John cut a glance toward the abyssal dark below. If the treasure on that chart existed at all, it was down there. All they had to do was deal with this lantern-bearing monster in front of them.
Even with the sea like ice around him, heat flooded his chest.
Humans can't speak underwater; the lantern creature could. It preened, voice carrying clearly through the deep. "The light on my brow is to lure rats like you into the sea into my hunting ground."
"That is the advantage of the Sirenfolk. You can't even talk down here, can you…?"
"Pitiful. Humans can't breathe in the ocean, much less speak. Holding your breath this long hurts, doesn't it?"
Sirenfolk?!
The name jolted John. Ancient texts he'd skimmed flickered up from memory accounts of a race with strange gifts, nothing like merfolk. If mermaids were the pretty fairy-tale darlings famous for beauty and for refusing to eat fish then the Sirenfolk were the ocean's ugly truth: bestial, vicious, carnivorous, and frighteningly strong.
Some, like the naga, were said to entrance minds with a Siren's Song.
Others were like the brute before him honed by the abyss, body and battlecraft tempered to something inhuman.
So they're real… and still out here. John's features tightened. Centuries ago, nations banded together to wipe the Sirenfolk out.
Looks like they failed. And if there are more down in the deep… that's bad.
One Siren had already driven him to the brink. If two or three showed up, even reinforcements might not save them.
"Since you can't answer remember my name," the lantern beast said, teeth like saw blades bared in a grin. "Slardar."
The smile was pure malice. John's guard snapped taut.
Slardar lunged, trident churning the sea into a tightening vortex. Water clawed inward, birthing a new whirl that dragged at every current nearby.
"Raging Current!"
He roared it; the spiral snapped straight into a pillar that punched through the depths and crashed for John.
John didn't waste a heartbeat. He yanked the wine gourd to his lips and drank.
A beat later his wiry frame swelled like a bellows. Cloth tore. In a blink the "lean mutt" became a four-to-five-meter brute carved in devil-muscle. Both hands flashed to the hilts at his hips.
"Even shackled by the sea, I'm still a vice-captain of the Rocks Pirates!"
Black-violet Haki licked along his paired blades, turning them into midnight steel.
"Two-Sword Style Giant Tiger!"
Twin arcs of light split the sea and met the Siren's onrushing water-spear.
WHUMP.
Pressure detonated between them. Water blew out in a gale from the clash point.
The hidden Siren wavered into view inside the shredded flow. Trident met blade, grinding. Then the blue hide over Slardar's forearms bunched; a tide of monstrous strength poured into the weapon, shattering the sword-light and driving on.
Straight for John.
He caught the trident on crossed blades clang and the power bucking through the haft set his arms trembling, steel chattering with a rasp that scraped the teeth. Up close, Slardar's feral eyes pricked John's face like needles.
This strength is obscene. Even with his self-brewed muscle-stimulant burning in his veins his power multiplied he was being overborne. Two centuries in the deep… no wonder the monster's this strong!
John was a world-class pirate, a vice-captain under Rocks. Confidence in his own might was a given.
And still, the Siren pressed him harder here where everything favored the sea-born.
Slardar's grin widened into a demon's mask. "You can't match my strength. As for technique in the ocean I have no equal."
"None who covet the treasure has ever passed me."
Muscles rolled beneath his skin like coiling pythons. That terrifying force flooded the trident again, irresistible. John's guard buckled; the Siren drove him down into the black.
No ! Panic flared behind John's sternum. His air was already thin. If Slardar forced him deeper, he wouldn't be making it back.
He hardened his grip, mind racing for a way any way to break this vise. If he eased up for even a heartbeat, those tines would punch through his chest.
Bad luck chose that moment to bite. The gash at his waist, strained to tearing, burst; blood unraveled in a red ribbon around him.
Pain stole a sliver of strength. The trident surged that last handspan its points now less than twenty centimeters from his face.
Damn it!
This is it…!
Then light. A vast silhouette cut across his pupils, a giant shape slicing the water with terrifying speed.
John's heart unclenched.
A savior had come.
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