Less than a couple of yards and two seconds separated Ruben and the charging ice bear. He turned toward the massive animal in time to see the big minotaur cut deeply into the bear’s chest before the massive animal spun him to the ground with powerful blow from its paw that likely would have killed or at least crippled a human.
Death flashed before his eyes in the form of a huge mouth that opened far enough to swallow his head and part of his shoulders whole. Ruben barely got the butt of the pike set onto the flat, wooden square of his snowshoe when all fifteen hundred pounds of the bear slammed into him and bore him to the ground. Fire erupted across his chest as the lethal claws tore through his thick fur coat and several layers of sturdy clothing, slicing through his flesh and muscle as if it were paper.
Blood sprayed his face as the bear roared its defiance and snapped at his head, its fangs protruding from black gums a full two inches. The only thing that saved his skull from being crushed like an eggshell and his brain pierced by the ivory daggers was that the awesome weight of the bear had shoved his entire torso two or three feet under the loose snow. Despite his gruesome wound, fear and the instinct for survival made him lash out, shoving the big head to the side, gouging at its eyes with his thumbs, and using his strong arms to keep the bear’s fangs from getting a grip on his head or throat.
The fetid stench of carrion on the ice bear’s breath was enough to choke him, but the oarsman hardly noticed, so involved was he in keeping himself alive long enough for one of his mates to kill the creature. He just prayed it would be within the next two to three seconds, figuring that was about how long he had before the bear tired of the game and tore his head from his shoulders like a child popping the head off an immature dandelion.
Ruben could see nothing beyond the flashing ivory fangs and huge gaping maw of the ice bear, but he heard Toron’s roar of rage even over the behemoth’s guttural growls of fury just before it crashed down on top of him, the snow bank supporting enough of its dead weight to keep from crushing what little life he had left in him.
Toron rolled with the mighty slap of the ice bear’s huge paw, felt his flesh part beneath the sharp claws, and saw his own blood paint the trodden snow red. He leapt to his feet with his axe still in hand. A minotaur warrior never dropped his weapon unless his arm had been detached from his body along with it. That was a painful lesson taught very early on by the weapon masters of his homeland when a boy entered the mandatory warrior training school at age six.
His eyes instantly took in the scene of the battle. Zeb, Derran, and the foul-smelling hunter were still several paces from the sled. Ruben was fighting with all his might to keep the massive animal from getting in a killing strike. A decisive blow was needed within the next few seconds or Ruben was not going to make it back alive, assuming his wounds were not already fatal. All this flashed through the experienced warrior’s mind in less than a second.
His body was already in motion as his brain decided on the best tactic for the situation. With a roar of challenge and defiance, Toron sprinted the several steps to the sled, pushed himself high into the air as he leapt from its railing, and brought his axe crashing down with a mighty two-handed blow, cutting through the back of the ice bear’s neck, severing its spinal cord, and nearly decapitating it.
Toron tossed his axe to the side as Zeb and the others ran up next to him and began trying to roll the ponderous beast off their fallen comrade, but the animal was wedged into the crevice it had created when it had shoved Ruben beneath the snow and would not budge. Toron began tearing at the snow beside the dead bear with his large hands as Zeb shouted at the others to grab shovels to dig the oarsman out from beneath it.
In less than a minute, their furious digging uncovered Ruben’s grinning face. “I always wanted me a nice fur coat, but I’d rather the original owner took it off first.”
“Just hold on, Ruben, we almost got you out. Are you injured?” Zeb asked with concern.
The flashes of pain crossed Ruben’s face. “Oh yeah, he got me real good. Don’t know if he got to any of my innards, but he raked my chest real deep and bit the hell outta my arms. My skull probably looks akin to scrimshaw carving too.”
They finally cleared enough snow away beside the wounded sailor to pull him out from under the ice bear’s dead weight and examine his wounds more closely. Freed from the surrounding snow, several deep lacerations on his skull bled profusely, his forearms were riddled with deep puncture wounds, but the most serious was the ragged slashes across his chest.
They lifted him up onto the sled and when Zeb stripped off the man’s tattered jacket and shirts he winced at the severity of Ruben’s wounds. He could see his lungs inflate between a couple of ribs that had been parted by the bear’s powerful claws. At least three of them were fractured and the ends of one no longer aligned, one splintered end protruding above the other. Fortunately, the captain did not detect any frothing or signs that the lungs had been punctured.
Being of no further use, Toron and Farley went to go dress and skin the massive bear that had lured them into a cunning trap and nearly killed one of them, possibly all of them if they had not reacted with the quick-thinking and level-headedness of professional men. The two men were able to roll the partially excavated bear onto its side where Farley sliced the bear from groin to throat with a well-practiced hand. The offal dropped out, carried by its own weight into the shallow depression Toron dug just beneath and beside the enormous creature.
The huge head was easily removed, Toron having done most of the work already with his axe, then began jerking and slicing the tissues away that kept the skin stubbornly attached to the animal. Optimally, they would have hung the bear upside down from a tree or rigged up a large tripod with a hoist and let gravity do some of the work for them, but all the trees within several miles were considerably smaller than the bear and they had not brought timbers to erect a trivet.
In the meantime, Zeb and Derran cleaned and dressed Ruben’s wounds as best they could. Zeb blessed Azerick under his breath for insisting that each ship carry a supply of healing draughts that he cooked up from time to time and he used one on his wounded man after setting the broken rib back in place and wrapping the ribs tightly with strips of clean cloth. The potion closed most of the wounds, but it would be some time before Ruben would be back on his feet and hunting with them again. His hunting season was most assuredly over, but Zeb would find him some light camp duties to attend to. Men like Ruben needed to be kept employed to keep their spirits up.
The men all kept glancing at the rapidly setting sun as they each tended to their business. Derran began helping Toron and Farley cut huge slabs of meat from the bear as Zeb made Ruben as comfortable on the sled as he could. Ruben was doing his part by complaining that he did not need such attentions, that he could probably walk. The bear had shredded his arms after all, not his legs. Both men knew his protests were groundless, but bravado in the face of horrible injury was simply an accepted part of being a rough and tough sailor.
Bear meat, particularly ice bears that lacked the more omnivorous plant diet of their southern cousins, tended to be a bit gamey and far from the most sought after food in the kingdom, but it was perfectly edible, particularly in well-seasoned stews, and a majestic animal like the mighty ice bear deserved to be utilized to its fullest and not wasted. Even the strong sinew that attached muscle to bone would be used for crossbow strings and such.
“Gentlemen, I hate to rush you, but that sun is not going to wait for us or any other mortal men,” Zeb said as he eyed the glowing orange disc nearly touching the horizon.
The crew was unable to clean the carcass as well as they would have liked, but the arctic scavengers would ensure that not even the bones would go to waste. Even so, they had the sled loaded with several hundred pounds of meat, not counting Ruben whom they covered with the huge bearskin, folded several times to keep it from dragging in the snow.
With the exception of Ruben and Farley, who as a hunter was adept
at finding his way in the wilderness, they were experienced sailors and knew how to navigate by the stars. This skill was put to use shortly after the sun disappeared while barely halfway back to the camp, but the fog rolled in and quickly made that skill useless. Their only hope of reaching the camp now lay in navigating a straight line, hoping they could stay on course while blinded by the thick vapors and get close enough to be heard.
The eight men back at the camp were eyeing the increasing thickness of the fog with growing concern. A fire burned in one of the small iron stoves, its top removed to allow the flames to leap out and provide a weak beacon for the absent hunting party.
“Bah, it’s no use. I lose sight of that fire no more than a hundred feet out. They’ll burn themselves on the side before they see the blasted thing.”
“They planned for the event of not being able to make it back, Matt. I wouldn’t worry too much.”
“Then why do you look like someone just pinched your last copper, Rick?”
“It ain’t the cold I’m worried about,” Rick replied with a sigh.
“The Eislanders,” Matt said, both of the same mind.
“We ain’t seen em, they ain’t tried nothin’, but I know they’re there watching us, just waiting to slit our throats in our sleep.”
“So what are they waitin’ for? We’re five shorter than we were last night. Why not attack us now if it were numbers they was worried about? And they know we ain’t got that big minotaur with us. That’s like being short three men just by hisself.”
“Maybe they followed the cap’n. Maybe that’s why they ain’t made it back yet,” Matt said, voicing his greatest fears.
“I doubt it. Eislanders may be big brutes but they ain’t stupid, especially when it comes to fightin’. They’d take on us eight and know it’s gonna be an easier fight than takin’ on the cap’n with Toron by his side. I got as much pride in my strength and fightin’ skill as any man alive, but I wouldn’t provoke that big bull-headed beast for all the gold in the kingdom.”
“Aye, I’ll be glad to have him back too. Hey, I got an idea. Get a couple men to set up one of the scorpios, in fact, set em both up.”
“What’cha got in mind, Matt?”
“You’ll see.”
The men set the scorpios up; one atop a high mound for defense, the other on the side of another mound, pointed up at a sharp angle in the direction Zeb and the others had traveled.
“All right,” Matt was saying to the assembled sailors, “we take this strip of cloth and tie it to the end of the picket. We wrap another around the tip, roll it in animal fat, and set her aflame. Set it in the scorpio, and—voila!” Matt cried as he triggered the big mounted crossbow.
The flaming brand streaked out high over the low-lying fog over a hundred feet in the air and more than three hundred yards distant into the night.
“We launch one every fifteen minutes until we run out of stakes. That should last us until a bit after midnight. If Zeb and them don’t catch sight of one by then, they won’t be comin’ back tonight.”
“Pretty clever for a landlubbing desert rat,” Rick ribbed his friend.
“Hey, the desert eats them that ain’t clever enough to avoid its traps or move away. I was smart enough to do both.”
Matt continued firing his improvised flares into the sky while Rick rhythmically banged the back of his cutlass against the side of the iron stove. Matt was halfway through his brands when a shout overrode Rick’s thrumming on the stove side.
“Knock off all that racket before you wake the dead,” Zeb’s gravelly voice broke through the stillness of the night and oppressive fog.
Rick nearly dropped his cutlass as he leapt to his feet. No one had been sleeping; only partially due to Rick’s banging and quickly crossed to where their captain’s voice had cut through the fog. Even as close as Zeb and the rest of the group were, it was difficult to determine the direction. The thick fog caused the sound to bounce around inside it, causing nearly as much trouble hearing as it did seeing.
“Zeb, thank the gods you made it back!” Matt shouted as Zeb and Derran appeared out of the mists.
“You can thank em if ya want. I’ll give my thanks to you lads for launching them brands into the air and over this blasted fog. You boys knock a hole in the wall. We got a man down and he don’t need to be tossed over the top like a sack of feed,” ordered Zeb.
Several men grabbed their shovels and hastened to obey the captain’s orders. “What happened, who’s hurt?”
“Ruben got tackled by the granddaddy of all ice bears. He got his pike set just in time but the weight of the beast split the base on his snowshoe and drove him and the spear butt a couple of feet into the snow. Even with two heavy quarrels in his side and a spear through his chest, that bear was determined to get at least one of us and Ruben was the one unfortunate enough to be picked. Toron took a nasty swipe that would’a likely as not torn my top half from my bottom half just before he leapt up and nearly took the beasty’s head off.”
“How’s Ruben doing?” Rick asked just before they all heard Ruben’s protests that he was fine to walk on his own. “We were all getting’ mighty worried that you all wouldn’t make it back tonight.”
Zeb clapped Matt on the shoulder. “We likely wouldn’t have if you boys hadn’t been firing off them flares and bangin’ on that stove. We weren’t much more than a couple of degrees off from my dead-reckoning, but even that took us a couple hundred yards to the south of the camp and we would have walked right on by it. The fog got so thick for a while we couldn’t even follow our own tracks back. I was about to order the tent pitched when Derran saw the first flash over the fog. We thought it was a shooting star at first until the next one went by near the same spot.”
“I wasn’t sure if it would work with all this fog or not. I’m glad to see it did. I know you all would have been all right for a night out there on your own, but it’s still good to all be together. This place just don’t seem right to me—not natural,” Matt said with a small shudder.
“I know exactly what ya mean, lad. Now did ya keep some stew on the fire like I asked?” Zeb asked with a grin.
Zeb’s crew finished off the last of the pot of stew. They put Ruben in one of the tents and insisted he eat on his pallet then get some rest. He nearly punched Rick when the fellow oarsman tried to feed him, teasing him about needing to have the meat chunks chewed for him first.
They slept tightly packed, not bothering to unload the second tent from the sled that carried the big bear hide and meat. The opening in the palisade was filled back in with packed snow and a guard roster established for the rest of the night. It was not until after midnight and all but the two men on watch had gone to sleep that the attack came.
There was no warning, no call to battle, or shouted challenge. The huge Eislanders simply walked out of the mists right in front of a man named Carter, grabbed his head in their calloused hands, and twisted with such strength that his head was nearly torn off his shoulders. Then all hell broke loose.
CHAPTER 3
It took them nearly an hour to circle around to where they left the horses tethered. Despite everyone’s fatigue, Azerick convinced them that it would be prudent to get out of the area before setting up camp. They rode for two hours before deciding that they had gone far enough to avoid being seen by anyone searching for the ruins. The party set up camp in a small depression that would hide them from view unless someone walked right on top of them.
When it came time for Azerick to pull his watch shift, he made a comfortable seat in the sand and leaned against his saddle as he pulled the black gem from a pocket. He gripped the stone tightly in his palm, bent his concentration upon it, and tried to make contact with General Baneford.
It took a solid minute before Azerick felt the first touch of the general’s sending and another minute before the man was able to focus his thoughts enough for his words to come through intelligibly.
“Uh, hello?” The general’s clums
y sending came.
“You are General Baneford?” Azerick inquired.
“Yes, gods this is eerie, I’m Baneford.”
“I have recovered the helm. Where shall I meet you?”
“Have you eliminated the others?” Baneford asked.
“Not yet. I thought you might have use for them as captives. Besides, this is a rough land and I may still need them to help me reach you. You can capture them or kill them at your leisure then. I should have little problem neutralizing them once we meet.”
“Adventurers are generally in the business for personal gain. If I can sway their allegiance, I may have a use for them. If not, I certainly owe them for the death of so many of my men.”
General Baneford described to Azerick where he and his men were waiting and even managed to provide a rough mental picture of the area. He was not far, perhaps two days to the northwest in the abandoned ruins of some ancient outpost. These harsh lands were dotted with them. As wells dried up and the desert sands changed the geography, whole towns packed up and moved to more hospitable areas, leaving nothing behind but the desiccated remains of their stone and brick buildings.
Azerick woke the others as the sun was setting. After a quick meal of dry trail bread and cheese, he took the lead, setting a quick pace toward the northwest. He deflected inquiries about the helm by telling Maude and the others that it was best that the helm remain inside his magical bag because it would prevent any magical scrying, and an artifact as powerful as the helm would be like a brilliant beacon on a clear night for anyone attempting to divine its location.
“If we head straight west we should cross the trade road that runs south to Langdon’s Crossing. It will make for easier traveling,” Maude suggested.
Azerick shook his head. “We do not know where the men who are looking for the helm are and we run the risk of crossing their path if we ride the roads. There are also reports of at least two large bands of marauders looting towns inside the kingdom. Langdon’s Crossing was one of the first towns hit. It would be a bitter pill to swallow to have finally gotten one of the pieces you have worked so hard to find just to get robbed by a bunch of highwaymen on your way to present it to the king.”
The Sorcerer's Vengeance (The Sorcerer's Path) Page 5
