26. Rhaek
RHAEK
I saw them from the bone reef hill’s edge.
The huge beast holding Helsa and the Wader following behind, both moving along the platform's northern edge toward the spire island. Neither of them looking back. Neither of them knew I was there.
That was the only advantage I had.
Above the waterline I was visible from every direction. The moonlight too bright, the rock too open, the distance between the main platform and the spire island too exposed. If either of them turned they would see me and surprise was the one thing I could not recover once lost.
The water.
If I crept into it, I could crawl along the ridge until I reached the opposite bank on the spire’s side.
They wouldn’t even know I was there.
I slid into the water.
Down past the surface light, down past the murk line, down to where the platform's underside came into view.
The crust of it above me, old rock, ancient construction, running in a long continuous shelf toward the spire's base.
A seam where two sections of the platform met.
Narrow, just wide enough, running the entire length of the approach.
I got onto my belly and moved.
The seam was tight. Shoulders just clearing the rock above, the platform's crust pressing down, the seafloor pressing up. I pulled myself forward with my fingertips, inch by inch, the water pushing against me in long steady pulses as the tide came in.
I could feel it building. The whole weight of the ocean filling the platform from below, the current not fast but constant, pushing me back one inch for every two I gained. The rock above groaned with it. The pressure transmitted through stone, through the seam, into my chest and my palms.
I could see her through the distortion of the water above me.
Blurred by the surface chop, fragmented by the moonlight, but there. The huge beast had her. I watched him carry her toward the spire's entrance as she drove her heel into his shin. He didn’t slow down. I pulled myself forward inch by inch.
The creatures in the depths found me before I reached the halfway point.
Three of them. Banking along the platform's outer edge, drawn by blood from the fighting above. They didn't come into the seam. Too narrow, too confined. But they moved along the opening, one pass and then another, each arc tighter.
I stopped moving.
Lay completely still. Let the current push me back and did not resist it. Movement drew them. Stillness confused them. I pressed flat against the seafloor and watched the pale underside of the nearest one pass nearby and waited.
Above me, through the fractured surface light, the huge beast was carrying Helsa up the ledges. I coiled my body, ready to leap forward if the opportunity arose.