"Finish it," Thuur croaked as she held onto the trident's haft. "I deserve that much from you. Don't let me suffer."

"Your heresies condemn you," Laaqueel said as she closed on the priestess. "I am merely your judgment." She popped the retractable claws from her fingers, another physical difference that separated her from the hated sea elves. She stared into Thuur's black gaze.

"Your quest is true, honored one," Thuur gasped as she settled gently onto the ocean's mud floor, no longer able to stand or swim. Silt dusted around her in a small cloud. "May Sekolah grant that you find it."

"And may the Great Shark you take with him into the Wild Hunt that you may forever taste the fresh flesh of our enemies," Laaqueel answered.

"Meat is meat," Thuur said. "Let me make you stronger."

With great speed and care, she raked her claws across Thuur's throat. "Meat is meat. You will never leave us."

Blood misted out at once, spreading through the ocean.

Laaqueel smelled and tasted it even in the saltwater. Hunger pains vibrated in her stomach. She took the dead priestess's knife and began slicing.

"Come, my sisters," she invited. "Meat is meat."

The other two joined her, wolfing down the gobbets of flesh as she sliced them free. More blood stained the water, spreading outward. Even a drop of it in thousands of gallons of water, Laaqueel knew, would draw predators, and they came. Some crawled on multi-jointed legs while others slithered through the water and still more finned their way to the death site.

All stayed back from the sahuagin, acknowledging them as the strongest of predators.

Vibrations through her lateral lines told Laaqueel when the sharks arrived. She glanced up, watching five of the great creatures swim in a circle overhead. She reached out to the predators with her mind, sending out a danger message that would hold them at bay.