Merlyn's Arc

Chapter 13 of 19

Merlyn swam the black water with the thread of live rock glowing below him. His sealed chest held steady. Then the water shifted. Something large moved in the deep, off to his left. A cold swell pushed past him. He turned in the dark and saw a pale shape roll through the flood, long as three men. It circled toward him. He reached for his hammer and knew the trap at once. The breath-rune held his lungs. If he stopped channeling it to strike a defense-rune, the water would flood in and drown him. If he held the breath-rune, he could not spare the power to fight. He could do one or the other. Not both. The pale thing came around again, faster. Above him, at the water's edge, Kjell saw the swell break the surface. The teeth in his beard clicked once. For years this hunter had trusted Merlyn to read what he could not. Now he trusted himself. He drew a silver-tipped knife and dropped into the flood beside his old teacher. Merlyn felt the water move. Kjell swam down to the live rock and set his bare palm flat on it. He had learned runes from a mountain man, three hunts' worth of silver paid in silence. He knew a strike-sign. He drove his knife into the stone and cut it fast, blood clouding the water from his knuckles. The rock lit gold under his hand. The defense-rune fired. A hard pulse rolled out through the water. It struck the pale beast broadside and threw it back against the far wall. The thing thrashed, stunned, and sank into the deeper dark. Merlyn held his breath-rune the whole time. He never let it slip. Kjell had paid the price from his own hand so Merlyn would not have to choose. They broke the surface on the far side together. Thorgar hauled them both onto the wet ledge. Gunnar knelt with his hammer ready. Thorin stood over them, his father's axe raised at the water. Kjell coughed and held up his hand. His knuckles ran red where the knife had torn them. "It's stunned," he said. "Not dead. It'll wake." Merlyn let the breath-rune go at last. Air rushed from his chest. He gasped and drank the cold air of the far tunnel. "You carved in the water," he said. "With no live rock to read." "I read it," Kjell said. He wrapped his torn hand in leather. "You taught me enough." Gunnar set his ear to the wet stone. He struck it once and listened. His face went hard. "Water's rising," he said. "Fast. The far pool is filling." Merlyn looked back at the flood. The beast slept in it, and the tide was climbing. They had crossed, but the way behind them was closing, and the thing in the water would not stay stunned for long.