The dragon was a welcome sight to the embattled merman as its fiery attack slowed the orca further. Pain and confusion combined to drive the creature into a fury rather than flight, however, and it thrashed in the water, submerging to cool the pain of the burns and to get away from the dragon's flame as much as from the whip.
It couldn't see what had hurt it from above, and it still hadn't quite pinpointed the whip as the source of its other pain, but it could see the broad-winged shape of its original prey through the water, and taste the blood it left behind. The killer whale had only one target to vent its rage and frustration on, and it drove forward on powerful flukes once more, ignoring the sand scraping its belly as the nearest island began to loom out of the water in front of it. The tip of its dorsal fin remained visible, but more of its back quickly appeared as it left the deeper water of the channel behind.
Hadama twisting again, but this time he took a lesson from the woman on shore and lashed his whip-thin tail across the killer whale's nose as it closed in, scoring a line of blood through the blubber even as the shallowing water began to limit his own movements in the deadly chase.
It couldn't see what had hurt it from above, and it still hadn't quite pinpointed the whip as the source of its other pain, but it could see the broad-winged shape of its original prey through the water, and taste the blood it left behind. The killer whale had only one target to vent its rage and frustration on, and it drove forward on powerful flukes once more, ignoring the sand scraping its belly as the nearest island began to loom out of the water in front of it. The tip of its dorsal fin remained visible, but more of its back quickly appeared as it left the deeper water of the channel behind.
Hadama twisting again, but this time he took a lesson from the woman on shore and lashed his whip-thin tail across the killer whale's nose as it closed in, scoring a line of blood through the blubber even as the shallowing water began to limit his own movements in the deadly chase.
