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Lungs near to bursting from the time he'd been underwater and the effort he'd expended, Jherek stroked for the surface. He sensed the last sahuagin coming after him, cutting the distance in heartbeats, feeling the hate and excitement that it radiated, imagining he could almost read its thoughts.

He surfaced twenty feet from the young Amnian woman and drew in a deep lungful of breath. "Swim to the ship!" he ordered, gasping. "Now!"

He glanced ahead, seeing that Butterfly was coming about. Captain Finaren hadn't given up on them. Even though the cog turned hard about, filling the sails with the almost listless straight wind rather than the cross-breeze she'd been making do with all day, she kept her port side to the marauding sahuagin aboard the manta.

The young Amnian woman screamed and cried, and Jherek knew she was in real danger of causing herself to drown before she reached Butterfly.

He turned from her regretfully, aware now too that the sounds of combat came from the cog. He took a final breath, judging the sahuagin had to be almost on him, and dived beneath the water again. He blinked, trying desperately to clear his vision while the blood from the sahuagin and sharks clouded the water.

The third sahuagin swim-flipped and thrust its trident as Jherek sank into the water. It was less than fifteen feet out. Reacting quickly, knowing he had no chance to escape the wicked tines completely by attempting to dodge, he shoved his knife hand up. The blade connected with the trident, slipping unerringly between the tines and jarring against the base. The force of the blow vibrated Jherek's shoulder and elbow painfully. The scrape of metal on metal rang in his ears, though blunted by the water.

The sahuagin was on him, lashing out with talons from both hands and feet. Moving swiftly, faster than the wide-webbed foot that ripped up toward his midsection, Jherek grabbed the sahuagin's scaled ankle in his free hand while keeping the trident turned from him with the other. He used the foot's downward ripping action to shove himself down, gliding under the sea devil, then twisting to come up behind it. The unexpected move caught the sahuagin by surprise, but it moved to defend itself.

The creature slapped at Jherek with its tail, the gristled tip of it slashing a cut across his chest. Jherek ignored the pain of the wound and kicked hard, driving himself into position to reach out and capture the sahuagin's head hi his free arm before it could move away.

The sea devil bucked and twisted, swimming in fear now instead of being so confident. Instinctively, the creature dived, heading for the depths that protected it from so much of the human race.

Struggling to maintain his grip against the pull of the ocean and his opponent's slick, scaled body, Jherek felt the pressure increase against his ear drums. Much past sixty feet, he knew, and he risked a case of the rapture of the deeps even if he survived to reach the surface. He'd seen men who'd survived the rapture, though their bodies had been bent and twisted forever by it.