He darted in over the coral, grazing his thigh on a razor-edged spiky branch, reaching down with his free hand into the dark holes. The first bow he reached had already been fired. But he found some use for it just the same. A Fishman popped out of the hole as Blade raised the bow, caught the spear point in it, and twisted the spear out of the Fishman's hand. As the spear swung up and over, Blade dropped the bow, caught the spear as it floated past, reversed it, and thrust hard as the Fishman tried to close in. The thrust missed, but this Fishman was apparently a little more timid than most of his comrades.
He fled, rising rapidly until he vanished in the turmoil of blood and churning bodies above.
Blade crouched down out of sight and began his hunt for bows again. He found two that hadn't been fired, and he promptly emptied them into the two nearest Fishmen. The sudden attack from below startled some of the other Fishmen into backing away, in swirls of water. They left a clear space over Blade. Sword in hand, he shot up, back into the battle. The Fishmen backed away still farther. They had seen what Blade could do and didn't want it done to them.
Blade kept himself upright by pedaling with his legs, waved his sword, and ran through every obscene gesture he could think of. He had about despaired of getting any Fishman to attack, when a shadow overhead suddenly darkened the water. Blade looked up. The scout boat was passing overhead. As she did, splashes off her stern told of divers going into the water. The Fishmen lunged up to meet the descending Talgarans. As they rose, Blade was after them.
Once again he overtook Fishmen who weren't keeping a proper watch behind them; once again his sword laid open pale skin. His second victim was a woman, as he discovered when she turned around in pain and shock. She was carrying something on her back that looked like an enormous canvas-wrapped sausage. As she turned, Blade tried to direct his sword thrust aside. Instead it drove through the woman's shoulder and slit open the upper end of the sausage.
Instantly the sea was lit up by a searing blue-white flame as whatever was inside the sausage reacted to the seawater. The woman screamed, mouth open wide. Then she had no more mouth to scream with, as the fire spread over her and stripped hair and flesh away from her skull. Blade thrashed frantically with his fins and backed away from the pulsing core of fire.
Now the water around the woman was boiling, as the flame stripped her down to a skeleton and began to blacken and char the bare bones. A terrible hissing sound filled the water, and bubbles and steam roared upward in a continuous stream. Fishmen and Talgarans scattered in all directions. For the moment both sides were too busy getting away from the flames to have any attention to spare for fighting each other. Blade was one of the last to retreat, but even he eventually had to back further away as the flame heated up a whole area of ocean almost to the scalding point.
The fire died away, and the blackened bits of bone that were all the fire had left of the woman drifted quietly down to the bottom. As his eyes and ears cleared so that he could think clearly again, Blade realized that he had just seen another of the Fishmen's new weapons in action. Probably the one that had swiftly destroyed the ships. Then he realized that the Fishmen had scattered along with his own company. If he could rally his company first-
He swam up, waving his free arm to signal to the fighters from the scout boat. As he did, he saw a Talgaran swimmer thrashing toward him with an oddly lopsided stroke. A moment later Blade saw why the man's stroke was lopsided. One arm had been bitten clean off at the elbow, and the man was trying to tie his belt around the bleeding stump as he swam. Half unconscious from loss of blood, he swam straight at Blade, who swung to one side and caught the man as he passed.
«What is it?»
The man's eyes stared wildly into Blade's. «They bring the yulons! The yulons are upon us! Yulons!»
The pulsing blue glare coming through the water could only be a Ship-Killer, Alanyra realized. She hoped it had found a target. But even if it hadn't, the Talgarans were doomed. She took a brief look behind her, to make sure that her personal guard of spearmen and net-carriers was still close at hand. Then she tapped one of the messenger girls on the shoulder and pointed away to the left, where the dozen yulons glided along, their ugly shapes made almost graceful by distance. The girl darted off, while Alanyra counted off the seconds. Then she saw the yulons surge forward, their riders and guides trailing out behind them like seaweed from a rock.
The attack of the yulons was the signal to the whole force of Clan Gnyr. The fins of three hundred warriors churned the water faster and faster. Alanyra let herself angle upward, until she was just below the surface. Her guard and the whole first line of the Clan followed her. Below she saw Oknyr leading the second line down to the bottom. The Clan would come in on the enemy from above and below, crushing him between its two lines of warriors like a diver's foot caught in the shell of a giant clam.
A torrent of excitement poured through her. Was there any pleasure like the swift deadly approach to a mighty battle? Some women she knew said that men could give equal pleasure, to be sure. But Alanyra doubted it. She was no virgin, but neither had she found such a miraculous man in all her thirty years of life. If she ever did-
Then one of her personal guards was swimming up alongside of her, bellowing in her ear, and pointing forward. She followed his pointing finger with her eyes, then both her mouth and eyes opened wide.
The battle was shaping itself in the water ahead. And squarely in the middle of it was the Stranger.
Blade had only seconds to think about the yulons driving in against his men. Then there was a swarm of Fishmen racing in to the attack, where seconds before there had been only empty water. Not a single sound came from them, nor a single arrow. They seemed determined to close in one furious rush, to sweep away all of Blade's comrades in a minute.
And they were going to do just that. Blade realized that almost at once. He and all the Talgarans in sight could either flee or die. He decided not to flee. Instead he shot up toward the hull of the scout boat. If he could keep off those fire bombs-
He rose toward the oncoming enemy. Half a dozen swimmers were well out in front, each with one of those sinister sausages on his back. Blade drove in toward the lead one, sword thrusting out. The six promptly scattered. Before Blade could change course to chase any one of them, he saw a solid cluster of another dozen enemies coming down at him. These were all armed with spears, except for three who towed a wide-mouthed, close-meshed net behind them. And in the lead was the woman.
What she was doing here? What had brought them together again after so long? Blade didn't have time to answer these questions, though they flashed into his mind as he plunged down again. Whatever else he did, he was determined to escape that net.
The dozen plunged after him. Blade realized that they were trying to trap him against the bottom. He drove himself down faster, then swung to one side. He half expected a spear or an arrow to drive into him. But apparently the warriors above had orders that he was to be taken alive. Well, they would find those orders damned hard to follow! He wasn't going to be hauled home to the Fishmen's caves in a net, like some fish for a feast!
Now he was on the bottom and leveling out. A massive block of coral loomed up ahead, and below it the black entrance to one of the Fishmen's ambush tunnels. If he could get into that- He would much rather face whatever might be down there in the darkness than face capture.