Our boat gives a hard tilt, as if punched from below by a great fist, and I cry out along with my companions, all of us tossed to one side as the boat nearly capsizes and water courses over us in an icy sheet. My blade falls from my hands and my feet skid out from under me, my shoulder painfully absorbing the impact as I slam into a wooden bench. I grab firm hold of Nym’ellia’s arm, Emberlyyn blessedly having kept hold of both a rope and Tibryl as we all exchange looks of stark alarm.

“Kraken! Kraken!” a man’s voice yells in Elfhollen from some distance away, his voice muffled by the strengthening wind and rain as additional cries of alarm go up all along the river.

“Get down,” I order my companions as I retrieve my blade. “Stay low and hold tight to the side ropes.”

A dark head explodes from the water, and my breath seizes in my lungs.

The distant kraken is horrific, like some unholy fusion of squid and insect, with an oily black serpentine head, massive jaws with glistening teeth, multiple limbs, and tentacles bursting up to wrap around the prow of the Kelt family’s boat, the children screaming, the adults’ cries unintelligible through the wind.

Nym’ellia throws herself in front of her mother and sister, her back to them as she grabs the rope handholds, her eyes bugged out. I pull back my arm, preparing to throw the Ash’rion, but the Wand’s gleaming-green aim-tracks only flow out half the span, disappearing before they can reach the beast.

It’s too far away, I anguish, the family screaming as their boat is yanked underwater.

More kraken heads explode from the water, triggering shouts in more than one language. The heavens open up more fully, earsplitting thunder cracking as Tibryl sobs and our boat bobs on the worsening waves, the runes at its sides sputtering out of existence.

My heart slams against my ribs as Wyvernfire abruptly rushes through me, blazing in from the northeast, my vision flashing gold. Frantic, I scan both sea and skies, praying for Yvan to suddenly descend.

Dark tentacles bolt up and I gasp, their sharp claws clicking over the boat’s edge. They’re larger than dragon talons, and I freeze as a kraken’s gleaming head rises.

I take it in in one anguished heartbeat.

Two gigantic, membranous eyes. Huge, fetid jaws, a cavernous mouth full of gnashing teeth. Tibryl’s scream cuts through my split-second reckoning as a stronger emotion wrests hold.

Pure, unadulterated wrath.

“You will not take them!” I cry, anger exploding through me in a wild rage. I hurl myself at the thing, leap off the boat, and thrust my knife right into one of its huge eyes, my fingers finding my blade’s fire rune. I growl out a runic spell and release the blade’s hilt.