tail. Blood and gore clouded the water. Bodies sank to the seafloor.

Within minutes, she’d killed most of the dragons. After that, she turned to the cadavru. Using her tail, she churned the water into deadly vortexes and hurled them at the cadavru, then watched, her green eyes narrowed, as the vortexes ripped them apart. Skulls rolled into the silt, snapping their teeth. Bony hands scrabbled across rocks. Legs tangled themselves in thickets of seaweed, kicking uselessly.

What the vortexes missed, Hafgufa tore with her teeth. As she plowed through the army of the dead, the surviving Razormouths, led by Hagarla, made a last desperate charge. Hafgufa saw the attack coming. Pulling herself up to her full height, she lunged at the dragons, catching one in her fearsome jaws. She savaged the creature, then gave chase to the rest.

Sera, bloodied and breathless, watched as Hagarla grew smaller and smaller in the water, and then disappeared entirely. She looked for the Meerteufel chieftain, but he was nowhere to be seen. “Thank you, Guldemar,” she whispered. “Wherever you are.”

The dragons were routed. The rotters had been decimated. Her troops were busy destroying any that Hafgufa had missed. But Sera knew that dragons and rotters were not her most lethal enemies.

“Sera!” a voice called out. “Are you all right?”

It was Neela. She was battered and bruised, but she was alive. Ling was with her. They swam to Sera and embraced her.

“Where are the others?” Sera asked. She shouted frantically for her friends.

“Over here!” Becca yelled back. She was in the clearing between the camp and the Carceron, and she had Yazeed’s arm around her neck. There was a deep gash in his tail; he could barely swim.

Sera and the others raced to them. They were joined a moment later by Alítheia and Ava.

“Thank the gods you’re all alive!” Ava said.

“Where’s Orfeo?” Sera asked warily, looking all around. “Where’s Astrid?”

“Did we…did we kill them?” Becca asked.

“No,” Ava said anxiously. “I can feel them. Both of them. Can you see them? They’re near…they’re—”

“Right here,” Orfeo said.

Sera whirled around. He was standing by the Carceron. Astrid was next to him. They were flanked by the few dozen rotters who’d survived the carnage.

“I’ve had enough of these games,” he said. “I want the talismans, Serafina.”

Sera was exhausted and bleeding, but she raised her crossbow.

“Come and get them,” she said.

Orfeo laughed scornfully. He snapped his fingers and two rotters roughly shoved someone forward—a small mermaid.

“Sera!” the little merl called out tearfully.

“No!”
Sera cried as she realized who it was: Coco.

Astrid grabbed the child by her hair. She took her dagger out of its sheath. Coco whimpered in terror. She squeezed her eyes shut.

The sight completely unhinged Sera. How could Astrid
do
this? To them, to Coco?

“Who
are
you?” she shrieked at her. “That’s a
child
, Astrid, a helpless child! Is your pride worth an innocent life?”

“Kill her,” Orfeo commanded.

Astrid raised her knife.

“Stop!”
Sera screamed. “Don’t hurt her!” Defeated, she turned to Garstig. “Bring the strongbox,” she ordered brokenly.

“A wise decision,” Orfeo said, watching the goblin run for Sera’s tent.

Astrid lowered her knife but kept a firm grip on Coco. The little merl was sobbing piteously. “She tricked me, Sera. She found me in my tent and told me you needed me. I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”

A lethal rage filled Sera. Her hand went to her sword. Her fingers curled around its hilt. Before she could pull it free from its sheath, she felt someone take her arm.

“Don’t,” Ava whispered.

“I’ll kill them,” Sera vowed. “I’ll kill them both.”

“Shut
up
, Sera,” Ava hissed, her nails digging into Sera’s flesh.

Sera flinched. Ava had never spoken to her, or anyone else, like that before. She turned to look at her. Ava’s expression was intense; she was trembling. Sera didn’t have long to wonder at Ava’s strangeness, though, for Garstig had returned with the strongbox. He looked at Sera, his eyes silently asking if there was any other way.