Savage Messiah dobas-1

by Robert Newcomb

  "This is the last of the intersections," Uther announced softly. "The exit is only a short walk from here down the correct tunnel." He smiled at Agrippa. "Choose one."

  The warrior scowled. "What are you talking about?"

  "I no longer care to live. As a farewell gesture I grant you the right to choose, because both of you are about to die with me."

  The two warriors looked around warily. Nothing had changed. The place remained deathly silent. The wall torches still burned softly.

  Agrippa gave Uther a hard look. "I cannot choose," he said. "You alone can lead us to safety. The wizard Faegan has ordered it."

  "Ah, but Faegan is not here. The wizard of the Vigors cannot help you now." One corner of Uther's mouth came up in a sneer. "Don't you see? No one can save you except me, and I choose not to." Then he took a long breath, and he seemed to make up his mind.

  "Very well," he finally said. "If you want me to select a tunnel, I will. It's all the same, anyway. But you won't be happy with my choice." He gave them another strange look.

  "Farewell," he said. Uther turned and ran down one of the tunnels as fast as he could.

  The warriors immediately gave chase. When they caught up to him, Flavius dropped the torch, grabbed the Valrenkian by the neck, and threw him to the floor. Without the use of his hands to break his fall, Uther went down hard. It looked like his right forearm was broken. But instead of crying out in pain, he only laughed. Flavius pulled him roughly to his feet.

  "Are you crazy?" the warrior growled. "Keep going! Trying to escape us will do you no good!"

  When Uther looked back at them, there was victory in his eyes.

  "You fools!" he said. "Don't you see? There is no escape. The process has already begun. And as I told your herbmistress and your acolyte, even I do not know what form it shall take."

  Almost as soon as Uther had finished speaking, the shrieking began. At first it was soft and distant, coming from somewhere down the tunnel. Then it increased in volume. A strange cross between the sound of a woman screaming and the wind rising from the worst possible storm, the noise quickly flooded the passageway. A ferocious wind erupted and tore down the tunnel. Its force nearly knocked them down.

  The wind extinguished the wall torches, and darkness descended. Flavius reached for his flint and steel to light the torch he had brought. But even if he could have struck a flame, it would have been unnecessary, for the passageway was soon bathed in a different kind of glow. From the far end of the tunnel, three balls of azure light careered toward them.

  As they raced toward Flavius, Agrippa, and Uther, their light grew in intensity. They were each about half as tall as a fully grown man, and jagged bolts of white light careened to and fro within their depths. The closer they got, the louder they shrieked, and the wind intensified to the point that Uther and the warriors could barely stand. Then the rushing lights began to change.

  The fireballs had morphed into demonic faces, with dark blue slanted eyes and mouths full of long, pointed teeth. As they sped down the tunnel, the awful mouths opened wider. Screeching and howling, the first of them took Uther up in its jaws.

  It bit into him at his waist and picked him up as if he weighed nothing. As the thing's teeth crunched powerfully down into flesh and bone, Uther screamed. With savage, grunting sounds, the thing shook him back and forth as if he were a rag doll, then began to crash him against solid rock. Uther's head split open, and the demon dropped his corpse to the floor. Uther's blood dripped lazily from its mouth.

  The beast looked at the two warriors, and let go a deranged laugh. Then it turned to look at the two other faces that waited there. As if giving its permission, it smiled. In a flash, the other demons set upon the Minions.

  Flavius and Agrippa frantically swung their swords, but to no avail. The razor-sharp blades of their dreggans passed harmlessly through the monsters. The demons opened their glowing jaws and ravaged Flavius and Agrippa in the same manner they had Uther. Soon the tunnel floor was awash in blood, and three mangled bodies lay still in the puddles.

  Their task complete, the demonic faces melted back into azure balls, which streaked back the way they had come. With their passing, the shrieking and the wind stopped, and the wall torches came alive again. When Faegan heard the terrible sound and saw the azure light flashing within the tunnel, he knew that something had gone terribly wrong.

  "Everyone to either side of the entrance!" he shouted to the Minions crowded around him. "Hurry-your lives depend on it!"

  But for many of them it was already too late. There was a terrible shrieking sound, and then three azure energy balls rushed out of the tunnel. Those troops that couldn't get out of the way were vaporized instantly.

  After careening around the area for a few moments, the balls slowed and then vanished altogether. Faegan looked around. The occasional smoking boot or blackened dreggan was all that remained of many who had followed him here. The stench of burning flesh hung in the air. Closing his eyes for a moment, the ancient wizard hung his head.

  Then his wizard's mind started working again, and he came to a stark realization. How could I have been so blind? he thought.

  As he expected, the ground began to shake. It started gently at first, but it quickly grew to such intensity that the village's buildings started to collapse. The surviving warriors could barely stand. The wind began to howl, sending dirt and debris whirling into the air, blinding them all.

  Thunder rumbled over the earth and lightning cascaded across the sky. To the Minions who had never experienced this phenomenon, it seemed that the world was about to end.

  As the bluffs shook, the connecting stone latticework that had trapped Faegan and his warriors began to crack. The cracks grew quickly, snaking through the stone web and breaking it apart. Tons of certain death rained down upon the warriors.

  Hoping to save as many of the Minions as possible, Faegan raised his hands.

  CHAPTER LVII

  Her arms clamped firmly around K'jarr's nec Tyranny looked back at the Black Ships pursuing them. Their dark sails full, they flew above the sea like huge birds of prey, ungainly but unbelievably swift. The sun would be up soon, and the privateer desperately wondered how long the Minions could keep up the blistering pace-especially with herself, Scars, and Shailiha in their arms. She knew that if they were ordered to do so, the fiercely loyal warriors would fly until their hearts burst.

  But the craft is stronger than any Minion, she reminded herself as the wind tore at her. If they didn't reach the litter with at least a little time to spare, they wouldn't have a chance.

  She looked over at Scars. He was being carried by Lan, who was having a harder time of it due to the first mate's great size. The warrior was clearly spent, every motion of his wings seeming to be another desperate effort to simply stay aloft. Scars and Lan would be the first to perish, Tyranny knew.

  As for Scars, his expression told her that he was resigned to whatever fate awaited him. Since the day they had first met, he had always said that his life would end in a cold, watery grave. Closing her eyes, Tyranny hoped that this would not be that day.

  Beside herself with worry, she turned away. Scars had been by her side since the earliest days of her father's fishing fleet-long before she had turned privateer, and even before she had vowed to hunt down the demonslavers that had killed both of her parents, and abducted her only brother. Scars had been with her during every decision, every battle, and every storm at sea. She couldn't imagine being without him.

  Even more important, she and her little band had certain proof that Wulfgar still lived. We have to make it home somehow, she thought. We simply have to. It can't just end here, over these cold, faceless waves.

  Just as Tyranny was about to give in and cause the litter to glow, Crevin cried out. Taking one arm away from Shailiha, he pointed out over the sea. At first Tyranny couldn't see anything. And then, suddenly, there it was.

  To the northwest the lifesaving litter bobbed up and down peacefully.
To her delight, she saw Micah was standing up in it and waving frantically, trying to get their attention. Tyranny couldn't see the captured demonslaver that Micah had carried away from the Citadel. But since the warrior had made it back, it was probably safe to assume that the slaver was in the litter with him.

  K'jarr immediately adjusted his course. Tyranny looked back to see that the Black Ships were gaining on them. Reaching beneath her jacket, she nervously fingered the parchment hidden there. This was going to be a very close thing. She placed her lips to K'jarr's ear.

  "Get everyone into the litter as fast as you can, and keep them there!" she ordered. "Under no circumstances are you to fly back and try to attack those ships! We must escape!"

  K'jarr nodded and adjusted his angle of flight to start down. Once he was sure the other two were right behind, he folded his wings back and dove down into a nearly vertical free fall.

  As the ocean rushed toward her, Tyranny was sure that she was about to die. The wind tore by her so fast that she could barely see, and she couldn't begin to understand how K'jarr might recover from his suicidal dive in time. Then she heard his dark wings snap open and felt his strong shoulders move up and down as he buffeted the sea air.

  They were the first pair to half land, half crash their way into the litter. K'jarr had brought them down swift and hard. Tyranny was dazed but unhurt. The other two pairs came down in the same fashion. As Tyranny's head cleared, she saw the still unconscious slaver lying on the floor. The litter was cramped with all of them in it at the same time, but it couldn't be helped.

  Tyranny snatched her spyglass from the floor, raised it to her face, and twisted the last cylinder. As the Black Ships came into focus, her mouth fell open.

  With the dawn sun now glinting off them, the Black Ships looked even more ominous. The seven of them approached fast, each of their skeletal captains standing proudly in their bows, eager to begin the fight. They were so close now that as she looked through the glass, she could almost count the gold buttons on the captains' tattered waistcoats. Lowering the glass, she looked at Shailiha. There was no time to lose.

  "Find the sextant and the map!" she ordered. For a few irretrievable moments, Shailiha scrabbled about in the litter. Then she found the items and handed them over.

  The princess knew exactly what Tyranny meant to do. Before they had departed, Faegan had instructed them both regarding the spells and given a duplicate parchment to the princess. Tyranny was in charge of this seagoing mission, but if she were killed or incapacitated, Shailiha was to take over command and employ the necessary spells to see them all safely home. The princess was also fully aware of why Tyranny hadn't employed this last, desperate spell on the way here. It would have given them away. Now, that didn't matter.

  Tyranny pulled the parchment out of her jacket. She scanned the list of incantations and found the one Faegan said they should employ only as a last resort. There were three shorter but equally important inscriptions listed just below the longer one.

  Looking back to the east, she saw that the Black Ships were nearly upon them. This would be their last chance and it had to work. She gave Shailiha a questioning glance, and the princess nodded anxiously.

  "You can do it!" Shailiha shouted. "I know you can! But do it now!"

  Hoping against hope, Tyranny read the longest incantation aloud. The litter began to glow with the craft and rise from the sea.

  But as it ascended it started to twirl violently. Tyranny was thrown hard against one of the warriors, and her sextant and map fell to the floor. Struggling to focus, she read the next passage aloud. To her utter amazement the litter stopped spinning.

  They had risen only to about the height of the Black Ships' oncoming mainsails. Demonslavers swarmed over the enemy decks, shouting at them and brandishing their swords. They were so close now that Tyranny could see the eerie glow pouring from the captain's angry eye sockets.

  "Hurry!" Shailiha screamed.

  Tyranny read the second passage aloud as fast as she could. The sextant and the map started to glow. The map unfolded itself and hovered in the air. The sextant took its readings from the sun, then a beam of light shot from it to the map. The beam burned a direct course from their current position back to the Reprise.

  Tyranny was about to recite the last of the incantations when she heard the unmistakable sounds of swordplay. She turned to look, and her breath caught in her lungs.

  Their litter was literally bumping up against the mainmast of one of the Black Ships, and the demonslavers in the rigging were hacking relentlessly at Scars, Shailiha, and the three warriors. More slavers were climbing up, and it would be only seconds now before all was lost.

  Scars reached out and grabbed one of the slaves by the arm. He gave it a short twist and broke it. Wasting no time, he tore the creature away from the rigging and threw him down to the deck. The screaming slaver hit hard, head first.

  The rest of Tyranny's group was fighting wildly with their swords. But for every slaver that they cut down, two more rose to take his place. The glowing litter swung wildly back and forth, banging uncontrollably into the Black Ship's mainmast and threatening to send its occupants tumbling out at any moment. Several of the slavers began to swing shiny grappling hooks. Fighting the temptation to draw her sword, Tyranny looked back at the parchment and read the next incantation.

  The litter shot higher into the sky. Finally free of the Black Ship's mainmast and rigging, it spun around to face northwest. Then it sped off, the amazing force of its momentum throwing all of the occupants crashing backward. Somehow, the sextant and the map stubbornly remained in place near the middle of the litter, guiding it on its way. Fighting the force of the oncoming wind, the exhausted passengers began to claw their way back to their seats.

  Sheathing her sword, Shailiha looked over at Tyranny. Her face and arms were splattered with blood, but she was unhurt. Micah and K'jarr had suffered superficial wounds. Striving to work against the wind, Crevin did what he could to tend to them.

  The two women looked east, back toward the Black Ships. To their relief the ships were already little more than dark bumps on the horizon. The privateer and the princess smiled at each other.

  Tyranny looked down at the demonslaver still lying unconscious on the floor of the litter. Then she turned her gaze northwest again toward where the Reprise circled, awaiting their return. It would be good to feel the ship's sturdy, shifting decks beneath her boots again.

  Suddenly she thought of the Jin'Sai. We have what you sent us for, she thought. But how will you receive the news of your half brother? Too tired for words, Tyranny closed her eyes and laid her head against the sidewall of the litter. As she did, the sun rose in earnest, bringing with it the promise of a beautiful day.

  CHAPTER LVIII

  Dax and the two warriors flying escort on either side of him were glad to see the sunrise. They had flown throughout the cold, cloudless night; the sun would bring welcome warmth to their wings and to the air that filled their lungs. As the morning light improved, Dax looked down to get his bearings.

  He was relieved to see that they were still on course. They were flying south, following the Sippora River, and were about halfway to Tammerland. Dax had left camp far later than he would have liked, as there had been important matters to attend to. Rufio had been well liked, and his fellow warriors had taken his death hard-especially since there had been no body to immolate. Dax's first order of business had been to oversee an impromptu memorial service in the slain warrior's honor.

  He then told his troops about the azure wall barring the entrance to the pass and he assigned a group of warriors to watch over it. If it changed in any way, they were to report it at once. He also assigned fresh troops to monitor the orb and issued them identical orders. According to the latest report, the deadly sphere, having created the new pass, had turned south again, still hemorrhaging golden energy. Where it would go from there was anyone's guess.

  It had been the dead of night by the ti
me Dax had been ready to depart for Tammerland to make a report to the Jin'Sai and his wizards. As the only living warrior who had seen the azure wall, he felt it was his duty to make the report personally.

  The young Minion captain stole a few moments to close his bloodshot eyes against the wind. The respite felt wonderful. He had been awake for nearly thirty-six hours, and he was exhausted. Bowing to the inevitable, he opened his eyes again and looked down to make sure that the Sippora was still below them.

  To make his group a little warmer, he led them to a lower altitude. As his view of the river improved, his eyes narrowed. I must be seeing things, he thought. He blinked, but the scene remained the same. To his utter amazement, the normally mighty Sippora had turned black and looked as thick as tar. Its banks teemed with refugees and loaded-down beasts of burden, all walking south along either side of the river. The crowds seemed to stretch on forever. They weren't simply fleeing, Dax realized. They were moving permanently, and it seemed that they were all on their way to Tammerland.

  Stunned, Dax quickly signaled to his warriors, and the three of them soared down to take a closer look.

  There were no major cites in this part of Eutracia, but the Sippora's fertile banks were lined with small farming villages. The water table was notoriously low here, and wells had never been a viable option. But that had never mattered, because for centuries the majestic river and its hundreds of tributaries-supplied by the glacial runoff from the Tolenkas-had easily provided all the water these peaceful farmers could use, both for drinking and for irrigation. It had also granted excellent fishing and trapping, and its fast-moving branches could always be relied upon to turn the waterwheels that milled the farmers' hard-won grain. But now all that had changed.

  Dax thought for a moment. If he and his escort swooped closer, he knew that they would frighten the people. But it couldn't be helped. He simply had to know more. Using hand signals, he ordered his warriors down. Buffeting the air with their dark wings, they came to land on the western bank of the river.