Luckily nothing had attacked them during the night. They intentionally avoided creating any light that might attract anything deep underwater. They instead used the night stars to reload their weapons and as a guide to track their direction.
They had remained afloat on their rafts until it was dim early morning the next day. In the distance, a speck from the red blurry sun began to show above the still grey line of the water's surface.
On the far right, at a great distance away on new lands they could see the cloud-hidden peaks of the dark blue mountain clusters. What used to be directly in front had now shifted. It reassured them they were not heading towards the center of the Domain.
Dayrue who had slept throughout the entire night even after agreeing to only take short naps finally rose to greet the new sun. Roshar had fixed her up with bandages around her head and left arm.
Her head injury occurred on the right side of her head where the only growing hair on top hung over hiding it. However, Roshar had flipped her hair onto the other shaved side making it easier to treat the injury. Her hair remained on the left side and was extra fluffy since it was years of being in the same style on the right.
Rue and Roshar stood on separate rafts with their premade paddles as they were now on shift giving Ezra and Skinner a break. The others sat with their legs folded and their eyes alert looking in all directions.
The whole time she stood she kept her head straight to take her mind off the object she could not believe she was using to steer the raft.
While one hand held the boney joint that stuck out of the top, the other was on the lower part of the limb where the skin had softened to a mushy state. It made sloppy sounds each time she tightened her grip around the now indented section to make each paddle.
Even worse than the putrid odor that reeked mostly from its open end, the webbed part that went underwater was losing its firmness. It was only a matter of time before her efforts amounted to pulling a stick with a cloth attached to the end through strong sea currents.
She despised Ezra even more for not making paddles. Whenever his eyes looked her way to make sure she was alright or to make his annoying smirks, she looked over his head and pretended she did not see him.
As they glided over the grey waters a small black spiky mountain on their far left caught her eyes. It stood at the edge close to the waters where new land started.
They remained on the waters since nothing attacked them and the idea that those lands were roaming with more vicious creatures was unwelcoming. They would continue by waters for as far as it allowed them until they left the Domain.
As they got closer, Rue could not help but think that the mountain was at an odd location. There were no other formations like it insight and so stood out like a sore thumb at the water's edge.
To her surprise, as it began to turn at different angles from their steadily changing location she noticed the pointy sharp rocks lining its back did not continue all around. When it broke from its still state after getting knocked into the waters by a giant sea monster, a deep chasm formed inside her chest and she stopped breathing. They both hit the waters like a bomb kicking up a massive white splash that ripped through the silence.
The ear-splitting monster shriek numbed her ears. Her heart stopped and her hands froze from paddling at the sight of a wave the height of five stories rolling over towards them.
Something inside of her sank as the raft began to tilt upwards at one end from the rising waters. She began to lose her balance.
"No no no!" yelled Ezra as he moved down to hold on to the raft.
"Duck and hold on!" her father's voice was loud through the rumbling from the approaching wave.
It was too late. She took her last breath and on reflex secured her tail around her left leg. Her mantle wrapped around her the second her back broke through the cold waters. Goosebumps rose all over her body.
Her eyes ripped open to millions of tiny bubbles creating fuzzy clouds under the busy water. Her mind did not think to swim upwards back to the raft but instead how to survive the crushing wave moving over her.
As the rumbling got louder she shut her eyes, held her limbs tight to her body, and hardened her skin. It felt like needles everywhere.
When the wave passed and the waters eased up, she ripped open her eyes and swam up towards the balls of sparkling light.
Her head ripped through to have the cold hard wind hit her with chills. Her hood had moved behind her head and wet clumps of loose hair flapped into her face as she looked everywhere searching for signs of the others.
Once she saw several heads moving up and down above the moving waters she swam towards them. Roshar and the rattlers had fallen off their rafts and like her had to swim back.
The rattlers moved their legs fast to paddle before their masters pulled them up onto the rafts. Her father, Cronan, held out one hand to lift her back onto the raft with ease.
It was then that her ears began to make out two distinct monster cries above the roaring waves. As she looked back in the direction of the mountain to see two massive creatures battling the other, she realized it was never a mountain. It was a giant creature waiting patiently at the edge of the land for some reason.
They stayed low holding on to the raft as it rode above the wild currents. Smaller waves sent waters rushing off them like waterfalls. They did not resist the push of the waves away and towards the land as they could not risk those large beasts seeing them. It wasn't crazy to think they may want to eat them too, like every other creature they've encountered in that Domain.
Rue thought about how small and insignificant they were from trying to flee the waves from two creatures making splashes in the water. When she saw something move to pass her paddling hands it took her mind off it. She pulled her hands out just in time to miss a mouth that almost bit her hand off.
She fell back onto her elbows and air burst through her mouth. The others noticed and moved away from the edges to clump together in the center. Rue could hear herself breathing as she stared at the water beyond the edge of the raft.
"Daddy, did you see something under the water?" Rue asked her father.
The three sat back to back in the center of the raft.
"Maybe," he told her.
"Yes!" blurted Ezra in a loud voice. He pulled his legs in. "And whatever it is, they're trying to eat us!"
"Another big one's coming!" yelled Roshar from the other raft. It got the three of them to look away from the edge of their raft.
A panic overtook Rue as she stared at another massive wave, one that folded over to come crashing down directly above them.