Bless This Meal 2 of 2

The child was on fire and lay thrashing in the sand, howling in his strangly high-pitched voice while the flames traveled across his bedclothes. Daric ripped the cloak from his own back and fell to his knees as if he were a supplicant before the flaming boy.

The child struggled pitifully as Daric smothered the flames, his howling raised its pitch another octave. No doubt the cloak over his bare and burned skin was agony. The flames finally out, Daric gently lifted the cloak, releasing a cloud of smoke that drifted skywards, bringing with it a sickly sweet smell of burning flesh. Much of the child's nightrobe was burned away on one side and beneath it Daric saw the bright pink that would look like the skin of a infant were it not for the slick shine and bubbled flesh that the fire had left behind.

Ever so gently Daric rolled the child onto his intact side. The boy was gasping for breath and each labored exhalation brought forth a tiny, pitiful whimper. The child's eyes were bright and liquid with tears in the brilliant moonlight and Daric noticed for the first time that the boy had one blue eye and one green one. For a moment his pictured again the brilliant green eye from his dream but there was no chance of mistaking the two. The eye in his dream was intent, filled with sympathy and intelligence. This boy's eyes were filled only with confusion and pain. Daric silently mourned the bit of innocence that had been taken from the child tonight.

"It is well, lad. The fire is out," he whispered softly. The boy said nothing, only continued trying to catch his breath, his small chest lifting and falling rapidly. Daric slipped off his gloves and laid his hand on the boy's brow, seeking to comfort him. As he waited patiently for the boy to catch his breath his gaze wandered to the sand and he could saw the disturbed trail marking the child's route from the inn. It told of a straight path from the beaded curtain, across the sand, and into the edge of the cook fire. Deep furrows every told of the boy's knees pushing against the loose sand as he had crawled, doubtlessly in the same daze as his elders, towards the water. There was no doubt he had ignored the fire until he found himself in it. Had the center of the blaze been but a handspan to one side the boy would have crawled into it head-first. Daric doubted that he could have saved the boy then, not without serious healing magic that he knew nothing about.

He felt the boy's small hand close tightly over several of the finger that rested across the child's brow and returned his gaze to the boy's eyes. They were clearer now, although still wet and wide with pain. They were focused on Daric's face. Around the soft whimpering Daric heard the boy say, "Ma-ma."

Daric briefly glanced around the square although he knew the boy's mother was likely standing among the waves with her neighbors. "I'm not sure where she is, son." A lie, but better than the truth; that the woman was enchanted and had not responded to her child's screams.

"Her was calling fa' me," the boy said, his voice still thick with the sound of his sobs. Daric knew the woman hadn't called for her child, but it seemed clear why the boy would believe she had. He thought again of his dream of Carolita, her waiting for him and his late-night journey to reach her. Carolita was waiting for him... was beckoning him.

Daric's gaze drifted from the tear-streaked face of the boy, back towards the beach and the silent and still pillars in the darkness that marked each villager against the liquid silver backdrop of the moon-lit waves. No doubt each of them was responding to the calls of a loved one. There was a powerful glamour at work.

Daric wondered what they were each experiencing now that they had seemingly reached their goal among the surf. Were they in the comfort of their loved one's arms now? Were there wives dreaming of being held by the husbands that stood just a short distance from them, dreaming their own dreams? Were their husbands dreaming of them in return or perhaps dreaming of their neighbor's wives? Perhaps they dreamed of the tavern girl they watched each night as they drank their ales? The thought that the innkeeper's niece stood among the waves as well bothered Daric a great deal. It was foolish, of course. He knew her no better than he did anyone else from the village but he was filled with the need to rush down to the surf and find her, pull her back up from the beach, save her from... what? He didn't even know. He couldn't say for sure that she, or anyone else, was in danger but his instincts screamed that they were and he knew that when enchantment was involved anyone could be in danger at any time. Daric hated magic and most often he found himself hating the arrogant fools that practiced it.

Many people just accepted its existence as an inescapable part of their lives, something to make use of when you could and to avoid being crushed by when it didn't work in your favor. Necromancy was often viewed as a great evil, the "bad" magic done by "wicked" men, but Daric had always found glamour to be far more troubling. The ability, and desire, to control a man's thoughts and actions was at the core of what he believed made the wizards and their ilk so contemptable. To take control of an entire village of people, using their love for their families and friends to manipulate them...and yet it had failed to enchantment him.

Rough hide brushed his brow as he unconsciously touched his glove to it. No, it hadn't failed. Carolita, with her disturbingly out of place green eyes, had beckoned him and he had tried to reach her. He had fallen, very nearly killed himself and somehow this had broken the magical hold on his mind.

His eyes returned to the young lad and the burn scars he would bear the rest of his life. The boy had saved him with the simple carelessness of a child. If not for that fishing weight left out Daric would be with the others, standing in the ocean loving a girl who was that there. That thought sent a chill through him and he shivered as it passed.

The boy himself had nearly burned to death responding to his "mother's" summons and it seemed this had woken him as well.

Daric stood, his intentions coming into focus as if the world around him had narrowed itself down until only what he had to do was left. He would wake them one by one, it shouldn't be too difficult.

He started to move but the boy's hand grabbing his boot stopped him. Daric looked down and saw fresh terror in the child's eyes, the fear of being left alone in this horrible nightmare than he had woken to.

So Daric ended up retrieving Lightfoot from the small stable, where he dozed with his contemporaries, unconcerned about tonight's eerie activities. The grumpy beast tried to bite him and kept snorting angrily as Daric saddled him and brought him out. Surprisingly enough, the horse calmed down the moment Daric lifted the boy, who squeezed his eyes shut and sobbed from the fresh hell of moving his burned limbs, and placed him in the saddle.

"Have you ever ridden, boy?" Daric asked with a soft voice meant to sooth both child and sullen beast. The boy mumbled something like, "Yuu..." around his sobs and Daric tried to force a weak smile, "Good lad. Hold on now."

Daric began leading Lightfoot down towards the beach, thinking about the resistance he faced when he tried to stop the stooped elder from joining the other villagers. He wondered how badly he would have to rough them up and considered that it might be necessary to punch the innkeeper in the nose a few times to wake the unpleasant man from his dreams.

"Udder owl-sidders," The boy mumbled from the saddle. The boy had spoken much better earlier this night. As he walked Daric thought maybe the shock the boy had, was having, had caused him to retreat to a more childish bearing. Then Daric stopped as what the boy had been trying to say penetrated his musings; "Other outsiders".

Daric looked north and south along the coastline before him and quickly saw what the lad was referring to. There were other figures in the shallows just a few stone's throws away among the rocky remains of an ancient jetty of which there were many in this part of the world. The figures were moving.

A train of possibilities tore through Daric's mind and his stomach twisted itself into a knot. His first thought was that he had help, other people not affected by the enchantment. This was followed instantly by the suspicion that these were the will-weavers responsible for the village's condition. There was always the chance they knew nothing about this night's ills but were merely travelers who may yet choose to help or harm when they discover the condition of the villagers. They didn't appear to be enchanted but, like the people standing between Daric and open sea, they were all packed together in the shallows.

He was already moving towards them, of course. No matter who they were, Daric was going to have to confront their presence. He rested the hand not leading Lightfoot on the hilt of his sword reluctantly. He had gone more than a month without drawing his blade and it was a streak he didn't want to break on this already troubled night.

Some of the figures turned towards him soon as he approached. With the light of the town's fires behind him he was easily seen, but he was having trouble making out their features even in the bright moonlight pouring down from the sky...reflecting on the water...and reflecting on their skin it seemed.

Daric slowed to a stop as what he was seeing came into focus. His heartbeat sped up. They were the sirenia, the people of the deep. Many of the dirt-farmers from the Western Ranges considered them merely the wild tales of fishers but for those who worked and lived and died by the ocean they were a simple fact of life.

Most of the sirenia who were crowded in the shallows, with their man-like torsos and their fish tails were meremif or "women of the sea" for it was the women who, stories told, would lure young watermen to their dooms with their songs. The meremif and indeed all sirenia were born with magic in their blood and were known to have mastered magic of the mind but these people didn't look like they were plotting against anyone.

Women and men both, as well as their young, moved among the waves and Daric could see that many of them bore bundles strapped to their backs or their waists. A small pair of the meremif, probably mated, had huddled around a larger merman and were hurridly repacking the large load held to his back with shell-decorated straps. Others appeared to have slashes along their pale skin which seeped a colorless liquid that Daric supposed with their blood. Other appeared to be receiving healing for their wounds, both of the magical and mundane variety. A pair of mermif, their graceful head-fins seeming leached of color next to their fellows, was moving among the crowd. Here and there one would stop and Daric would see a small blue light appear for a moment and then the healer would move on. He could see some of the wounds being wrapped in dark green bandages of some sort.

More were still coming the ocean, he could now see, their head-fins cresting the water as they entered the shallows and joined their people, the last stragglers of a great migration.

Resting on wet sand, further from the ocean than any of the rest was a group of some dozen of their children. Several mermif moved among them, reaching into leather satchels they were at their waists and placed something Daric couldn't make out into the eagerly open mouths of their young. The children who were still waiting for their turn squirmed, their black eyes blinking rapidly from obvious impatience. "Fish food," Daric whispered absently as he looked at those distant, ebony eyes.

In his dream, Carolita had green eyes which she had never had in life. That last image of a single green eye inviting him in, offering him consolation or even joy, had never really left his mind. Even now thinking about it he could see it as clearly in his mind's own eye as if it were before him. It seemed surrounded by a gently shifting light as one would see looking up at the surface of the water above if one were fool enough to fall out of one's boat. That eye was not of these people. They were not aggressors, they were refugees.

Daric noticed several of them, especially around the edge of the dining children, still staring at him intently, their webbed fingers gripping hilts at their own waists and Daric slowly let his hand fall from the hilt of his sword. After a moment, the mermif did as well. A few went back to what they were doing but several others kept their eye on him.

He looked past them, past the mermif completely to the sight he found most shocking. A pair of Dugongi stood together, a bit apart from the crowd. These sirenia were rare. Only one sailor in a hundred would ever claim to see one, and many of them would be liars. Daric had never imagined in his life that he would rest his eyes on one, much less two.

They were half again as long as a man, from their small heads with their large, flat nostrils to the tips of the thin tails on which they balanced. The part of their body that one might call of torso was little more than a thickening of their tail and it is from there that two long limbs sprouted, reaching out to end in a thin, flexible swim-fin. Much as Daric had been told, they did indeed look, in face and the soft, gray texture of their wrinkled flesh, like the sea cows that swam in the warmer, southern seas. Daric had never been that far south but he had seen one of those beasts in a menagerie in the capital.

Then to his astonishment each of the Dugongi unfolded a second set of limbs from their bodies. At this distance Daric could not see how they had been resting but this was something that he had heard to tale of. He wondered if anyone else had ever seen these new limbs and wondered if these beings were not something other than Dugongi and was wondering that still when they began to sway.

Many of the mermif turned their attention to these possible Dugongi and the sinuous creatures began to dance. There was no other word for. Their swaying became more violent. What had been gentle and calm a moment ago was now thrashing and storm like. They arced backwards and then threw themselves down on the flats of their hand-fins, before stretching their limbs out and using it to roll their long bodies over in a series and frantic rolls before rearing up yet again. Their timing shifted constantly, creating no rhythm, keeping them in opposite parts of the dance.

"What they...what are they doin?" The boy's voice broke the silence. It seemed that beholding the incredible had distracted him from his pain and fear a bit and allowed the slightly older boy to emerge. Daric wasn't sure what they were doing and opened his mouth to say as much when Lightfoot whined loudly and took a step back. Daric's non-answer fled his mouth.

A glowing light had suddenly arose around the suspected Dugongi and was growing brighter very quickly. White currents of energy twisted around them, fringed with every color of the rainbow and what Daric saw next he had not been prepared for.

A dry, sandy mound had replaced the shallow water and the jagged rocks that had surrounded the pirouetting creatures. The new island grew and on its outskirts massive stone columns suddenly appeared. They seemed ancient and unyielding in their massive presence. The warm glow of sunlight filled the area around the Dugongi and past them, behind them, Daric thought he saw palm trees.

The mermif began moving towards their dancing cousins and a group. The children were ushered from the beach into water deep enough for them to swim along with their elders. The first of the mermif reached the sunlight and crawled through the sand. Daric thought he was going crazy when they begin to recede into the distance, making for vibrant blue waters that he could just make out, when he could clearly see from his angle that there was nothing behind the Dugongi except dark, empty and fish-littered beach.

One of the mermif women paused in making her way around a barnacle-encrusted jetty stone and turned to look back at Daric. For a moment he thought she would gesture for him to come with them, but she turned back to the others and crawled her way to the sun-lit place.

Daric started to understand what was going on. This was an evacuation. The cavorting Dugongi had made a way for the sirenia to escape to another place not by making a gateway such as Daric heard wizards did but by bringing that other place here and then simply walking over to it. Getting out of the ocean any way they could.

Just like the fish. Not just them but the crabs, the sea turtles and who knew what else. They fled the water, one after another.

Something was coming. It was coming for the villagers.

Daric spun, the toe of his boot grinding a divot in the beach sand, and began running awkwardly back towards the rapt assembly of villagers. Lightfoot trotted along behind him happily, doubtlessly assuming he was returning to his stall. The lad's sharp intake of breath told of the pain his burns felt at each step the horse took.

As he reached the high tide mark, Daric slowed, looking over the scores of people standing in the waves as if he were surveying the field of battle. He wanted to catch sight of the barmaid, thinking if he could wake her first she may be willing to help him with the others, rather than flee from the sight of enchantment as many people were wont to do. Even in the Mother's abundant light it was hard to make out much detail. Had the night sky been veiled with clouds the eerie stillness of the glamoured villagers might have caused Daric to mistake them for pilings of some ancient dock, standing tirelessly amid the surf.

"What 'dat?" The boy asked. The quiet and unnatural stillness caused him to lower his voice to a whisper. Daric glanced at him and saw the lad's eyes focused out to sea, his unburned hand raised, finger pointing out over the heads of his elders. Daric followed his gaze, peering out across the quicksilver surface of the moon-lit waters. He couldn't see anything but he knew that a child's eyes could perceive sights far beyond the limit of a grown man's perceptions.

"What do you see, lad? Is there something out on the water?" Daric asked.

The boy shook his head slightly, and Daric saw a fresh fear in his eyes, a fear greater than this night's strangeness had previously elicited, "There's something in the water."

Daric's brow creased as he peered out, trying to see whatever it was the boy had spotted. Doubtful of the answer he asked, "Do you mean the people..." His voice trailed off as something appeared on the horizon. At first he was unsure of what he was seeing. His first thought was that a wave had simply broke over a sandbar, its white, frothy crest appearing as it crashed. That changed when, unlike the crest of a breaking wave, the splashing of the white water failed to calm and settle back into the silvery surface of the ocean. Instead it was growing. As Daric watched the churning, violently disturbed water spread like a seabird opening its wings. From both sides it expanded and within seconds Daric found himself watching a wall of agitated water, seemingly miles in length in and still growing, as it bore down on the beach. On the villagers.

Daric felt his hair prickle and his skin seemed to tighten as a cold wave swept through his body. For a moment he thought he could smell Carolita's perfume, a memory lifted from a little used corner of his memories, and in his mind he could again see the brilliant green eye from his dream. The image had changed and where before the eye, and the presence behind it, had seemed inviting, comforting. Now it held a gleam on anticipation and, Daric thought, hunger. Whatever the presence behind that eye had promised it now seemed ready to deliver but no longer did it speak to him of the warm comfort of a woman's arms. Rather it was poised to give them all the cold comfort of oblivion.

The seething wall of water was moving towards the beach quickly and Daric knew he only had minutes, if that. He would never get all of the villagers out of the water in time. His thoughts racing, his plan only half formed, Daric dropped Lightfoot's reins and sprinted towards the surf, screaming.

"Wake! Awake, you fools!" Not a single head turned as he reached the shallows and the rear of the doomed crowd but, his boots splashing in the sea-foam, Daric screamed all the same. "Get from the water! Wake up!" He reached out with both hands to grab the nearest person, a middle-aged woman who was humming to herself, her hands resting on a slightly swollen belly. Daric gripped her shoulders with both hands and shook her violently, screaming in her face, "Wake up, woman! You must wake up!" Her head lolled around on the end of her neck like a cloth puppet with no hand inside, but this puppet was indeed under firm control. The eye in Daric's mind seemed amused at his antics and the eyes of the woman remained blank.

Nearing panic now, Daric turned from the pregnant woman and grabbed a young man, a fisher by his clothes. Shaking him seemed to do no more good than it had with the woman but Daric went further this time. Rearing back with a gloved hand he smacked the fisher hard across the cheek. The man staggered back a step but he empty gaze never wavered and Daric's heart seemed gripped in an iron fist. He and the innkeeper's son and both been nearly killed by the injuries that freed them from their dreams. Did he have to risk killing these people to save them?

Then his wildly turning gaze fell on the barmaid. She stood motionless, chest deep in the ocean. The already keen edge of his panic seemed to sharpen further as he struggled, already up to his thighs in cold seawater, to reach her. Daric wanted to save this woman, whose gentleness he had glimpsed earlier this evening.

Finally he closed his gloves on the wet cloth of her dress and looked into her eyes as the ocean currents tried to push him this and that way. As with the eyes of her neighbors, hers were distant and empty. Trails of moisture were traced down her cheeks and as Daric watched a tear slid from her eye to run down towards her chin. Were they tears of joy evoked by her dreams, he wondered, or did she have some inkling of what was about to happen to her?

Daric raised his arm to backhand her, but he faltered. He had never struck a woman, leastways not one who wasn't trying to kill him and although he was trying to save her life, he found it difficult for him to cross this line. He decided he didn't want to strike her only to fail in waking her, as he had done with the fisher. He lowered his arm, deciding to try something different. Pushing against the water he moved around behind her and hooked his arms beneath hers, gripping his gloves together beneath her heavy bosom. He tried dragging her backwards towards the village but his boots, which were heavy with water, foundered against the soft sand beneath him. He slipped, nearly pulling the barmaid down on top of him. He righted himself, tightened his grip, and begin to pull her along, sinking his steps down firmly for each span he moved her.

The presence of the green eye filled his mind as if it had been poured into his ear along with the seawater splashing up against his face. The vision was so vivid that for a moment he could see nothing else except its shining, jade depth. This time it was focused on him and it was angry. The watery reflections haloing the eye had become angry, orange patterns that thrashed about as violently as the wave of death that was bearing down on them.

Something wrapped itself around him, nearly jerking him off his feet. His grip on the barmaid broke and he waved his arms foolishly around, trying to keep his balance. The specter of the eye vanished from his perceptions and he found himself in the tight embrace of a pair of villagers. A man and a woman both had enfolded him in their arms, their wet bodies pressed closed against his. The woman, her creased face telling of many seasons under the sun, was sobbing openly and smiling a toothless simper. She was pushing her cheek against his chest as if in a loving embrace but her eyes, though filled with tears, remaining unnaturally blank as did those of the large man whose arms were clasped tightly around Daric's waist. Daric tried to get his arms between their bodies and his own but they were pressed tightly against him. The angry eye flitted through his mind and Daric realized that it was manipulating the villagers into defending their own execution. They would hold him here until the turbulent wall of watery death closed over them all.

Daric pushed and struggled against them but could find no leverage against their affectionate grasp. The man's rough beard brushed Daric's cheek and he realized that he had just been kissed by the unwitting villager. No doubt he dreamed of being in his lover's embrace, much as Daric had earlier. No doubt too that explained why one of the man's hands gripped Daric's arse firmly. Daric pushed frantically against the man who did not seem inclined to release him. Pressing his knuckles firmly together, Daric brought both his fists down on his involuntary admirer's nose. There was a sickening crunch and hot blood splashed against Daric's face, joining the dry, brown crust his own head wound had left there. The grip on his waist loosened for a moment and Daric thrust his arms down between his ribs and the embrace coiled around them.

With a surge of strength born by panic he broke the grip of his confused paramour and quickly shoved the old woman away from him. He scrambled back towards the beach, fighting the pull of ocean. As he neared each villager they seemed to become aware of him in some unknowing way, their arms reached towards him. Daric shrugged away their grasping limbs before they could find a firm purchase on him.

Eventually the soft sand under his boots gave way to the silent crunch of water-beaten seashells and he found he could run, which he did until his leaking, squishing boots came out of the water. He collapsed to his knees, gasping through his fright for a whole breath. The dead fish littering the beach filled his nose with stench that seemed to stick in his throat.

It was a bizarre thing, having an eye laugh at you. It knew that Daric couldn't free its prey from the grip it held on them. That pull, the promise of joy, was too strong for the people to resist and so they fought Daric to keep themselves in their dream.

He looked up toward the village, towards Lightfoot and the boy who rode him. That child would be left alone in this world because Daric couldn't wake his elders from their dreams. He gaze moved over the village, which would soon be left empty. He saw the small fishing boats, with their hand-woven nets that would never catch another fish.

A desperate idea occurred to him and he struggled to his feet, his hands unconsciously brushing sand from his wet clothes. Then he was running again, feet stomping dead fish into the sand as he approached Lightfoot. The horse nervously stepped back from his charge, perhaps suspecting that Daric intended to make his work again.

Carefully, Daric lifted the boy from Lightfoot's saddle, giving him quick assurances absentmindedly, his thoughts moving ahead to his plan. He led the horse over to the fishing boats and pulled one of the heavy fishing nets up until he could hang the netting on the pommel of his saddle. Bunching the rest of the woven fibers in his arms he climbed awkwardly on the horse's back and turned back to the water.

Past the crowd he could see that the marching line of frenetically dancing water had nearly reached the first of the villagers, those standing so deep in the ocean that only their head and shoulders stood above the waves.

"Let's go," Daric whispered, more himself than to Lightfoot, as he kicked the horse into motion. They raced down towards the water. Lightfoot tried to shy off to the side, rather than enter the waves, but Daric held him to his course. The horse's hooves sent geysers of water spraying towards the stars as they reached the crowd.

Several people were knocked aside as Daric drove the horse through them into the center of the crowd. There was no time to be gentle, Daric knew he couldn't save everyone, and he had very little time left. They all had very little time left.

The eye was angry again and Daric could see the villagers surrounding him begin to turn his way again, although their eyes remained fixed is the distance, seeing only the loved one who were waiting for them. Daric pulled Lightfoot to a halt when the water reached Daric's calves and, giving no time to pick or choose his targets, hurled the net outwards. Daric had grown up near the sea and his aim was true. The netting fell over more than a dozen people, its weighted edges pulling it down over its catch.

A scream split the night air. The foaming line had reached the first villagers. It swept over them, and through them, moving towards the beach. The screams of those villagers engulfed were filled with pain and confusion. The foaming water became tinged with pink.

Daric wheeled Lightfoot around and urged him forward. The horse needed little encouragement to flee this scene of bedlam and quickly responded to his command. The people in the net had little leverage to resist the horse's greater strength and began to be slowly dragged away from their fate.

As one, the villagers, ignoring the screams of their friends and neighbors, swarmed towards Daric. Dozens of hands reached out for him but Daric thought he and Lightfoot would be able to keep ahead of them.

Together they were suddenly wrenched to a stop. Daric turned in his saddle and white-hot panic burned in his chest at what he saw. Dozens of people had piled on top of the net while scores more had grabbed hold of its braided lines. Together they were far too heavy and far too strong for Lightfoot to pull against. Daric tried anyway, ignoring the hands grabbing his legs just as the villagers ignored the screaming, boiling wall of reddening water quickly closing on them.

Lightfoot strained against the net so fiercly that his muscles quivered but he was stuck fast. The crowd encircling them was growing thicker and Daric knew that he had failed. He quickly drew his dagger to cut the saddle free from the net and it was then that he was jerked from Lightfoot's back. The world spun and for a moment Daric could see it all, the tiny fires from the village, the Mother watching silently from the sky, the screaming wall of death that was only the length of a man from reaching him and the crowd's blank faces that would never again laugh, smile or cry. Then the water closed over his head and he was in a world filled with darkness. Dozens of hands struggled to hold him under the water and he thrashed, bumping into the legs that surrounded him.

He hadn't been able to take a breath when he was pulled from the saddle and his lungs burned with their need for air. From some detached place within his mind Daric could feel his strength fading. Someone's knee smashed against the back of his skull and his head lolled around, moving with the whipping currents of the water around him.

The salt water burned his eyes and made it hard to see. Daric's hands smashed down into the sandy floor of the sea and he fought an urge to take the breath that would surely kill him. The green eye appeared clearly before him, its solidity speaking of an unavoidable finality. It faded from his vision and behind it...Daric saw that his time was up.

The sea was filled with fish. They were tiny, their open mouths ringed with the white triangles of razor-sharp teeth, their eyes glowed with an angry red light the color of blood. They swarmed towards him and, as they moved among the villagers, he could see trails like red smoke pouring from the hundreds of wounds they left behind. There had to be thousands or tens of thousands for them to have created the white water wall of death that Daric had seen. His mind couldn't name them at that moment, although he knew he had heard of such creatures before. They were what had driven the silverfish to flee the oceans, and the sirenia after them. They were reducing the villagers to shreds in their wake and they were seconds from reaching Daric.

With a surge of strength Daric pushed himself upwards, swinging wildly. His head broke the surface of the ocean and his ears were filled with the screams of the dying. There was a dull crunch that Daric felt more than heard where his fist struck the face behind one of the hands gripping him. He realized that he held a stone, smoothed from an age beneath the waves. His fingers must have closed on it as he had scrambled under the bloody waves. He swung out blindly again, panicked, and felt his weighted hand impact someone else but he didn't even look to see the result.

Lightfoot was squeeling and kicking out with his powerful hind-legs but it was too late. The agitated, pink wave swept over him. A sharp pain stabbed into Daric's arm and he grabbed at it. His fingers closed around one of the lethal fish, its teeth burrowed into his flesh as it gnawed maniacally. He ripped it free and hurled it over his head.

He began fighting his way back to beach. The crush of bodies around him kept him from drawing his sword, and it would not avail him against the threat of those small creatures anyhow. Instead he swung the stone gripped in his fist at anyone who managed to get a hand on him. Another fish sank its teeth into his thigh and he smacked it away from him. The screams were all around him now.

A horrible noise from Lightfoot, a noise he had never heard from a horse before, caused him to turn. The poor beast was covered with the deadly creatures. His blood ran from scores of bites. The horse was trying to flee but the weight of the net held him fast. His eyes rolled in his head and Daric took a step towards him, wanting to free the animal or, at least, kill it quickly. He could see that either one was impossible. There were too many people between them and Daric had lost his dagger when he was pulled from the saddle. As he watched, Lightfoot went down to a knee and then, the whites of his eyes showing as he watched Daric, he fell over, disappearing beneath the bloody water. All that could be seen where Lightfoot had been was the squirming of hundreds of fanged fish as they devoured the animal.

Daric whispered a blessing and turned back towards safety. A pair of hands gripped his arm and he lifted his rock to strike only to find himself peering into the blank eyes of the barmaid. He hesitated for a brief moment but then several lances of sharp pain forced his hand. The deadly school of murderous creatures had reached him. Even as he swung the stone he felt more and more bites sink into him, each sending a screaming message of pain to his mind. The stone hit the barmaid's temple with a loud, cracking sound, much like that of a tree splitting during a winter freeze. She stumbled back, gripping her bleeding head and, for a moment, her eyes met Daric's. Her gaze was clear and awake. Then her eyes rolled up and she collapsed backwards.

Daric ran forward, smacking at the fish eating him as he did so. He dropped his rock into the surf and grabbed the woman with both hands.

He fought and pulled and knocked away the fish that bit into his flesh as best he could while he pulled the woman towards the beach. Blood streamed from his body in dozens of places but he ignored it. The screams were getting louder as the fish devoured the mass of humanity that had given themselves to them but he was barely cognizant of it. There was only the light of the village ahead of him and the next heavy, painful step. He wasn't even aware of when the fish stopped attacking him or of when his boots touched bared sand. He was only aware of his heartbeat pounding in rhythm to the throbs of pain from his many wounds and of the sharp, bloody taste in his lungs as each deep, ragged breath was pulled in.

He was lying on the beach, his face pressed into the gritty, but blessedly dry sand. One arm was across the wet lump of the barmaid who was laid against his side. There was an agonizing pain in the back of his knee but he hadn't the strength to do anything about it. He lay still and listened to his heartbeat and his breathing and the screams that seemed quite distant from him.

He howled and rolled over as something was ripped from his knee. The boy was standing over him holding a fish, its mouth snapping and a chunk of bloody flesh hanging in a strip from its teeth.

It was called a caribes, Daric now remembered and was momentarily pleased with himself. The lad dropped the squirming, angry creature on the sand and kicked it away, towards the village. Daric was pleased with that, let the damned thing die slowly.

He looked at the barmaid. Her hair lay across her face, stuck with salt and moisture. The sand under her head was deep red and her breathing was uneven. Daric only vaguely remembered striking her and wondering if she would ever awake, or would the head wound kill her in her sleep. If so at least she would die dreaming her own dreams this way.

The screams of her neighbors were dying away. The late-innkeeper's son plopped down on the sand next to Daric, his eyes locked on the red waves that were devouring everyone he had ever known. His lips moved and Daric didn't have to hear him to know what he said, "Fish food."