Neferu dove deep, straight down into the darkness. Noodle first swam next to the enormous crocodilian but soon wrapped himself into her spikes. Neferu was not slowed. Her powerful tail pushed them straight down into the darkness. Wali sat on the deck of the ship and watched through their bond. The light spell had little effect beyond lighting up a small bubble of darkness around them.

There were a few dim lights down in the dark waters. Wali instructed Neferu to avoid them, knowing that many predators of the deep from his own world used light as bait. He didn’t know about deep water predators from this world and didn’t want to find out the hard way.

A few fish investigated the light as they dove. Something big swam near them, bigger than the school-bus-sized Neferu. Other than a reflection of the dinner plate-sized scales in the light, the thing could not be identified. Down into the depths, and eventually, a dim glow resolved. Wali couldn’t tell how deep his reptilian friends were. Only no light from the surface reached here, and the lights below them did not reach the surface.

On the sandy bottom, where the water was cold and still sat a massive obelisk. It stood twenty meters tall and was embedded in the sand. Each face was five meters wide and covered in dense, slightly glowing runic scripts. It stood untouched by waves or light or any form of erosion. No barnacles nor seaweed clung to its surface. A ring of bones lay around it out to thirty meters. The bones were old and cracked. Some were the huge rib cages of whales, others the delicate bones of sea bass.

This was one source of light but not the primary one. Surrounding the ring of bones was another rig of stones. These were newer. Wali could tell because the sand around them had been disturbed. Signs of something moving around in the sand, of having come here and placed these stones recently. Wali asked Neferu to swim down and examine the stones closer. Glowing flies marked the surface of each. Individually each stone did nothing.

Neferu moved along the circle of stones, and Wali noticed two things. The first was that there were, in fact, two different circles. The second fact was that the inner one was incomplete. Nine stones sat in a ring just outside the first. It attracted beasts, especially Spirit Beasts, to the ring and then entrapped them. Neferu and Noodle felt that pull but were not affected much due to their bond with Wali.

The inner ring was much more insidious. What Wali deduced was that it would funnel the life force of the beast trapped by the outer circle into the stone obelisk. Hadn’t Marsai said that the blood of the Spirit Boar had weakened the binding of the greatest Demon Lord? Was this how Rags intended to free his brother herald?

The stones themselves were significant but not too large for Neferu to move. Wali had the crocodilian scoop one up in her massive jaws, swim a good distance away, and dump the stone. The outer ring dimmed immediately. The placement of the rocks mattered. It would be too much for the crocodilian to swim to the surface carrying one, but they could at least slow down Rags’ plan.

On the ship's deck, everyone’s head turned toward the cliff face on the bay's south side. There was a sheer cliff, but a booming roar of anger came from there. It carried over the water. A wash of blood lust flowed over the bay. In the distance, Wali felt the monster that was the Skintaker.

Reiki was active in a moment. “Marek! Drop a long boat and send Jervis to gather the crew! We set sail in an hour to the south side of the bay. They are to meet us there.”

One of the crewmen jumped at his name and called, “Aye captain, longboat, crew, south bay.” he repeated before running aft along the deck rail toward a waiting longboat.

She turned to another crewman, “Rouse the rest of the crew on board. Nap time’s over. We set sail in an hour.”

The crewman secured the windlass he was adjusting and shouted, “Aye, captain,” as he headed below decks.

She turned to Wali and company, “You lot get onto the poop deck. We’re going to get busy real fast.” She pointed to the highest rearmost deck helpfully, and they scrambled up the ladder to get out of the way. A splash told them the longboat had been launched, and the sailor pulled on the oars.

Yacob still was a bit green around the gills. He struggled but made his way as fast as he could. They heard shouting from below, and twenty sailors piled out from below decks. They joined the few that had been above deck in rigging sails and other things that sailors did. Wali barely knew port from starboard, and neither did Yacob, Vinny, or Sas’cha. It was not a fast process. Six men worked a massive windlass, pulling up the anchor. Others untied sails and unsecured the cross bars of the sails, ‘yard’ or ‘yard arm’ they were called Wali remembered. They felt the big ship stir as Captain Reiki took one of the two side-by-side wheels near them. She unsecured it, and another burly sailor joined her at the second wheel. Together they spun the wheels while Reiki called out orders.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

It did not take a full hour to change the ship from anchored to motion, but it was a fair estimate. Things unsecured had been secured, and vice-versa. Soon enough, the thin wind pushed against the sails pulling them taught. Reiki let go of her wheel and stepped to a podium not far in front of the wheels. She opened the top and revealed a large round blue orb set into a gold fitting. The size of a melon, it glittered brightly in the sunlight. She placed her hand and the globe and spoke quietly. Too quiet to hear, but the effect was astonishing. A thin stream of water shot out from the crystal and arced over the ship’s side. A moment later, a vast water spout shot out of the bay to the aft of the vessel, it changed, and a face made of darker water appeared on the side of the churning tower of water.

Reiki nodded to it, and it leaned over, seeming to fall toward the ship. It sloshed gently against the aft of the ship, and then the ship shuddered and began to move far faster. Wali looked back; it looked like the sailing frigate had a churning wake like a powerboat.

Reiki grinned at him and said, “An old friend of mine.”

Wali asked, “A water elemental?”

“Yes, an ancient and powerful one I bound long ago. Now it is something of a friend.”

Wali gripped Gale’s shaft and understood. While Gale had been quiet since its battle with Rags, he knew the storm elemental was regaining its power and ferocity. On a whim, he pushed his awareness into the crystalline matrix of the spearhead.

Inside he found the space was almost serene. Sparks of lightning danced slowly through a dark place. Gale’s voice of wind and thunder was muted, “Have you come to denounce me for my failure?”

The elemental was depressed. Wali sighed and said, “No, I came to check on you.”

“Because I am so weak? Do you want to be rid of me?” Gale asked, forlorn.

“No, we are bound by the contract. Besides, you should know by not that is not my way of doing things.” Wali responded, finding the presence of the elemental. It was a tiny thing, a football-sized black cloud.

“But you could destroy me now easily. I am no bringer of wrath and destruction now. That thing broke the storm.” Gale replied.

“That is what happens when a storm faces a mountain. The mountain remains, but the storm is nothing but a shower of rain on the other side.” Wali said, thinking back to some old wise men from Earth.

“That was no mountain. It was a demon,” Gale said bitterly.

Wali shook his head, “The mountain may not crumble after one storm, but many will eventually cause it to crumble away. Are you but a single storm spent on a single fight?”

“Yes….No. I don’t know.” Gale responded.

“The creature I bonded was a bloodthirsty destroyer of worlds. Yet here you are, nothing more than a damp shower.” Wali said patiently. He had given many of these talks to his children and grandchildren over the years. “What does it take to be a breaker of mountains?”

“A storm needs to reform, gather strength, and come at the mountain again and again,” Gale replied, brightening.

“That’s right. You threw yourself at a mountain once. One time, yet now you brood and weep for your loss. Where is the spirit of nature’s wrath I met not long ago? Has that storm broken, or is it rebuilding its power?” Wali said.

“I, I am rebuilding my power,” Gale replied. It sounded like it was trying to convince itself of the fact.

“Good, you do that. Draw on my mana if you need it. We go to fight that mountain again.” Wali said as he withdrew from the crystal. As he left, he felt the pull on his mana.

Sas’cha touched his shoulder, “Where did you go just now?”

“Dealing with a mercurial elemental. I’m okay.” Wali said as he began to draw power from the sea. Gale pulled more and more power, forcing Wali to sit on the deck and enter meditation to not fall too low on mana himself.

He felt a wash of panic from Noodle and Neferu. They had been below this whole time, moving stones around at the bottom of the bay. He opened his mind to them and saw through their eyes.

Rags the Skintaker was at the bottom of the sea. He was raging and roaring and clumsily swimming around chasing Neferu. The flaps of skin around his waist floated around him. The skirt looked thinner than before, only a layer or two thick. Wali cut off Gale and fed power into Neferu and Noodle, telling them to fight the fiend.

Neferu dropped the stone it was carrying and turned. The thick tail threw up a cloud of sand in its wake. Noodle separated from Neferu, sliding around through the cloud of sand. Noodle was as much an aquatic beast as Neferu, though not as physically powerful. They both powered through the deep water, Noodle moving opposite Neferu.

They could both see the Skintaker as he raged and swam for Neferu. Wali gave them a plan, and they did their best to execute it. As clumsy in the water, as Rags was, it was no easy feat. Neferu snapped her powerful jaws around the thigh of the Demon while the demon pounded on her snout. It seemed that his ability to rip flesh was useless against a manifested spirit. Rags’ long claws dug furrows through Neferu’s thick scales filling the water with dark blood. Then Neferu rolled. The technique of killing prey by capitalizing on a crocodilian's powerful bite and muscular body had been honed since the time of the dinosaurs. Rags’ tried to resist, but even something his size was no match for the death roll of Neferu.

Noodle integrated himself into the roll as best he could. Biting at the flapping skins and tearing them away.

Rags would never drown; the pressure would not crush him. He could be beaten to death between a bus-sized crocodilian’s jaws and the sandy seafloor. Rags tried but could not escape the powerful jaws and was soon limp and broken. Noodle had been able to rip four skins away, and they floated to the ground around them.