by Simon Archer
The closest to us said nothing, just shifted her stance and waited as we faced off.
“Marai,” Mary called out. “Stand aside and let us deal with this. Please.”
I waited for the response, any response.
“Mary Night,” the figure spoke without raising her head. “This is your doing. If you had come at the master’s call and submitted to his will, then none of this would have happened.” She lifted her head and glared at us from beneath her hood with the shimmering, silver orbs of her eyes.
“Kill them,” a distant, male voice rasped, a voice that seemed to come from everywhere. “Kill them.”
36
I didn’t even wait for the second “Kill them.” With a bellow of rage and defiance, I charged the group of defenders. The elements seemed so far away, though, down here in the bowels of The Pale Horse. That was okay, though, I still had my rage, and that was more than enough.
Mary was right on my heels, then Tabitha, and they fanned out to either side of me to guard my flanks. Bord just kneeled down, brought up his carbine, and shot one of the saber-wielding guards square in the chest. The man flew backward in a spray of blood and lay still.
Ember stood beside the dwarf, her hands trailing flames as she took a defensive posture. If her powers were near tapped, that was probably best. Bord could reload and shoot faster and more accurately than even Jimmy Mocker, and he was using one of the large bore dwarven weapons that we’d been given by the spirits on the frozen island that held The Echo.
My first swing went for Marai, but she just arched her back and let it past over her, then came in on me with two slashes of her knives that sparked against my mail coat. The other two witches engaged my wives, and then all was a disarrayed, swirling fight that moved madly about the chamber.
The witch pressed me, moving like greased lightning as her blades darted and slashed. She was faster than Bill Markland had been and frighteningly skilled. For a brief moment, I wondered if this was what it was like to fight Mary.
One of the backline tried to rush past me and charge Bord where he reloaded, but I risked a backswing of my axe that caught the man’s midsection, stopped him dead, and hurled him back the way he’d come with his innards spilling over the pale wood of the floor. I couldn’t help but notice that the spilled blood vanished into the wood almost as quick as it poured from the fallen body, leaving behind not even a stain.
Marai took the opportunity to drive one of her knives point-first into my side, but the mail held, and though the tip of the blade dug a gouge in my flesh, it was hardly the telling blow she wanted. Her pale lips pulled back from sharp, white teeth in a snarl as she bounded away from my counter-slash with the heavy greataxe.
Another shot rang out, then a flaming arc shot past my head as Ember added her own signature to the fight. The bullet took an advancing spearman in the shoulder and spun him around, sending him to one knee, but the fire caught Tabitha’s dance partner square in the face and sent her stumbling back with a cry, blinded and burning.
The feline didn’t waste the opening. She stepped in with her cutlass and thrust it through the witch’s heart. More blood spilled as the woman fell, coughing up her life over the thirsty wood of the floor. There was no chance to finish off the witch quickly, though, as the sorcerer wearing the claw-blades charged in, swinging wildly and forcing Tabitha to retreat.
Mary, though, seemed to be playing with her foe. The other witch avoided making the deadly eye contact that was required for my witch’s evil eye, hiding her face within the hood of her cloak and fighting with her eyes cast down. The other spear-wielder and one of the two saber men weren’t so lucky. They froze in their tracks as her mismatched eye blazed. Then, ducking under and around the wild slashes of the other witch, Mary opened up the sides of their necks and sent them off in gouts of hot blood that continued to pump for a long time until the hearts had no more blood to spill.
This, too, vanished into the white wood.
Marai continued to press me, and I focused on fighting her. She couldn’t so much parry my blows as she was forced to dodge them. Otherwise, I’d easily break her guard, her arms, and her head. I needed to change things up, but I needed to force her back to do so. While we fought, I maneuvered around to get closer to Tabitha’s opponent.
One he was nearby, I slashed madly at the witch, forcing her back, then spun, caught the clawed man by one of his arms, and slung him bodily across the room at the surprised coven leader. Both of them went down in a tangle of arms and legs. Meanwhile, Tabitha drew her pistol and shot Mary’s opponent in the back, sending the witch to the floor with a cry as her knives went flying.
As the other two struggled to untangle themselves and rise, I drew the gun-axe and shot the sorcerer in the head. Bord shot the remaining one, and that left Marai, tangled in the body of one of the sorcerers and her own cloak.
Mary padded over and kicked away the other witch’s knives. “Marai,” she murmured. “Please…”
There was a history there, and one I wasn’t privy to. Mary would tell me in her own time, for now, though, I stood back and gave her the moment while the rest of us readied ourselves for whatever came next.
“Too late,” the other whispered. “Too late, too late, too late…”
“Indeed,” the voice from before rasped. “Perhaps you may have wondered why none of these creatures wielded their magic against you, or perhaps you are too dull-witted to even think about it, reckoning that your own skills are so advanced and unstoppable or that your strength is so overwhelming that they could not bring their hard-won abilities to bear in facing you.”
“The truth, however, is far more wonderful and terrible,” it continued, then chuckled.
“Run, daughter,” whispered Marai. Blood ran freely from her eyes as the silvery orbs writhed in the sockets. Around us, the bodies twisted and spasmed, then all nine ripped apart in showers of flesh and blood, leaving thrashing masses of silver wire behind.
Mary scrambled back, her eyes wide with horror and rage as she turned to me, then we all focused on the slowly opening doors. They swung open silently to reveal a single, suspended figure, arms and legs and torso threaded with the silver wires that disappeared up into the dripping surface of the blood-soaked ceiling. All the gore spilled in our fight painted the room beyond and plastered the thin man suspended in its center.
His burning eyes opened, and Admiral Justin Layne whispered, “The truth is that I consumed them. I consumed them all.”
The suspending wires lowered the man, and he glided forward, toes pointed just above the floor. “Now, I suppose that if you want a job done right, you have to do it yourself.”
All of us that still bore guns drew and shot as one, Mary’s evil eye flared up brightly, and a gout of flames blasted over our heads and engulfed the Admiral. Sparks flew off his skin as the bullets rebounded, even the heavy round from Bord’s carbine did nothing.
“Did you really think you could stop me here?” Layne focused his gaze on me. “Even now, your little rebellion ends in fire and blood, orc pirate. Shall I spare your life?”
I roared in answer, calling on all the reserves of my rage, and charged the man with my greataxe swinging. He slid into my swing, reached out, and caught the blade in one silver-clad hand. Sparks flew, and I glared into the pale green fires that burned in the Admiral’s eye sockets.
“So, you are the thorn that’s wormed its way into my side these past months,” he mused lackadaisically while I strained to push the axe further towards him. “Strange, you seem far less impressive than my underlings made you out to be.”
Mary came in from the side, slashing at his side with her knives. Ember raised a hand to throw fire at the Admiral, while both Tabitha and Bord took shots at him. Sparks flew from his silver skin, and I got a better look at what we fought in the flashes of light and sparks our attacks created.
Justin Layne seemed to be no more, his body covered head to toe in silver wire that slithered and flexed with an u
nholy life of its own. The wires were buried in his flesh and wove in and out of his skin in a complex pattern that constantly shifted. He drew back a hand, and a blade formed over it, then he thrust at me, quick as a striking snake.
I had to release the axe to dodge back and out of range. He tossed it aside without a glance. While my comrades continued to rain down ineffective attacks on the metal-sheathed man, the ship gave a lurch, and cannons boomed in the distance.
“You are making this difficult,” Layne said as he drifted closer, suspended by the wires. “Now, if you would just die, I could get on with this.”
I drew a flintlock and shot him point-blank in the face. His head rocked back, and blood ran down his face over the silver. His mouth opened and his low chuckle echoed from every wall.
What in the hell had the man done? If Lack’s plan to sacrifice Mary to the mirror and use that to power The Pale Horse had succeeded, how much more fearsome could it have been? I drew out the gun-axe, unloaded since I’d not had time to reload, and the short-hafted Huntsman’s Spear.
“Ah,” Layne mused. “That’s where those got to. I suppose I shall reclaim them from your corpse, once I’m done with you.” Then he attacked once more, slashing and thrusting like a duelist as his body danced madly here and there on the wires.
Bord and Ember took to going after some of the wires instead of attacking directly, but neither fire nor his heavier carbine seemed able to do anything.
I parried and dodged, conserving my energy as I looked for an opening. Mostly I focused on staying out of the way and keeping the bastard focused on me while Mary and Tabitha conferred rapidly over the Skull of Kurle.
Not even the Huntsman’s Spear seemed able to penetrate the shell of silver wire that coated and defended the flesh and life of Justin Layne. That was what tied him to the ship, but what fueled that?
I let my gaze shift just a little, unable to risk fully shifting my attention to the spirit plane. Even to my orcish sensibilities, this place was an abattoir of souls and blood. Every board, every plank, and decoration was tainted with death. Only the silver wires were pure and untainted, and they ran through the ship like a spider’s web, touching everything, and controlling it. In return, it fed energy into the creature before me. He was both the source and the recipient of the power of thousands of souls.
“What are you doing?” Layne asked as one of his thrusts nicked my ear, adding some of my own blood to the fuel that fed him. “You can look beyond, can’t you? See what I have wrought!”
I deflected another blow with the gun-axe and thrust the Huntsman’s Spear at his face. The wires yanked him back out of reach, and he danced there like a flailing marionette, grinning madly.
“Bardak!” Mary shouted. “Remember Arde!”
Layne twisted in the air and sent a coil of wire looping out towards my witch. She ducked out of the way, but Tabitha, still holding Kurle, didn’t see it coming. Time seemed to slow for me as the thin loop settled over the feline’s head and fell around her neck.
My world went red. If that snapped tight, the Ailur would die, her head and body flying in separate directions. I couldn’t allow that. The fight in Insmere went through my mind’s eye in less than an instant, specifically the hurled spear that carried Arde’s undead form across the courtyard to pin it against one of the stone walls.
I was even angrier now.
“So easy,” Layne mused as he made to snap the loop tight, decapitating my little Ailur captain.
With a roar that shook the timbers of The Pale Horse, I hurled the spear. It took the Admiral perfectly, the sharp blade sliding between the wires, severing his spine and piercing his heart as he hung distracted for the one moment it took me to cast the weapon at the height of my rage.
Mary, too, reacted in a flash, scissoring her blades together in a shower of sparks as her evil eye flared brighter than I’d ever seen it. The wire noose fell limply around Tabitha’s neck as Layne’s body flew face-first across the blood-soaked chamber to slam into the wall. He twitched and spasmed.
“As I die,” the voice whispered throughout the vast ship, “so, too, shall you.”
The Pale Horse shook and bucked under our feet, nearly throwing all of us to the floor. I caught myself and grabbed for my axe as it slid by, then staggered to help Bord to his feet. Ember helped me get the dwarf up, then we rushed to Mary and Tabitha.
The little black feline looked up at me, her eyes wide. “Kurle said the spear could kill him,” she said weakly. “And it did. You saved me.”
“I dodged the wrong way,” Mary whispered.
“Get hold of yerselves,” I yelled. “This thing is dying with the Admiral!”
Mary shook her head to clear it, but Tabitha still knelt, unmoving and holding the skull. I didn’t have the time to wait. I scooped up her surprisingly solid form under one arm and pointed with my axe back the way we’d come.
“Up or down?” I demanded.
“Back to the ship,” Bord said. “She’ll hold.”
I had my doubts, but what the hell? We’d won, now all we had to do was survive.
37
With Tabitha in shock from the surprisingly close call and bouncing on my shoulder, Kurle’s Skull clutched tightly in her hands, we all stumbled for the stairs back down into the bowels of the ship. Whatever magical force that restricted my ability to reach out to the elements was gone, or at least fading.
We bounced off the oddly flexible walls as we plunged down the stairs. Bord, perhaps not surprisingly, had fewer problems than the rest of us as the ship buckled and spasmed around us like a living thing in its death throes. The dwarf kept up with me, and helped Ember and Mary along as well, like a stable rock in a raging river.
I had lost the Huntsman’s Spear back in Layne’s chamber. When I’d gone to retrieve it from his corpse, the wall had collapsed backward and fallen into the depths of the ship, taking the artifact and the Admirals corpse with it. Both Mary and Bord had to keep me from plummeting after it, still with Tabitha over my shoulder.
Now, though, we pounded down the stairs as The Pale Horse died.
Below, zombies crowded mindlessly into the stairwell as we approached the lower decks. I’d only managed to call up some smaller elementals of air and water to help stabilize me in the rush, but I wasn’t about to let these things keep me from the ship that I hoped waited below.
Greataxe raised in one hand, I didn’t wait for the others running behind me, I roared and charged, using the eagerness of the spirits to aid me. I shot down the stairs and crashed into the gather dead like a thunderbolt, scattering them with a powerful one-handed blow while Tabitha yowled in surprise.
“I’m awake!” she cried. “Ye can set me down, ye barmy orc!”
Set her down, I did, right into the waiting arms of my comrades and lover behind me, then I did my best to play righteous lumberjack with the countless infesting zombies of The Pale Horse’s lower decks as the trees.
Our progress slowed, stairs started to buckle beneath us, and the walls themselves began to bleed. Where timbers and boards gapped and broke, it seemed more like flesh and bone than the strong wood of a ship, and a smell of rot filled the air.
“Damn it all, Bardak,” Bord yelled. “Get a move on, ye roadblock!”
“More coming from the back,” Mary reported.
Now on her own feet, Tabitha fired and reloaded, then fired again. Ember swept gouts of fire over the living dead, even though fatigue darkened her eyes and slowed her step. My witch, though, stepped up and joined me, staying low as we advanced, step by step, towards an uncertain future.
Then, from below, a clear voice rang out, “Dark hunter. Ferryman. Granter of solace at the end of life. Ender of pain. Take back the stolen life that animates and give rest to those who died, yet still move and hunger. By my life and by my death, I honor thee and ask this boon!”
All of the dead crowding the stairs simply dropped in their tracks with the utterance of the Lambeth Hex. Not willing to look this
gift horse in the mouth, we plowed our way on through the stacked bodies, finally reaching the short passage that led out into the waterline deck where The Echo, hopefully, still waited.
Rhianne Corvis leaned against the doorframe, her hands gripping the fleshlike wood tight enough that blood flowed around her pale fingers. Her eyelid was closed, and the flame in her empty socket barely guttered.
“I hope… you succeeded,” she gasped out.
Then she started to crumple, and I swept her up. “Ye did good, lass,” I said and, without waiting, strode out into the deck towards where we could see the prow of the ironclad, rising and falling as the great city-ship pitched and yawed. The floor buckled and flexed under our feet, and from above came the sounds of a great, low moan, followed by a growing series of detonations.
“Don’t know how,” Bord said, hurrying us along. “But somethin’s touched off this abomination’s powder. Not only is she twistin’ like a wild thing, but she’s about to explode!”
That statement lit a figurative fire under our asses, and we ran, stumbled, or fell across the shaking deck. Dwarves grabbed Rhianne and hauled her in when I handed her up, then I bodily lifted Bord and tossed him over the rail, followed by Mary, Tabitha, and Ember.
Heat washed over my back as I jumped, grabbed onto the metal rail, and hurried inside after everyone, slamming the bulkhead door behind me as a massive force struck the nose of The Echo and literally hurled us backward out of the hole we’d made in The Pale Horse’s hull.
The ship rolled and yawed as it struck the water, hurling us about the interior like rag dolls until I managed to get one strong hand around some interior railing and arrest my flailing. Groaning piles of dwarves were sprawled about, while Tabitha perched upon a wall, clinging with bleeding fingers.
