Page 144 of Hijack the Seas: Seismic

“What is it?” Pritkin said.

“They’re coming.”

And they were. Despite what Faerie had said, the Horrors could go underwater; they just didn’t like to. But it looked like we’d pissed them off enough to make an exception in our case because a boiling mass of hate was pouring through the chasm and headed this way.

I couldn’t see them except as a frothing wave and then not at all as the light Æsubrand had conjured up winked out. But if he hoped it would hide us, I had bad news for him. The army chasing us came raging on, not needing light as some didn’t even have eyes, but the magic radiating off of Bodil’s ring drew them like blood in the water.

Which there would be soon enough if we didn’t do something!

“Take her and go,” she told Pritkin, thrusting me at him. “I’ll swim away, and they’ll follow me. Don’t use magic.”

“That’s not a problem,” he said grimly. “I barely have any left.”

“Then swim fast,” she advised, and the next moment, she was gone.

Or, rather, she tried. But once again, the best-laid plans came crashing down around our ears, although not for lack of effort on her part. She sent a tidal wave surging through the water behind us, disrupting the horde and causing them to scatter in every direction.

Which might have been enough to let us get away if not for one small problem.

There was another army in front of us.

They came from the palace, I thought, my stomach sinking. To make sure that we really did not have any way out. And they’d succeeded because we couldn’t fight them all.

In seconds, we were surrounded.

Chapter Forty-One

I looked around, searching for a way out, but all I saw were Horrors of every type and description, and looking worse now than they had up top. The close-up view, because they were maybe forty yards away, allowed me to see the damage the fight had done to them. Some were relatively unscathed—I assumed those who’d been at the back of the pack—but the rest. . .

Half of the ones we’d been fighting were missing limbs or had acid scars or burns sketching patterns across their bodies, and a cloud of blood was staining the water on their side. But they were still deadly, and worse, they were angry. Now, it was personal.

But the ones arrayed behind us were undamaged, having never been in the fight, and they looked eager for a taste of battle. Or more likely of our flesh. Yet, for some reason, neither group was advancing.

Huge tails and other appendages I didn’t have names for were whipping up the water behind them in their excitement, causing ripples I could feel from here. But the creatures themselves weren’t getting any closer, even though we couldn’t do anything to stop them. Including Bodil, whose ring light had finally flickered out.

“What is it?” I asked Pritkin. “What’s stopping them?”

But he didn’t know any more than I did. Until a few huge specimens moved aside, and someone appeared in the gap between them, but it wasn’t Faerie. It wasn’t anyone I’d ever expected to see again.

“Feltin,” Pritkin breathed, and the name in his mouth sounded like a curse.

The blond surfer dude was looking a little rougher than the last time I’d seen him. Instead of a Liberace-esque robe, beaded and spangled within an inch of its life, he had on scarred leather armor, something like Bodil’s if it had been worn continuously for a few decades. His long hair, floating like a cloud around his head, was also longer and shaggier than before and had white streaks among the blond, and his expression . . .

Wasn’t entirely sane.

“Surprised to see me?” he asked, his voice echoing underwater as Bodil’s had done, but powerfully enough that there was no trouble understanding him.

“Moderately,” Pritkin replied as Feltin was looking only at him. Until his eyes slid over to me, and his expression turned even more mad.

“Still have your little whore, I see. Thought she’d have been killed by now as the monsters are drawn to magic. But this makes things easier.”

“Makes what easier?” Pritkin asked, sounding absurdly unruffled under the circumstances. Which wasn’t a sign of calm but rather his bad-things-have-hit-the-fan voice, only Feltin didn’t know that. Strangely, it seemed to reassure him slightly.

The nervous, jittery energy he’d been giving off, which seemed to have whipped up his troops, calmed. He even managed a smile, although it was terrible. Mad and unpractised, as if he’d forgotten how.

“You’re fond of the bitch,” he said casually. “If you want to save her life, give yourself up without a fight, and she and the rest can go.

“The gods will deal with them soon enough.”

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