Free Pirate Wars by Kai Meyer Page B

Soledad, who was some distance away from him, felt the current, was flung against a brace, and cried out in pain beneath her diving helmet.
    When she opened her eyes again, she saw that panic had broken out among the kobalins. The giant head of the whale rammed them and broke all the bones in their bodies. His fins smashed them like insects. The sea giant moved with inconceivable agility. His speed gave the lie to his clumsy appearance. The kobalins could not have reckoned on such a fierce attack.
    Soledad weighed her chances. The only remaining possibilityfor flight was the way past the chain in the direction of the undercity. Whether there was a chance of climbing up into the upper city from there she did not know. But she had no choice.
    The name undercity was misleading, for it described the undersea part of Aelenium, but by no means a city. The gigantic sea star that formed the base of Aelenium possessed two mountainlike outgrowths: one on the upper side, the other below. While over the course of time the upper part had more and more been brought into the form of a human settlement, with houses and towers and palaces, the formations on the underside remained untouched. Here the caves and tunnels ran as chance had created them; arms of coral grew wildly in all directions, and the surface was covered with sharp ridges, points, and thorns, which could cost a careless diver his life.
    The way to the fissured coral incline was largely free. Soledad could get there unhindered, if Jasconius distracted the kobalin swarm just a little while longer. But fear made her hesitate, for she knew what she was letting herself in for. It was quite possible that she would become hopelessly lost in the twisting coral passageways and grottoes, until her air supply was used up—and never get even close to the upper surface at all.
    Her eyes fell on the pack of kobalins, which had left the anchor chain and moved to safety outside the range of Jasconius’s deadly blows.
    Suddenly one of the kobalins raised his arm and pointed at her. Immediately ten or eleven of them started moving.Apparently they’d received orders to leave no human in the water alive.
    She cursed her indecisiveness, which might now cost her her life, then pushed off and swam with hasty strokes in the direction of the slope. A little farther, one of countless openings gaped below her, a jagged crack, wide enough for a small ship to sail through it. She ducked along coral edges and passed sharp corners and turned into the darkness. Here there was no source of light except for the pale gleam that came in through the entrance. Desperately she wished for the polliwog vision that allowed Jolly and Munk to orient themselves underwater. She herself was dependent on the weak light from outside and on her sense of touch.
    Panicked, she looked around at her pursuers. The kobalins shot up to the opening to follow her inside the coral mountain. Soledad swam faster, now using much too much of her air supply. In front of her rose the rugged cave wall. There was no exit.
    Then it became dark around her.
    She needed a moment to grasp what had happened. A black silhouette had slid in front of the crack and plunged the grotto into complete darkness. Jasconius!
    He gave her the opportunity to flee deeper into the interior, even if she couldn’t see her hand before her face. But the shock had paralyzed her and kept her motionless in the water. Spellbound, she looked back at the opening. When the whale left it clear again, Soledad’s pursuers were floating higgledy-piggledy, crushed and lifeless.
    Moments later she came to herself and repressed the urge to swim back into the light, into open water. With a heavy heart she left the brightness behind her.
    In the dusky light she now made out a second crack in the back side of the cave, which she hadn’t noticed in her fear a few moments before. If she were lucky— very lucky—she’d have stumbled on one of the routes the divers had marked on