by Dante King
“Bloodbath is definitely the right word to use, all things considered,” I muttered darkly.
“What do you mean?”
“Never mind. What else can you tell me about the current state of Prand?”
He laughed loudly, slapping his barrel-sized paunch. “Haven’t you heard enough, God of Death? Prand’s gone down the latrine, and Elandriel and his Church of light army are shitting all over it as we speak. I’ve heard tales of your mighty powers, don’t get me wrong, but nothing short of a bloody miracle can save Prand now.”
“Fair enough. I have one more thing to ask you before I go,” I said.
“You’ve given us enough gold to sit and wag our jaws for the next few days without stopping, so go right ahead and ask whatever questions you want!”
“If you absolutely had to get yourself onto Prandish soil right now, how would you go about getting past all the blockades and traps the Church has set up along the coast.”
Thegramm flashed me a sly, yellow-toothed smile. “Ah, so despite everything I’ve told you, you’re still going to try, aren’t you? Well, as it so happens, there is a way to get back into Prand that I’m bloody sure Elandriel doesn’t know about … and even if he does, he’s not likely to have posted any guards there, given the fact that they’d all get eaten if they stuck around after dark.”
“Go on…”
“Don’t get your hopes up, God of Death. Many smugglers and outlaws have tried the Black Passage, but only one pirate—one of the greatest sea captains in the history of the high seas, Captain Redbard—ever made it through the passage alive.”
“That sounds like exactly the sort of challenge I’d dive right into,” I said, grinning.
Captain Thegramm chuckled. “Dive is the right term to use, God of Death. You see, around fifty miles up the coast north of Lough Harbor there’s a network of underwater caves. You’ll know exactly where to find ‘em, because there’s a small island there. It’s nothing more than a lifeless jumble of boulders really, about the size of an average castle, jutting out of the water two miles from land. In fact, that’s what it’s called: Castle Island, because it bloody well looks like one. There’s a cave on the island, and if you go down into it, you’ll find that it branches out into a maze of underground tunnels and caverns. This is the Black Passage. There are three challenges involved in getting into the black passage and coming out the other side alive. The first is finding your way in the maze of tunnels. Most who dare to attempt a crossing of the Black Passage end up getting hopelessly lost in there, and slowly succumb to madness and starvation in the pitch black; there’s not a bloody jot of light down there, and waves come rushing suddenly through the tunnels; once your torch gets extinguished, that’s it; you’re stuck in the blackest darkness you’ve ever seen.”
“All right, and what’s the second challenge?” I asked.
“Arr, well, you only get to take on the second challenge if you make it to the final sections of the tunnels. That last section you have to navigate underwater. If you can hold your breath for five minutes, and you get the route right the first time, you have a chance of making it. That’s a big bloody if, though; one wrong turn and you drown in the darkness.”
“I like those odds,” I said cheerfully. “And the third challenge?”
Captain Thegramm roared with booming belly laughter. “Arr, I can see why you have so many bloody followers, God of Death! You’ve at least got a sense of humor, you do, unlike the bloody Lord of Light with that warship mast shoved so far up his arse he’s got splinters in the roof of his mouth! Ha! The third challenge is perhaps easier than the previous two, but then again, if you’re exhausted and disoriented from overcoming the previous two challenges, you might be too spent to fight ‘em off … and they’ll eat you then. Especially if it’s after dark.”
“What will eat me?”
He pointed at Talon. “Those bloody things. Harpies. The underwater tunnel comes out in on Prandish soil in a cave at the base of a series of mighty vertical cliffs. And those cliffs are full of harpies. It’s one thing trying to scale sheer vertical rock walls almost a mile high even on a good day; try doing it with those horrid things swooping around and trying to pluck you off the cliff like a ripe grape for their dinner. I don’t know how you tamed this one, but they’re vicious, bloodthirsty beasts, they are.”
“Oh, she’s not tame, she’s undead.”
Thegramm cocked his head and raised an eyebrow with surprise. “An undead harpy, you say … blimey, you see something wondrous every day on the High Seas!”
I thanked Thegramm for his help and bade him and his crew farewell; he’d told me all I needed to know. I flew back to the Death Ship and explained to my party what Thegramm had told me.
“I can’t say I’m surprised about what Elandriel’s doing,” Rollar said. “He’s nothing if not thorough, and he seems to be doing his utmost to make sure you can’t get back onto Prandish soil, and even if you do eventually manage it, that by that time it’ll be too late, with Brakith razed to the ground and the Temple of Necrosis outlawed and destroyed.”
“I know, he’s doing all he can to stop me, but like Thegramm said, there is a way.”
Percy frowned and shook his head. “Cap’n Chauzec, I know you’re capable of great things—I mean, you did get us and the ship through the most brutal storm I’ve ever seen at sea—but the Black Passage is another challenge altogether, and not one to be taken lightly.”
“It’s our only way onto Prandish soil,” I said resolutely. “I’m not going to float out here on the ocean like a lost turd in a river while Elandriel destroys my temple, burns my home to the ground, enslaves my people and becomes the living incarnation of the Blood God. I’ll do whatever the hell it takes to take Elandriel and the Blood God down, and save Brakith and its people.”
“So we’re definitely going through the Black Passage then?” Percy asked.
“You’re damn right we are,” I said. “Rami-Xayon, call up your wind and fill these sails! Percy, steer us toward Castle Island! We’re going cave diving…”
Chapter Eleven
We saw the harpies long before we saw Castle Island. After my encounter with Captain Thegramm the rest of the voyage took us less than a week, thanks to a relatively smooth ocean, clear weather, and the potent, constant wind in our sails courtesy of Rami-Xayon. Before we even got within sight of the Prandish continent, though, we saw flocks of huge flying creatures, far bigger than any bird, darkening the horizon. A quick scouting flight with Talon confirmed that what we were looking at were harpies—hundreds of them.
“I wonder how long it’s been since that pirate captain was anywhere near this island,” Rollar muttered, staring with narrowed eyes and a grim expression on his face at the swirling black clouds of harpies. “He seemed to think that the harpies would be the least deadly of the challenges, but perhaps there were far fewer when he was last there. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen so many of the damn things in one place before. And one of ‘em is hard enough to kill, never mind a few hundred. I don’t like the look of that flock of hellspawn, Lord Vance, I don’t like it at all.”
“I like it, Rollar, I like it a lot,” I said, a smile slowly breaking across my face as I stared at the ominous sight of the flock of harpies. “The past few days I’ve been racking my brain on how to handle two simultaneous situations that are hundreds of miles apart, and now I think I have my answer.”
“Wait, you’re not going to…” Rollar murmured, his eyes widening with surprise.
I clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Rollar, you’re a Death Knight now, and you need to start thinking like a necromancer. That flock of vicious harpies in the distance doesn’t represent a threat. Well, okay, they do in the immediate sense of the word. But more than that, they represent an opportunity. Every time we encounter a large body of enemies, I don’t just see men, beasts, or monsters we have to fight and kill. I see future members of my all-conquering undead army. Look how much use I’ve had out of
one undead harpy,” I continued, pointing at Talon, who was flying so high above the ship she looked like a mere speck of black among the clouds. “Now imagine having an entire battalion of harpies in my undead army.”
Rollar had to chuckle softly and shake his head. “Nobody I’ve ever met is quite as talented as you, Lord Vance, when it comes to turning a disaster into an opportunity. It’s still going to be one hell of a battle to kill so many of ‘em, though.”
“I didn’t say it would be easy, Rollar, but great achievements rarely are. The beasts are far away for now, and I’ll come up with a solid battle plan before we get close enough for them to attack, which, considering their nature, they surely will.”
“I trust you, Lord Vance, and if you think we can take those vile things on and win, I believe we can. I’m going to armor up; just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
Rollar headed below deck to his cabin to put his battle armor on, while I remained on deck, watching the flock of harpies and trying to figure out how best to take them on. I vividly remembered the day I’d fought and killed Talon. I had been a far weaker deity then, granted, but even now, as powerful as I was, I wasn’t about to underestimate the creatures.
Aside from their ability to fly and their physical strength, the harpies’ main weapon was their ear-piercing screams, which was so intense that it could cause the bravest, fiercest warriors to break down in fear and piss their pants, and paralyze the most powerful Fated, making them unable to utter the simplest of spells. In order to effectively battle these creatures, I needed a way to nullify their ability to attack us with those debilitating screams. One of them screaming had been enough to almost paralyze my entire party, so with hundreds of them all shrieking at once, it would surely be a ferocious enough aural assault to make all of our heads explode—quite literally.
“All right,” I muttered to myself, “given that having this deck littered with our headless corpses, splattered with our skull fragments and exploded brains is not an ideal result of the coming encounter, how do I neutralize the whole sound thing the harpies have got going?”
The first answer that came to my head was as obvious as it was frustrating: the easiest thing to do would be to fight them at a distance with my undead troops, who were completely immune to harpy shrieks, and wouldn’t flinch even if you sawed out their eardrums with a rusty scalpel. Of course, there was no way for me to do this given the fact that my undead army was hundreds of miles away, being dragged across the floor of the ocean. The only undead creatures I had with me were Fang and Talon, and a few Jotunn in the bottom hold with the dragon skeleton, and while I knew that Fang would happily munch harpies like a cat catching low-flying birds, and the Jotunn would be able to swat a few from the sky like pesky flies, there were simply too many harpies for them to handle, and they wouldn’t be able to stop them from flying across the water to attack us on the ship. And here, if we were surrounded by even a third of that huge flock and attacked en-masse, we would all be in deep trouble, very quickly.
I was sure that with our various powers and weapons, my party would be able to defeat the flock of harpies, as long as we were able to nullify the advantage of their terrible shrieks. The question was, of course, how I could do that.
I felt a sudden grin curving my mouth upward; the answer had just come to me.
“What are you so happy about?” Rami-Xayon asked, looking out over the sea at the flock of harpies with a look of consternation on her beautiful face. “It looks to me like we have a very dangerous enemy ahead. I don’t see how we’re going to be able to get within a mile of Castle Island without being attacked by those awful creatures.”
“I do, and you’re exactly the goddess I wanted to speak about how to do just that,” I said.
“Ah yes, of course!” she said, her face lighting up. “They’re flying creatures, and If I call up a hurricane, I can keep them away from us with a shield of powerful winds.”
“I don’t just want to keep them at bay, though, Rami-Xayon,” I said. “I need to kill them. I want to add that flock of harpies to my undead army.”
“That will be a much more difficult challenge than simply keeping them at bay, but I’m guessing you’ve already figured out a plan?”
“I have.” I explained to Rami-Xayon what I needed her to do, and as I did her look of consternation turned to one of hope.
“All right,” she said, grinning. “Let’s go harpy hunting.”
As we got closer to Castle Island, I gathered everyone on deck to explain the plan. “Listen up everyone. We’re switching around the order of the challenges of the Black Passage. Instead of taking on the harpies last, after we’ve overcome the other two challenges, we’re going to handle those overgrown mosquito bitches first. Now, some of you have fought harpies before, and many of you haven’t, but what I’m about to say applies to those who have fought them as much as those who haven’t. Come on over and have a close look at Talon, everyone.”
I commanded Talon to land on the deck, and got everyone to have a good, close up look at the undead harpy. Even Drok and Rollar looked like children next to Talon, and this drove home the point about how physically large and strong a harpy was.
“Now, I realize that Talon is a little different from a living harpy, but the differences between her and one with a beating heart in its chest are minor. As you can see, she’s got a tough hide. Percy, your cutlass, please.”
I needed an unenchanted weapon for this demonstration. Percy drew his cutlass and tossed it over to me. “As you can all see,” I said, hacking the cutlass against one of Talon’s scale-covered arms, “the harpy’s scales work pretty effectively as armor.” The sharp steel blade simply glanced off the scales, doing no damage. I repeated a similar cut on Talon’s scaled thigh, and her scaled head. “Their torsos are weaker, since they don’t have the armored scales there, but even so, their skin is as tough as cured leather,” I continued, driving a weak thrust into Talon’s abdomen. This half-hearted effort would have nonetheless been strong enough to gut a bare-chested man, but the blade didn’t pierce her flesh. I repeated the move, putting more power into it this time, and then the tip of the weapon did slide in.
“Okay, so we hit harpy chest, kill harpy easy!” Drok said enthusiastically.
“With your Death-enchanted weapons,” I said, “you’ll be able to take a harpy’s arm or leg off in one blow, regardless of their armored scales, but I don’t intend to let them get close enough for hand-to-hand combat. We’re going to pick them out of the sky with ranged weapons.”
“What about their screams?” Elyse asked, looking doubtful. “I remember well this beast’s terrible shrieks,” she continued, wrinkling her nose with distaste as she stared at Talon. “They don’t have to get anywhere near us to cripple us with that sound.”
“We’re not going to hear a damn thing, not with the enchanted helms Rami-Xayon and I are creating. You’ll see when you put ‘em on. Because of this, though, we’re going to have to communicate during the fight with colored flags. And Ji-Ko, you and your monks are going to have to sit this one out.”
“Of course, God of Death,” Ji-Ko said humbly. “This is for the best, anyway. Because my monks and I have no eyes our sense of hearing is especially sensitive, and the screams of those horrible harpies would be even more debilitating to us than they are to you.”
“Yes. So you guys will be down in the hold, Percy’s pirates will be manning the ballistae here on deck, and the rest of us will be in rowing boats in the water, with bows and crossbows—all enhanced with Death magic, of course. One well-placed Death arrow or crossbow bolt will knock a harpy right out of the sky.”
“Why do we need to be out there on the water in flimsy little boats when we could all be much safer here on the warship?” Anna-Lucielle asked, looking worried.
“To split their numbers up,” I answered. “If we’re all in one place, they’ll surround and swarm us, and even with our soundproof helms and enchanted weapons, it’ll be a danger
ous situation for us. If they have to split their numbers to go for separate targets, they can’t concentrate a mass attack all in one spot.”
I explained the rest of the strategy to my party, and then we prepared to fight. There was a lot of spare armor and helms left over from the Church of Light Navy, to whom this ship had previously belonged, so Rami-Xayon and I picked out enough full-face helms for every person on board, and then we got to work enchanting them. I’d previously only been able to enchant armor and weapons with Death magic, but now, with the Dragon Sword’s powers, I was able to enchant items with whatever forms of magic were available to me. Rami-Xayon provided a generous dose of Wind magic, and I blended it with Death magic to create some rather nifty looking helms. The steel turned from the burnished silver hue of standard Church of Light armor to a glossy black streaked with blueish white. The Death magic added strength to the steel, while the Wind magic provided something that would be perfect for fighting harpies.
I tested out the first helm myself. I slipped it on, and the moment my head was enclosed in its stuffy confines, all I could hear was the roar of a furious hurricane wind in my ears.
