“By the nine hells! It was inside of her!”
“It’s growing!”
“Run away!” A splash followed.
“For the love of the gods, pull her back! Pull her back!
My-re of the Health Alteration Squad felt two people dragging her under the arms across the wooden deck of the Nightie. Her limbs were completely numb, but her insides were turning inside out. Her stomach twisted and uncontrollably heaved.
“Don’t let her choke! Turn her on her side!” yelled the voice of Rao of the Skull Squadron stable. “My-re can you hear me?! Open your eyes!”
“Lady Greywand! Look out!”
My-re heard the muffled voices and screams of panic and pain. Her consciousness sped down a tunnel and slammed to reality. She felt her heart hammering inside her chest. The pin pricks of a thousand needles raced from her chest to the top of her head and to the tip of her toes. Her right hand muscles ached, it still gripped the Gray Wand. The lids of her eyes snapped open and she took in everything in an instant. The Lake of Mist monster, an Elkarish, a ten foot column of blood-red gelatin slithered across the deck. Four tentacles whipped back-and-forth, knocking Lord Protectors out of the way. A group of elite Primus warriors supported the limp form of Lady Greywand and carried her from the creature.
“For the Empire!” Rao shouted, wielding his scimitar, and charged at the back of the Elkarish.
A tentacle blurred forward, stabbing suddenly with blinding speed. It struck Rao in the chest. The force of the attack was astounding! He flew backwards into the air and landed hard on the deck. He laid still. His eyes stared at nothing.
Another tentacle lunged forward, thrusting with incredible speed and accuracy. It wrapped around the leg of a Primus warrior and like a rag doll, flung him out to sea. Lord Protectors charged the Elkarish from different directions. Each was cut down and swept aside like a sickle through wheat.
The Elkarish’s moved after the retreating Primus warriors and the unconscious Lady Greywand. Its tentacles whipped back and forth as if to slash its foes to ribbons. They knocked weapons, shields, and protectors aside, like they were nothing. The creature’s frame bubbled inside with excitement. The middle of its body split painfully, like dry skin, and a gigantic, circular mouth birthed through the opening. Serrated teeth jutted around the circumference. It could swallow a person whole. From it came the gargling sound of what seemed like merriment, but laughing wasn’t its biological purpose.
The listing Nightie’s wood creaked and the entire boat moved and righted itself. Not quite on its own accord. There was movement out of the corner of My-re’s eyes. Something gargantuan. Slowly turning her head, behind the ship was a colossal crab; Grumpy. The albino creature was rounded and could easily support the length of the Nightie on its back. Two titanic pincers, which could snap the ship in two, sprouted from the front side of its shell. One was digging in the sand and freeing the ship, while the other had righted it. Two eyes on stalks moved independently of each other. One turned to the water and the other seemed to be watching her. No, not her; the Gray Wand.
“By all that is unholy in the nine hells! How are we going to stop that thing?!” Captain Phetmolge shouted as he leaned heavily on his gigantic long spear. His eyes were complexly blood-shot and head wrapped in bandages with stains of blood from his ears. His bare chest was stone grey and spotted here and there with what looked like pale green lichen.
“I don’t know,” My-re said under her breath.
“Blast it with the Grey Wand before it gets to Sheila!” Ssskah of the Castaways stable yelled.
“I don’t have time to explain. It doesn’t works like that,” My-re answered. “But I have an idea. Listen.”
* * *
The elite Primus guard surrounded the unconscious form of Lady Greywand at the opposite end of the ship at the bow. There was no retreating. Four of them formed a tight, defensive stance of sword and shield around her, while the others charged and were easily batted aside by the advancing Elkarish.
Looming over the last four defenders, the Elkarish’s tentacles leapt forward suddenly from a high guard overhead! One wrapped around each of the Primus guard’s necks. There was a sickening snap. It peeled them away like a banana and flung their bodies to the side. The creatures frame continued to bubble with glee as the four tentacles slithered around Lady Greywand’s ankles and wrists pulling them tight. It lifted her into the air.
Like a trophy, it displayed her unconscious form to the remaining crew of the Nightie. In a liquid sounding voice, like someone gargling phlegm, the Elkarish said, “This is the best Alastari can muster? Your childlike race is pathetic. The most powerful sorceress in an age rendered helpless in a single blow and moments from death. There is not one among you worthy of being in my presence!”
“Let Sheila go!” My-re shouted from the aft section of the ship.
The Elkarish’s teeth grinded against one another in irritation. It then gargled, “The Blood Games Champion of Valamantis. For a rodent, you have a very high will. Cleaver how you expelled me and yet you still lived through my exodus. A condition I plan to alter.”
“Let her go and I’ll give you the Grey Wand,” My-re said walking towards the creature followed by Captain Phetmolge and Ssskah.
Chuckling in amusement, the Elkarish said, “Not only am I going to rip the four appendages from this sorceress, I’m going to beat each of you to death with her limbs.”
“I’ll break the Grey Wand,” My-re replied and began to bend it. There was a slight sound of wood cracking.
“Hold!” The creature stopped slithering in its tracks. It lowered Lady Greywand, but kept its tentacles around her wrists and ankles. “I will spare this female in exchange for the Grey Wand.”
“And the rest of the crew of the Nightie,” My-re said.
“What remains, agreed,” The Elkarish said and dropped Sheila hard to the deck.
My-re muttered a phrase in the Rirorni native language of Rathiri towards the Elkarish that roughly translated as “the hole on a donkey’s backsides. “Now, your word,” My-re demanded.
The inner frame of the Elkarish bubbled with agitation. “My word, child.”
“Go get Lady Greywand,” My-re said and motioned. Captain Phetmolge and Ssskah advanced, but pressed themselves against the railing as they passed behind the creature.
The Elkarish advanced towards My-re, it pushed aside bodies of the Lord Protectors laying on the deck. Whether they were alive of dead, she did not know. Backing up towards the aft of the ship to the railing, she ran out of room.
“Give me the wand, child!” the Elkarish demanded as its four tentacles slinked towards her.
My-re braced herself and thrusted the Gray Wand at the creature. A bright beam hit and lit the creature’s body. The Elkarish shuttered back, but realized it was just normal light.
Streams of bubbles in apparent amusement rumbled within its frame as its mouth chuckled unnaturally. “Pitiful, but your species did teach me one thing. The power of a lie. Not only am I going to kill each and every living thing on this ship, I’m going to take the pleasure of eating you whole and relish the thought of you being digested inside.”
My-re continued to shine the light of the wand on the creature. There was no place she could go. Heat raced through her body. Sweat droplets fell from her armpits.
“It amuses me your child-like mind has no idea how the wand works?”
“I have some idea,” My-re replied. “Now!”
A gigantic spear head thrusted into the back of the Elkarish. The entire frame of the Elkarish bubbled rapidly, as if in pain. “Foolish humans, your weapon cannot kill me!”
“Perhaps, but I bet she can,” My-re said as she glanced out to sea.
The Nightie rocked and Grumpy’s two eye stalks narrowed on the glowing form of the Elkarish.
“Lift!” My-re yelled.
Captain Phetmolge and Ssskah strained with all their strength and raised the gigantic spear with the impaled Elkarish high into the air. Its tentacles failing wildly in desperation trying to get at the lance. One of Grumpy’s gargantuan claws seized the Elkarish and pulled it up. The long spear still embedded in the creature. The light of the Grey Wand continued to shine. As it rose, Grumpy’s mouth opened and two sizable mandibles emerged. They clicked with excitement at the prospect of its next meal.
“My-re! You will not defeat the Elkarish this easily! Our race-“
The creature was cut off and Grumpy’s pincers began to slice at the Elkarish and tear chunks off and fed them into the crab’s mouth. Its razor sharp mandibles and teeth shredded the gelatin-like creature.
As Grumpy dinned, Ssskah and Captain Phetmolge approached and stood on either side of My-re. Each watched Grumpy devour the Elkarish.
“What a shame,” Phetmolge sighed. “That’s the second time I lost my favorite long spear today.”
“How did you get your spear back from the lake in the first place?” My-re asked.
“Had a rope tied to it like a harpoon.”
A moment later, the long spear fell from Grumpy’s mouth and landed on the deck of the Nightie. It clanked back-and-forth several times before coming to rest.
“There you go,” Ssskah gestured.
The light of the Grey Wand diminished, then went dark, and back to its normal state. All three looked at the artifact and Captain Phetmolge asked, “You really were going to break the wand?”
“No,” My-re answered. “I went through too much trouble to get it back.”
“But I heard the sound of wood cracking,” Phetmolge said.
“You mean this?” Ssskah said and produced a thin piece of wood from behind her back and made the similar sound of cracking timber.
“You tricked it?”
“I prefer to call it a misdirection,” came the voice of Lady Sheila Greywand. She was rubbing her wrists and stretching her neck from one side to the other. “Any wand of powerful merit would not snap like a twig.”
“Thank the goddess Gheal you’re still alive!” Ssskah exclaimed and hugged Sheila, pulling her slightly off the ground.
“Yes, I still draw breath, but a little tender at the moment, so not to be appear ungracious.”
“Of course,” Ssskah said putting her down and backed up a step.
Captain Phetmolgue said, “I’ll check below deck, but I suspect even in dry dock it’d take a month to repair the hull. I don’t think the Nightie will sail in her current condition.”
“No concerns Captain. Grumpy will provide a lift home,” Shelia answered.
Ssskah breathed out heavily as she looked at the Lord Protectors strewn across the deck of the Nightie. “This Elkarish left quite a mess.”
“Yes, they tend to leave chaos in their wake. Nothing that can not be cleaned up. Now, the Nightie needs a little sprucing. Please sort out the wounded from the dead. I’ll start resurrecting the fallen. No loitering back to the Isle of the Eye,” Sheila sighed and rolled up her sleeves.
“Lady Greywand, this belong to you,” My-re said and stretched out her hand with the Grey Wand.
“Not an easy thing managing the Grey Wand, it is?” Shelia queried retrieving the wand, examined it, and tucked it into her belt.
My-re replied, “Let’s say I’ve found a new appreciation of what you do. I’d like to add, if I never hold it again, it will be too soon.”