"You dare!" Toomaaek thundered.

"By Sekolah's blessed wrath," Iakhovas roared back, "I do dare!"

Toomaaek slammed the butt of his trident against the stone table. The sound echoed harshly, racing through the water.

"I dare to stand up for your people against those who would keep them in shackles," Iakhovas said, finning toward the princes' table. "I dare to travel here in a manner that I don't understand, listening to the guiding hand of the Great Shark as he speaks to my priestess, and trusting in the fact that I'm doing Sekolah's will."

"We don't know that." Toomaaek remained gruff.

"I do." Iakhovas kept swimming.

Laaqueel fell into motion automatically behind him. The guards around the princes started forward. One of them lowered his trident level with Iakhovas's chest.

With blinding speed, Iakhovas snatched the trident's tines away from his chest, then shoved the sahuagin guard back half a dozen paces. The show of strength caught the attention of everyone watching.

"Where are you guiding your people?" Iakhovas demanded. "What plans do you have for We Who Eat in Seros?"

Toomaaek tried to speak after a moment, but Iakhovas spoke loudly over him.

"For ten thousand years and more," Iakhovas said, "you and the barons, princes, and kings before you have let your people languish in this prison built by the hated sea elves and mermen."

Another guard stepped forward and thrust his weapon, ordering Iakhovas to halt.

As if shooing away a bothersome fingerling perch, Iakhovas shoved the trident aside with one hand and caught the sahuagin warrior by his war harness with the other. Iakhovas yanked, and the guard spun back into two sahuagin behind him, knocking them all off their feet so they floated out of control for a moment.

"Why have We Who Eat not been freed from this place?" Iakhovas demanded.

"There is no escape," Toomaaek stated.

Laaqueel heard the buzz of conversation streak through the crowd of onlookers.

Iakhovas sounded as if he couldn't believe it. "Have you not looked at the Shark God's teachings? Sekolah teaches us that all things are possible if enough blood is shed. They happen more quickly if most of the blood belongs to the enemies of We Who Eat."

Toomaaek stood his ground but clearly wasn't happy about it. Iakhovas leveled an accusatory finger at the table of sahuagin princes.

"With that kind of thinking," he said, "you've become the jailers of your own people. Not the sea elves and the mermen. You teach your young not to struggle against that perversion of our nature called the Sharksbane Wall." He shook his head in rage. "Our very natures cry out for struggle and adversity to test us and shape us into the most deadly warriors we can be. We're supposed to teach our own lesson in turn: that We Who Eat are meant to be the most feared creature in any of the seas."

"We have fought against those that man the Sharksbane Wall," Maartaaugh argued. "For ten thousand years, we've shed blood over that construction."

"And still you've not shed enough," Iakhovas accused. "When has Sekolah ever declared the price too high to improve the sahuagin people?"

Unbelieving, Laaqueel listened as some of the anger started to drain away from the crowd's murmuring. They sounded more interested in what Iakhovas had to say.

"Instead of tearing that accursed wall down," Iakhovas went on, "you and those rulers before you have chosen to accept it and live with it as though it were meant to be. It wasn't! We Who Eat were born free and meant to die free."

A few scattered cheers sounded from the crowd. Laaqueel drew in a deeper breath and took heart in the reaction. No matter what else, Iakhovas was right about the sahuagin heritage.

"The Sharksbane Wall can't be torn down," Toomaaek declared. "The sea elves and mermen guard it without reservation. The sea elves use their magic to make it strong."

Iakhovas stood across the table from the sahuagin prince. "It can be torn down."

Toomaaek shook his head. "It's been tried."

Iakhovas gazed at him fiercely. "Not by me."

Pride at Iakhovas's display of courage and conviction whipped through Laaqueel. He stood before the whole city, sounding as if he was prepared to take them all on. She held onto the feeling as she watched him, praying the whole time to Sekolah. Awe filled her at the audacity Iakhovas showed. He was more sahuagin than any she'd ever met before.

"You can't break that wall," one of the other princes stated.

"I can," Iakhovas replied hotly, "and I will. I won't sit back and quietly be a coward while pretending to be a prince."

"You go too far!" Toomaaek roared.

"I'm going far enough to tear that wall down," Iakhovas promised, "and I won't stop short of that. Any sahuagin warrior who wants to take up arms and follow me to freedom is welcome."

"The sea elves are too powerful," Maartaaugh said. "They have magic and numbers and allies."

"Then we'll get our own magic and our own allies." Iakhovas didn't move away from the table, but Laaqueel knew he was no longer talking only to the princes. His words were for the ears of the crowd. "Those things are out there. Sekolah gives power to his priestesses, and there are others out there who resent the sea elves controlling so much of Seros with their machinations. The sea elves have grown fat and lazy, complacent in the inability of We Who Eat of the Alamber Sea to do anything other than send a few groups of warriors across the Sharksbane Wall every now and again."

Hoarse, ragged cheers started up from the crowd intermittently. Laaqueel struggled to keep a smile from her face. The knot of fear still sitting sourly in her stomach made it easier.

"I will raise up an army," Iakhovas vowed, "an army the likes of which Seros and the lands around it have never seen before. That army will spend its blood and that of its enemies, and the sea will run red because of it." He turned and raked his eye over the crowd, his posture proud and erect. "For those of you who will follow me, I will lead you to greater glory than you've ever known. I will teach you again what it means to be a warrior, to truly be one of the Great Shark's chosen."

The crowd came alive, and the cheering clicks and whistles echoed everywhere. Sahuagin picked up fist-sized rocks and slammed them together to make even more noise. The poundings punctuated the cheers.

The smile broke through Laaqueel's defenses and spread across her lips. She gazed across the crowd in wonderment. Surely this was a sign. No one could have walked into Vahaxtyl and claimed the city's populace in so short a time.

Iakhovas flung a hand back toward the princes' table. "Warriors, blood of Sekolah's chosen, up until now you have been robbed of the heritage to become true members of We Who Eat as the Great Shark would have wanted. These princes and others like them have held you captive here like prawns in sea elf farms."

Toomaaek tried to silence the crowd but failed. Laaqueel watched as the sahuagin whipped themselves into a frenzy. Fresh anger fed off the fear and confusion that had been left over by the destruction of their city. Iakhovas offered them enemies and a chance to strike back at those enemies at a time when they felt the need to do something. War came naturally to the sahuagin.

"If you continue to follow them," Iakhovas went on, "you'll overpopulate these waters in time. Or you'll curtail the population so that won't happen, kill your young yourselves and deprive yourselves of the army you will need in the future to conquer Seros."

The cheering turned thunderous, but somehow Iakhovas could speak over it even though the Vahaxtyl princes couldn't.

"Sekolah found the sahuagin," Iakhovas said, "and he freed them from the shell that was their prison then. Do you think he freed you to find another prison in which to live?"