The farms were silent, empty of laborers now the sun had set far above. Merletta pushed blindly through the fronds, barely noticing when the ripple of the barrier went over her. Trusting in the shellsmith apprentice’s assurance that the guards had taken Tish straight through in the indicated direction, she stuck to the path between the fronds, following its trajectory straight through the forests beyond with frantic strokes.
When she emerged into open water, there was no patrol visible, which in itself struck her as suspicious. Her eyes scanned the dark water in panic, but it was her ears which alerted her to someone in the area. A cry of anger emanated from a jagged trench nearby—Merletta knew the spot well.
She sped toward it, her ever-present spear gripped tightly in her hand. When she rounded a rocky pile, she struggled for a moment to make sense of the scene before her. She saw more than one pair of flailing arms, the flash of a weapon, and the shimmer of scales. Then her eyes found Tish, huddled against a rock in obvious terror, but still alive.
It was all Merletta could do not to cry out in relief, but she retained enough sense not to give away her position. Her eyes flew back to the other merpeople present. With a shock, she saw another familiar face, and everything clicked into place. It seemed only two guards had been sent to deal with Tish—a generous assessment of her threat level, if anything. But they hadn’t banked on another player. Specifically, a middle-aged mermaid with decades of close experience with guards, and a raging fury against the Center’s murderous ways.
Where Eloise had come from, Merletta didn’t know. But she was holding her own impressively against the two guards, given she wielded only a crude weapon. Even as Merletta watched, however, she took a blow to her arm which caused her to fall back, her face twisting in pain.
Merletta had observed long enough. Moving silently, she surged forward and struck out at the nearest guard, cracking the blunt end of her spear over his head. With a shout, he gripped his head with both hands, listing crazily in the water. The other guard turned to Merletta, his eyes widening in shock, then narrowing in recognition. Merletta flipped her spear around, baring her teeth in a snarl as she advanced with the sharpened end of her weapon forward.
It was a dangerous time of evening to shed blood into the water, but she would rather go down fighting with everything she had than being cautious.
She never had to strike the guard. Eloise propelled herself forward, plunging her own weapon into the guard’s tail.
The guard screamed in pain, and everyone present tensed instinctively as blood leaked from the wound. The guard looked to his fellow for support, but the other merman was still dazed from the blow to his head.
Eloise gave Merletta a meaningful look, and Merletta didn’t waste another moment. Seizing Tish’s arm, she hauled her friend through the water, swimming away from the triple kingdoms in Eloise’s wake.
The guard shouted in anger, but he didn’t pursue them. With the speed at which blood was now pouring from his tail, he would be desperate to get himself and his companion back across the barrier to safety before predators came in response to the trail.
“Merletta,” Tish gasped. “Merletta, I…I don’t…I was just…and then…”
“I know,” Merletta grunted, still dragging her friend along. “I’m so sorry, Tish. I’m so, so sorry.” She looked desperately at Eloise. “What do I do? Where can I take her? They’ll kill us all if we go back there.”
“There’s only one place we can go now,” Eloise said grimly. “And I don’t know how safe we’ll be even there.”
Merletta was silent, seeing the truth of Eloise’s words. She could only hope they were able to outstrip any pursuers. They had the advantage of knowing the way well.
“Thank the tides I left it a little late to return tonight,” Eloise said. “I was lingering in the trench, waiting for it to be clear for me to cross the barrier, when I heard those guards sending the patrol off without explanation. Well, that told me something was up, before I even got a proper look at how they were dragging her through the kelp.” She cast a calculating glance at Tish. “If you want to live, I suggest you start swimming, and swimming hard,” she informed the terrified mermaid. “We’ll never outswim them with Merletta having to tug you all the way there.”
“All the way where?” Tish gasped. “We…we shouldn’t be out here. It’s dark, and we’re way past the barrier, and—”
“There aren’t as many things trying to kill you out here as you think, Tish,” Merletta told her, as gently as she could. She jerked a thumb back toward the barrier. “And we now know for a fact someone’s trying to kill you in there.”
Tish said no more. Her obvious terror tugged at Merletta’s heart, but as Eloise had predicted, they made much better time once Tish was swimming properly for herself.
When they reached the island, Tish hung back, her eyes wide as they rested on the land, silver under the moonlight.
“I’ll stay with her,” Merletta said. “You get the others. None of them can stay here now. If no one else, Ileana definitely knows about the island. I suspect she told someone high up in the guards long ago.”
Eloise was already half out of the water, and Merletta heard Tish cry out in terror as the older mermaid flicked her tail fully clear.
“It’s all right, Tish,” Merletta told her friend desperately. “I know it’s a lot to take in, but it’s going to be all right.”
“But…” Tish’s voice was a squeak. “But she’ll dry out.”
“It won’t kill her,” Merletta assured her friend. “Watch.”
Looking like she could hardly bear to witness it, Tish complied, her face going from fear to shock so rapidly, Merletta was afraid she’d suffer heart failure.
“I know,” Merletta told her friend. “I’m sorry there was no time to explain it all first, tell you more gently. I’ve been sitting on this for a long time now, but I know how terrifying it all is at first.”
Tish said nothing, either then or in the agonizingly slow half an hour it took for Eloise to reappear with the others. August came last, walking backward and obscuring their footprints in the sand with a large palm frond.
“I don’t know if it will be enough,” he said grimly. “But I’ve done my best to hide the evidence of our time here.”
Merletta bit her lip. It might be enough to hide it from anyone studying the place from the water. It was unlikely to fool someone properly exploring the island, however. The question was whether anyone searching for them would know about drying out, and would ascend onto shore in their search.