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--DRAMATIS PERSONAE—
Red Tide, Enchantress of the 3rd Renown, The Reef, plotting
Cuda Bite, Skulker of the 1st Renown, The Reef, plotting
Beyond Reach, Trident Master of the 3rd Renown, The Reef, plotting
Turtle Jaw, Quill of The Reef, digging
Salt Wall, Berserker of the 2nd Renown, The Reef, could go either way honestly
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23 New Summer, 61 AW.
An unremarkable beach on the North Continent
277 days until the next Granting.
They reached land the next morning. The five of them came ashore on one of the northern continent’s sad beaches. Red Tide didn't know her geography so well, especially not the north, but they didn’t seem close to any of the continent’s famous port cities. She’d never before set foot on the northern continent. The sky was grayer, the air crisper, and the rocks the same as anywhere else. All in all, Red Tide wasn’t impressed.
“You know where we're at?” she asked Salt Wall as the two of them plodded out of the water on wobbly legs. The transition back to walking—back to the weight of gravity and the gulping of air through the lungs—it was never easy.
Salt Wall cocked her square-shaped head. She was from a north water pod which meant she was used to cold, but not anymore prone to land-walking than Red Tide.
“Beast country, I think,” Salt Wall said. “We killing the warden now?”
Frowning, Red Tide glanced over to where Cuda Bite had flopped down in the muddy sand. “The little guy talk you around to that?”
“Said it was your idea.”
Red Tide chuckled. “He's an eel, that one.”
Salt Wall peeled the seaweed bandages away from her palms. The half-moon cuts from the anchoreel’s teeth were already scabbed over and shrinking. “Not your idea, then?”
Red Tide hesitated. Beyond Reach had come ashore further down the beach, away from the others. He squatted there with his hands still in the water, staring back the way they’d come. She could read in the hunch of his shoulders that something bothered him. On the Ink map that Turtle Jaw had summoned, there had been something in pursuit. Red Tide wondered how close that was now.
“No killing yet,” Red Tide told Salt Wall. “But the day is young.”
As he'd led them there, it was unsurprising that Turtle Jaw alone seemed to know his purpose on the beach. There was a patch of receding woods not far off, toppled and petrified logs stretching across the sand. Turtle Jaw stomped his way toward the edge of the woods and began investigating the logs. He turned a couple over before putting his hands on his hips in frustration and glancing up to check the position of the sun.
“Truly a turtle now,” Red Tide said. “Looking for a place to drop his eggs.”
Salt Wall snorted.
Red Tide sauntered across the sand to join Turtle Jaw and Salt Wall followed. The two women reached him just as he shoved aside another log, revealing a seaweed-covered recess beneath. Turtle Jaw kicked aside the detritus, clearing out what was obviously an intentionally dug hole. Hidden in the shallow pit was a clamshell cache. Turtle Jaw wrapped his thick arms around the clamshell, which was bigger than his torso, and dragged it free. There was a second, larger clamshell cache buried beneath the first.
He glanced at Red Tide and Salt Wall. “Good. Help me with that other one, would you?”
“I don't think I will,” Red Tide replied. “Not without some answers.”
“How about you?” he asked Salt Wall, sighing when she shook her head and crossed her brawny arms. “Fine. I'll do it myself.”
“There’s some talk about killing you,” Red Tide told the warden.
“Surprised it’s taken this long, but I suppose the mindset of captivity isn’t easily shook,” Turtle Jaw responded. He bent over the clamshell cache and started jimmying it loose from the sand. “Beyond Reach won’t allow that.”
Red Tide glanced over her shoulder. “Nearly got himself eaten yesterday. He don’t impress me.”
“Had a feeling you two would hit it off,” Turtle Jaw said. “It’s true I don’t like our odds if it’s three-against-two, but you’ll get more than a bloody nose for your trouble, Red, I promise.”
Red Tide held up her hands. “Don’t get your feelings hurt, warden. I said it’s just talk.”
Turtle Jaw groaned as he wrestled the larger clamshell cache free of the pit, eventually flopping onto his back as he pulled the chest onto the sand. “I’m already down. Here’s your chance, Red. I’ll lay right here until you find a rock large enough to smash my head in.”
“You got a big head,” Red Tide said.
Salt Wall nudged her and pointed down the shore. “I see some.”
Red Tide patted the berserker on the shoulder, but kept her attention on Turtle Jaw. “Where are you bringing us?”
He gestured toward the woods. “We’re going overland to meet some people who might share our interests.”
“Vague,” Red Tide said. “Try again.”
“There’s some thought that we might forge an alliance before the next Granting,” Turtle Jaw said, looking up at her from his back. “Give you all a better chance of surviving.”
“Since when does the queen make moves like that?”
“She doesn’t,” Turtle Jaw said.
“Your idea, then?”
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“I got tired of sending four prisoners off to die every year,” Turtle Jaw said. “Thought maybe we might try to actually win one of these things. Turns out, I’m not the only one who’s sick of playing nice.”
Red Tide thought back to the warden’s naming song. He’d lamented lost years, but with a gilding of optimism. That added up, at least.
“You didn’t tell me any of this when I took the Ink,” she said.
“Me neither,” Salt Wall chimed in.
“Couldn’t risk someone talking out of turn before we got clear of the Grotto,” Turtle Jaw said. “This is a better deal, isn’t it? Now you got a chance.”
“I always had a chance,” Red Tide replied, clicking her nails against her teeth. “But I also had a year of liberty and leisure to look forward to.”
“You think that’s how it plays out?” Turtle Jaw asked. “You’d have sat around that cell until the Granting, growing mold on your Ink. The four of you wouldn’t have even met until the Granting. Queen decided it was too dangerous to have all that Ink together.”
Red Tide shook her head, the beads at the ends of her braids tinkling. “Queen will be after us now, won’t she? She’s going to hang you in the sun right next to us, Turtle Jaw.”
“Only if she catches us,” he replied and smiled. He was having fun, Red Tide realized. Despite her annoyance at being misled, Red Tide smiled back.
Salt Wall jabbed the smaller clamshell cache with her toes. “What’s in here?”
“Gifts from our friends,” Turtle Jaw said. “Go ahead and open them. You’ll know what belongs to who.”
Red Tide exchanged a look with Salt Wall, then the two of them crouched down in the sand. The clamshell caches had long been used amongst the oca’em to store supplies throughout the Central Sea, although that practice had waned somewhat as the Reef shriveled and the pods stayed closer to what was left of their home. The shells were smooth, pink, and hard as diamonds. To pry open a clamshell, land-walkers would need a team of strong men, tools, perhaps a pulley and winch. For oca’em, the process was much simpler. The oils in their touch reacted with the ridged lips of the clams. Red Tide simply had to brush her fingers across the sealed opening and the clam would slowly open for her. Salt Wall did the same.
Inside her chest, Red Tide found some neatly arranged clothes and pieces of armor. She held up a dark blue ward-weave tunic against her chest.
“You want me dressed so badly, warden?” she asked. “I won’t be able to swim in this.”
“Like I said, we’ll be going overland,” Turtle Jaw said. “The four of you will need to get used to fighting on two feet. There’s never enough water at any of these Grantings.”
Red Tide pulled on the tunic, a set of loose ward-weave pants, and soft boots. The fit was perfect.
“You sneak into my cell and get measurements, old man?”
“I value my neck too much for that,” he replied.
“Don’t seem the way to me.”
Next, Red Tide uncovered some camping supplies. Simple tents like the land-walkers used, light packs of dry foods, and a tinderbox.
“Could’ve used this to cook your eel,” she said to Salt Wall.
The berserker scowled. “Not you, too.”
Setting the camping stuff aside, Red Tide found a pouch containing shards of coral in sunset shades and immediately felt her Ink tingle in response. She held one of her fingers over a piece of coral, focused on it, and reached for [Coral Tender]. She coaxed the shard just enough so that it extended to a sharpened point that pricked her finger.
“Beautiful,” she said.
Meanwhile, Salt Wall had jammed herself into a titanium breastplate that fit snugly across her broad chest. She’d also discovered a menacing hook with an opening that fit over her hand like a gauntlet. Salt Wall swiped the weapon back and forth at gut-level, her triceps rippling, and Red Tide could practically hear warm intestines spilling onto the ground.
“Very good,” Salt Wall declared.
There were ward-weave clothes for Turtle Jaw, as well. He strapped a short sword to his hip and donned a necklace of some sea witch trinkets that Red Tide couldn’t immediately identify. He caught her looking at them and pumped his eyebrows before hiding them beneath his shirt.
“What the shit?” Cuda Bite asked as he came moseying over. “You guys found buried treasure?”
Red Tide had considered keeping the dagger she found in the chest for herself, but instead she tossed it lightly to Cuda Bite. He snagged the blade out of the air and unsheathed it in the same motion, bouncing the weapon from hand to hand. The dagger’s blade was blue-tinged, which indicated it’d been forged partly with cobalt.
“You’re good with that,” Red Tide remarked.
“Easy to look slick with a knife like this,” Cuda Bite said. “Never had anything this nice.”
Noticing the exchange, Turtle Jaw nodded to Red Tide. “His dagger’s got coral laid in the cross guard. In case that’s of interest to you.”
Reaching out with her new sense, Red Tide felt the delicate weave of coral veined between Cuda Bite’s blade and handle. “You been thinking ahead, haven’t you?”
“Ever since I saw your Ink,” Turtle Jaw replied. “It’s my job as Quill to make sure you get the most from your abilities.”
“So I take it we aren’t murdering the warden?” Cuda Bite asked. He shrugged on his own ward-weave tunic, whistling as he poked at the arcane shielding symbols blended into the fabric. “This is expensive stuff. You get rich sitting on your ass in the Grotto?”
“It’s an investment, but not mine.”
Red Tide followed Turtle Jaw’s gaze to where Beyond Reach still crouched at the water’s edge. So, he was an uptight Horizdock brat and he came from money. How did someone like that end up in the Grotto? There was still much that Red Tide didn’t understand about their situation, but these gifts had bought Turtle Jaw some time before she pressed him further.
“I’m not writing any thank you notes,” Red Tide muttered.
Salt Wall tapped her shoulder. “Think this is yours, Red.”
The instrument looked like such a fragile thing in Salt Wall’s huge hands that Red Tide almost snatched it away from her. After a deep breath, she managed to accept the harp gently, dancing her fingers across the polished frame. Red Tide had never seen a finer instrument. The yellowish-pink frame was shaped from conch and must have been crafted by some arcane artistry, because there was no way to otherwise manipulate seashell so elegantly. Fresh strings glittered in the sunlight. She slung the instrument over her shoulder by its seaweed strap, the ugliness of which she could forgive as it was studded by growths of aquamarine coral.
Red Tide brushed the back of her hand across the strings, creating a sound not unlike a breeze on a warm day. She smirked as Cuda Bite’s narrow shoulders shimmied with rapture.
“Damn, Red,” he said. “That’s fine.”
“You pick this out for me, Turtle Jaw?” she asked.
The warden shrugged. “Had it made, actually.”
Red Tide lunged for him, squeezing one arm around his thick neck and pressing her lips to the side of his face. She kissed his cheek, nipped his jaw, and whispered in his ear, “I’m going to kill so many men for you.”
“Pardon me.”
Beyond Reach had arrived. He brushed between Salt Wall and Cuda Bite without looking at them, reaching into the chests as if he knew exactly what would be there. He donned a shirt of lightweight mail and hid it beneath a hooded ward-weave cloak. Before he clothed himself, Red Tide noticed how the [Alert] Ink on his chest had faded.
“What happened to your Ink?” she asked. “What you been doing over there?”
“Pushed it too far,” Beyond Reach said with a dismissive sniff. “Like I told you yesterday, my attention was elsewhere.”
“On what?”
Without answering her, Beyond Reach set to work assembling the trident that had been packed carefully in the larger clamshell, broken down into three sections. Red Tide had to admit that the weapon was impressive–gold-plated, sleek, its triple-pronged killing end sharpened and barbed. There were dents and scars down the length of the trident that hadn’t been completely buffed out. The weapon had seen some use, and Beyond Reach was proud of that fact. He handled his trident with the same reverence as Red Tide did her new harp.
“They’re closer than we thought,” Beyond Reach announced as he tightened the handle of his weapon. He looked at Turtle Jaw like this was the resumption of an earlier conversation. “They’ll be here in little more than an hour.”
“Who will be here?” Red Tide asked, her tone sharpening. “Ignore me again and you’ll regret it.”
Beyond Reach met her eyes. “A pod of Coralline Elite.”
“What the fuck?” Cuda Bite exclaimed. “What do those guys want?”
“Warden’s gone rogue,” Salt Wall said. “We aren’t supposed to be out here.”
“What the fuck?” Cuda Bite repeated.
Red Tide squinted at Turtle Jaw. “You said the gods give trials for more Ink. I figured you meant hunting beasts or scaling mountains.”
He shrugged. “Sometimes that’s how it goes.”
“And sometimes the gods mark a mortal as a worthy test for champions,” Beyond Reach said. “I suspect it’s Most Loyal Spear leading the pod.”
Red Tide’s lips curled back. Most Loyal Spear was the queen’s personal bodyguard. She’d only seen him once and it had been during her trial before the queen. When Red Tide had told the queen to fuck herself, Most Loyal Spear had looked as if he might twist Red Tide’s head off right then and there.
“We can outpace them through the woods,” Turtle Jaw said. “They won’t be able to track us so easily on land. They won’t want to.”
“That’s one thought,” Beyond Reach replied. He drummed his fingers on the handle of his trident, waiting for someone else to speak.
Red Tide took the bait. “What you got in mind?”
“We don’t want them lurking in our wake,” he said. “We meet them here. Get a little practice.”
Cuda Bite edged backward. “What kind of practice?”
Beyond Reach smiled in a way that Red Tide recognized. She’d seen it in the mirror.
“Killing practice.”
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