At the shout, Silver Axe couldn't stop the surge of relief. The voice was unfamiliar, and he craned his neck to see.
John looked too, surprise flickering in his eyes. "That voice… I've heard it somewhere."
A massive blue figure skimmed across the surface, all corded muscle, bull neck and slabbed shoulders one of those wall-of-meat types that made John think of William and Kaidō. The strangest thing was the bright lure glimmering atop the creature's head.
A chill ran through John. He went cold as if dropped in ice water. "A sea fiend… He's still alive. Then…"
"Then Ares lost?" The thought emptied him out.
"Sea fiend?!" Silver Axe blanched. Sweat prickled. Relief flipped to dread. "You mean that one the thing you ran into below?"
John's face fell. "Yeah. That's the one that nearly finished me. Ares chased him into the depths."
"Ares is a monster he shouldn't lose…" Silver Axe tried to believe it, and couldn't. "More likely he got shaken off. In the sea, their kind outclasses even fish-men. No one can match them down there."
His shoulders slumped. "There goes our miracle."
The snake-haired woman cut a glare toward the lantern-fish brute. Her voice was a frozen blade. "Slardar. Did you abandon your patrol and let these frail humans pass?"
Trident in hand, Slardar vaulted onto a Sea King's back. His tail snaked him forward with easy power.
"Your Highness," he said, bowing with grave respect. "I did not abandon the patrol. I encountered them."
He barely got the next words out before the Gorgon's smooth, browless forehead knotted. Her tone cracked like a whip. "Then why didn't you kill them?"
"Have you forgotten the burden we carry?"
The rebuke halted Slardar a moment. He sighed, then ventured, "Our people were wiped out more than two hundred years ago. You still "
"Silence."
That ice-cold slit gaze pinned him. "It was humans who burned our kingdom. Who erased our kind. Humans must die!"
Fury twisted her already grotesque features into something that could stop hearts at noon.
Slardar's sigh came from deep within. "Debts belong to debtors. That was two centuries past. These aren't the hands that did it."
John and Silver Axe traded a look. Hope sparked.
Silver Axe chimed in, loud and shameless. "Right! It wasn't us who wrecked your home. Go kill the ones who did!"
Inwardly he muttered, Assuming they haven't long since turned to dust.
The Gorgon's stare snapped to him. Silver Axe's neck ducked on instinct.
"You foul-mouthed cur," she hissed, voice shaking with hate. "Today, I'll tear that tongue out and pluck those dog eyes."
Her serpents blurred, striking like cobras.
Silver Axe squeezed his eyes shut.
Pain didn't land. Instead, metal rang ding ding ding right by his ear.
He blinked. The hulking, brutal-looking Slardar stood between him and the fangs, trident flashing as he knocked the snakes aside.
"You why are you saving me?" Silver Axe gaped.
John was just as lost. In the water, this same creature had nearly killed him. Now he was their shield?
"Slardar!" The Gorgon's pupils burned like twin flames. Even her once-melodious voice sharpened to a shriek. "You dare block me? I am your princess. Will you defy me?"
Slardar's face didn't change. "Any other time, I would not have stopped you. This time is different."
"Their comrade spared my life. I won't watch his comrades die."
Ares's face flickered through his mind how the man could have killed him and didn't, how he'd invited him earnestly to sail the world by his side.
For all the villains in this sea, the New World had its own code: you returned kindness with kindness even if you were the "bad guy." Especially the big, muscle-bound types; think of that classic thick-skulled brute, Jack the Drought loyal to a fault.
John and Silver Axe stared, thunderstruck. Tengetsu Ares had taken a raging sea fiend…and turned blood feud into truce?
Silver Axe was nearly weepy with relief. "Slardar, when Ares hears this, he'll thank you. And I'll repay you too. Back on Hachinosu, I'll set you up with beauties of every tribe, every shape, every take your pick."
John's mouth tugged sideways. Now? Really? Do we even know if sea fiends and humans… work?
"Heh… heh… heh…" The Gorgon's face went slate blue with fury. "So. You'll even trample my will?"
Somewhere inside her, glass shattered. She was had been a princess of the Sea Fiends. Pride was marrow-deep. Disobedience was unbearable.
"I'm asking our queen for mercy," Slardar said, earnest and unflinching. In John and Silver Axe's eyes, that savage mug suddenly looked… almost gentle.
Even iron has a soft side.
"They didn't slaughter our kind. And… their comrade showed me grace. I won't watch them butchered."
Silver Axe thumped Slardar's shoulder only to jolt at the cool, slick feel beneath his palm. He darted a glance, then coughed into his fist. My bad. Mind out of the gutter.
"So you'll shield them?" the Gorgon said, smiling without warmth. "Good. Then watch me kill them in front of you."
Her serpents exploded outward like a storm of whips, fanning wide to tear into John and Silver Axe.
Slardar moved first. His arms swept out, scooping both men into his pits. "Hold your breath."
Before they could answer, he plunged.
The Gorgon's tail slammed down, scoring a Sea King's back with a gouge that bled like a river. "Damn you!" she spat. "I will drag you out every last one and kill you all!"
She raised the conch to her lips. The Siren's Song unfurled, pure and carrying, the shell casting it far and wide.
Out in the killing field, the Sea Kings stilled.
A breath ago they were tearing at each other's throats; now the ocean went eerily calm.
Far off, Kaidō and the surviving crew on the battered ship wiped their brows.
"Again with the singing. But this time it's aimed at the Sea Kings…" Kaidō exhaled. This voyage had been one brush with death after another. He stared at the snapped mast, the empty places where men had stood. "What now? Where's John? Where's big brother Ares?"
Below, Slardar arrowed through the blue with John and Silver Axe tucked tight, putting miles between them and the Gorgon. When the two pirates were on the edge of passing out, he brought them up.
They burst through the surface, sucking air like men saved from the gallows.
John wiped brine from his face. "Slardar who is she? What's her deal?"
He couldn't shake it. That snake-haired woman was too strong monstrous, even. Among the Rocks Pirates, only Rocks himself, Shiki, Whitebeard, William, and Linlin could compare.
Which meant: trouble.
Silver Axe scowled. Freaks admired freaks; he wanted no part of that club.
"Her name is Belande Stella," Slardar said softly. "Princess of the Sea Fiends. Once the most beautiful among us. Her voice was an angel's. She had suitors without number."
Silver Axe's jaw hit the waterline. "Huh?!"
"You're telling me that… that thing used to be a beauty?"
His worldview cracked, his taste took a beating.
John waved off the looks. "So something… happened? Turned her into… that?"
"Yes," Slardar said, eyes going far away. "More than two hundred years ago…"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, you like the story? Wow, who knew. Go ahead, drop a review and throw some power stones maybe I'll be motivated to keep going.
The story's already ahead on Patron. Go there if you want to catch up faster!
[email protected]/_theon
Change @ to "a"