Chapter 7
OKEANOS
Tasting my environment was second nature in this form.
Analyzing. Cataloguing. Sensing prey even a hundred or more meters away had been the difference in whether I survived in my prison or not, especially as a child.
I’d learned to hunt and feast on things that might be considered repulsive.
Excrement of other predators still carried nutrients I could and did assimilate in order to survive.
The filth in this pit didn’t shock or repulse me, though I couldn’t sense the dark power of pain and misery that so disturbed my queen.
I tasted death and decay. Disintegrating iron chains.
Remnants of humans who’d perished. No rats, snakes, insects, or worms, though, which was odd.
Only the leeches had been feasting on the refuse and the trapped queen.
Beneath her, a tentacle picked up a new taste. Something bitter, akin to death, but not decay. If pure hatred had a taste—
Then I tasted metal. Not rusted but pure hardened steel. Like the knight.
Roaring a warning, I thrust my queen toward her other Blood, trusting him to either catch or at least protect her.
As far away from the steel as I dared without worrying she might be injured against the concrete.
I wrapped my tentacle around the thing that tasted bitter, ignoring the steel.
At least until I got the attacker out from beneath the trapped queen.
Covered in mud and slime, the attacker stabbed at the meaty muscle wrapped around it, but I tightened and wound around him.
Just as slippery, and I was stronger, too.
Well fed by my queen and a massive kraken king in my own right, no puny two-legged creature had any hope against me.
I hauled him out of the mud and wrapped more tentacles around him.
Trying to foul his sword arm, though he still managed to hack one of my smaller tentacles off.
I had plenty more. Realizing my advantage, he threw his sword at my head, trying to skewer an eye with surprising accuracy.
Something blurred past me, knocking the sword aside to clatter harmlessly against the cement.
The other queen’s knight soared past me and sank into the mud, driven deep by his momentum.
I snagged him around the throat and pulled him back out, adjusting to his arm as soon as his head broke the surface.
“Thank you, friend.” He shook his head, slinging mud from his face and eyes. “I appreciate the assistance.”
Vore held our queen as high out of the mud as he could without risking damage to the support beams. She was muddy to the waist, but her bond remained steady and unharmed.
“Don’t kill him yet,” she said. “I want to see if we can get any information out of him.”
The thing in my tentacles snarled and clashed jagged, broken teeth together. The only part of his body he could move thanks to my grip on him. :What is he, my queen?:
“One of the Dauphine’s former Blood,” she said grimly.
“Now a master thrall. Perhaps he simply laid in wait here, hoping I would come to free Leonie, rather than killing and turning humans. But I’m guessing he’s been busy creating more thralls in the area that will attack at night.
I’ll do a more thorough scan once we’re all safe and see if I can locate them.
Take him out to the rest of our Blood and return, Okeanos.
I’ll probably need your help lifting Leonie out. ”
:At once, my queen.:
Vore’s teeth clanged like an iron gate crashing shut but he made no move to follow as I dragged myself up out of the pit toward the exit. His hunger was great enough even I felt it through our queen’s bond.
“I know, my Blood.” Shara combed her hand through his long black hair. “Soon. I promise. Let’s see if we can free Leonie’s legs before he gets back.”
As I moved away, I picked up another taste that made me hesitate. Blood. Not my own. :I think he wounded the queen before he leaped out. I taste her blood.:
Shara’s eyes flared with concern. “Quickly, Vore, her head instead. We need to get her out as quickly as possible so Gwen can heal her.”
The man who’d called himself a wizard shifted into something I had never seen before. “If your Blood can meet me at the door, I’ll take the thrall and free your kraken to assist.”
His voice cut like sharp glass, and he moved strangely, as if he wasn’t used to walking upright on two legs. A black tarry substance coated his skin, giving him an oily sheen even in the dark crawlspace.
I waited for my queen’s answer, but it was Gwen who spoke first.
“No feasting, Merlinus. Our queen wants to interrogate him first.”
He opened his mouth in a wide, garish grin, revealing his teeth.
They were just as jagged and sharp looking as the thrall’s, though his were more like broken obsidian glass shards.
His faceted eyes glittered in the darkness.
“Understood, Your Majesties. Though if he tries to flee, do I at least get to take a bite?”
“Absolutely,” Shara replied. “As long as he’s still alive and can talk.”
“Let the thrall go, mighty kraken.” His soft voice slithered with unspoken threats, yet still brittle like crunching glass. “I hope you run, thrall. It would give me such pleasure.”
I unfurled my tentacles, letting the creature tumble free into the mud.
He tried to crawl away, glancing back over his shoulder, the whites of his eyes flashing against the mud on his face.
The wizard let out a sibilant laugh and lunged at him, locking his jaws around the thrall’s lower nape.
Then he casually straightened, carrying the screaming thrall in nothing but his jaws.
It shouldn’t have been possible. The thrall was nearly as large as the wizard.
Yet for all his thrashing about, the wizard dragged him along while whistling a cheery tune.
Turning back to my queen, I slipped into the pit. Though as I passed, the knight jumped out and grabbed on to one of my tentacles.
“I’m already filthy,” he said cheerfully. “I might as well help with the chains on her legs.”
Not much chilled me any longer but I wouldn’t soon forget the light-hearted notes of the wizard’s song mixing with raspy screams.