The other massive wave went crashing down directly on top of them. Rue held onto the raft this time. The hard waters squished her against its hard surface until it broke apart.
When the rumbling stopped she ripped open her eyes beneath the cloudy waters filled with air bubbles. She let go of the slab of a raft in front of her so it glided off to the side.
Through the waters that began to clear, she saw the thousands of small vicious sea creatures that had swum downwards to avoid the wave. Their mouths opened wide filled with sharp teeth to swim towards her.
Bubbles escaped her mouth as she made a short scream of panic under the water. She turned away to swim back to the surface.
The small creatures were attracted to the disturbance created by the two giant creatures fighting. They knew that soon one would destroy the other and they would feed on the carcass that got left in the water. But now they had their sight set on the six assassins and their rattlers stranded in the waters instead of waiting for that time to come.
Her face broke through the surface to take in a deep breath of air. A hard tug on her mantle forced her head back down below the waters. The further they dragged her away from the light the more tugs she felt all over her body.
They began to bite into the armor on her legs and arms. She fought back kicking her legs and slashing her hands with protracted claws to break free while keeping in her last breath.
The sharp pain on her tail got her eyes to widen in fear. She made one powerful kick combined with a telekinetic surge to push them away from all angles.
She swam to the surface and her hurried eyes searched for the others in the danger-infested waters. Far away were the two massive creatures still fighting. They still had not noticed them.
Her eyes saw blood on the top of the water's surface. Anxiety carved a deep hole in her chest and the pain on her tail got sharper. She wrapped it tighter around her leg and bit down hard onto her lower jaw.
Once she saw all five of their bare heads pop up above the waters she could not help but wonder if one of them got seriously hurt and it was hidden below the waters.
She swam towards them. Slabs of brown from their broken rafts glided by as she got closer. They huddled together in the center of waters that was surrounded by shrieks and splashes from the anxious creatures unable to swim any closer. It went on for miles all around them. It was obvious there were thousands of them.
Rue noticed her father was like a statue in the water. Roshar reached to him to put one hand under his arm to swim with him. She realized he was using his telekinesis to create a barrier between them and the sea creatures. With his mind locked on such a difficult task, he could do nothing else.
She moved to put one of her hands under his other arm to help Roshar swim with him. The others realized and kept close to swim within the barrier. Soon Rue noticed only five of their rattlers' heads in front of their small humps above the water.
One of them got pulled down to the deep along with all the supplies in its load. She thought it was so sad. Her tears blended in with the water droplets that rolled down her face.
They continued to swim with the push of the waves and towards the left closer to land.
After about an hour of swimming, Cronan's barrier began to weaken. Ezra who swam behind him informed them that his nose was also bleeding and his eyes were about to shut.
A panic swept over all of them as water splashes from the wild creatures got closer from all around. Dayrue, with red at one side of her head seeping through the soaking wet bandage, insisted that she took over and that she was better.
She created a smaller barrier the second Cronan's head hung, leaving both Rue and Roshar to carry his weight. Rue's eyes got wide with fear. She looked away from him and became persistent in swimming faster.
Roshar punched the spiked knuckle of his free hand into one of the creatures that escaped onto their side between the collapse of the previous barrier and the new one. Skinner swam below the surface to deal with the ones biting at their feet below.
Ezra swam with Dayrue to keep her moving. Her nose started to bleed minutes right after. By then Skinner had reached back to the surface to notice it. He was annoyed at her blatant lie.
Rue knew Dayrue was not well and hoped she could keep it up long enough. Without her tail she could not use it to make up for her occupied limb as paddling with one hand was difficult with her father's weight.
Her tail still hurt. She began to worry about whether it was a serious injury. To take her mind off it she kept her eyes fixed on land ahead beyond the raging waters on all sides. The vicious sea creatures crashed against the barrier as they parted through them to move forward.
Rue felt bad as her telekinesis was not strong enough to rid them of their burden. By then Skinner had moved to the other side to help Ezra swim with Dayrue.
Once Rue's feet hit soft sand under the water a gasp of air burst through her mouth from relief. With a spring of energy, she hurried to pull her father out of the waters leaving Roshar and Skinner behind them to take care of the creatures as Dayrue's barrier failed.
Ezra had to lift Dayrue into both his arms to move out of the low waters in time and away onto the sandy shore.
The sea creatures dragged themselves through the low waters onto land with two front limbs while their long fin that extended from their bodies pulled through the sand. Their loud shrieks went out as they got kicked back into the water by Roshar and sliced with the edge of Skinner's swords.
Rue had turned her father over to lay with his back against the sand and stayed at his side when she looked down to notice one of the creatures about to take a big bite into his boot.
With rage, she got close and kicked at its head so hard it ripped from its body to several yards away before splashing into the waters.
When Roshar and Skinner successfully ended the threats, Rue turned back to her father. She slapped his wet cheeks and called out to him.
"Dad! Dad!"
A large crawling monster rushed out of the low greens towards them frightening her. Rue, annoyed, used her telekinesis to move a log that laid on the beach so one end faced its mouth. It ran into it until the full length of the log went down its mouth killing it.
"Chew on that you savage," thought Rue.
The others were all shocked but they quickly got over it to continue doing what they were doing.
Rue moved the long end of her tail onto her lap. A tiny chunk was bitten from it and bled. Even with her skin hardened the sea creature didn't stop until it got a piece.
She moved her mantle to hide it from the others, then looked away to rest her head on top of her father's beating chest waiting for him to wake up.
Roshar loosened his quiver from his back and opened the closable lid. He moved one hand to stop the arrows before turning the quiver upside down for the water to flow out. When he moved it down he noticed Rue lying close to her father looking worried.
"Ah, your old man will be fine," he said in a loud voice as he headed over to her. It got Rue to lean up to look at him. She wondered who he was referring to as an old man. Her father was not old. In fact, both he and her father were around the same age, so he was insulting himself.
"Your father is as hard as a rock, he'll be fine. Give him about an hour or so, you'll see."
Behind him, she saw Dayrue throwing up on the sand. She shut her eyes the second she saw red mixed in her barf.
Roshar turned to attend to her while Skinner looked through the herb painkillers in their load for anything that may help her.
Skinner did not seem to care that they were short one rattler. He threw a roll of bandage to Roshar.
Dayrue's bandages were soaking wet and had to be replaced, especially the one on her head. Though the Meras had fast healing, they needed to prevent any infection. Her dark purple eyeliner was all washed away and her tired eyes looked smaller than usual.
Rue decided to treat her tail. She got up and passed Ezra like he did not exist. He was standing close to the water looking through a monocular out at the creatures that still stared at them from the distance.
"I am now convinced it was pure luck why we didn't get attacked during the night. I am so not heading back into those waters," he said.
Rue unstrapped the load from one of the rattlers to open it. She decided to remove it from its back altogether to drain out all the water that was inside.
"That was a long stretch of water between both the lands," added Roshar. "Maybe they don't connect. Perhaps the beasts on this side are different?"
"Or non-existent," snapped Ezra. He turned away from the waters to look behind at the greens from where the crawling monster sneaked upon them.
Far beyond the waters the two giant monsters still battled. Rue sat with her bandaged tail hidden behind her mantle as she declined the thought of fishing for her father to have something to eat when he woke up. Even worse, the smaller water creatures in their many still watched them in the distance. A chill ran over her and she looked away.
When her father finally woke up he had a serious headache. He could not make out proper words nor get his thoughts together. She was able to get him to his feet to start moving. That was a Domain they couldn't afford to stay too long in.
They moved from the shore and past the dead creature that Rue killed to continue towards the knee-length greenery. Rue managed to yank something from the creature's skin to snatch away under her hood.
Skinner moved to go in front when he noticed Dayrue took out her compass to ensure they're going on track. He snapped his fingers to get her attention before pointing to Ezra who already had another compass out. They were both ahead of her.
"Stop stressing yourself out," he gestured to her. "Here, maybe you should eat something." He picked her a fruit he was sure was edible and handed it out to her.
Roshar said, "Eating is not a good idea, especially not for her. She will throw it up in her condition."
Skinner threw the fruit away.
They traveled with Skinner and Ezra in front, while Rue and Roshar stayed at the back, keeping the two weak ones in the center to walk like zombies. Rue liked being able to keep her eyes on her father while she was at the back. She swore to kill any creature that snuck up trying to hurt him.