Child of a Dead God by Barb Hendee, J. C. Hendee Page B

human ships—and something moved in the dark water between the twin blades.

    A massive ribbon rippled below the ship’s wake.

    Wynn raised her eyes, tracing it out more than two skiffs’ lengths behind the stern. It wormed like the tail of something massive swimming below the hull.

    “Osha!” Wynn screamed, and backed up. “Get Sgäile!”

    She turned as Chap leaped onto the aftcastle’s deck with a snarl. He cast a threatening glance at the pilot before he spotted her. Osha appeared immediately behind Chap.

    “What?” he asked in alarm. “Are you injured?”

    “A sea beast!” Wynn shouted. “It is pacing us under the ship!”

    She had barely drawn a second breath when Sgäile hurried up the aftcastle’s steps. Just as Osha reached Wynn, the hkomas, his steward, and two crew members emerged from the stairwells below the aftcastle.

    And then Magiere came running along the deck from the forward stairs with Leesil close behind.

    Sgäile headed straight for Osha, grunting to the hkomas in quick Elvish that Wynn did not catch. Osha looked over the rail-wall and then turned around. He shook his head, glancing at Wynn in worried confusion.

    “Can you not see it?” she insisted. “Look down . . . there . . . in the water!”

    The pilot lashed the wheel, then stepped back and leaned over the aft. He straightened, and a glower spread over his face as he looked to his hkomas.

    “Weakblood . . . makes for addled wits,” he said in Elvish.

    Weakblood— lhâgshuil —was their scornful word for humans. Wynn curled one hand into a small fist.

    “Maybe you should cut your hair higher . . . and further out of your eyes!” She shoved the pilot aside and pushed in at the stern next to Osha and pointed downward. “Osha, look there. You cannot possibly miss it!”

    Osha sheathed his blade with a sigh.

    “It is all right,” Sgäile said in Elvish, with little patience in his voice. “She mistook the ship’s root-tail.”

    “Tail?” Wynn said.

    She spun to find him speaking to the hkomas, but the captain stood his ground, gazing expectantly at Sgäile. Magiere and Leesil reached the aftcastle deck, and Magiere came straight to Wynn, falchion in her grip.

    “What happened?” Magiere demanded. “Did somebody try to hurt you?”

    “Magiere . . . please,” Sgäile pleaded, and gestured with an open hand toward her sword.

    “I am all right,” Wynn said, but she glared at Sgäile. “What tail?”

    “It is part of the ship’s function,” Sgäile said. “What you call . . . propulsion. This is how we move so quickly, despite mild winds.”

    Chap hooked forepaws over the stern’s rail-wall, peering down, and Wynn looked again.

    The long and shadowed shape snaked behind the ship in the dark water, but as much as it seemed to swim behind the vessel, it drew no closer. Wynn flushed with embarrassment and cast a dark look at Chap.

    “Why did you not tell me?” she whispered.

    I did not know. I never saw an elven ship as a pup, nor in the memories of those in the enclave where I was born.

    “Ah, seven hells,” Leesil grumbled, still pallid and clammy-looking. “Wynn, we thought you were in trouble—instead of poking about again!”

    Magiere sheathed her sword and stepped closer, but when she looked down, the same shock Wynn had experienced passed across her pale features. “Leesil, come look at this.”

    “I don’t think so!” he growled, gripping the aftcastle’s front rail-wall.

    Wynn shook her head. “My apologies. Our ships do not have such propulsion mechanisms.”

    Osha nodded beside her. “No . . . human ship not alive.”

    Wynn looked up at his long face, uncertain if she had understood his broken Belaskian correctly.

    “What are you saying?” Magiere hissed.

    Wynn spun around beside Osha.

    Magiere backed away from the stern. Her shoulder brushed the helm-wheel, and she lurched away from it. She cast her wide-eyed gaze about with each hesitant step, as if she were