Tunnel Rat - Chapter 330: Cannonball!
Horridragh hadn’t slept well lately, tossing and turning in his muddy bed, partly wrapped around the rocky outcropping that supported the tower he was guarding. Over and over he had fallen into an exhausted dream, only for the dream to turn into a nightmare where one of the Great Beasts was stalking him. The panic of the dread along with the pain of his cracked tooth would combine to wake him up, bellowing in agony. His great coils would thrash against the rocky outcropping, kicking up clouds of mud and muck from the bottom of the bay.
The other eels, mostly his progeny, would awake screaming as his dream invaded theirs, panicking them. They would swarm to the surface and search for the threat, swimming around and around the Wizard’s tower in a frenzy, some dying as they swam too close, while others attacked anything nearby, which often included the silly chips of wood the little two-legged ones floated in on the surface.
His cracked tooth would throb for a day, then subside, and Horridragh would try to once more get back to sleep. The schools of progeny were enough to prevent anything landing upon the small island, or anyone from leaving. After all these centuries Horridragh was more concerned with honoring the letter of the agreement to keep the ancient wizard in his solitary jail and not the spirit. The swarms of lesser creatures obeyed him, he told them to guard, therefore he was guarding. If only the damned tooth would quit waking him up!
He’d chipped it long ago in a battle upon a rocky island that no longer existed. The Great Beasts had invaded the Deeps, destroying the nesting grounds by eating a generation of hatchlings. When they retreated, he and others had pursued them almost up to the land. One was slow, with a long bony tail trailing behind it. He’d lunged and bit deep into that tail, partially dragging the beast back into the sea. One of his top fangs had come down squarely upon a bony piece of spinal armor, cracking the fang and chipping off the pearly layer that protected the inner tooth. He’d recoiled in agony and the beast had rudely scampered up onto the land, leaving him to deal with his ruined smile.
The tooth had never healed and only became worse over time. Other wounds were less stubborn. Horridragh had regenerated a missing tail, fins, and eyes. He’d been wounded near to death and always recovered, growing hale and healthy again. Except for the tooth. It bothered him when he ate, (and he was always hungry.) Its pearly white color became a dull brown, a matter of some embarrassment that had led to battles and the death of many other eels.
The throbbing slowly subsided over the centuries but could flare up at odd times. That had saved him once, waking him just before Olar-Gorgantus had attacked from stealth. That had been a good battle, with Horridragh winning and sending his enemy to the Death Water to hatch again. After painful toothaches had mysteriously put him on alert before surprise attacks two more times, he realized that his painful, brown snaggle-tooth was sensitive to the presence of the beasts. He’d told no one, of course, keeping his early warning system a secret. Some of his rivals would have tormented him using the trophies they had from their hunts. And truthfully, he would have been happy to be rid of the damned thing, but that would mean begging the aid of some creature strong enough to rip it from his jaw. Those existed, but not any who he wanted to owe a favor to.
It was rare that he’d been in pain over these last few centuries, but lately, the tooth had been acting up. It wasn’t the sharp pain that occurred when a Great Beast was near. More of an annoying throbbing that woke him and left him grumbly and irritable. Twice the tooth had throbbed when distant cousins had perished. First was the Copper Empress who couldn’t see to regain her station. She’d finally died to the spirit of Alta-Viator and the old spirit had roared and departed. Good riddance. Duels should be quick but those two had dragged their duel out for far too long. The next time was closer when a Many-heads had gotten up on land, chasing prey. Land creatures were treacherous, even small ones. None of his progeny could find a trace of a beast, but the scent had been in the water, and an eel had died. The scent was very small, and he wondered if the beast was small too. He’d gone back to sleep
Until today, when the swarms of eels around him began raging and his tooth woke him up. The scent was back, and small progeny were dying. When the scent moved to the water, on a little floaty thing, he dispatched swarms to see what it was and began to slowly leave the muck of the sea bottom. When one of his fourth-tier descendants died, (he never could remember names), he felt it. Somehow, the beast was involved, and it was coming closer to him! Horridragh began to ascend to the surface and sent his swarms to find the beast. Maybe after he ate it, he could go back to sleep.
In retrospect, Milo knew he should have taken his time with the formations and added void runes to absorb the pushback, but he’d been pressed for time. He’d had a split second to split his formation in two and send lesser versions of his Force Blast to either side. It was either send those little globes back to their senders or take a chance on burning to death. Based on what happened to the two enemy ships, he was happy he’d cast those spells. But he wasn’t at all happy with the results!
The twin forces had hit him like a mule kicking with both hooves, knocking him up, up, and away. Sky, land, and sea rotated around him as he spun in the air. Gone were thoughts of hunting eels, and his unease at being in the open hit him full force. He was exposed here, sailing through the air, and had no way to hide or slink away. Below him was an expanse of water, certainly infested with eels. He decided that he didn’t like eel hunting anymore.
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As he hit his apogee and started to come back down, he knew he was going to hit hard. He was far in the air, and even a water landing was going to hurt. Briefly, he thought about calculating his downward momentum based on time of movement and countering his momentum with a carefully calculated blast of force. Unfortunately, he was still spinning and trying to catch his breath. He wasn’t down much health thanks to his Hard Bones and Toughness and didn’t judge his predicament as desperate. Trying to cast another formation when he couldn’t stop his spin could result in something far worse than landing hard in the water.
He decided to take these couple of seconds to take at least one breath and prepare to enter the water the only way he knew how. Milo couldn’t dive. The two times the gang had managed to get him into the swimming pool had been his only experience of being in the water. (Other than moving through water mains he had to patch. Not really the same thing.) His near lack of body fat made floating impossible, but they had managed to teach him to dog paddle when in the deep end. And Butch had taught him to use the diving board using an ancient technique called ‘Doing a Cannonball’. Milo thought it superior to diving and had mastered curling into a ball and holding his breath. Butch had insisted that he wasn’t doing it right since he wasn’t yelling ‘Cannonball’ at the top of his lungs. That seemed to be the opposite of holding his breath but with practice, he’d learned how to yell on the way up and close his mouth on the way down.
He did that now, getting one breath of air into his lungs while curling up and summoning as much bone armor as he could. From quick glimpses, he saw that he was going to land closer to the island in the center of the bay. Getting back to the ship was going to be a long dog paddle. Hopefully, the sailors had noticed his trajectory and would be coming for him, assuming Pike’s ship hadn’t also burned, they weren’t still fighting the eel or the other ships, and the wind cooperated.
Milo slammed into the water unannounced, missing his chance to yell ‘Cannonball.’ He sank deep into the murky water and could see nothing, and wasn’t sure about what direction was up. He reached up to his head and pulled down his goggles, hoping they would help. He hadn’t expected them to work so well, but surrounded by mana-rich Live-Water, the goggles gave him a perfect view of the bottom of the bay where he saw numerous shipwrecks, swarms of eels of all sizes, and a monster out of a nightmare directly beneath him. The eel was far bigger than either Salasha or the Ancient Hydra. Rather than dragonlike, its head was bulbous and round with two huge protruding eyes and long fangs that projected both down and up. He estimated each pure-white fang was at least twelve feet long. A cracked brown stub ruined the eel’s otherwise perfect smile. The mouth started to open, and Milo panicked, casting the largest Force Blast he could, purposefully not using a void rune. The results were surprising to all parties involved.
Horridragh had been utterly amused to see the little Bone Beast hit the surface of the water and dive deep. It was one of the types that curled up in a protective shell. Was this what was making his tooth ache so much, lately? There was a cure for that, of course, but he had plenty of time to play with the little thing. The terror made them taste better. The little creature unfolded arms, legs, and a bony tail in front of him, unaware of its danger. That changed when it opened its outer eyelids. Horridragh saw the extreme panic in the little creature’s eyes as it realized its danger. He started to open his mouth, a task that took a few seconds. One flick of a lesser tongue and he’d see how it tasted.
Only a second later the treacherous little beast gathered all the nearby mana and unleashed a spell-sting at him. The pain was incredible, more than Horridragh had experienced since his last great battle, centuries ago. He couldn’t help but bellow in pain and alert the swarms that the ancient enemy was upon them! His mind reached out to his progeny, showing them the look of the beast and giving them its smell. The hunt was on! The hordes of eels began the chase, surging after the dangerous beast fleeing fast away from them!
Even in his panic, Milo knew better than to cast his spell straight down. He angled it so the force would push him in the direction of Shadowport, not straight up into the air. Blasting straight up and then coming down again into this behemoth’s maw was a bad plan! By happenstance, his blast hit the creature where the off-color tooth entered the jaw. Even as he was blasted away by his spell, he heard its bellow, a sound that frightened him to his core. Once again he curled up the best he could, presenting the least resistance possible. He erupted from the water at a thirty-degree angle, flew two hundred feet, and then began skipping rapidly across the water. His skin and bones were covered with glowing runes of Swift Swimming, activated by the mana in the water.
Coming to rest in the water, Milo started swimming as fast as he could toward land. His progress was slow at first, then sped up as the runes increased his pace, pushing against the water. But the hordes of eels were coming up fast, being better adapted to the environment. Panic made Milo kick harder while his brain contemplated another formation. His health was down to one-half of normal after that last, huge blast. That was when his bone-covered feet got traction on the water, and he found himself running across the surface, the Swift-Swimming runes keeping him up as he raced away from his pursuers. He recalled his dream, swimming faster than the eels. That was his only hope now, as he ran toward the shore, moving twice as fast as he could across land!
