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--DRAMATIS PERSONAE—

Red Tide, Enchantress of the 3rd Renown, The Reef, her song interrupted

Throne Gazer, Trident Master of the 3rd Renown, The Reef, not a team player

Turtle Jaw, Quill of The Reef, not a natural swordsman

Cuda Bite, Skulker of the 1st Renown, The Reef, learning his limitations

Salt Wall, Berserker of the 2nd Renown, The Reef, has a hook

A pod of Coralline Elite, some dead or dying, led by the queen’s personal bodyguard, Most Loyal Spear

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23 New Summer, 61 AW.

An unremarkable beach on the North Continent

277 days until the next Granting.

The harpoon would’ve been lethal if not for Red Tide’s ward-weave tunic. Instead, the harpoon shaft snapped and the sea glass head shattered as the ward flared briefly and went dark.

While Red Tide gasped for air, Throne Gazer didn’t so much as glance in her direction. He leveled his fancy trident at Most Loyal Spear. The weapon crackled with energy as Throne Gazer activated [Eel Sting], a fork of lightning streaking forth and connecting with Most Loyal Spear’s chest. The Coralline Elite’s leader was flung backward, smoking, landing out in the water.

Meanwhile, as one spearman pursued Cuda Bite up the beach, the other two met Salt Wall in open space. The berserker swung her hook at the first to close, but he ducked underneath and went low, raking his bladed forearm against the side of Salt Wall’s thigh. She roared and tried to spin, but the second spearman lunged into the gap left by the first, his blade scraping across Salt Wall’s armor. The first spearman kept moving, continuing up the beach, focused not on Salt Wall but on Turtle Jaw.

“Ah, shit,” the warden said, clumsily drawing his short sword. In his years as warden, Turtle Jaw had plenty of experience in skirmishes and brawls, but he’d never tangled with a warrior like a Coralline Elite.

Throne Gazer snorted as Turtle Jaw began a series of clumsy parries against the spearman. He started in that direction, until a harpoon whizzed by his face. His beaded braids clicked together as his head snapped toward the two surviving harpoon flingers.

“Hold on, warden,” Throne Gazer said, then took a bounding step toward the harpooners and accessed [Vault]. He shot into the air in a showy arc, one knee bent, his trident cocked back. The harpooners weren’t ready for one of their enemies to take flight, nor were they ready for Throne Gazer’s accuracy with his trident. At the peak of his jump, he flung the weapon downward, shearing through the belly of one of the harpooners. Flexing his hand, he activated [Weapon Return] and the trident snapped back to his grasp, dragging a streamer of entrails with it.

Throne Gazer landed in front of the second harpooner, who was desperately trying to reload his weapon. With one delicate thrust, Throne Gazer pushed his trident through the man’s throat.

Unfortunately, Throne Gazer hadn’t seen Most Loyal Spear emerge from the surf behind him.

Flowing forward with a grace that belied his rigid posture, Most Loyal Spear plunged one of his chained spears into the soft tissue at the back of Throne Gazer’s knee. The trident master screamed and fell forward, twisting as he went, trying to bring his weapon around for a counterattack. With a deft maneuver, Most Loyal Spear caught the handle of the trident in a tangle of chain and wrenched the weapon from Throne Gazer’s hands.

“You stupid boy,” Most Loyal Spear said. “The oca’em you have murdered today were more valuable to the Reef than you will ever be.”

With that, he smashed the haft of a spear onto the crown of Throne Gazer’s head. The trident master crumpled unconscious in the surf.

Coughing bitterly, Red Tide staggered to her feet. On her right, Cuda Bite had turned to face his pursuer, circling the spearman but unable to get close enough to put his dagger to work. On her left, Turtle Jaw, bleeding from a deep gash in his side, stumbled backward as his attacker swatted aside a sloppy sword strike. And, straight ahead, Salt Wall let out a ferocious cry as she caught a spearhead with her bare hand, reeled her opponent in close, and drove her hooked hand down onto the top of his head. The hook’s point erupted from behind the spearman’s eyeball and, with a foot thrust into his chest, Salt Wall yanked her weapon out through his face.

Well, at least she didn’t have to worry about the berserker, Red Tide mused.

Trusting that Cuda Bite was too slippery to kill, Red Tide chose to aid Turtle Jaw. Only as she ran toward the warden and the spearman did Red Tide realize she wasn’t holding a weapon. There hadn’t been anything for her in the clamshell caches—just bits of coral and a harp.

She would have to use her hands.

Turtle Jaw let out a shout as the spearman stabbed into the front of his thigh. He brought his sword down awkwardly across the spear’s haft, an attack which the spearman lightly brushed away. In the same motion, he swiped the butt of the spear across Turtle Jaw’s ankles. The warden’s legs were knocked out from under him, his sword bouncing from his grasp. He was laid out in the sand at the spearman’s feet.

“Look out behind you,” Turtle Jaw said.

The spearman snorted. “Fuck you.”

Red Tide leapt onto his back. She dug her nails across the spearman’s cheeks, going for his eyes. He quickly adjusted, though, grabbing Red Tide by the braids and flipping her over his shoulder. She landed on her back in the sand next to Turtle Jaw and had to immediately roll to the side to avoid a spear plunged into the beach.

The spearman didn’t retrieve his weapon. He needed both hands to grope at his face.

“What… what did you do to me?”

Red Tide hadn’t yet seen the results of her [Poisonous] touch. Her fingers had left trails of greenish-brown across the spearman’s gray-skinned face. The flesh there puckered and sunk, like an overripe fruit. The spearman tried to rub at his face—and that proved a mistake. His skin sloughed free in chunks. Red Tide caught a glimpse of the man’s pale white jawbone before he collapsed into the sand.

“Wish I hadn’t seen that,” Turtle Jaw remarked.

Red Tide felt the [Poisonous] Ink on her chest fade. She sensed that she could’ve held back some, maybe kept some of that ability in reserve. “Got carried away,” she said.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Saved my life, Red, so I’m not really complaining.” Turtle Jaw reached for his sword and tried to stand up, but he fell backward into the sand. Blood bubbled from the stab wound in his thigh and the gash in his side wasn’t any prettier. “I need a minute.”

“Stay down,” Red Tide hissed. “Dumb bastard.”

Down the beach, Cuda Bite was still leading the last remaining spearman on a merry chase, using his quickness to stay ahead of the Elite’s stabs and swipes. The spearman actually looked to be flagging somewhat, spitting thick white flecks with each increasingly sloppy attack.

Twenty yards away, Most Loyal Spear appeared to be using a similar strategy against Salt Wall. The berserker’s combination of [Bloodlust], [Numb], and [Recovery+] made her a formidable opponent—Red Tide had seen that firsthand during the anchoreel’s attack. Salt Wall didn’t even feel the deep cuts across her arms and legs, or her bleeding hand. In fact, the wounds only increased the ferocity of her attacks. But with every big, looping swing of Salt Wall’s hook, Most Loyal Spear simply danced away. He pitched his spears at Salt Wall, letting them stab into her ward-weave armor before reeling them back by their chains. Every flare of a ward meant Salt Wall’s armor was a little less effective, and the sand had turned dark pink around her feet from the blood loss. Much of Red Tide’s own Ink had faded; she wondered how much Salt Wall had left.

“First thing’s first,” Red Tide grunted.

She grabbed the spear her last kill had dropped and dipped its blade into the slurry where his face had once been. Then, she charged down the beach toward Cuda Bite. The skulker saw her coming and tried to angle his ducking and dodging so the spearman would be caught by surprise.

Red Tide thrust for his head with the spear, but the Elite sensed her attack at the last moment and pivoted. Her spear dug through the Elite’s shoulder—it hardly slowed him down. Now it was Red Tide’s turn to clumsily backpedal as the spearman stabbed at her. She managed to bat away a couple of his attacks, but his third knocked the spear from her hands. As he prepared for another swing, his shoulder gave out. The spearman yelped in alarm as he realized he couldn’t raise his arm, looking down to see goopy boils rising from his wound.

“Tricky bi—”

Before he could finish, Cuda Bite sidled up behind the spearman and dragged his dagger across the man’s throat.

“You good?” he asked Red Tide. Cuda Bite’s face was a mess of dried blood from his theatrically broken nose, and his ward-weave was entirely dark. The spearman had scored more hits on the skulker than Red Tide realized.

“Are you?” she replied.

Cuda Bite switched his dagger into an overhand grip. “I don’t got much left and I pissed myself a little.”

THUNK.

They both turned at the wet, meaty noise of a spear slamming through Salt Wall’s breastplate. One of Most Loyal Spear’s attacks had finally penetrated, sinking deep into the berserker’s chest.

Even stabbed, Salt Wall didn’t go down. She grabbed the chain with one hand and yanked Most Loyal spear toward her. He stumbled forward, surprised by her strength, but deflected her overhand hook attack with his other spear. The haft of his spear found the curve of Salt Wall’s hook and he deftly flicked the weapon off her hand.

Red Tide started forward, but Cuda Bite grabbed her by the arm.

“It’s done,” he said. “You aren’t going to beat that fucker spear-to-spear.”

“I—” Her lips curled back from her teeth. She knew he was right.

“Let him come to us,” Cuda Bite said. “Only chance.”

With Most Loyal Spear in close, Salt Wall tried to wrap her hands around his neck. His forearm shot up, raking his sea-glass fin across the side of her face. The skin of her cheek and jaw hung loose. At last, Salt Wall went down to her knees. Most Loyal Spear yanked his spear free and let her crumple over onto her side.

The leader of the Coralline Elite spun to face the last two champions standing. Red Tide stared back at him, holding her spear in one hand. Next to her, Cuda Bite had gone down to one knee in an attempt to catch his breath.

“You,” Most Loyal Spear said, his eyes on Red Tide. He looped a length of his chain around his upper arm and started toward them, one spear held in front of him, the other dangling. “Was it true, what you said?”

Red Tide lifted her chin. “What part?”

“That you were visited by the gods. That they marked me as a target.” He jabbed his spear toward his own throat with enough force that Red Tide thought he might finish the fight for them, but the point stopped just short of the swollen Ink symbol on his throat. “That my death will grant you power.”

“All true,” Red Tide replied.

Most Loyal Spear snorted and looked around at the bodies littering the beach. “As ever, the gods conspire against us. Look at what you’ve done here, girl.”

“You chased us down,” she said. “Came looking for trouble.”

“The oca’em are going extinct,” Most Loyal Spear continued. “The Reef is weak, the oceans empty. You call yourselves champions, but you murder your brothers and sisters. For what? Neither you nor that fool boy Throne Gazer know how the queen sacrifices to save our people. You are good for nothing but savagery.”

He’d slowed his approach while haranguing her and it took a mighty effort on Red Tide’s part not to glance down at the sand between them. The sand where—as Most Loyal Spear tangled with Salt Wall—Red Tide had scattered handfuls of coral chunks. Most Loyal Spear needed only to come forward a few more steps and she would have him.

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, licking her teeth. “When the wind picks up, I can smell the queen’s asshole on your breath.”

Most Loyal Spear took a deep breath. “Fine.” His knuckles went white. “Your song will be short, Red Tide. Thrashing, miserable, and forgotten.”

He came toward them. Cuda Bite staggered to his feet, hunkered low, his dagger flashing. Red Tide opened herself and felt the Ink on her chest warm in anticipation. Just a step or two more—

“Stop! He’s mine! Most Loyal Spear is mine!”

Throne Gazer had regained consciousness. His face was a mask of crimson dripping down from his head wound. He hobbled closer on his ruined leg, using his trident to steady himself.

“This fucking guy,” Cuda Bite muttered.

Red Tide sensed Most Loyal Spear’s shift, how he moved to the side to keep them all in his sight. He edged away from where they wanted him.

Cuda Bite saw this, too. With a squeak from his ruined nose, he rushed forward to make a sloppy swipe at Most Loyal Spear. The attack was obvious and Most Loyal Spear batted it aside with his plated forearm, countering with a spear thrust that dug into Cuda Bite’s shoulder even as the little skulker tried to dart away. He threw himself backward, clutching at Most Loyal Spear’s chain, and the Coralline Elite came with him happily, aiming for Cuda Bite’s throat with a follow-up strike.

The sand crunched strangely beneath Most Loyal Spear’s feet.

Red Tide threw her hands into the air like a conductor.

Spikes of coral lanced upward, hoisting Most Loyal Spear. One shot through his foot, another his thigh, his groin, his belly, his shoulder, the side of his head. He was suspended six feet above them with his limbs spread wide, like a butterfly pinned to a notebook page. The coral glistened pink beneath him, spirals of red slowly trickling downward. His weapon clattered from his hand.

Most Loyal Spear looked down at Red Tide, blinking, the color already leaving his face. His mouth worked, but too much inside him was sliced apart, so he could only form a single word.

“Mistake,” he told her. “Mistake.”

Red Tide cupped a hand under his neck. The Ink dripped down from his throat, pooling in her palm.

“We’ll see,” she said quietly.

The Ink slithered up her arm to join the rest of the symbols on her chest. One tendril snaked away, though, and Red Tide almost snatched at it before she realized the Ink was jumping to Cuda Bite. He was too preoccupied poking at the wound on his shoulder to even notice the Ink land on the back of his neck.

“No!” Throne Gazer arrived, screaming. “I told you he was--!”

Red Tide kicked him between the legs. He went down in a heap, spitting and moaning. She kicked his trident away next, in case the rejected heir had any ideas of further violence, but he remained at her feet, curled up and whimpering.

“Yeah,” Cuda Bite said in response to a question nobody had asked. Red Tide glanced in his direction and saw his eyes had gone faraway.

Your power has grown, Red Tide. The worm’s voice said inside her head. Do you desire a consultation with the symbologist?

Before she could answer, Turtle Jaw shouted. “She’s alive!”

During their engagement with Most Loyal Spear, the warden had crawled across the sand to crouch next to Salt Wall. Ignoring the question in her head, Red Tide ran over to join him.

“Shark’s supper…” Red Tide murmured, shaking her head.

In a day full of them, Salt Wall was a truly grisly sight. A good chunk of the woman’s square-shaped face had been cleaved, so that her features were now an asymmetrical mess of gore. Beyond the deep cuts on her arms and legs, there was the hole in her chest, punched there by Most Loyal Spear. Right into her lung, if Red Tide guessed right. And yet, even as Red Tide stared down at her, the wound knit itself a little bit closed. Salt Wall breathed raggedly, and not often, and she stared unseeing up at the sky—but she lived. If you could call it that.

“I have… I have healing,” Turtle Jaw said. He fumbled for the trinkets that Red Tide had seen him stash around his neck. They were charms from a sea witch. Putting things together, Red Tide realized they probably came from Deep Dweller herself. “We need a circle of stones, a fire, and… and…”

Turtle Jaw himself was woozy from blood loss. As he stammered, Red Tide looked to Salt Wall’s chest, where the warden had loosened her armor in an attempt to let her breathe. She was looking at the [Recovery+] Ink at the moment when it faded.

Salt Wall convulsed. There would be no more patchwork healing. There was no time for stone circles and rituals.

“Symbologist?” Red Tide said aloud.

I hear you, Red Tide.

“Take me now.”