Lexi laughed. “Yeah, and maybe it will rain beer.”
An hour later it still hadn’t slowed down appreciably. What had changed was the fact that the harbor entrance was beginning to fill up with huge twitching bodies, which forced the attacking creatures to climb up and over the obstacles, before continuing the swim to the boat. Most didn’t make it, but some did. The forward mast was sheared off cleanly by the pincers of a great red beast that tried valiantly to heave itself up onto the deck. The port six pounder blew a hole through its armor and strewed stinking entrails across the deck, before a monstrous pincer swept both gun and crew overboard.
During the next attack the lookout was plucked off his high perch by two tentacles, and slowly twisted in half in front of their eyes. Screaming sailors had extracted a bloody revenge, chopping off all the squid’s tentacles, before dropping the quivering body, beak snapping impotently, back into the harbor.
Hedric was sitting exhausted by a railing, when the D’Tril Blue arrived.
“All right, buddy, on your feet.” Blue’s voice was sharp. “We’ve got a problem.”
Hedric staggered upright. “What?” He asked stupidly.
“Our forces are getting the shit pounded out of them. We should run out of men about the same time we run out of monsters. That’s not the problem, though. Your Captain Isenhart has been hurt, bad. Colonel Harrison sent me to find you. He says you’re the only one who can perform this particular miracle.”
Hedric dropped his ax. “Damn. I’ve got to find Lexi.”
“No time. She’s dying; did I mention that?”
Hedric glared at the small flying creature, and for an instant wanted to strangle it. He looked down at his bloody torn clothes and sighed. “Let’s go. Medin…”
Colonel Harrison’s exquisite manor house was gorgeous no longer. The back wall of the room was gone, and smoke filled the air. The smell of blood was thick enough to taste.
“This way.” Blue was pulling his hand. “In there.” She pointed to a largish room, packed with wounded soldiers. Colonel Benjamin Harrison was kneeling by Dolores Isenhart, holding her bloody hand in his. He looked up when Hedric entered.
“Kneeling here watching Dori die has given me a lot to think about.” His voice had a lifeless quality. “The other night I acted the perfect drunken fool. Please accept this as an apology from a thick-headed campaigner, however, I don’t think that there’s anything you can do for her. The claw went through her lung, and she’s drowning in her own blood.”
Hedric pushed the colonel aside, and put his hand on Dolores forehead. “Nobody is perfect, Benjamin.”
Somewhere he felt the vague remnants of a laugh.
< I get no privacy or respect around here.> Hedric muttered to himself, as he poured his energy into Dolores Isenhart.
Lying on the small hard bed, he could see the color begin to creep back into her pale cheeks. He looked up at the colonel. “Get us a pan, Colonel. She has to get all the blood up and out of her lungs.” Benjamin was back in a moment with a ceramic bowl, and Hedric placed it beside Dolores’s face before he rolled her gently onto her side.
She coughed once, dribbling blood into the bowl, and opened her eyes. “Hedric?” She whispered.
“Shhhh. You were hurt, but you will get better soon.” He touched the woman’s face. “I had to do some things to you, to save your life. Please don’t be mad at me. I did the same thing to you that I did to Lexi.”
She closed her eyes, and kept then closed for so long that Hedric thought she had gone back to sleep. At last she opened them. “I’m not mad, Hedric. We’re not mad at all.” She smiled and coughed again, more blood dribbled into the bowl.
Hedric glanced up at the shocked Colonel Harrison. “She will get better now, Colonel…”
“Please Hedric, call me Benjamin.” The man said with a wry smile. “I’ve made several mistakes about you and the entire unbelievable situation.”
“Apology accepted.” Hedric replied abruptly. “Now about Dolores. She was on death’s doorstep, but she will get better now. She is very weak, however, and will need someone to look after her.” He looked into the older man’s dark eyes. “Can I count on you to do that looking-after?”
Benjamin Harrison looked around the shattered room. “We’ve killed all the dog-beasts, what you call the small red monsters, and most of the big red monsters. I have six unwounded guardsmen left, and we have three more of the big red critters to kill before we’re done. We could handle one, maybe, but not three. We’re finished.”
A soldier staggered in wearing a shredded blue uniform and carrying a long tubular weapon over one shoulder.
“What the bloody hell is that?” Hedric nodded at the weapon, and Harrison grinned.
“You’re not the only one who can pull miracles out of his hat, although I admit, your miracles are much better and smack of the divine.”
“Bullshit!” Hedric muttered. “What is it?”
The colonel grinned. “We had two pictures and a detailed drawing from ancient texts. The weapon is called a flintlock, and will fire a small heavy ball very very fast. Fast enough to kill a dog-beast in one shot, if you hit it right. It takes a number of shots to kill a big monster though.”
Hedric stood. “I’ll take care of your monsters.”
“Sergeant Sandoval!” The colonel called to the weaving soldier. “Show this man the monsters.”
“Yes, sir.” The soldier staggered again. “Right this way, sir.”
They crawled through a hundred yards of rubble before he saw them. Two marksmen were trying to slow the beasts down, but Hedric could hear the scream as the shots ricocheted off the tough armor.
“Tell the men to stop firing, Sergeant.”
The man frowned, but did as he was told. “Cease fire!” He shouted at the top of his hoarse voice. “Cease fire!”
Hedric stepped forward and scrambled down a pile of rubble toward the approaching monsters. He hoped fervently what his father had taught him really worked.
He raised a cupped hand, palm up. “Fireball!” A blue plasma ball appeared; the size of his closed fist. Hedric poured more energy into it, until it was the size of his head, and then he lifted his hand and threw with all his strength. The blazing ball screeched as it tore through the air, punching a perfectly round hole in the chest of the nearest monster. Then it exploded.
Hedric and the sergeant were blown backward for twenty feet by the force of the blast, and the marksmen disappeared temporarily. When Hedric was again able to focus he noted a ten foot crater where the monster had once been. The other two monsters had also been knocked backward, and were slowly struggling to their feet.
ds. “That should be sufficient.” He raised both his arms above his head and threw. The fireballs hissed through the air, and punched small neat holes in the chests of the approaching beasts. Steam began to pour out from between the overlapping chitenous plates, and the monsters shuddered, screaming, and fell. Except for the rattle of falling rubble, silence descended on the field of battle.
Hedric muttered to Dawn, as he slowly collapsed into the dust and rubble.
He could feel his K’Dreex redirecting energy back into his body from his scanty fat reserves.
A hand slipped under his arm and helped him to his feet. There was awe, and a little fear in the sergeant’s face, and for some reason it made him sad.
“What was all the noise?” The colonel demanded as they entered the first aid area.
“He… He killed them all.” The sergeant’s eyes were slightly wild. “He blew them all up!”
Hedric sat down in a chair with a sigh. “I didn’t blow them ALL up. That was only the first one, and THAT was an accident.” He glanced at the colonel. “Your men are safe by the way, Benjamin. The city is ruined but your men are safe.”
“The city can rebuilt, lad.” Benjamin Harrison was actually smiling as he held Dolores’s hand.
“Good. So, are you willing to look after Captain Isenhart until she’s recovered?”
There was a scoff.
“I would love to look after the Captain, Hedric.”
“I was hoping you’d say that. What do you think, Medin? A day in the medical area to finish healing her lungs, and a week of light exercise and good food? Oh, make that ten days. We don’t want a relapse do we?”
“We certainly do not, Hedric.” The young man was certain the others couldn’t hear the laughter in the baritone voice.
“But, we’ll be away for the second wave…” The colonel began.
“You know, you might be right.” Hedric broke in with a sardonic smile. “Now, Medin.”
The sergeant gasped as Dolores and the colonel vanished before his eyes. Hedric groaned as he got to his feet. “Don’t worry, Sergeant. The colonel will be away for a few days, and when he returns he will probably be his normal sweet loving self.”
Sergeant Sandoval chuckled. “So I’m in charge?”
“That’s a good assumption, unless there’s another officer around?”
“Nope, I’m it.”
“You’ve got it then. Congratulations.” Hedric looked around the room of injured men. “Medin, can your medical facilities handle forty injured soldiers?”
There was a pause. “It can now.”
“Please take care of these soldiers, then. They deserve it.” There was a flicker and the room was empty. A young corpsman was standing up, a look of wonder on his face. “How are you doing for food and water, Sergeant?”
The bemused soldier blinked. “We have food and water for three hundred, sir, and maybe thirty or forty to feed. I even think the cook survived.”
“That might or might not be a good thing. At least everyone will have enough.” Hedric stretched a kink in his back, as he listened to distant cannon fire. “I believe they’re playing my song. Good-bye sergeant.”
“Good-bye sir. By the way, sir. What’s your name, should anyone ask.”
“Hedric Schwendau, Sergeant.”
The Sergeant came to rigid attention, and gave him a formal salute. “It’s been a pleasure to work with you, General Schwendau.”
“Why do you call me ‘general’?” Hedric asked, perplexed.
“I saw the way you ordered the colonel around, and the way he obeyed. You MUST be a General, sir.”
The crash of a cannon almost knocked him down. “What the…” He blinked. Gray suckered tentacles were wrapping themselves around the hull of the Golden Fleece, and the whole ship seemed to shake and groan. Men were battling red monsters at bow and stern, and the killer squid in the middle. In the water Hedric could see three or four more monsters.
“Fireball!” Without waiting to see the size of the weapon he’d created, he hurled the plasma ball straight into the great eye of the squid. A fountain of boiling ichor covered the deck, and the monster screamed in mortal agony as it slid below the surface of the harbor.
“Hedric!” He spun just as Alexandra crashed into him, wrapping her arms around him. “I thought you were dead. You just disappeared.”
“Blue flew in from the shore, sent by Colonel Harrison. Your mom had been hurt badly.” Lexi gasped, and Hedric continued hurriedly. “I got there in time, but I had to twin Dawn to save her. Colonel Harrison pulled his own magic out of a hat, and had killed almost all the forces that came against him. I cleaned up the rest, and sent him and your mom to Medin for her to recuperate.”
Lexi frowned. “Was she that bad?”
Hedric laughed and hugged the young woman. “No, but I didn’t tell them about their quick recovery. They should be safe on Medin until this whole mess is over.”
“Did Colonel Harrison agree to that?” She sounded surprised.
“No. By the time he figured out what I’d done to him it was too late.” Hedric looked down at the deck and frowned. “We’re listing to port. Isn’t Doander running the engines?”
“I haven’t heard the engines since the last attack began.”
“Damn.” Hedric bolted for the engine room. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He stopped suddenly and turned to Lexi. “Remember what my father taught us about fireball. I’ve used it. It works, but don’t let it get too big. Orange size is good, but use it sparingly. You’ll burn out.” He turned and raced down the stairs, taking them three at a time.
The engine room was a wreck. Simms was nowhere to be seen, and young Doander was lying on the floor, bleeding from a heavy gash at his hairline. The walking beam was twisted to the side, with the piston itself torn free and sitting on the floor. Hedric looked up and discovered the reason. The small heavy skylight that let sun into the engine room was smashed open. Strips of gray tentacle still hung from the shattered glass. Around the edges of the frame, the casing dripped red blood and Hedric guessed what had happened to Simms. There would be no engine and there would be no pump.
“Get everybody but the gun crews into the galley!” Hedric was shouting as he moved through the corridors of the sinking boat, pulling the limp form of Doander behind him.
Doctor Welter stuck his head out of his office. “The galley?”
“Yes, the galley.” Hedric stopped, puffing. “The ship is sinking. I can send everyone to safety from there.”
“Injured too?”
“Of course, injured too. Hurry, Doctor. We haven’t much time.” Welter turned away, grumbling.
On deck Hedric noticed that the port side-wheel had been torn away from the hull a good foot, thanks to the fierce grip of the giant squid. It wouldn’t make any difference if the majestic side-wheel were rotten and worm infested or not, but it gave him a pang to see the faithful ship treated so badly.
The crack of the cannons caught his attention. The four remaining cannons were firing steadily on the approaching monsters, even as the ship listed in her death throes. Hedric darted back for the galley.
“Listen, all of you.” Heads turned, some bandaged, all exhausted. “The ship is sinking and we can’t stop it. The last attack destroyed the engine. There is a large warehouse just off the quay, down near where the Dolphin is being refitted. I’m going to send you there. Take care of each other. I’ll send food when I can.” The men looked apprehensive, and he smiled. “The local guardsmen have completely defeated the wave of monsters that were attacking the cit
y. You will be safe there.” There was a collective sigh. “I’ll see you later. Medin, please transfer these men to the smaller warehouse where we picked up the orphans.”
“As you wish.” There was a flicker.
The deck heaved, throwing Hedric to the galley floor, while overhead the timbers cracked as something massive was dropped on them. Kicking open the stuck door, he leapt into the companionway, stumbling over pieces of broken wood that littered the passage. He could still hear the faint boom of an occasional cannon from the upper deck. Crashing blocks from the toppling mainmast made him jerk back, heart beating furiously. Stepping over the wreckage he looked around in dismay. The deck was in ruins, the wheelhouse gone, the port side-wheel ripped off and the starboard side-wheel hanging on by only a few tattered boards. Hedric found Alexandra unconscious under a pile of rigging, and he pulled her to her feet gently, making sure there were no further complications. She clung to his neck automatically, eyes glazed.
“Mister Paul.” Hedric called, seeing the stout soot-stained first mate. “How many monsters do we have left?”
“Two, I believe. We’ll not git em all, though. We’re sinking too fast.”
“We have time enough. Please hold Alexandra for me, will you?” Roland reached out, a questioning look on his face as he supported the girl. “Medin. Please transfer everyone but me back to the warehouse now.”
“But Hedric…”
“Now, Medin. That’s an order!”
“As you wish.” But for him the boat was empty.
Below decks he could hear the swirling of water, and the creak as broken timbers shifted. Taking a deep breath, he walked slowly to the last whole section of port railing. One hundred feet away and closing fast was the humped red back of the monster. He raised his hand “Fireball.” He threw. The glowing plasma ball punched a hole just in back of its head, and detonated with a solid whump. Steam poured from the carcass of the red beast before it sank. With wobbly legs he turned to face the last.
The Finger of God: a Thalassia novel Page 27
