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Captain Trill showed many of the behaviors Cassian had learned to associate with the best bravos that came to the forge. She knew what she wanted and asked sharp, incisive questions to pry the information she wanted out of him. It was quite gross. Still, after an hour of work they’d figured out the three most likely locations for the sea dragon’s lair.

The captain mapped out the fastest underwater routes between them and announced they would leave for the first location the next day. With that taken care of Cassian asked the obvious question.

“Will you allow us to make any claims on the treasure?”

Trill made her burping laugh noise again. “You surprise me, Monsignor Ironhand. Most humans are interested in treasure but your fixation is remarkably single minded.”

“Perhaps the Benthic are just less concerned with such things than the average human,” Cassian said. “Though there is more to it than simple desire for profit in my case. We have a reputation to uphold. My employer requested we retrieve the cargo from his caravan and it won’t reflect well on us if we come back empty handed.”

“Is that so.” Trill had developed a habit of staring at him whenever he said more than one or two sentences. This was no exception. The fronds and spines that seemed to do most of her emoting were all laid almost flat against her body, one of the clearest tells the Benthic gave. Unfortunately Cassian had only seen it as a sign of surprise or disbelief. “I suspect there is something about this you haven’t told us yet, monsignor.”

“Have you told us everything that your duties entail, captain?”

“I have not. However, if you were to conduct yourself in the way of most humans in the water and remain here until returned to your own people, the things I haven’t told you would pose you no danger. Stay with us as we travel and the same is true. If it turns out you have concealed dangers to me and mine or, worse, outright lied to us you will never breath air again. Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly, captain.” One wouldn’t think the chill water of the Ursus Nest left room for further cold, yet ice was exactly what Cassian felt in his stomach at Trill’s threat. He had no reason to think Cazador posed a danger to the Benthic. Whether she would see it that way or not was another matter. He would simply have to wait and see.

If Cassian and the others had been forced to march along the sea floor again the trip to the first possible location of the dragon’s lair would have taken a full day’s walk and then some. To avoid that the Benthic brought out two large nets made of woven sea plants. Cassian didn’t recognize the strange orange vines but Adalai examined them and said the plants weren’t poisonous. It wasn’t clear whether that was a factor of his Arminger’s Gift or some stray bit of learning he’d picked up on his own travels but Cassian was willing to take the assessment at face value. Discussing Gifts in front of the Benthic wasn’t a wise tactic either way. So the four of them climbed in, two to a net, then he and Marta were forced to spend several minutes persuading Braxton to remain behind. While Cassian thought it spoke well of the man that he made the offer to accompany them the reality was he didn’t want the Hexton man to there. Not only was he a landed nobleman of a foreign nation, which raised all kinds of issues Cassian wasn’t prepared to deal with, his attachment to Marta created a host of additional complications they weren’t equipped to deal with. Marta herself also seemed relieved that her baron was remaining behind. He was grateful for that element, at least.

So, with the baron remaining behind, the Benthic took to the seas and dragged the humans along behind them, catching a southward current that allowed them to reverse the previous day’s trip from the Drownway in less than an hour. They arrived close to high tide, which allowed the Benthic to swim through one of the low lying areas with only a minimal amount of squeezing. All the water made it more difficult than Cassian expected to recognize what part of the path they were crossing and, as a result, he wasn’t sure whether they were close to the place they’d originally met the dragon or not. It had looked like their course would go somewhere further west when they discussed it on Trill’s map. He’d just have to trust that was accurate if he got separated from the others.

Once they were over the Drownway their Benthic minders were much more careful about how they moved. Trill had asked for three volunteers for this little expedition, taking the fourth spot for herself. She’d introduced the volunteers to them before they departed but it turned out Benthic names sounded like a bunch of weird noises to human ears and Cassian had been forced to think of them as Burp, Sputter and Groan. He began rethinking the somewhat flippant nature of those names when he saw how they navigated hostile waters. Trill may have been a captain but she clearly wasn’t content to leave all field duties to subordinates. She worked with Sputter to drag the net Cassian was riding in and, despite all the added weight and drag, the Benthic managed to move about the sea floor in a way Cassian could only describe as wraith like. A Benthic in the water could explode forward as fast or faster than a human sprinter. At the same time, with their long, sinuous bodies they could contort themselves around obstacles as easily as the fluid they inhabited. Indeed, they seemed able to move through the drifting plant leaves or reaching limbs of anemones without causing any disturbance. On occasion Cassian wondered if they had actually transformed into water themselves.

Given the incredible stealth shown by their escorts, it was no surprise that he wasn’t able to see any other Benthic during their trip. The Tidallias Benthic were no doubt just as stealthy as Trill and her soldiers. They did see the occasional school of fish and, once, as they passed over a particularly deep trench that led further out into the open ocean, a massive shadow below that looked something like a whale. Trill had instructed her human passengers not to speak during the trip so Cassian wasn’t able to ask what it was. Truthfully the creature’s appearance was menacing enough he didn’t feel like making any noise, warned or not. Whatever it was it didn’t seem to take any notice of them and it was far too large to follow them back into shallower waters anyway.

Or so he hoped.

After another hour to hour and a half of travel from the Drownway they arrived at a shallow, sandy island covered in tall, stringy grass. Trill theorized that the dragon might have taken over the island and buried most of its treasure, a habit she claimed it would have learned from humans in the Gulf. Cassian had argued against that, both because he didn’t know anyone who would bury money for any reason and because the dragon had no legs, which meant it would have to get its enslaved Benthic to do the burying. Unless the creature enjoyed the taste of sand. Trill seemed to think it could have used its power to manipulate water to help bury the treasure somehow, that was apparently how the Benthic carved their fortresses on the sea floor, and insisted they investigate the island.

So investigate they did. After twenty minutes Adalai was ready to give up. There was no sign of anything solid on the island, just loose dirt and waving grass. In spite of that Cassian insisted they comb the entire island, confirming there was nothing buried just below the surface of the dirt. Once they had finished with that they’d been above the water for nearly an hour. The length of the time they’d spent there without a wrathful visitor, combined with the lack of any guards, traps, or treasure was enough for Trill to agree the the island was most likely not the dragon’s lair.

Their next stop was a low, rocky prominence that rose far out of the sea floor that, by the time they visited, rose a few dozen feet out of the water. The tide was starting to go back out but, based on the markings along the stone, Cassian guessed the rocky peak was at least ten feet above the waves even at high tide, which he thought made it a strange place for a sea dragon to store its treasure. On the other hand, it wasn’t an easy place for any sea creature to get up to and the rocky surface would make it difficult for land dwellers to approach without endangering their boat so it made sense if being hard to reach was the point. Once they looked around the surface they discovered a wide tunnel leading back down into the rock. Verina doubled back into the ocean and let Trill know they thought they’d found the lair then the four humans started the perilous trek down into the rock.

It proved to be more of a slide. The tunnel slope started off fairly gentle but quickly pointed down at a thirty to forty degree angle, spiraling around the inside of the rock for several dozen feet. The stone was worn smooth by water that constantly trickled down from the mouth and it proved impossible for any of them to remain standing on the slick, angled surface. After a few bruising falls they all sat down on the stone and let their weight pull them on towards the bottom. Cassian tried to picture fighting the sea dragon in a place like this and shuddered. By the time they reached the bottom they were moving so quickly Cassian had to use his Gift on his breastplate to drag himself to a stop before striking the wall at the end of the tunnel. He had just enough time to brace himself there before Marta came down whizzing around the bend. He caught her with one arm, bracing himself as best he could with his other, and managed to stop her before either one of them got more than a few bruises. He did the same for Verina and Adalai.

“Wonderful,” Adalai muttered once they were all situated at the bottom of the tunnel. “Back in the dark.”

“The tunnel turns hard right here,” Cassian said. He went a few paces down it and knelt. “Looks like there’s an underwater cavern here. The ceiling comes down to the waterline but I think I see some light filtering through from the other side.”

“Those eyes of yours must have gotten a lot better than ours,” Adalai said. “I can’t see anything. It’s pitch black down here, you’d think any light would stand out.”

“We haven’t seen the Linnorm for a while, Verina,” Cassian said. “Is he still out there?”

“Yes,” she said. “Be glad you haven’t seen him, signore. If he had manifested himself while we were underwater we’d all quickly boil alive.”

“Not ideal, I agree. Can he go and see what’s on the other side of the cavern?”

“He’s just returned.” Verina looked away for a moment then said, “The ceiling of the cavern rises out of the water again not far from here. It’s lined with unusual coral and pearls, the pearls are giving off a strange, dim light. There’s two Benthic on guard just past the lowest point in the ceiling, armed with the same kind of spears the dragon’s other thralls were using. The Linnorm can’t tell if they’re still under the dragon’s influence but they do have pearls in their foreheads. Speaking of boiling water, do you want him to deal with those two?”

“Too noisy,” Adalai said. “If there are any more Benthic on the far side of the cavern they’ll hear the steam explosion the Linnorm manifesting will cause.”

Marta patted her shield, which the Benthic had returned with their other weapons that morning. “I can create a perfectly circular shield so long as I’m inside it. If we can get close enough to them before they realize we’re there I can trap them and ensure they can’t get away. It takes some concentration, though, so I’ll need someone who can actually deal with them.”

“So long as water doesn’t interfere with the Ironhand’s gift that shouldn’t be too hard,” Adalai said, giving Cassian a meaningful look.

“It doesn’t.” Cassian chewed on his lip as he stared down into the water. “Verina, can the Linnorm see the bottom of this cavern?”

After a five second wait she said, “Yes. It’s beyond the limit of his reach but he can see it. Why?”

He was thinking about the huge shadow he’d seen earlier, although he didn’t want to admit to it. “I was just thinking blood in open water might not be a good idea. Still, it’s the best we have. We’ll go with Marta’s plan.”

It worked surprisingly well. Cassian watched the bleeding bodies of the enthralled Benthic sink into the depths, yanking his daggers free from their corpses with his Gift, beginning to wonder if everything was actually going too well. They were making their way along the sides of the cavern, Cassian’s plate armor and Marta’s chainmail making them far too heavy to swim, but other than that nothing had cropped up to impede their progress. Once the guards were gone they completed the circuit and found they could climb back onto dry land. There, amidst the glowing pearls and misshapen coral, were piles of shining coins, stacks of valuable fabrics and shelves of nicknacks that had to be worth a fair bit as well. Adalai wandered over towards the shelves, already pulling his gloves off. The two women sifted through the coins a bit, moving towards the back of the coral. Cassian found himself a good place to sit and kept his unnaturally keen eyes pointed towards the water. “See how far back this place goes,” he called to Marta. “Let me know if you find anything interesting. I’ll keep an eye out in case there’s more of those guys down there somewhere.”

“How long do you think we have to stay here until Trill is satisfied the dragon’s dead?” Adalai asked, picking up a highly decorated vase and turning it over in his hands.

“I have no idea. We’ll go and check with her in a few hours, I suppose.”

“Adalai?” Verina’s voice carried a strained, nervous tone. She’d stopped by a tall spire of coral and was staring at it intently. “Come look at this.”

He set the vase down, frowning. “Something wrong?”

“I think… I think this coral is growing on a person.”