She pulled her gaze away from his beautiful face and drew on her cloak. Her fingers trembled when she reached for the waning lantern and stood, Huntress once more.
CHAPTER 22
Nasir had never seen the dandan, only heard of its tales. Before, when he used to listen raptly to the lies that were stories.
The creature before them was most certainly a dandan. It was serpentine, something out of myth, trembling as it rose from the sea. Because of the Arz, it was likely that the creature had rested for decades. In unsatiated hunger.
It was twice as wide as Nasir’s height, the bulk of its body obscured beneath the waves rocking the ship. Thick scales overlapped, glistening a deep iridescent blue-green beneath the glow of the sun.
Altair whistled. “Shame such a beauty is tied with such a ridiculous name.”
The creature’s head swayed, two depthless black eyes shifting to and fro. A strange hissing escaped its mouth, gills contracting on either side of its narrowed face.
“I don’t think it can see,” Nasir murmured. At his voice, the creature’s head tipped to the side in an almost innocent gesture.
Altair backed away, footsteps slow and measured, before he drew his bow and leveled for the creature’s eyes, or gills, Nasir couldn’t tell.
He threw a glance at the oblivious crew still going about their work. They blinked and flashed with the light, solid yet ethereal. The dandan didn’t notice them any more than they noticed it.
Nasir drew a steady breath and nocked an arrow of his own. “We should—”
The creature released a high-pitched screech, loud enough to ripple sand at the depths of the sea. As soon as the screech ended, with deafening silence and a gust of salted wind, it began again.
The dandan reared back and shot toward them, jaws parted to reveal razor-sharp teeth and a gaping black hole of a mouth. A green tongue lashed within.
Nasir and Altair let loose their arrows.
Both of them were deflected.
Nasir cursed and ducked against the side of the ship.
The dandan’s head pierced the mainsail, tearing down the mast as it crashed onto the deck. Altair shouted out. Water slickened the wood and soaked Nasir’s clothes as the ship tipped to the side with a terrifying creak.
The dandan whipped its head, hissing and screaming, even bigger than it looked from afar. It passed through the phantom crew as it slid toward Nasir. Kharra. He leaped to his feet and darted aside, but the dandan was faster.
Much faster.
He was thrown against the wall of the ship. His bow fell from his hands and skidded across the deck. He struggled for breath, pinned between the creature and the rails, scales like bones digging into his stomach.
A gill parted near him, and the dandan’s steaming breath nearly suffocated him. He jerked away when another slit parted and a depthless black hole stared back. If an eye and gill are this close, then its mouth—
The creature screamed again. Sound exploded and Nasir shouted in surprise, clamping his hands on his ears while gritting his teeth. Red and black streaked across his vision. The sudden silence that followed the dandan’s cry was just as deafening.
The monster lifted its head, swaying the entire time, and twisted to look at him.
It can’t see, Nasir reminded himself as his ears continued to ring. He swayed and held steady. But when the creature revealed its teeth, Nasir wasn’t so sure of the stories he had heard.
Until someone shouted.
“Oi! Dandan! What was your mother thinking, giving you such a silly name?”
Altair, the fool.
The dandan stilled. It contracted its gills and narrowed its black eyes.
“Dandan, oi! Dandaaan,” Altair sang. “Look at you, so green and blue. What a name! What a shame!
I pity your mother, and your brother. Oi, dandaaan!”