When Ravens Call: The Fourth Book in the Small Gods Epic Fantasy Series (The Books of the Small Gods by Bruce Blake (books under 200 pages txt) 📗

How a whale's guts might appear, he didn't know, but this wasn't it.

Water stretched on to a distant horizon, as smooth as he imagined possible for the ocean to ever be. He lay on his side, one arm kinked beneath him, the other stretched out in front. The tips of his fingers dangled over the edge, brushing the surface of each small wave. He gulped the few drops of saliva his dry mouth created, thankful to be safer than when currents and waves tossed and tugged him around the God of the Deep's home.

Teryk shifted his weight, rolled onto his chest so his cheek pressed against what turned out to be a slab of wood keeping him afloat. Its edge lay a mere finger's width from the tip of his nose, the act of rolling having dunked his protruding arm into the water. A movement tickled his fingertips, so he found the energy to lift his head and peer into the sea.

Of course, the prince had seen many fish before, most arrayed on a fishmonger's cart or beheaded, flayed, and cooked on his plate. Because of this, the small creature toothlessly nibbling at his fingers surprised him with its color. The bulk of its scales were yellow, but two thin blue stripes—one behind its gills and another before its tail—provided a striking contrast. Part of Teryk realized he should take his hand away, take away its chance to cause him harm. But its colors brought him a joy and comfort of a kind he hadn't experienced in a long time.

He raised his eyes and looked at the sea stretching on to a distant horizon with nothing between. No ship, no land, not a single object to break the ocean's near-smooth surface. The nothingness should have caused panic and fear, but the relief of being alive usurped fright's power.

Teryk returned his gaze to his hand dangling in the water and the colorful fish nibbling his fingertips, found a second joining the first. The green of this one's scales made it one shade from invisible against the ocean's depths. He wouldn't have noticed it but for the red dot atop its head.

With a smile on his face, Teryk wiggled his fingers and watched them skitter away before returning to reapply their fishy lips to his flesh. He chuckled at their persistence and let them continue their nibbling as fatigue weighed on him. He allowed his eyelids to slide closed but popped them open again, repeated the action.

The second time he opened his eyes, a glimmer of light caught his attention. Normally, he'd have written it off as the reflection of sun on water, but it winked back to life again a few heartbeats later and he realized it shone from below the surface. It came closer, moving in a zig-zag pattern, mesmerizing Teryk. Colors flickered in the curious glow, though he couldn't tell if the luminescence itself caused the spectacle or if the waves flowing over it created the effect.

It caught the finger-nibblers' attention, too, and they ceased their attempts at dining on his fingers. They maneuvered themselves around, tails lashing back and forth to hold their place against the ocean's current. The hypnotic light moved side to side, inching closer, and Teryk readjusted himself, leaning nearer to the water. At first, it appeared to be floating of its own accord, a lost star fallen from the sky and unable to navigate its way home from beneath the sea. The prince found himself able to identify with the sentiment. The two fish watched, entranced along with him.

When the bewitching glow came within an arm's length, he discerned a vague shape below it, nothing more than a darker patch on a dark background. The light didn't illuminate whatever hid below it, making the outline too dim for him to recognize. He leaned closer, close enough a large ripple kissed his chin.

The light's forward motion ceased, and it bobbed and swayed in place with the ebb and flow of the waves. The two fish edged toward it, moving in a quick, darting way a short distance at a time; curiosity tempered by caution.

A sudden dread insinuated itself in Teryk's chest, the innocence of the disembodied light countered by the ominous shape lurking below it. The desire to warn the fingertip-nibblers overcame him and he shifted again, freeing his arm from beneath himself. His hand and forearm prickled with the touch of a thousand pins unfelt by his numb fingers. The muscles in his shoulder seized and, before he moved to slap the water and scare the predator off, the thing attached to the glow darted forward.

It swam fast for a creature of its size. A horn jutted off its head; the luminescence affixed to it winked out, and a mouth lined with spiky teeth gaped. It took both fish into its gaping maw at once as it broke the surface, the saw-like fin on its spine narrowly missing Teryk's outstretched hand.

The prince gasped a surprised breath into his lungs and jumped away, setting the wood he floated on rocking and pain shooting through his body.

"Settle, boy, or you'll send us tumbling back into the sea."

Teryk twisted toward the voice, startled again. While watching the fish, he'd heard nothing to suggest he wasn't alone floating atop the ocean.

He stared at the master of the Whalebone across the chunk of wet deck once a part of his ship. The man sat with his legs stretched out, the block of wood where once a foot lived twisted at an odd angle. Beside him lay a second sailor facing away from Teryk so he couldn't see who.

"C... Captain. What...?" He paused, eyes scanning the makeshift raft, then the endless sea before settling back on Bryder. "What happened?"

"The storm took us," he