The sacred anchor stone pressed cold against KarGrum's ribs. The catamaran lurched. His knuckles went white around the gunwale. If he fell now, the boulder would drag him straight to the bottom.

  His stomach lurched with each swell.

  "Give me my bird over this!" he choked out between heaves. "Won't vomit. Won't give them the satisfaction."

  A wave hit broadside. His grip failed. The rope yanked tight as he tumbled overboard, the boulder dragging him down into churning salt.

  Salt water flooded KarGrum's throat. His arms windmilled through water, grasping at nothing. The rope around his chest yanked taut. The boulder's weight dragged him deeper. Water pressed into his ears. His body spun in churning darkness.

  Sunlight fractured into dancing shards above him, dimming with each heartbeat. His chest convulsed. Air bubbles erupted from his nose, racing toward the surface. The urge to breathe crushed his ribs from inside. His mouth opened. Water rushed in, cold and choking.

  This is drowning. This is how I die.

  The thought sliced through panic. His vision tunneled. Black spots swarmed at the edges. The boulder dragged him down, down, down.

  His boot struck something solid. His knee buckled. The seafloor. The plan. Buzz Fast, Fear Last, he mouthed, salt water replacing words. His fingers fumbled at the knot binding the rope to his chest. Three pulls. The hemp fell away. The boulder settled beside him, no longer dragging him to death but keeping him grounded against buoyancy that wanted to shoot him back to the surface. He forced his limbs to obey, forced his body to stay low rather than claw toward light.

  Two Orcs broke the water's surface, diving deep to shepherd their sinking comrade toward a concealed underwater cavern.

  The deeper KarGrum plunged, the more the ocean wanted him dead. Pressure built behind his eyes. His ears screamed. Something warm trickled from his left nostril, copper-tasting when the current pushed it past his lips.

  The sea's weight pressed against his chest, compressing his ribs until they threatened to crack inward and puncture his lungs. His jaw locked. His teeth ground together, enamel dust coating his tongue. Every instinct howled at him to breathe, to open his mouth and pull in anything, even water, even death, just to end the burning.

  The fish came.

  Luminescent bodies swarmed him, dozens pulsing with ghostly blue light. They bumped against his arms, his face, his chest. Cold. Wrong. Their mouths opened and closed in unison, revealing needle teeth. They circled. Tightened. Closer.

  KarGrum's scream emerged as bubbles. The fish dispersed, flowing around him like liquid light, then reformed their circle.

  Below, kelp forests swayed. But the movement was wrong. Too deliberate. Too reaching. Fronds stretched upward, beckoning him down into their embrace. The ocean floor waited beneath that tangle of green-black vegetation. Somewhere in there, the cave entrance.

  Something moved in the kelp. Not the rhythmic sway of vegetation. A deliberate shift. A shadow that didn't match the kelp's dark green-black. Iron-dark against the green-black fronds. Too still. Too watching.

  KarGrum's oxygen-starved brain couldn't process it. Couldn't stop. The dive buddies pulled him past, deeper, and the shadow remained below. Waiting.

  The hunter-rowers' instructions before departure echoed in his fading consciousness. "Hold still. Stay calm underwater." His lungs burned for air, but panic would kill him faster. KarGrum forced his thrashing limbs to steady.

  KarGrum's feet touched ocean floor, sending up small clouds of silt. The seabed stretched before him. Rippled sand, scattered shells, rock formations worn smooth by centuries of currents. Colorful anemones swayed like underwater flowers, retracting at his approach.

  Two hunter-rowers appeared at his side, bodies cutting through water. They gestured toward a dark crevice where faint blue light pulsed.

  One grabbed KarGrum's arm, grip strong despite webbing between his fingers. The other pointed to the sacred boulder, then made a rising motion before shaking his head firmly. KarGrum understood. The stone was his anchor against buoyancy. Without it, the current would claim him, dragging him upward toward the surface or sideways into the void where light died and water turned black.

  They guided him toward the hidden cave entrance. Their movements remained steady against currents that threatened to sweep them into the abyss. KarGrum's lungs burned. His vision began narrowing at the edges.

  KarGrum battled against the torrent, following the underwater guides deeper into the cave. He dropped the stone, watching it tumble into darkness below, and followed his guide into the mouth of the passage. He grabbed clam shells attached to the cave wall to pull his body forward, rough edges cutting into his palms. The water here tasted different. Mineral-heavy, ancient, laced with something that made his tongue tingle. The passageway narrowed, walls pressing closer on both sides until his shoulders scraped stone. Light from above faded, then vanished, plunging them into darkness so absolute he couldn't see his own hands pulling him forward.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  KarGrum's hands vanished before his face. The shells beneath his grip pulsed, slick and organic. A heartbeat. Or his own blood thundering in his ears.

  His lungs convulsed. The burning transformed into something beyond pain. His chest cavity collapsed, ribs folding inward, organs compressing into a knot of dying tissue. His mouth opened. Water rushed in. His throat closed, gagging, rejecting the sea even as his body begged for relief from the fire within.

  The phantom lights intensified. Purple. Green. Orange. Colors that didn't exist painting his dying vision. His fingers slipped off the shells. He drifted. Was he still moving forward? Was he sinking? Rising? Spinning in place while his lungs rotted inside him?

  The hunter-rowers were gone. Or perhaps they'd never existed. Perhaps this entire dive had been his oxygen-starved brain's final hallucination as he drowned on the surface, body floating face-down while his mind invented caves and missions and reasons to keep struggling.

  His hand struck something. Rock. Shell. He couldn't tell. Didn't matter. He pulled. His arm barely responded. The muscles had gone soft, gelatinous.

  KarGrum's vision narrowed to pinpricks as death's cold embrace tightened. His limbs refused commands. The certainty of drowning crashed over him. This was the end.

  A glimmer. Faint blue light above. Hallucination. Had to be. His dying mind's final mercy.

  The glow strengthened.

  He clawed upward, movements frantic, uncoordinated, animal. The water's surface kissed his face and then he was through…

  Air flooded his lungs like fire turning sweet. His body convulsed with it. Alive. Still alive.

  rThe water's surface drew closer with each thrashing stroke. He burst through, gasping. His lungs expanded painfully as they claimed the breath.

  Pale roots pierced through the ceiling, dripping. Living things pushing through stone.

  "Gotcha, runt!" Ravager Roar'Z said as he hoisted KarGrum into the cave. "Look at 'im, more soaked than a shipwreck!"

  KarGrum's teeth chattered. His lips had gone blue-gray, and his whole body shook in violent spasms. He tried to speak but his jaw locked, muscles seizing from the cold that had seeped into his bones during the dive.

  "S-s-soaked in gl-glory is what you m-mean!" he finally managed, words stuttering out through chattering teeth. His fingers couldn't grip properly, fumbling as he tried to make his signature javelin gesture. "B-buzz F-fast, F-ear Last! A D-dive-Bomber n-never f-falters, even when the ab-byss b-beckons!"

  The hunter-rowers thumped KarGrum's back as he retched seawater onto the cavern floor, his body still wracked with shivers. They exchanged admiring glances while he cursed between heaves. One warrior knelt beside him, offering a drinking horn. Another clasped his shoulder, grip firm and reserved for proven brothers. Even the eldest among them nodded silently.

  Please let them believe it. Please let that have looked brave.

  Kyklaw approached in vibrant Clan Laga colors, one hand resting on her belly where pregnancy showed. Bioluminescent light caught the worry. Her shadow fell over KarGrum as she knelt beside him.

  "Tell me," she said. "The hoard. Safe? Free from poison?"

  KarGrum's gaze swept the twenty orc leaders encircling him. He turned to Kyklaw and touched her belly where new life grew.

  "Bad news first. Poison still hits the little ones hardest," KarGrum said. "But the mountain hoard? Safe spot! No nightmares there, no sickness!" He thumped his chest. "Buzz Fast, Fear Last! Our cubs sleep sound up there. We're winning!"

  Kyklaw's silhouette trembled. "Winning, this is?" Her voice dropped low. Roar'Z edged closer.

  "KarGrum! Take this." Roar'Z commanded, thrusting a gleaming copper ring toward him. "Ring of warmth. You'll need it for what comes next."

  KarGrum slipped the ring onto his finger. Heat bloomed from the copper band through his hand, up his arm, into his chest. The violent shivering eased. His blue-tinged lips returned to natural green. Cold that had turned muscles to stone began to thaw. Within moments, his fingers flexed. His body stilled.

  Roar'Z's gaze swept each subchief.

  "KarGrum! Your Dive-Bombers lead our people to safety!" Roar'Z slammed his fist against the cave wall, sending echoes through the chamber.

  "Night attacks grow worse. Crimson Ruby wants us dead!" His eyes burned in the gloom. "Sneak. Observe. Survive. Find their trail!"

  "Track them to their lair!" Roar'Z's voice boomed. "Rip out the heart of their cowardice!"

  KarGrum's gaze hardened. "Lead? I'll do more than lead!" His voice still carried a slight tremor from the cold but grew stronger with each word. "I'll hunt them down, every shadow, every crevice. Buzz Fast, Die Last!" He spun his javelin in one hand, the twirl smooth.

  Just need to look fearless. Just need them to believe.

  Roar'Z's hand settled on KarGrum's shoulder. "Curb your fire," he said. "You're my eyes and ears for the clan. You've done good work tracking our movements, finding safe hiding locations." His grip tightened, acknowledgment and warning both. "I have a different beast for you to chase now."

  Kyklaw stepped forward. From within her wraps, she produced a leather tube sealed with thick wax. "The route," she said, pressing it into KarGrum's hands. "Marked and protected."

  Roar'Z struck his chest with his fist. "Move the clan to their next positions. The Dive-Bombers lead the way."

  KarGrum nodded, but his mind kept drifting downward. To the kelp. To the shadow that hadn't followed.

  Why hadn't it followed?

  KarGrum worked the copper ring off his finger, warmth still radiating from the metal. He held it out to Roar'Z. "Keep it for someone who needs it more," he said. "A Dive-Bomber doesn't need magic to fly."

  Please don't let my voice crack. Please.

  Roar'Z took the ring back, nodding once.

  The swim master barked orders. "Fill yer lungs and dive hard! Deep breath! Go straight down! Break water fast on the way back!"

  KarGrum sealed the leather tube inside his vest, checked his straps twice, then stepped to the water's edge. He sucked in air until his lungs burned, lifted his chin high, and stepped off the edge.

  The water swallowed him whole.

  Buzz Fast. Fear Last.

  The fear came anyway. It always did.

  Below, in the kelp, the shadow stirred.