Miguel tried to usher the lizards on, terrified his pursuers would arrive at any minute but the lizards seemed unconcerned and relaxed as they shuffled over to a lifeboat that hung lopsided from its davits.
“What are you doing?” Miguel asked. “We need to get off this stupid ship and get out of here. We are not sinking!” Horatio lowered Pheris to the deck and worked the mechanism to free the lifeboat, struggling at first with the corroded mechanism before it freed with a sharp crack and a mighty thump from the lizard’s claw.
Pheris was hoisted into the craft and the lizards clambered up beside him before turning and offering a scaled claw for Miguel to come aboard as well. The buccaneer stared at the lizards as if they were mad, then reluctantly accepted the offer and clambered aboard, closing his eyes as the lifeboat swung out over the edge of the listing cruise liner and swung gently from side to side.
Cornelius hissed a signal to Horatio and the two lizards started to lower the boat over the side and down to the mangled wrecks below. The descent was slow and noisy, drawing the attention of several hounds that whined in exasperation when they reached the railing of the cruise liner and found that their prey was frustratingly out of reach. Howls filled the air, requesting reinforcements but the haunted echoing replies came from beyond the twisted hulks and derelict vessels and sounded far away, signalling that any support would be a good while coming.
Miguel sat quietly, watching the two lizards complementing each other for their actions and realised he was totally reliant on the monstrous reptiles. The life boat continued to creak slowly downward before the mechanism finally came to a juddering halt. Miguel looked up at his bodyguards and opened his mouth to voice a sarcastic comment about how great their situation had improved by leaving them hanging defenceless, suspended in the air but his words died in his throat as the two lizards drew out rusty knives they must have salvaged from somewhere upon the Neptune and slashed the ropes.
The scream that uttered from the buccaneer’s lips, died almost before it began as the lifeboat dropped barely ten feet, then splashed down into a small canal of murky water that snaked its way between the rusting wrecks lying alongside the Neptune. Miguel’s hand shot open and something golden flew from his fist, bouncing along the bottom of the boat, to end up wedged beneath one of the seats.
Miguel stared after the object in shock, not realising that he had held the metal disc in his hand for so long. He stood up, setting the boat rocking and the lizards hissing in anger but ignored them as much as they ignored him, dropping to his knees and sliding his hand under the seat to recover the golden prize before holding it up to the sickly light.
The coin was the size of an ‘o’ formed by a thumb and index finger and it glinted, despite the mustard tinged light. On one side was a cross with the legend Hispanirum Et India Rex engraved around the circumference. Miguel’s heart quickened and he swiftly ignored the grunts and curses from his lizard companions, his eyes widening with delight. He turned the golden coin over and noted a regal figurehead of a man who was obviously of some importance. The writing beneath proclaimed him to be Philipus.
Miguel looked back up at the listing liner and this time he no longer had a look of fear in his eyes. He may not have recognised the writing or the meaning behind the Mexican royal escudo he held in his hand but he recognised pirate treasure and he now knew where a whole room of it lay for the taking.
* * * * * *
“It has to be around here somewhere.” Octavian thought, lifting his head and shielding his eyes against the persistent biting sand. The entrance to the Alicieus Span had to be here. This had to be right, the landmarks were right, it even smelt right! He pushed on, dragging his feet through the drifting dunes as he ascended the rocky slope, his stallion snorting in distress at the punishing gradient.
Damn this storm! It made everything so difficult to see. Octavian tugged on the stallion’s reins coaxing the beast up the incline, doubts rushing in at every step. Should he have turned sooner? Where were the Givrea sentinels. Did they slumber under the sands here, or further back in the desert? Had he somehow missed them in the storm?
An odd shaped wedge of pale stone jutted from the side of the dune ahead, its outline becoming clearer with every step as Octavian advanced. He felt an odd glimmer of hope rise in the pit of his stomach. Could it be? The gypsy redoubled his efforts, churning through the sand despite the weariness assailing him. Yes! This was it! He was sure!
Octavian led his stallion around the marker and dropped to his knees, frantically scooping away the red and white sands with his hands to uncover another stone and then another all of them linked together, each one slightly larger than the one before. The gypsy looked up the dune and smiled, his eyes tracing the line of where the rest of the sleeping sentinel lay. Yes, this was definitely the place. He glanced to the left, recognising a similar submerged line in the sand that led to another buried shape further along the dune face. Where one Givrea sentinel lay, its twin was never far away.
“Kerian, look we have found the way out.” Octavian shouted over the storm, turning his head to share his delight with his travelling companion, only to find himself alone on the exposed sand dune. “Kerian...?” Where the hell was he? The gypsy regained his feet and staggered a few steps, shielding his eyes and squinting into the gale to try and spot just how far behind Kerian had fallen but his companion was not to be found. A sense of dread rose up to smother the hope that had briefly bloomed within him.
“Kerian, where are you?” Octavian started to slip and slide down the sand, small avalanches spilling down the dune in pursuit of him. “Kerian!” He called out again turning his head from side to side and seeing nothing that would help him in his search. Oh where had the idiot got to? If he had known how much trouble meeting Kerian would cause him. Octavian would have run screaming as fast as he could in the other direction.
The gypsy slid a few more feet before he finally reached the base of the dune and set to trudging along its base, following his own already blurring tracks. The swirling sand slammed into his face, scouring his hands and stinging every piece of exposed flesh as he advanced deeper into the swirling cloud bank. Visibility rapidly decreased, there was every chance Octavian would blunder past his companion and never be the wiser.
He risked raising his head, hoping to scent the man but the overpowering stench of death that accompanied the advancing legion permeated everything. He could not believe it. To have come so near and fall at the last fence. No this was not to be. Kerian was going to help him rescue his wife and child and nothing was going to stop that from happening. He turned, stealing a glance back at his tracks, determined not to get lost in this confusing world of spiralling columns of red sand, swirling white grit and choking brown clouds.
A terrified neigh carried on the wind reached the gypsy’s ears, drawing Octavian’s attention off to the left, deeper into the whirling clouds. He staggered in that direction, noting dark shadowy figures shambling in rank towards him and he veered away, determined to give the troops of the Provan legion as much space as possible. A foot soldier jumped out from the cloud cover, moving to slash the air with his sword but then it paused, inexplicably, letting the gypsy slip past and angle to the left; the skeletal warrior staggering and almost losing its balance as it turned to keep up with him.
The silhouette of Toledo loomed from the darkness and Octavian slogged his way over to the terrified steed, where it stood trembling and stamping its feet, determined, despite its exhaustion, to defend the warrior it had come to respect and rely upon during this hostile trek. Octavian’s reassuring pat on Toledo’s nose did little to calm the beast and it snorted in distress, pawing at the ground inches from Kerian’s half buried form. The gypsy looked down at the unconscious traveller then considered the dune he had to climb. He almost gave up at the very thought, then remembered his family and bent down to pull Kerian from the sand.
“No, just leave me!” Kerian moaned, spittle running down
his chin, his face caked in sand.
“The hell I will.” Octavian shouted. “Now get on your feet soldier!” Kerian sagged back down to the floor, almost dragging the weakened gypsy down with him but somehow, through sheer determination and a plethora of curses, Octavian started to lead his colleague back along the tracks that he knew led towards the sentinels.
“Come on, not much further!” Octavian coaxed, noting to his relief that Toledo staggered along after them, clearly worse for wear but apparently as determined to see Kerian to safety as Octavian now was.
Step by weary step, the two men struggled against the elements, pitting their wills against the storm as it cruelly buffeted them. Octavian had one moment of indecision where the tracks of the undead troops had crossed his own but by looking at the darkness of the storm clouds he was able to identify an area that seemed lighter than the rest and he pushed on, determined to breach the wall of sand, then drag his partner up the dune to the span he knew would lead them to Blackthorn.
Octavian allowed himself the barest of smiles as the clouds parted, grunting against the ever-increasing weight of the man leaning on his side whilst congratulating himself at his ability to lead them out of the cloud. The side of the dune loomed before him; its incline transformed in his absence into a precipice that seemed impossible to conquer.
The gypsy shook his head. No it was not impossible. He had already managed it on his own. Now all he had to do was manage it with a dead weight on his arm and a lame horse dragging behind. No problem at all! He gritted his teeth and started taking the first few steps feeling the crushing weight of his charge pushing him deeper into the sand, making each heavy footstep more treacherous and difficult to extricate from the enveloping sand.
Kerian slipped several times, leaving Octavian struggling to hold the man upright. The gypsy attempted to reposition him but Kerian was simply too heavy and awkward. He kept slipping to the ground, groaning with distress as if in some delirium, only for Octavian to have to hoist him up again and struggle on a few more steps, ever aware of the closing ranks of the Provan legion behind him.
Time crawled, mere moments seemed eons of agony as the two men battled with their exhaustion, yet Octavian refused to give in, drawing on a reservoir of energy he never knew he had.
The scent gave the stranger away, seconds before Octavian noticed his shadowy figure striding out from the clouds, he was swaddled head to foot in rags taken from the Provan legion which may have accounted for the smell of death about him but there was something else here, as if the man carried another with him. The long grey cloak emblazoned with the Provan legion spider could have been the man’s shroud, he appeared so thin and emaciated, his face, where Octavian could make it out, a mass of healed scars as if the man had been trapped in an inferno at some point in the past and narrowly escaped with his life.
However, it was the intensity of the man’s gaze that really snapped the gypsy out of his agony. It was the look of a man who wanted something badly, a look that was driven and all consuming. Octavian tried to reach for a weapon of sorts but Kerian hung on him wrongly and it was impossible to get a grip on anything as the strange figure advanced.
Kerian slid from the gypsy’s arm and slumped to the floor, just as the stranger leapt forward. Octavian prepared to morph into his animal form, despite his weakened state and the dangers such a metamorphosis could do to both himself and his companion, especially as he had not fed for several days but the actions of the stranger made him pause.
Instead of attacking them both, the emaciated figure took Kerian in his arms and lifted him up from the ground before turning towards the gypsy and indicating everything was under control. The stranger looked Kerian up and down, a confused frown on his face, as if he expected to see someone else. Then he shrugged and looked over towards the massing legion, then up towards the summit of the dune, where Octavian knew the sentinels awaited.
“I believe you are travellers in need of assistance,” the thin man smiled. “The law of the sea dictates that one must always render aid when it is requested and from the look of our surroundings, your choices for onward travel appear somewhat limited.” Octavian instantly found himself relaxing at the unexpectedly jovial response and nodded his head, thinking that if the man had two eyes, he would probably have been winking at him right now. The eye patched man tilted his head, his face still displaying some confusion.
“I must ask, why in the world would two people such as yourselves be wandering around in the middle of this god forsaken desert?” Octavian tried to voice a suitable reply but the shock of finding someone willing to aid him, just when he was in such dire straits had left him gasping like a fish abandoned on dry land.
“Then after that amusing tale, I would like you to confirm the name of the gentleman I hold in my arms.”
“Who are you?” Octavian asked, finally managing to form the words and discovering to his surprise that the stranger’s smile was contagious.
“My name is Scrave,” the one-eyed Elf replied, “and it’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”
Chapter Forty-Two
“Can you see him?” Thomas shouted, squeezing himself through the tightly packed screaming crowd to where his shipmates had secured seating on the labyrinth walls. “He has to be down there somewhere.” The captain leaned forward, regarding the arena below with a troubled frown, the hood of his cloak firmly in place to hide his face from the Minotaur guards stationed along the walls scanning the crowd for potential troublemakers.
“Well he doesn’t appear to have reached this part of the maze yet.” Mathius confirmed, his eyes scanning a large open area below, in which ravenous monsters swam slow circles in pools of dark water and ancient stone columns of varying heights formed supports for rope bridges that hung above pits containing spikes, snakes and snarling beasts. He looked on fascinated as a large armoured creature suddenly charged from an overgrown section of the arena, intent on crushing a female Minotaur trying to cross before it. Although the contestant dodged the initial charge, the creature’s flailing tail caught her a glancing blow to the temple, sending the contestant stumbling away, her golden trident dropping from her grasp, much to the delight of the baying crowd.
“Didn’t we see some of those creatures in the jungle?” Weyn asked, rolling his shoulder and trying not to wince at the tightness of the knots he felt within. It appeared that the rushed magical healing Violetta had performed was only able to do so much with his injuries. “I don’t understand this part of the maze. There only seems to be one entrance and as yet I can’t see any exits. It’s like this is just one massive cul-de-sac.”
“Well if it is,” Thomas replied, “I doubt Moira’s darling boy Drummon would still be waiting here.” He raised his spyglass to his eye confirming his findings, then lowered it again, a scowl playing across his features. “And it is no surprise that he’s not playing fair.”
“Where is he?” Mathius took the glass from Thomas’s hand and stared through it, the lens bringing the sight of the combatants much closer and clearer to the eye.
“Over by the entrance, left side, hiding behind those bushes, far back in the shadows.” Weyn replied, pointing to where the Prince Regent had secreted himself, whilst the other Minotaur fought for their very lives against the voracious beasts the hunting parties had captured and released into this arena. Mathius locked onto the image of the black-haired Minotaur and noticed how he was almost perfectly camouflaged within the shadows cast by the gently swaying foliage.
Is he reading a map?” the assassin hissed. “Damn… wouldn’t it be great if we could get that for Rauph? He would clear this maze in no time then.” A roar raced through the spectators as one monster let loose a torrent of spikes from its arched tail, peppering the wall behind another contestant and spearing her leg before she threw a cross bladed weapon in retaliation, clipping the monster’s tail and slicing it clean off, leaving the beast writhing in agony. The gleaming weapon twisted out in a lazy cir
cle, then came back to the Minotaur’s outstretched hand before she painfully limped off in one direction and the wounded creature slunk off in the other, back towards a patch of dark shadows beneath a stand of huge palms.
“But why is he just standing there waiting?” Thomas muttered. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Maybe the exit doesn’t reveal itself until something specific happens.” Weyn commented. “I guess that may explain why he hasn’t even attempted to leave the bushes and expose himself to any unnecessary danger.”
Thomas cast his eyes across the arena, taking in the varying heights of the stone pillars and the bridges swung between them. His eyes roamed the far side taking in the solid stone wall that appeared to show no indication of any possible doors. Exotic plants curled and twisted across the stonework, bright cornflower blue trumpet flowers, large enough to make hats from, nodding gently up and down in the breeze as if they were enjoying the spectacle of gore unfolding beneath them.
“Well if there is an exit, I can’t see it.” he confessed. Another roar went up from the crowd as a spindly insect like creature charged towards a female Minotaur wearing a red cloak. The contestant pulled the crimson cloak about her, then simply disappeared, leaving the insect clicking its mandibles in frustration and Thomas thinking his ears had just popped. “Now that’s clever!” he remarked, as the air shimmered just behind and to the left of the insect and the female Minotaur rematerialized. She moved swiftly over to the monster’s hind leg and draped her strange red cloak across it. The air popped, the insect screamed in pain and then it collapsed backwards, its hind leg now lost, green sticky ichor jetting from the stump. The Minotaur cloaked herself again, quickly disappearing before the wounded creature could retaliate.
“Very clever!” Mathius stated quietly. “I know someone who would give their back teeth for an item of clothing as useful as that.”
The Labyris Knight Page 75
