Chapter 113: Caught
Heila flung herself at Andrus as soon as he cried out, wrapping her arms around his torso and setting her cloven feet wide apart on the ice as he fought against the pull of whatever had taken the bait.
"Ashlynn," Hauke said quickly. "Wrap the line around the ice spike," he said, pointing at a thick spike of ice he’d conjured near the hole in the ice. "Pull slowly!"
"Got it," Ashlynn replied in Eldritch without waiting for Heila to translate since the diminutive horned woman had her hands full keeping Andrus from being pulled into the hole in the ice.
Reaching out, she captured the trembling line as it danced at the end of the fishing pole, pulling slowly but firmly on the line to prevent any sudden motions from snapping the line or dislodging the fish. Working carefully, she looped the line around the spike several times, transferring the force of the pull from the fishing pole to the thick shaft of ice anchored to the frozen surface of the lake.
"You can let go of the pole now," Hauke told the struggling Andrus. "Lady Ashlynn, just keep doing what you’re doing. Pull in a bit of line and loop it around the spike, then pull in some more."
"Andrus, well done," Ashlynn said with a smile as she steadily worked on hauling in the fish. The line shook and trembled in her hand as the fish thrashed on the hook, desperate to escape, but Ashlynn wasn’t about to let up on it.
Andrus stared nervously at the hole in the ice, both eager to see what he had caught and frightened of the monster that might emerge from the ice. His right hand dropped to the mace at his waist and lifted the weapon free, ready to club the fish monster into submission if need be.
"Use this," Hauke said, retrieving a smooth stone cudgel from their supplies and handing it to Andrus. While it fit as conveniently in Hauke’s large, furry hands as a butcher’s knife, to Andrus, it was just as large and heavy as his steel mace. "This is smooth and blunt. When the fish is pulled to the surface, hit it between the eyes."
"Between the eyes? Is that the monster’s weak spot?" Andrus asked, feeling the heft of the stone club in his hands.