enough now for Sarah to see the barnacles attached to their skin, the sea anemones that had made a home on their chests, on their hips, on their legs, and the seaweed dangling from their arms like ripped clothes. Little creatures slithered over them, newborn eels and many-legged things that resembled woodlice. A slimy trail shimmered faintly behind them on the wet sand.
Sarah tried to calm her pounding heart – there were too many of them. They were going to kill her. The best course of action was at least to try and get as much information as she could out of the dream – when it would happen, and where – before they slaughtered her.
She drew a deep breath, her eyes glinting with the Midnight gaze. “Who sent you?” she screamed into the sea wind, her voice determined but coloured with the terror of what was soon to come.
The Mermen neither acknowledged her question nor replied. Instead they continued their silent march across the shore towards her. They resembled fish gasping for air, their mouths opening and closing intermittently, their gills pulsating in rhythm with their heartbeat. A nauseous smell of things decaying underwater wafted off them, carried towards Sarah on the wind.
“Answer me! Who sent you?” she repeated, and a bittersweet memory came back to her – how Sean used to get so impatient with her whenever she tried to communicate with the Surari. She used to try and communicate with them to avoid fighting, and it angered Sean no end, but this time she was on her own, and she was demanding the truth.
The Mermen were now a few yards away and coming closer, closer. There was no point in turning around and running. She could have outrun them, but she would have learnt nothing. She raised her hands, now scalding, and readied herself. Suddenly she felt something brushing her elbow and she jumped in alarm, but it was only Nicholas, having materialized beside her in perfect silence.
“Oh no,” she whispered.
“I’m glad to see you too.” He grinned sarcastically.
“I don’t want you in this dream. You’ll die too.”
“No. I won’t. And neither will you.” And with that, Nicholas started shouting to the creatures at the top of his voice, with such fury that his fingers were sparkling blue and crackling with fire. Sarah could recognize only a few words as they were spoken in the ancient language, the one used by the human tribes during the Time of Demons.
Immediately the Mermen stopped in their tracks, and one of them replied in a gurgling, watery series of sounds that vaguely resembled the ancient language, but sounded alien as well, alien to this earth and all its creatures.
A dialogue followed that was fevered and full of anger on Nicholas’s part, and calm and steady from the Merman. He kept repeating the same things, on and on, over and over.
Sarah turned and smiled sadly at him. “Nicholas, I don’t think you can help me here,” she said gently.
“Sarah …”
She turned back to the Mermen. “Come on! Come and get me!” she screamed, and as one, they starting moving up the beach towards them again.
Sarah could feel Nicholas tense at her side. Now that the sea creatures were right in front of them Sarah estimated that they were twice her size, their arms thick with sleek muscles. There must have been at least twenty of them. She’d never seen so many Surari in one place at the same time.
Another gust of wind, and Sarah gagged at the rotten smell that swept over her. Recovering quickly and ignoring Nicholas’s muted pleas, she crouched slightly before leaping with a growl, her hands thrust forward, trying to grab at least one of the Mermen before they bit her, or drowned her, or whatever they were planning to do to put an end to her life. But the Merman she attacked didn’t react by retaliating. He simply put one arm around her waist, lifted her off her feet and threw her aside effortlessly.
Sarah landed on the sand, her breath knocked out by the fall. For a few hazy seconds she watched as the slimy, wet fins of the Mermen moved towards her, then around her, marching over the dunes, leaving her behind. They weren’t interested in Sarah. She wasn’t the target.
Where are they heading?
Sarah sat upright and looked ahead of her. The landscape had changed; the sea and land had swapped places, so that the water was now in front of her. The Mermen were