Then she screams, ending with a desperate gargling sound. The sound rips through the night and straight through me, sharp and desperate and alive. It lodges in my chest like a barbed hook.
“Stay!”
The paddle hits the bottom of the boat, and I drop to my knees, staring into black, churning water. Something vast moves beneath the surface. The Deep is awake.
The skirr screeches and dives, vanishing under the waves.
I reach into the bottom of the boat and close my hand around my spear.
It is two hands longer than I am tall. Too long for forest paths or caves. Perfect for the Deep.
The shaft is smooth with use. The steel blades catch the moonlight, blue and smooth and cruel, with a pattern that it took me hours to hammer into them. Two long blades jut from the shaft lower down, angled to catch and tear, to keep prey from slipping free.
I have killed monsters with this spear. Things that swallowed men whole.
I brace it against the hull and drive it down into the water, not aiming for flesh but for movement, for the pull that drags her under.
The spear strikes, and the impact shudders up my arms as the blade bites into something thick and rubbery. There is resistance, sudden and furious.
The sea erupts in foam and wild sprays.
Tentacles surge around the shaft, slick and pale beneath the surface. One breaks the water entirely, long and ridged, with suckers the size of a palm.
Callie gives off another scream.
Good. She lives.
I roar with a sound meant to frighten beasts and men, and to give myself courage as I haul back with all my strength.
The spear holds. The creature does not.
Water boils as it thrashes. Dark blood clouds the white foam and turns it black. One limb slams the boat hard enough to rock it. Another coils around my forearm, cold and burning strong.
I snarl and twist, using the lower blade to tear free.
“Mine,” I growl, though I do not know why the word comes to me now.
I plunge the spear again, deeper, driving it toward where the limbs meet, where the Deep hides its heart. The skirr bursts from the water nearby, snapping and shrieking, darting at exposed flesh.
The monster recoils.
The pull on Callie weakens.
“Hold!” I shout, not knowing if she understands. “Hold! Stay!”
I drop the spear and dive.
I cut through the Deep itself, strong strokes driving me down toward her pale shape twisting in the dark. A tentacle coils around her waist, dragging her backward.
She is fighting. But she has no weapon, no spear, and no blade. She can’t win a fight like that.
I reach her and hook an arm around her chest, then slash with the knife I pull from my belt. The blade bites, severing the limb that holds her. The tentacle recoils violently, releasing her.
I kick upward, hauling her with me. My lungs burn and my vision narrows.
We break the surface together.
She coughs and gasps, clawing at me. Little fingers dig into my shoulders, my neck, and my hair. I welcome the pain. It means she lives.
