Seaborn 01 - Saltwater Witch

by Chris Howard

  Lady Kallixene stood in the center of it all, arms up waving, shouting commands, directing individual soldiers back into the school to recheck all the doors, windows and faucets. She scowled when some of the younger Rexenors, acting as messengers, brought her various notes and answers from the scouting parties, but mostly the same response, they hadn’t yet found Lord Gregor.

  She shot a glare at me. “Fenhals is loose in the basement. Stay where I can see you.”

  I frowned at my grandmother’s ability to read my thoughts. I turned and kneeled next to Jill, put my hand on her cheek. Nicole seemed unaffected by the walking dead, or maybe she’d just refused to look at them.

  Jill blinked and snapped out of her trance. She sat up, holding her head. “What happened?”

  “I think you passed out.”

  She nodded and pulled her knees up. “I’m fine. Let me sit for a second.”

  Nicole glanced at me as if to ask, do you think that’s okay? I started to shake my head, but ended up patting Jill’s leg and nodding.

  I swung around at the sudden roar of the Rexenor war cry. I didn’t catch what they shouted, but I watched them practicing defensive moves.

  The Rexenor soldiers brought up their shields, pointing their spears skyward and reflexively looking into the heavens until Menophon yelled, “The Olethren can’t fly into the thin air. No need to watch for enemies from above.”

  Battling them undersea had clear disadvantages. The Olethren could rise up and tower over any battle line, dropping from above like weapon-wielding skydivers.

  My brain went right to work on this. What else can’t the Olethren do? What can we use that only works up here on land?

  Then it came to me.

  “Nicole?”

  It took a few stunned seconds for her to hear me. She looked up from Jill.

  “There’s a river witch named Limnoria. Find her. She’s in the school wing. Get all the naiads. Tell them I need them now.”

  I edged around to support Jill, and Nicole dashed off through the front doors.

  Jill pushed me away. “I’m fine, Kass.” She got to her feet, taking a few shaky breaths.

  I stood with her, but turned back to watch the approaching army. “That’s only the first three of the eight. I heard only three horns.”

  “Good. I caught that as well, my lady,” said Menophon, standing on the bricks that walled the right side of the front steps. He had his hands cupped over his face. “I have ears. But I can see very little through this glare.”

  Still recovering from the shock of the horn blasts, Jill squinted dizzily up at Menophon. Took a few seconds more for the scheming expression to surface.

  I turned to see Parresia and her sisters gliding down the main hall toward me. The eldest naiad looked frightened. “Kassandra, the Fenhals man is loose in the underground floor, and he has a surfacer woman enslaved to help him.”

  “Matrothy.”

  Foul creature, said Andromache.

  How far are the Olethren? asked Praxinos.

  “Not far now,” I whispered, spinning for a second, just to make sure.

  Lady Kallixene was at my side, putting a hand on my shoulder, and I felt her strong grip through my armor. “What are they doing here?”

  “I asked them to help.” I glanced into my grandmother’s dark eyes, saw mistrust and turned back toward the naiads. Kallixene didn’t move, just watched as I pulled away to join the river witches.

  Parresia, Limnoria, Helodes and Olivia, huddled together as if drawing off each other’s strength and life, their gazes fixed beyond the ranks of seaborn to the half-mile wide wall of death marching toward us.

  I grabbed Limnoria’s hand, squeezing it hard to shake her out of it. She blinked a few times and turned to me.

  “How fast can you brew up a storm, Limnoria, a really mean one?”

  The naiad nodded in answer before the words reached her dry lips. “It’ll take a bit of time. What do you have in mind?”

  “Water ain’t gonna hurt’em, girl,” drawled Olivia. “Their bones is full of water.”

  “I know. We need a freezing storm, snow and ice. Can you do that?”

  “Ah.” Limnoria lifted her head back to look at the sky. “Going to slow them down with cold?”

  “As cold as you can make it.”

  They all looked at Parresia for the final decision. She lifted a few strands of black hair away from her face, pushed them behind one ear. “Do it, Limnoria. We can all combine our strength to help you succeed.”

  “Can I help?” Jill asked.

  Nicole, standing behind the naiads, nodded with her. “Yeah, we want in.”

  I shook my head. “But you can help find my father. Tell the scouts you have Matrothy’s keys. I don’t know how they’ve been opening locked doors so far. Magic?”

  Nicole dug them out of her pocket, and I pointed at two Rexenor guards inside the school’s lobby. “Wait until they’re ready to go and follow them. Tell them I said you are allowed to go.” I gave Jill and Nicole a stern look. “Be careful. You saw what Fenhals can do.”

  A couple steps down from us, but in earshot, Lady Kallixene said nothing, just turned to resume her command.

  “I can feel the start of a storm...” Limnoria, eyes closed, swiveled to the north. “There. Gray, not very much, but it can be the seed that becomes a trunk with many branches. I just need to lure it here.”

  “If the weather doesn’t slow them,” I said. “At least it will darken the sky and make it easier for the seaborn to see what they’re fighting.”

  “You’re sure that’s a good thing?” Jill asked, too frightened to look beyond the ranks of Rexenors. Both of us noticed the soldiers trying to see properly, straining against the glare.

  She caught my arm, nodded as if to say, I’ve seen enough, and looked back at the entrance of St. Clement’s, eager to get going. Facing Fenhals, even with his ability to fire lightning at her, seemed the less perilous choice.

  The Rexenors, eyes squeezed down to paper-thin squints, looked out across the fields stretching from the school. With their eyes accustomed to the dimness of the ocean floor, the evening sun in Nebraska nearly blinded them. They tried everything, including shutting their eyes to cut out the light, holding their hands over their faces and blinking through the semi-transparent webbing between their fingers.

  Jill shrieked, “I know what they need!” and raced into the school, turning right toward the girls’ wing with a shriek of “I’m going to steal everyone’s sunglasses!”

  Ten minutes later, the Rexenors formed up again, some of them able to see, apparently indifferent to the lime green and pink-rimmed sunglasses.

  One particularly stern and scarred soldier surveyed the approaching army in silence through fuchsia cat-eye glasses with little white poodles glued to the arms. He saw what was coming, and he bared his teeth at it.

  Chapter 29 - The Dead Army

  The Olethren marched slowly, unstoppably toward St. Clement’s Education Center. Solid ranks of rotting soldiers flowed forward in rough formations like choppy waves swarming over a shallow beach.

  They moved like a vast machine of bones and armor plates, soulless eyeholes and rattling teeth.

  As more of them stepped from the river with wet moss and eelgrass hanging off their limbs, they made a thunderous noise. A hundred-thousand skeletal feet slammed into the soft turf, shaking the earth and killing anything that lived beneath them.

  The grass faded from green to brown in seconds, curled like ribbons in a fire, and then death drained all color from the blades as bone pounded them into powder. Another hundred-thousand stepped up behind the first, adding to the roar of creaking cartilage and armor, an immelodious mixture of a thousand hacksaws cutting copper pipes and the dull, lung-emptying thud of someone beating a hanging rug with a baseball bat.

  Even the air seemed to fear their hunger, and it pushed away, back toward the school, carrying the stink of the Olethren before it.

  Jill almost fai
nted again, and Nicole dragged her inside the school to get away from them, shaking, muttering something at the edge of hysteria.

  Even I was ready to bolt.

  Phaidra returned, and looked as if she had her strength back, having found something to eat, sweet crunchy disks called, “chalk-something-chip cookies.”

  She smiled grimly as Jill and Nicole dashed through the entrance. My aunt stopped to give the naiads a look, and then stepped under the darkening sky, calm and alert.

  She put a hand on my shoulder, studying the approaching army. “Your two friends went to look for Gregor. Don’t they know it is dangerous? Fenhals is more powerful than we thought.”

  “Nicole and Jill can take care of themselves.” I jerked my thumb at the doorway. “Nicole knocked out Fenhals after he spent his strength on you and me. She has Matrothy’s keys, and they know the school better than anyone searching now.”

  “I’ll tell mother,” said Phaidra, and then nearly jumped out of her armor when the horns of the dead blared again. She’d been inside at their first blowing, and hadn’t heard their full force.

  “The Olethren are here.” I said in a weary whisper to the past wearers. I bit my lip nervously as Andromache shouted sword drills, and Praxinos, keeping a level head, asked me about the sorcerers or abyss mages among House Rexenor.

  I didn’t know there were any.

  Some of the finest among all the seaborn. Second to the Telkhines themselves in the arts.

  I folded my arms against a cold wind coming from the river. Looking over the Rexenor line, I picked out a few odd ones, a couple guys, one old woman, none of them wearing armor. They were dressed in black, skinny legs encased in black leggings. They certainly looked out of place with the heavy armored soldiers, but they didn’t look like they knew they looked out of place. Abyss mages?

  I stared harder, leaning forward, focused on one of the old guys.

  Small white and gray spots appeared and vanished on the material across the man’s shoulders. Then I realized it wasn’t some magical property of his clothing.

  I looked up. “It’s snowing.”

  Many of the seaborn looked up with death grins. It was a good omen, water from the sky, even if it was frozen. It was something they could grasp. It made the Thin less thin.

  The Olethren marched steadily forward, ignoring of the weather.

  The wait was painful. What was left of their faces became clearer, teeth clicking hungrily. The front ranks of dead raised their swords. The stink of wet algae and rotting human rolled off them like a surging tide of sewage. A few of the Rexenor front guard vomited under their shields, but held their spears firm.

  I noticed some of the Olethren were ancient, armored, fleshless skeletons, claws clutching axe handles. These were easier to face than the recent recruits with their pale black-flecked, worm-holed skin, colorless eyes, ribbons of connective tissue whipping in the wind.

  The rattling monster of an army marched into the spears of the Rexenor front guard, and the battle began. The Rexenor war cry ripped through the snow-laden air, and metal and bone hammered into each other.

  The phalanx held their ground in front of the trucks. Their knees shaking, the hedge of steel dividing the flow of dead like water against the sharp prow of a ship. The Rexenors standing in the truck beds, on the roofs of the cars and along the walls of the front steps, swung their swords, chopping through forearm bones and deflecting spear thrusts.

  I jumped along the right wall with Phaidra, trying to save two Rexenor soldiers. Skeletal hands grabbed their ankles, dragged off the steps and into the dead army.

  I stabbed down with my sword and sheared off a skull at the base of the neck. Phaidra got one of the soldiers by the hand and yanked him back from death. The other one shrieked once before three Olethren ripped his body apart, armor scales flying like confetti.

  I took a step back, legs shaking, my sword wobbling in my grip, lucky I didn’t cut the fingers off my other hand.

  Oh hell, this is real.

  Rexenor swordsmen filled the space along the right wall. One of the old abyss mages stood over the line, arched his back, swung his arms up and with clawed fingers, cried a long, run together chain of words.

  Like a fisherman casting a net, his hands shot forward and a spray of webbing a hundred feet long rocketed over the dead army, ensnaring them, dragging them to earth, squirming and clawing at each other.

  Having driven back the Olethren, the old mage, now bent with exhaustion, tried to catch his breath. I watched him a few minutes later climbing into the red truck to take up his position in the front.

  The dead walked over each other, building up their height against the defenders, crushing the bones of preceding ranks into the ground, using them as steps. They beat against the Rexenor line with rusted weapons, clawed at anything in front of them. Few of the dead carried shields, but with one hand free, their fingers became another weapon that clutched at armor and hooked the shield straps of the Rexenor warriors.

  Something at the St. Clement’s entrance caught me eye.

  Mr. Cutler edged his way into view through the front doors, apparently getting over some of the fear that had sent him inside. He was still shaking, teeth clicking, especially when the dead blew their horns—and that was with his hands jammed over his ears.

  The weather turned bitter, chunky black storm clouds tumbling from the northeast. Snow fell thick, first in wet sloppy drops, then into lighter cottony flakes. The naiads stood like statues at the top of the steps, snow and ice piling up on their shoulders and in their hair.

  I went on tiptoes to take in the ocean of dead warriors. The snow’s not enough. It’s not even slowing them down, not even close to freezing any of them in place.

  Failure. What had my father said when I heard his voice from inside the lithotomb? Fail and die. That was it. I looked at the endless army of walking dead, unbothered by the snow and ice. Fail and die.

  And I desperately wanted to be in the basement searching for him. I looked down, ordering my feet to move. I tightened one fist around my sword. My grandmother’s direct order overrode my counter assault, but I chiseled away at it and it would soon be in pieces on the steps, unable to stop me from acting.

  I looked up at the doorway, Mr. Cutler standing beside it, gaping, and I thought, if I just turn and run in without looking at my grandmother, she couldn’t call me back. She’d be too busy directing the battle.

  Lady Kallixene’s voice rose over the din, calling for the phalanx in the front to fall back in an orderly fashion. They clambered backward into the truck beds, helped up from behind by their companions. The one’s in the back rows, first into the trucks, held their ground, ramming spear points at the dead army from between those who hacked away with swords.

  Lady Kallixene shot me a stern look and then her gaze swung to the top of the steps. She pointed a long, bony finger at Mr. Cutler before he could scuttle off. “Keep the front doors open in case we need to retreat and hold them off from inside the school. Close them before we’re inside and I’ll take your head myself.”

  She turned back with her sword drawn before he could answer. Her front ranks were falling, weary with battle against a foe that never tired. A messenger ran up with the same news, they still hadn’t found Gregor.

  Someone called my name.

  I spun, looked through the school entrance, up along the windows above me. I re-gripped my sword, held it low, standing on tiptoes to look over the heads of the Rexenor fighters along sides of the entrance stairway. Then followed the windows along the front of school again, all the way out to the girls’ wing.

  I couldn’t focus on anything at ground level, just too much motion.

  “There!” Lady Kallixene shouted, pointing at the wall just before the girls’ wing angled away from the central structure.

  “They’ve opened a door to the basement!” I shouted over the roar of battle and brought up my sword.

  I slapped a Rexenor soldier on the shoulder and po
inted. Phaidra did the same. I felt my grandmother’s eyes on my back, through my armor. No way was I turning around to meet her.

  They’re all fighting for my father and I. I can’t let the Olethren destroy everything without fighting back. Pretty clear, if I faced Lady Kallixene I wouldn’t be allowed to go.

  I did a couple leg springs, and followed Phaidra over the side wall of the steps, along with six more Rexenor soldiers, chopping a path along the school to the bulkhead door that led up from the basement. The door was wide open, and right in front of it, a woman fought the dead, screaming my name.

  I could just make out solid gray material, something not rotting, something that did not belong to the Olethren, but to the living.

  “Kass...dra!”

  “Mrs. Vilnious?” I didn’t recognize the voice. Whose voice would be recognizable while being dragged off by ranks of rotting dead warriors? “Mrs. Hipkin?” Who would have come up from the basement?

  Then it hit me. The door was locked from the inside. Someone had opened the door to let the Olethren into the basement.

  “Fenhals did it!” I shouted.

  Jill and Nicole were down there. I went into a rage, throwing the sword in wide arcs like a machete, in figure eights. I jumped on the bones of the vanquished, and rammed the point through a skeleton’s ribcage, cutting through vertebrae. Andromache would have been horrified at my lack of form.

  A woman’s commanding voice cut through the battle noise, Lady Kallixene directing a team of warriors with spears over the wall to keep the space along the building open. They kicked off the snow and launched a follow up strike in our wake.

  One of the Rexenor soldiers, a woman with three light brown braids, reached the door first and pushed against it, trying to close it. I had to hack off a jammed skeletal leg before the door lock caught.

  Several of us tugged at the handle. The door wasn’t opening. By that time, three more Rexenors ahead of us had recovered the woman, still screaming my name, clawing at the air.

  It was Ms. Matrothy.

  Fenhals had fed her to the Olethren and let them into the basement. Was he immune? I pushed the question around, fitting it with everything I’d picked up about the dead. The king had to secure his own city against the army. No way Fenhals could stop them. This had been risky.