by Ross Turner
“It was, but it’s fine now.” Cole told them simply as he clambered atop Rose’s broad back once more. “How much further Garan?”
The warrior was stunned and perplexed by everything that had just happened, but answered Cole almost automatically, even a little afraid of what would happen if he did not.
“Not far.” He responded. “A mile or two?” Cole nodded before replying.
“Then let us hurry.” And he and Rose took off like a shot. They all dashed back to their horses and tried desperately to follow and keep pace, though they knew there was little chance of that.
When they finally reached the enormous wooden hangar on the far southern coast, nestled securely between piled snowdrifts, Cole was already inside and inspecting the ship.
“That door was locked and bolted…” Garan noted with confusion, not quite under his breath. Isabel and Zanriath only looked at him. He took their meaning even before Isabel spoke, her hazardous injuries from less that half an hour ago seeming to have vanished.
“You really think that would have made a difference?” She asked him. Zanriath raised an eyebrow and Garan only shrugged, his expression all but lost.
They arrived at the huge, open wooden door of the enormous stone hanger, painted white by the still falling snow, and drew their horses to a skidding halt.
“How long have you had this for Garan?” Isabel asked as she dismounted, still wary of the expectant pain in her leg and arm - though she needn’t have been, for they showed no sign of ever being damaged, and certainly no longer hurt.
Cole spoke before Garan could respond. His awareness had already told him everything he needed to know of the ship’s past.
“Almost fifteen years.” Cole told them. “If anyone could build something like this, it would be your men Garan.” He complimented.
“Thank you.” The great warrior replied automatically with a dip of his head. “We named her Dame, though she has never been afloat. I am afraid a few parts of her hull began to rot a few years ago, and will more than likely need replacing. It has been fifteen years after all.”
“No need.” Cole said absently as he walked back around with Rose to join them at the entrance to the enormous wooden hangar that housed the great ship. “I’ve seen to those.”
“Seen to them?” Garan questioned, making his way round to the side of the massive hull.
The building, like the ones they had seen at the Southern Armouries, was made of enormous stone block, and was high enough and big enough to have housed a small mountain, having had to fit Dame in with her full mast and impressive length.
“Yes. She warned me she’d rotted, especially during the past three or four years. You’ve sprung a slight leak up in the top right corner of the roof. The rain got to her hull.” Cole explained before quickly moving on. “How did you plan to get her into the water Garan?” He was clearly keen not to dwell on certain points, and to get Dame into the ocean as quickly as possible.
Garan made his way back around to where Cole and his parents were stood, wearing an even more bemused expression than before, having examined the thick wooden panels to find each and every one in absolutely perfect condition, even after all this time.
He had also found the leak that Cole had indicated, though he dared not ask what Cole had meant when he had said Dame had warned him about her rotting hull. He didn’t think he was quite prepared for the answer, and so kept those thoughts to himself.
“We have a crew who will transport the ship down to the water, and then man it for you too. I organised them to gather their equipment and leave immediately. They will have left shortly after we did, so they will be here soon.”
“How will they do it?” Zanriath asked.
“We’ve never tried it before…” Garan admitted. “But we planned to use logs as rollers and roll it down to the shore.”
Cole looked to the shore, about a hundred metres, perhaps a little less, from the huge stone building, and then cast a quick thought out north. The plan was certainly feasible, but he sensed that the large crew of men were about three miles away, moving slowly with several bundles of heavy logs, and he shook his head in frustration.
“No.” He said quietly, his hand coming to his chin as he wracked his brain for a solution.
“No?” Garan questioned.
“There’s not the time. They’ll take too long.” He said ominously.
“They’ll be here any moment I’m sure.” Garan replied concerned, but Cole shook his head again.
“They’re three miles away.” He told Garan. “And then it’ll take them at least another hour or two to get the ship into the water. The demons will overrun the islands in much less time than that. We have to get out on to the water now.”
“But…What…How…?” Garan was lost for words and he struggled to keep up with Cole’s demands, time pushing them harshly. Things were becoming far too complicated. How did Cole know these things?
Regardless, it did not matter. It seemed they were too late anyway. There was nothing else they could do. They had no choice but to wait for the crew.
“Cole…?” Isabel said quietly walking over to her son. “What are we going to do?” She too could sense the demons’ approach, and felt for some reason almost ready to concede their failure, unable to see any other option other than the one Garan was providing.
“We can’t fail.” Cole replied, almost in a whisper.
“What can we do?” His mother asked him desperately, placing her arm gently around his shoulders. “We can’t get the ship into the water without the crew.” For a moment Cole nodded his head slightly, agreeing with her presumptions, but still he wracked his thoughts for a solution.
His eyes suddenly brightened and he looked to his mother questioningly.
“Do we need to wait?” He asked. But before she could respond, he raced from the hangar with Rose close at his heels, and looked to the south at the shoreline, peering through the still lightly falling snow and at the line of mist, only a mere hundred metres away.
He looked around at the piling snowdrifts and then up to the sky, considering the chances of success. He quickly decided there would only ever be one way to know, and so turned back to his parents and Garan.
“Garan.” Cole said instructionally. “Take the horses, go back to the camp, and keep preparing your defences. Expect to be very busy. Take the crew with you when you run into them.” He then looked to his startled parents. “We need to get on board.” He said. “Now.”
“Cole…?” Isabel began. But he raised his hand, cutting her short.
“We’re out of time.” He said sadly. “I wish it wasn’t the case, but we need to get on to the water now.”
The urgency in Cole’s voice drove Garan into action and, though he had absolutely no idea what the startling young man was planning, he immediately took the horses’ reins and began to lead them away.
“Farewell my friends!” He called back, his voice fighting against the baying winds that seemed to be intensifying, even by the second. He didn’t know what Cole was going to do, but his racing heart and the pit in his stomach told him somehow that he wouldn’t want to be around when he found out. He’d had quite enough surprises for one day.
Isabel’s son scared the great warrior even more than she did.
“Good luck!” Garan shouted his final call over the building winds.
“Rose.” Cole said then, and before they realised their son’s intentions, Rose scooped Isabel and Zanriath up onto her back and leapt up and over the side of the great ship. Her jump landed her squarely on the wooden deck, a bound clearing at least twenty feet, and Isabel’s heart felt as if it had been wrenched down into her stomach as she flew through the air.
After dumping the two legends rather unceremoniously on deck, Rose returned to fetch Cole, and within mere moments, they were all aboard the vast vessel.
The deck stretched a good twenty metres along and five or six metres across, and clearly the crew that was meant to be m
anning this ship was a sizeable one, raising the question of, not only how they were going to get it to the water, but if they did, how could they possibly hope to navigate it?
As they looked up at the mast rising up high above them, to which there were no sails to propel to the great vessel, Isabel and Zanriath were indeed a little afraid of what Cole was going to do, for it would likely be spectacular.
Presumably the sails were being brought with the crew, and it seemed obvious now that they weren’t going to await their arrival. There were rows of neat, square holes spaced evenly in the wood, all the way along the sides of the wooden barrier surrounding the deck, about thirty each side.
It seemed that, for the most part, the crew had intended to rely solely on manpower to drive this beast. Huge oars lay in great piles across the deck and Isabel looked round in a defeated manner.
The whole idea was insane. Whatever her son had in mind, surely it would not work.
How could they possibly hope to get the ship into the water? How could they possibly hope to do any of this? The odds stacked against them were just too great.
But then, almost in answer to her desperate confusion, the screech of wind outside sounded so loudly that her ears screamed in agony and she bowed her head in an attempt to block out the raking noise.
Was the ground shaking again?
Her feet felt the heavy vibrations reverberating through the wood beneath her and the stone building surrounding them quaked slightly.
She looked to Cole, but his concentration remained constant, and his eyes were not vacant. He was doing this, whatever it was, on purpose. But why?
Isabel then felt the pressure of heavy clouds closing in above, and once again the ground below them seemed almost to be moving and rumbling.
What in the world was her son doing? Had he lost his mind?
38
The howling tempest outside worsened and the stone barn-like structure within which the ship was housed began to crack and groan and wail dangerously, the very mortar between the stone splitting and crumbling under the pressure of the storm.
Isabel could see through the open door the snow falling faster and thicker and, it seemed from where she stood, that even the already built-up snow banks all around the hangar were being blown towards it, creating great piles of snow all around them, cocooning them entirely.
She looked over to Zanriath, but his worried expression mirrored her own, so she turned to her son and his demon. They were stood central on the deck, and the look on Cole’s face was one of deep concentration. His hand rested firmly and meaningfully on Rose’s neck as she crouched beside him, her body tensed and her mind clearly also occupied.
Rose’s eyes flickered to Isabel for a moment then and, the look in them, identical to her son’s, verged on apologetic. But before Isabel could reason the meaning for her apology, the winds somehow intensified yet again, and the building surrounding them began to fall apart, collapsing under the enormous weights bearing down upon it.
Heavy blocks and supports were ripped from the walls, and the roof began to shatter and cave in. As holes opened, up huge drifts of built up snows crumpled inward and piled up around the very ship itself, knocking the struts that supported the hull aside with ease.
The ship rocked dangerously as the snow and wind barraged it, and the hangar around them continued to disintegrate. Before long there was little left remaining of the structure, and they were exposed almost completely to the raging snowstorm.
Ice bit and cut at Isabel’s exposed face and enormous mounds of snow were built up and compacted all around the ship.
“Cole!” Isabel attempted to shout above the noise of the wind. But her efforts were futile. Then, strangely, Cole relaxed and breathed deeply, and instantly the furious storm abated. Her son looked wearily at his work before he glanced over to his concerned mother. Suddenly, for some reason then, she realised what he was doing, and her breath caught in her throat.
He was right, there was no time left.
Isabel raced and grabbed her husband and she flung the both of them down onto the deck, clinging for their lives onto anything sturdy they could find. The mast seemed to be their best and only option, and they wrapped themselves around it as tightly as they could, bracing for what was to come.
Then Cole began again.
The roaring river of flames he now created forged a wide path directly to the open water, looping back and encompassing the ship and the enormity of snow piled up around it. The fires roared to life with burning intensity and Cole’s forehead ran with sweat.
Within seconds, those huge snowdrifts that had hammered and enveloped the great ship, were gone. They melted all at once, surging forwards with a released haste, dragging the multitude of debris of the hangar and indeed the ship with it.
The ship rocked dangerously as more and more snow continued to thaw and add to the melt water, cascading the vessel down towards the ocean on a torrent of battering debris, every piece threatening to punch great wounds in the Dame’s hull. The churning melt water and the river of crackling flames continued to rage all around them, thawing evermore vast quantities of snow to add to the flow, but not burning the hull of the ship in the slightest - as such was Cole’s control.
The sight was certainly an uncanny one, and Garan viewed it, along with the crew whom he had by now encountered, with undisguised awe.
There was just enough water to send the ship surging all the way to the coast, though on several occasions Dame’s base scraped and snagged on the ground, threatening to topple her over, even dragging her massive bulk sideway once or twice. But Cole held the vessel firm, and soon enough delivered it to the ocean, hauling it with all his might across the last few stretches of land to the water’s edge.
The huge wooden ship crashed into the oceanic water, along with the rushing torrents carrying it, and bowed deeply below the surface, almost immediately capsizing. It seemed that, for a short lifetime, the wooden vessel plunged deeper and deeper into the awaiting ocean, threatening to swallow it whole. But, eventually, with a tremendous groan and the horrible creak of the immense pressure placed on her hull, Dame finally shot back up from her watery grave. Creating gigantic waves as a result, she thundered back to the surface.
After continuing to rock violently for a few more minutes, the ship eventually settled and stilled, calming her motions just as the waters around her quelled their rushing surges.
Dazed and shaky on her legs, Isabel slowly climbed to her feet, resting heavily on the wooden side running around the edge of the deck, and looked around. But she could see only mist beyond the sides of the ship, and swallowed heavily and nervously, fear knotting her stomach. Turning again she saw Cole and Rose, somehow they had not moved throughout the whole event, and stood in exactly the same position as they had done back in the hangar.
Cole relaxed his shoulders and dropped rather heavily to the ground, beads of sweat still standing out on his forehead and his body shaking quite violently.
Isabel staggered over to him, attempting in futility to get her bearings after the rough drop into the water, and against the strange, slow bobbing motion of the ship.
“Are you ok Cole?” She asked carefully.
His shaking stopped and he groaned. Zanriath made his way over to them too, also uneasily, as his legs were unused to not being on solid ground, and crouched at Isabel’s side. Cole dragged himself over onto his back and sat up wearily.
“Did we make it?” Cole asked with a reluctant laugh.
“I think so.” Isabel replied. “What’s happening Cole?” She asked then, almost despairingly, a question she had repeatedly wanted the answer to for some time now. “How did you destroy that demon? How did you fix my arm and leg? How do you keep creating these storms? Just…what’s going on?”
Cole sighed and stood up carefully, somehow regaining his balance within moments. He walked over to the side of the deck and looked out into the mist, though he could not see very far, save the angry lapping o
f the water up the side of their ship.
“I still don’t know exactly what I need to do.” He told his parents quietly. Rose nudged his back with her snout and he scratched between her ears. “But I know that only having demonic power, or elemental ability alone, wouldn’t be enough.”
Isabel nodded, but did not question her son further, understanding that what he was going through was confusing, and regardless, he would most likely not have the answers she desired. In fact, he was probably asking the same questions she was. The answers would simply have to wait.
As Cole looked out into the fog, Isabel felt him draw in his will, though she was unsure whether it was intentional or not. The power oozed from her son as he breathed deeply, and the mist around the boat began to fade. It receded further and further until it eventually vanished, clearing greater and greater expanses of open water, finally now visible beneath the vast, hazy sky.
As the fog retreated, Isabel’s awareness suddenly overwhelmed her, as thousands of sets of hungry eyes beneath the water’s surface appeared before her. Her breath caught in her throat and she staggered back. Then the overpowering sensation ebbed away as Cole too stooped to the floor, falling to one knee, and the veil of fog returned.
Isabel cast a quick scanning thought out across Tamarack and did not know whether what she found was comforting or disturbing. Very few demons remained on any of the four islands now, and those that did were rapidly returning to the nearest coastline.
This was good news, for it meant they had prevented any immediate further casualties on land, hopefully sparing a goodly number of lives. She knew her son would be pleased by that fact.
However, that only meant that every one of the now countless numbers of lost soul-infested demons, were converging on their ship, beginning with the several thousand before them already.
But why were they not attacking?
“The water’s too shallow. We’re too close to the shore.” Cole explained steadily, rising back to his feet, helped up by his Rose.
