But the boat could not escape its new passenger.
The miiodon lay spilled across the middle of the ship, filling the space between the stern and forecastle. It was a forest of snaking tentacles around a central mound of pale, watery flesh. A pair of black globular eyes, as large as pumpkins, gazed from deep within the translucent mass, protectively buried in the center.
Tylar felt those eyes gazing toward the trio of men. Tentacles wormed in their direction. Easy meat.
“Below!” Grayl bellowed. He waved them toward the hatch in the stern castle.
As they retreated, Rogger tossed an oil lantern at the nearest tentacle. Fire splashed across its skin.
The captain shoved the thief toward the hatch. “Fool, you’ll burn my ship to the waterline before you even warm its hide. Ice is all that can harm a jelly shark.”
Rogger glanced at Tylar, his meaning clear. Act now, or see the ship sunk.
Tylar stopped a few paces from the door. “Get the captain below,” he whispered through clenched teeth.
Rogger nodded and hurried to the hatch with Grayl.
Tylar turned his back on the pair.
Tentacles squirmed over the stern deck’s rail and roiled toward him. He smelled the bitter tang of their poison in the salty air. Channels of oily yellow venom flowed beneath translucent skin. A mere touch would melt flesh to the bone, creating a liquid feast for the tinier, sucking tendrils that fringed each tentacle.
“Skags,” he swore and sheathed his sword. He needed both hands free.
“What is the fool doing?” the captain grumbled by the hatch.
“What must be done!” Rogger answered. “Now give the boy a bit of privacy.”
Tylar heard a scuffle and assumed Rogger was forcing the stubborn captain away. It was not his concern. As a questing tentacle snaked toward him, Tylar grabbed the smallest finger of his left hand. If this didn’t work, at least he’d have his right hand, his sword hand, to fend off the miiodon’s attentions. He bent his small finger backward to the point of pain. Just one fast snap, he told himself.
“Stop!”
The sudden shout almost did the job for him, but he released his strained finger and swung around. “What in all the gods’ names are you doing up here?” Tylar barked.
Delia strained to push past Rogger, but the thief had a grip on her upper arm. Here was the source of the scuffling. The captain stood behind the pair, clearly bewildered by his strange passengers.
“Let me go, you damnable oaf!” Delia yelled, finally shaking free. Her cheeks were fetchingly rosy against her snowy skin, but now was not the moment to notice such things.
Tylar danced closer to his companions as a persistent tentacle scented his blood. Delia hurried to his side with Rogger in tow. The captain kept guard at the hatch.
“When you all didn’t come below,” Delia said in a rush, “I knew what you were going to do.”
“We have no other weapon against the jelly shark.” Tylar glanced past his shoulder to the captain, careful of his words.
Only now did the young handmaiden seem to notice the Grim Wash ’s new passenger. Her eyes widened and the rosy color fled her cheeks.
The miiodon, now settled and secure in its middeck roost, began its assault in earnest. Muscular tentacles ripped planks loose with loud pops. A foredeck hatch was torn free and flung through the air. It struck a flap of sail and tumbled into the sea. Closer, the roil of tentacles that had been sniffing over the rail of the stern deck now surged toward the gathering before the doorway.
“Get your arses down below!” the captain ordered. “I must seal this hatch.”
Rogger simply kicked the door closed in the captain’s face. “Then bolt the damn thing already!”
Delia reached a hand to Tylar’s elbow. “If you free the dred ghawl, there’s no way to bottle it back up. We don’t have any of Meeryn’s blood.”
Tylar knew this. They had traded the repostilary bearing the last of it to book passage and cover their escape. But what choice did they have now? He’d simply have to find another way to get rid of the daemon… or live with it. And living was the key point of it all.
“I have no other course,” he answered and grabbed his small finger again.
Delia kicked him in the shin. Unfortunately it wasn’t hard enough to shatter bone, but it did get his attention. “Miiodons fear icy water!”
“So we’ve been told,” Rogger said, urgency entering his voice as they were forced away from the hatch by the approach of snaking tentacles.
Tylar paused enough to listen. That was the strange part of this attack. Jelly sharks liked warm equatorial waters, not the cold of the Meerashe Deep. “What are you getting on about?”
Before Delia could answer, the sound of a hatch crashing open drew all their attention across the ship. Upon the foredeck, a lone sailor appeared with a raised sword. His eyes were wild, his gait wobbling. Drunk. It seemed some sought courage in a bottle, but found only stupidity.
He crossed to the rail that overlooked the miiodon. He cursed and shook his sword.
“Get back, man!” Tylar yelled.
The drunken sailor took his warning as encouragement and sliced at a tentacle that wandered too near. He cleaved clean through it, but he was rewarded with a spray of blood and venom to his face.
A scream tore from him as his flesh boiled and smoked. He fell to his knees, blinded. He clawed at his face in agony.
Delia cried out and turned away.
She needn’t have hidden her face. The miiodon surged toward the man, sensing the blood. Appendages crested over the foredeck rail and fell upon the sailor, covering him completely. In a heartbeat, poison silenced his cries.
“At least his death bought us some deck space,” Rogger said, ever practical.
With the jelly shark distracted by its meal, only a single tentacle still probed their deck.
Tylar drew them all to the rear rail.
“Maybe now’s the time to let loose that shadowy beast of yours,” Rogger persisted.
“No,” Delia said, rising from her shock. A hand darted into her robe, searching a pocket. “There’s another way.” But her voice had dropped in timbre, her confidence in whatever drew her up here clearly waning.
Tylar touched her shoulder and spoke softly. “What is it?”
Delia’s eyes were watery with fright, but she finally freed a crystal jar from a pocket. She held it out to Tylar.
It was an empty repostilary, like the one that had borne Meeryn’s blood. But it was not blood Delia wanted.
“We need your water.”
Tylar gaped at her. “What?”
“You want the man’s piss?” Rogger echoed his confusion.
Delia shoved the glass bottle toward Tylar. “Trust me! Please!”
Confused, he accepted the repostilary and glanced to Rogger.
The thief merely shrugged. “My mama taught me never to refuse a lady.”
Shaking his head and biting back a curse, Tylar swung away. He loosened the strings to his trousers and freed himself. He held the glass jar. Never in all his trials as a Shadowknight had he even been in such a dire predicament. If the jelly shark didn’t kill him, humiliation would.
He stared down at himself, at the priceless crystal repostilary. He hated to foul such a vessel with his own water, but like a good and noble knight, he kept his aim true. The repostilary was soon filled.
Before he could even tuck himself back into his trousers, Delia was there. She grabbed the crystal vessel and lifted it to the light. Her lips parted in relief. Lowering her arm, she held the repostilary out toward him again. “Blood.”
“What?”
“Just a drop… quickly.”
Tylar was beyond asking. The miiodon’s tentacles were showing a renewed interest in their party. He simply did as she told him and nicked the tip of his left thumb on his sword. He held forth the bleeding wound.
Delia kept a warding hand over the repostilary. Her eyes met his. “Think of ice. Water so cold it freezes with its mere touch.”