sharp crack reverberated up her spine, followed by a bru- tal, stabbing pang that seemed to spring from her bone marrow itself. The witch opened her mouth-she could not stop herself-and screamed.
A deafening roar throbbed through the water, striking
Ruha's eardrums with such force that it seemed her entire skull had shattered. Without realizing she had
raised them, the witch found her hands clamped over her pulsing ears, the hilt other dead husband's jambiya pressed against her temple. The sound had a much greater effect on the fish. The creature's body went slack, its jaws opened, and it began to squirm about drunkenly, nearly tangling itself in her aba before it scraped its gritty tail across her cheek and vanished into the black waters.
Ruha had a fierce urge to cough and realized that her body had been trying to fill its air-starved lungs with sea- water. She clamped her jaws shut and kicked toward the surface-then nearly forgot herself and screamed again when a sharp jolt of pain shot through her thigh bone.
Continuing to kick with her good leg, the witch lowered a hand and found a mangled circle of flesh just below her left hip. The water felt alarmingly warm, and she could feel a steady current of blood flowing from the wound.
When Ruha's head finally broke the surface, her ears were still ringing from her underwater scream. She could not hear the wind wailing, but she did feel its cool touch upon her skin and immediately started to gasp and cough, causing such a roar with her booming voice that she felt it in her feet. Already, she was growing dizzy from blood loss, and she feared she would die before her coughing spasm ended.
Ruha slipped her jambiya into its sheath and set about unbuckling her belt. As simple as the task was, she could hardly accomplish it. With only one leg able to move and both hands required to undo the clasp, she could barely tread water. Her sodden aba kept dragging her beneath the surface, and she feared that if she allowed herself to sink too far, she would not have the strength to swim back to the surface.
From behind Ruha came the muffled, distant-sounding murmur of a man's voice. She spun herself around and, less than twenty yards away, saw a ragged section of hull planks lashed to three, low-floating oil casks. Atop the makeshift raft stood Captain Fowler and the other man,
both shouting at the witch and waving her toward the raft.
"I am unable to swim!" Ruha's voice roared like a falling wall inside her own head, and both Fowler and his crewman cringed at its volume. "A fish attacked me. My leg is-"
Ruha's explanation ended in a strangled cry of alarm as a huge, gritty snout bumped into her back. The witch took three deep breaths while the body of the great fish brushed along her flank, its dorsal fin harrowing the water like a ship's prow. At last, the creature passed, drawing a sharp hiss when its massive tail slapped the witch's mangled leg.
Ruha stopped fussing with her belt and filled her lungs, at the same time glancing in Captain Fowler's direction. The half-ore's eyes were bulging out of their sockets, and he was frantically tying a rope around the waist of his trembling companion.
A mountainous dune rose beside Ruha, and she saw the dark line of a dorsal fin emerging from its face. She closed her eyes and buried her head in the water, at the same time voicing the mightiest, deepest bellow her aching throat could manage. Again, the water throbbed, hammering her eardrums with a terrible, pulsing ache.
Before the witch could pull her head from the water, the enormous fish hit her-but she did not feel its long teeth tearing through her torso. Instead, the beast's nose slipped beneath her hips, and she slid along its spine until the creature started to roll toward her. With one hand, the witch caught its dorsal fin and pushed away, narrowly escaping being forced beneath the surface. The monster floated belly up for a moment, then slowly writhed down into the sea.
The snout of a smaller fish nosed Ruha's shoulder;
then she felt the rough skin of yet another creature rasp- ing across her foot. "There are more?" she shrieked. "By
Afar, I hate this sea!"
Over the roaring of the dunes came the alarmed mur-
mur of Captain Fowler's voice, so muted by the ringing in
Ruha's ears that she could not understand what he was saying. She looked up and saw him only ten yards away, pointing in the direction in which the monstrous fish had vanished a moment earlier. Beside him stood the sailor with the rope tied around his waist, staring into the dark waters and stubbornly shaking his head.
The witch filled her lungs with air and spun around to see a huge black fin slicing toward her, albeit on a some- what crooked course. She pushed her head beneath the water and, summoning her voice from deep down in her bowels, bellowed. Again, the sea pulsed with her fear and anger, and again the great fish rolled on its back.
Ruha turned toward her rescuers and saw six more of the beasts floating with their bellies toward the sky. They all had wedge-shaped snouts and small, pitiless black eyes and shovel-shaped mouths. She began to pull herself through the surging waters. Her head was spinning from the loss of blood, and she did not know how she would find the strength to reach the raft before the monsters recovered and swarmed her again.
The witch had taken no more than three strokes before
Captain Fowler grabbed the reluctant sailor by his collar and belt, and pitched him into the sea. The man splashed down two yards away. Ruha expected the fellow to turn away and swim for the raft, but instead he cast an angry glance in her direction and thrust out his hand. She stretched forward and caught his wrist, digging her fin- gernails deep into the flesh of his forearm. The sailor scowled, but rolled onto his back and started to kick his legs. Captain Fowler hauled on the rope, pulling them back toward the raft.
Ruha looked over her shoulder and saw the stunned fish already beginning to twitch and squirm. She wrapped her hand into the short length of rope holding up the sailor's dingy trousers.
"Cover your ears!" The man cringed at the sound of
Ruha's booming voice. "And keep kicking!"
After the sailor put his hands to his ears, the witch pushed her face beneath the surface and let out another bellow. The concussion once more stunned the small fish into inaction, but the monster was too far away. Its fins continued to flutter, and its immense body slowly rolled in the water.
Ruha felt Fowler's thick hand in her hair. He twisted his fingers into her unbound tresses and lifted her out of the water. It was a painful way to be hauled from the sea, but the witch did not complain. She grabbed a lashing and scrambled completely aboard, hissing in pain as she dragged her savaged leg across the wet planks. She rolled onto her back and saw the sailor clutching the edge of the raft, struggling in vain to pull himself aboard.