With the imminent threat washing over his senses, Tristan’s blood tingled with yet greater strength and his sword blade suddenly glowed with a bright azure hue. This had happened only once before, during the climactic battle to take the Recluse. But there was no time to think. With Aeolus’ warnings again ringing in his ears, Tristan widened his stance and stood his ground.
This second bolt Khristos sent at Tristan was again a narrow one, designed to cut the Jin’Sai in half. Tristan raised his sword with blinding speed. As the searing bolt struck his dreggan blade, its power was immediately reflected back toward Khristos. Had the wizard’s reflexes not been so fast, it would surely have killed him.
Khristos wheeled but the bolt struck his right shoulder, causing him to drop his staff. Tristan lunged forward and kicked the craft weapon far across the sand. Weakened with shock and falling to his knees, Khristos again tried sending a bolt Tristan’s way, this time from his fingertips. But the bolt fizzled halfway to its target and crashed into the beach, sending charred sand high into the air. As the sandy cloud cleared, Tristan raised his dreggan high and charged in for the kill.
But again the wizard was too fast. Summoning his last bit of power, Khristos levitated from the sand and soared away to seek protection among his many vipers. As he left the ground, Tristan swung his blade at him, but it fell short.
Enraged, Tristan tossed his sword into his left hand, then reached behind his right shoulder to grip a throwing knife and let it fly. The silver dirk cartwheeled over and over, its double-sided blade a whirling blur.
Seeing the knife coming, Khristos twisted in midair, causing the blade to miss his heart. But he hadn’t been fast enough to avoid it altogether, and the dirk buried itself in the same shoulder that had been struck by his returning bolt. Screaming in agony, he pulled the knife from his shoulder, then crossed the sand and landed amid another group of battling vipers. Hissing and drooling, the hideous things quickly surrounded their beloved master and defended him with their lives.
Khristos could no longer be seen, but Tristan knew where to find him. The Jin’Sai was about to charge across the bloody sand and tear into the group of vipers when he felt a strong hand grip the back of his left shoulder. Knowing that he was being attacked by another viper, he had no choice but to forget Khristos and whirl around.
Reaching across his chest with his right hand and raising his bloody sword high with his left, he grasped the enemy’s wrist and swiveled left. As he came around he found himself staring into a familiar face.
There stood Ox, bloodied and exhausted. Ox immediately shouted out an order, and he and Tristan were quickly surrounded by more Minion warriors to keep yet another throng of advancing Blood Vipers from reaching them. The massive Ox gave Tristan a desperate look.
“Wigg say you must come now!” he shouted above the fighting. “Black Ships safe but we losing fight! Wigg say hurry! Must cross blue sea!”
That wasn’t what Tristan wanted to hear. Instead of sailing away, he wanted to kill the unknown Vagaries wizard if it was the last thing he ever did. Then Ox grabbed Tristan by the shoulders and roughly spun him around to face the rocky wall on the other side of the beach.
“Look, Jin’Sai!” Ox screamed. What Tristan saw sent icewater pouring through his veins.
The sand between him and the rock wall was covered with the dead and the dying, blood, and body parts from both sides. The casualties seemed to be roughly equally divided between Minions and vipers, but in the continuing mêlée Tristan couldn’t be sure. Then he looked to the rock wall, and he knew.
Thousands more vipers still poured from hundreds of tunnels, threatening to engulf the Minions once and for all. But no more fresh warriors were jumping to the beach to confront them. The tunnel floor from which the warriors had exited dripped blood down the rock wall, and vipers were slithering inside it to look for wounded stragglers. Some of the Minions still struggling on the beach had taken to the air to hack their dreggans downward on the vipers. Even so, it was clear that the odds were turning against them. Tristan knew that without an order to retreat, his forces would fight and die to the last. He swung around to look into Ox’s pleading eyes.
“Wigg say we must go now!” Ox shouted. “There be too many vipers! He say if we stay, all warriors die!”
“Where are the other Conclave members?” Tristan shouted. “Are any dead?”
“Ox not know!” the warrior shouted back. “But we must go!”
“Have all our warriors exited the tunnel?” the prince shouted. “I refuse to leave anyone behind!”
“Only warriors in tunnel be dead ones!” Ox answered. “I be last one out! Please, Jin’Sai! We must go now!”
Finally surrendering to the desperate situation, Tristan angrily put aside his desire to continue the fight.
“Blow the retreat!” he shouted.
With a relieved look on his face, Ox quickly reached for his bugle. He sounded the retreat call twice, then scooped Tristan up in his beefy arms and took to the air. On hearing the bugle and seeing their Jin’Sai leave the beach, the surviving warriors also took flight, many of them carrying wounded comrades in their arms. As the warriors soared away, the thousands of vipers slithered toward the shoreline, waving their arms and hissing loudly in celebration of their bloody victory.
Tristan looked out to sea to find the Tammerland and the Ephyra sitting atop the waves about one hundred yards from shore, each twinkling brightly with subtle matter. One of the Ephyra’s masts and some of her spars had come down, but Tristan was sailor enough to know that she could be repaired. And then to Tristan’s amazement this subterranean world began to change.
It didn’t start slowly, or with prior warning. Instead, its coming was sudden and earsplitting. Because Tristan was being carried in Ox’s strong arms, he could do nothing but watch in horrified wonder.
The Azure Sea started to churn, and great steaming geysers exploded from its depths to launch hundreds of yards into the air. Tristan couldn’t believe what he saw next, but the irrefutable proof lay directly before him, bewildering his senses. The Azure Sea was literally boiling.
Suddenly worried for his fleet, he snapped his head around to see another geyser erupt just off the Ephyra’s port bow, sending the great ship dangerously rocking atop the waves. Nearly capsizing, she listed hard before righting.
Then Tristan heard terrible screaming, and he saw some Minion crewmen being tossed from the Ephyra’s pitching deck toward the boiling sea. The quickest snapped open their wings and took flight just before reaching the superheated water. But some could not and they hit the boiling waves, the sea immediately overcoming them, and they perished on the spot. Tristan watched in horror as their scalded bodies and limp wings bobbed atop the boiling sea, some of them bumping against the Ephyra’s hull.
As yet more geysers and superheated steam exploded into the air, Tristan soon doubted that he and Ox would reach the Tammerland alive. As the sea birthed one geyser after the next, the rising steam had become so thick that Tristan could barely see his hands before his face, to say nothing of the Black Ships. Tristan suspected that Ox was straying off course, but turning around to fly back to the beach and its thousands of swarming vipers was unthinkable. And so they pressed on, the air becoming hotter and deadlier by the moment.
As he wondered how many loyal warriors had survived the beach only to be boiled alive in the sky and on the sea, Tristan’s stomach turned over. Soon the smell of cooked flesh reached his nostrils to confirm his fears. Then he heard more horrible screaming and saw hundreds of Minion corpses, their dark silhouettes barley visible in the fog, tumbling downward and splashing into the sea.
“Higher, Ox!” Tristan screamed, desperately hoping that the heat would dissipate with more altitude. “You must take us higher!”
Straining with everything he had, Ox angled upward and his strong wings started to climb. Tristan’s skin burned and there was so much hot water running into his eyes that he could hardly see. He knew that un
less Ox soon climbed out of the steamy fog, the end would be near for them, too.
Just then Ox broke through the rising water vapor to find clear air. Desperately wiping the water from his face and eyes, Tristan ordered Ox to fly in a circle and search for the ships.
Soon the terrible geysers stopped, and the water vapor began to dissipate. The prince looked down to see the azure waves littered with bobbing Minion corpses, sometimes grouping like tiny dark islands adrift on a sea of death. Then through a break in the parting clouds Tristan saw the Tammerland. He pointed to the ship and Ox immediately understood. Diving through the rent in the superheated fog, they plummeted toward the flagship.
As they neared the Tammerland, Tristan was relieved to see most of the heated fog diffusing and some of the Conclave members gathered on the bow deck. The ship was covered with hot seawater, its main deck still steaming in the gradually lessening heat. Ox set Tristan down atop the slick deck and the Jin’Sai immediately ran over to where Wigg stood at the starboard gunwale.
“What’s our situation?” Tristan demanded.
When the First Wizard turned around he looked hunched and frail. He stared at Tristan without seeing him, his aquamarine eyes glassy and unfocused. Tears streamed down his cheeks.
“I should have known,” he said faintly. “Jessamay and I knew that it felt like cloaked blood…so many warriors dead, Jessamay hurt, and it’s all my fault…how could I have been so blind…then the geysers came…so many more died…the water is full of bodies…”
Tristan grabbed the wizard by the shoulders and shook him roughly.
“Wigg!” he shouted. “Take hold of yourself! I must know our situation!”
With Tristan’s commanding voice ringing in his ears, the First Wizard seemed to partly regain his focus. His skin, hair, and robe were steaming and soaked through, telling Tristan that the wizard had nearly been killed. He collected himself, then he wiped the tears from his face.
“We have lost many warriors,” he said, “not just to the vipers but also to the terrible geysers. But the geysers have stopped, and it seems that the man-serpents will not swim into the superheated sea. Aside from Jessamay, the other Conclave members were not badly hurt.”
Tristan let go of Wigg and he took a quick look around.
Jessamay lay unconscious atop a Minion stretcher, being tended to by anxious warrior-healers. She was scalded and soaked, and her injuries appeared severe. Parts of her body could be seen here and there through ragged burn holes in her drenched doublet, boots, and breeches.
Tyranny stood nearby with an open wine bottle in one hand and a smoldering cigarillo dangling between her lips. She too was soaked, her dark hair matted. Her sword, its hilt stained with viper blood, lay sheathed on her hip. She said nothing as she looked into Tristan’s eyes, then lifted the bottle to take another long slug. Her left hand was bleeding, but she ignored it; viper blood covered much of her clothing. Scars stood behind her, his torso and trousers also smeared with viper blood and offal.
Tristan turned back to face Wigg. As he did so, he saw thousands of warriors winging their way back to the Black Ships. Many were so tired and injured that they were crash-landing onto the decks.
“What caused the geysers?” the Jin’Sai shouted.
The First Wizard drunkenly shook his head. “I don’t know,” he answered. “I’ve never seen their like. Perhaps the release of the subtle matter caused them…”
“Where are Phoebe and Astrid?” Tristan demanded.
“They’re here aboard the Tammerland, awaiting further orders,” Wigg answered weakly. “They are exhausted but unhurt. We cannot fly the ships out of here, Tristan. We are too exhausted, and Jessamay is unconscious.” Then Wigg finally managed a short smile. “But the wind is good,” he added.
Heartened that all the Conclave members had survived, Tristan returned Wigg’s smile, then affectionately placed one hand atop the wizard’s shoulder.
“You did the right thing by sending Ox to me,” he said. “Had we not retreated when we did, we might have lost everyone.”
Tristan turned to look across the waves. The sea had calmed and the fog was gone, but the water still steamed. Thousands of Blood Vipers still congregated at the shoreline, hissing and writhing about each other in an orgy of victory. The sight incensed Tristan, enticing him to return to the bloody beach and kill them all. He turned to again look at Wigg.
“Those monsters are under the control of a hideous-looking Vagaries wizard,” he said. “He seems to have been morphed by the craft for some reason. I had two chances to kill him but I failed.”
Wigg nodded. “Khristos,” he said.
“You know him?” Tristan asked.
Wigg nodded. “He is a dark part of my past—the past that I foolishly thought I had forever left behind. But even now Failee’s deeds continue to rear their ugly heads.” Tired and shaking, Wigg looked at Tristan with worried eyes.
“Khristos is a powerful Vagaries wizard,” he said, his eyes going glassy again. “He must be dealt with decisively…it seems that the craft has changed his appearance, but I recognized him just the same…Shailiha must be told about…”
Just then Wigg’s aquamarine eyes rolled back and he fainted away. Tristan caught him and handed him over to Ox. The huge warrior lifted Wigg into both arms as though he weighed nothing.
No sooner had Ox taken up Wigg than another unsettling sound tore through the cavern. Tristan wheeled around, looking and listening. This time the noise was different. Not only was the sea roiling again, but the entire subterranean cavern was shaking violently, and the rumbling sound grew louder by the second.
On and on the terrible rumbling came, causing the swelling waves to crash against the ships’ gunwales and once again put them in danger of capsizing. Tristan lost his footing on the slick deck, and only by grabbing some rigging did he keep from tumbling overboard into the deadly sea.
Tristan looked across the deck. “Tyranny!” he shouted.
The privateer and her first mate were already struggling to reach him, but the going was hard. Without warning another terrifying manifestation of the craft appeared.
On either side of the ships, two giant dark walls started rising from the depths. They nearly scraped the ships’ sides as they came roaring upward. Tristan, Tyranny, and Ox could only stand and watch, bewitched by what they saw.
The craggy rock walls rose straight up past the ships, thundering so loudly that Tristan thought his eardrums might burst. Their flat tops stretching for endless leagues, higher and higher they rose until they neared the ceiling, thousands of yards above. On reaching the ceiling, their flat tops ground agonizingly against the radiance stones. Tons of rock debris came crashing down into the sea, narrowly missing the ships and sending plumes of water high into the air. Then everything went deathly still.
Tyranny and Scars carefully made their way across the slick deck to stand beside Tristan. At first not one of them could speak, stunned as they were by the amazing sight.
The two Black Ships lay trapped in a narrow channel of aquamarine water that stretched away into infinity. The black rock walls loomed up from the channel on either side like dark giants waiting to crush the vessels between them. Sharp and forbidding, they seemed to stretch away forever on either side of the slim waterway.
As the channel water calmed and slapped gently against the ship’s sides, Tristan collected his senses and looked around. Ahead could be seen only the limitless expanse of the tunnel-like channel. Behind them lay the viper-infested beach. The ceiling radiance stones lying trapped between the opposing rock walls provided bright, constant light.
As the last of the rubble broke free and tumbled into the channel, the rock walls settled and the wind calmed. Then, as if some great pair of protective hands had just reached down from the Afterlife to grasp them, the two ships stopped drifting atop the water and hauntingly held their positions, well clear of the deadly walls. The sensation was eerie, unnatural.
Tyranny turne
d to stare at Tristan, dumbfounded. “What just happened here?” she breathed.
Tristan shook his head. “I am as much at a loss as you,” he answered softly, still awed by what he saw. Trying to focus his thoughts on the ships, he finally turned and looked at Tyranny.
“But whatever else has just occurred, the mystics are too exhausted to pilot the ships,” he said. “If we are to leave here, we must sail atop the waves. Are the ships seaworthy?”
Her hands shaking, Tyranny removed the cigarillo from between her lips and ground it beneath the sole of her boot. She tousled her wet hair, thinking.
“The Tammerland is,” she answered. “The Ephyra can probably also sail, but her fallen mainmast, spars, and sails must eventually be repaired. She’ll be slower without them, but our Minion shipwrights can repair them as we go. Either way, this discussion is meaningless, because there is no wind. Nor can I understand why the ships don’t drift. The craft must have done all this…” she added softly, her voice trailing away.
Taking another slug of wine, she turned to look back at the shoreline and its thousands of jubilant vipers. “Even so, we must somehow get away from here as quickly as possible,” she said. “I saw that disfigured bastard at work and I don’t want to suffer any more of his tricks. We must find a way to move these ships.”
Tristan nodded and looked at Ox. “I want a Minion casualty report as soon as possible,” he ordered. “Have Wigg and Jessamay taken below to their quarters and see that they’re looked after by warrior-healers. I also want a report on their condition as soon as I can get it. And have Astrid and Phoebe also tend to Wigg and Jessamay—their healing gifts will be useful. If they are not too tired, send the Night Witches out on staggered patrols down the length of this channel. I want to know what lies ahead of us.”
Ox snapped his boot heels together smartly. “I live to serve,” he said. He turned and hurried away, the First Wizard’s arms and legs dangling toward the steaming deck as Ox bore him belowdecks.
Rise of the Blood Royal Page 33
