[Warhammer] - Dreadfleet

by Phil Kelly - (ebook by Undead)

  The Bloody Reaver led a wedge of three warships that was heading straight for them. To starboard rode the Shadewraith, held aloft upon a cloud of green-grey fog. To port was a gigantic Nehekharan war galley, its flanks lined with four huge statues of jade, obsidian and gold. The galley’s deck was crested with a great pyramid and its stern was curled like the tail of a scorpion. An intense white light burned away the mist at the stern’s tip.

  Memories of Zandri burned like the desert sun in Roth’s mind.

  On the decks below, hundreds of men hurried to their positions. The Heldenhammer was a frenzy of activity from prow to stern. Sails were trimmed, boarding parties mustered and orders relayed to massed gun crews. Steam engines wheezed and chugged to life in the engine rooms that powered Sigmar’s Wrath.

  Directly ahead of Roth’s fleet, the Bloody Reaver crashed towards the Tilean coastline, its winged prow sending up walls of spume every time it forced itself through a wave. The castle keep that sat upon the Reaver’s crag was just visible behind its sails, silhouetted against the moonlit mists of the Dreadfleet’s approach.

  Roth watched his charging prey from the bridge. The Reaver had not altered its line of attack one degree since his warships had moved to intercept. It was as if Roth’s fleet was no more than a mirage, or a cloud of inconsequential insects to be swatted aside.

  “Arrogance,” said Roth, turning to his first mate. “He may have the wind behind him, but he’s a fool if he thinks he can just smash straight through us. Our large bronze friend here will tip the balance.”

  Ghow did not reply, but instead fiddled with the bull-ring in his nose.

  Up ahead, the enemy warships were spreading out. The Shadewraith and the Nehekharan galley were going out wide, no doubt trying to outmanoeuvre Roth’s fleet and rake them into the bargain.

  Sure enough, a set of distant crack-booms could be heard and a fusillade of shot streaked from the Shadewraith’s gun decks. Most of the volley fell short, sending up great plumes of seawater, but two cannonballs smashed into the prow of Flaming Scimitar, shattering the figurehead and sending a burst of flame leaping along the archways lining its hull.

  “Sails trimmed port side. Tack and bear down,” bellowed Roth, desperately trying to match the Reaver’s speed as the monstrosity came onward. “Intercept course. Ready the Wrath!”

  Roth’s lips curled as he imagined the gigantic steam powered figurehead cast into the image of his wife, then his son, then his father. Vengeance was moments away.

  To the left of the Heldenhammer, the Swordfysh was turning hard-a-port, attempting to intercept the Shadewraith as it swung out wide. As the black-sailed galleon stitched a path towards the ghostly warship, Aranessa’s cannons opened up, firing across the Heldenhammer’s bow at the distant Nehekharan galley moving towards Flaming Scimitar. The fusillade smashed hard into the flank of the statue-lined vessel, sending a dozen of the long oars that propelled it cartwheeling into the air.

  “Good shot, girl,” said Roth under his breath.

  Less than five hundred yards remained between the Bloody Reaver and the Heldenhammer. Through his spyglass, Roth could clearly make out the strange tongue-like promontory that extended from the giant skull at the front of its craggy central mass. Jutting from the cave that formed the eye of the skull was an artillery piece so large that a sea-troll could have made its lair inside it. It was a cannon Roth recognised as the scourge of the Lustrian coastline—the legendary Queen Bess herself.

  He was staring right down her throat.

  Roth’s view of the oncoming Reaver was suddenly obscured by a great pall of smoke. A split second later, a low boom could be heard, followed by a deafening crack as a boulder-sized cannonball smashed straight through the mast above his head. With a terrible, heart-rending creak, the Heldenhammer’s foremast toppled over, ripping and splintering and tearing the rigging as the great oaken pillar came crashing down. A rain of shrieking, helpless pirates fell from the sentinel’s nest, hammering onto the deck with a series of wet thumps. Roth didn’t even look round, grinding his teeth as he braced for the inevitable collision.

  The castle-ship’s sheer size beggared belief. Roth was dimly aware of cannon fire to either flank, flames flickering in his peripheral vision. His gaze stayed fixed on the unholy bulk of Noctilus’ flagship as it thundered toward him.

  Suddenly, a trio of metal tentacles shot towards the Heldenhammer’s prow in an explosion of seawater. Roth barely had time to shout in alarm before three more tentacles burst out of the sea, slamming down into the forecastle of his temple-ship and wrapping themselves around the figurehead. Roth dived behind the foremast, rolling into a crouch as a giant metal limb whipped overhead and smashed its remains into splinters. The screams of dying men filled the night air as Roth’s crew were impaled by flying spars of hardwood.

  The Bloody Reaver turned hard, narrowly avoiding the Black Kraken as it rose up on the temple-ship’s port side. The Reaver’s vast stone hull ground into the Heldenhammer’s flank, ripping out great chunks of hardened Drakwald oak with a horrible wrenching sound. Roth was jolted off his feet, smashing his head on the giant metal chain-links that held Sigmar’s Wrath upright.

  “Fire!” shouted Roth in a strangled voice. Curling black limbs drizzled oily muck onto him from above. “In the name of the Seafather, fire!”

  Four decks of Imperial great cannons spat tongues of flame, hammering the flank of the Reaver and punching gaping holes in its composite hull. Rubble cascaded down the castle-ship’s flank as the two great warships ground past each other with a deafening crunch. In reply, a bone-shattering broadside blasted out from the scattered cannons of the Bloody Reaver’s flank. Scores of men and dozens of cannons were hurled backwards in a storm of shrapnel and shattered timber.

  The Heldenhammer’s figurehead was still wrapped in the constricting tendrils of the Black Kraken. Roth’s face split into a manic grin; despite the Kraken’s efforts the blessed weapon remained intact. He staggered back to his feet, nostrils filled with the sulphurous stench of burning powder and the blood of dying men. A man o’ bones was rushing towards him, blade drawn. The captain yanked out his thrice-pistol and fired point-blank into the creature’s face. The shot burst its skull apart and sent the rest of it collapsing onto the deck in a clatter of bone.

  Reloading, Roth looked around at the raging battle. Gunners writhed in pools of their own blood amidst shattered piles of debris. Loose groups of swordsmen fought like daemons to repel the men o’ bones who had spilled onto the Heldenhammer’s deck from the Reaver’s crags, cracking skulls and kicking through ribcages as they pushed the invaders back.

  To starboard, the Flaming Scimitar was giving the Nehekharan war galley a wide berth. A clutch of cannonballs thundered from the pleasure barge’s hidden guns and tore into the statue-lined galley’s stern, just as a giant of living fire burst out from the Golden Magus’ minarets towards the enemy warship. It bore down on the Nehekharan ship, a burning sword in either hand.

  Just as the fire djinn swooped down to incinerate the war galley’s skeletal crew, the beast-headed statuary ranged alongside the galley’s flanks jerked into life. The foremost amongst them, a jackal-headed giant of green marble, raised its gigantic blade, slashing at the flaming djinn as it passed overhead. The spirit burst apart in a fireball the size of the Grand Templus, incinerating dozens of skeletal figures on the decks below.

  The Bloody Reaver continued to grind its way along the length of the Heldenhammer, opening a series of terrible wounds along the temple-ship’s flank. Roth saw a figure in a red bicorn staring down at him from atop the craggy mass of the Reaver’s stone heart. He raised his thrice-pistol and loosed off a shot, a triple puff of smoke impacting on the cliff where Noctilus had been standing.

  “Die, bastard! Shoot the sorcerers, men. Kill anything that talks.”

  Marksmen high up in the fighting citadels of the Grand Templus took shots at chanting figures in the shadowed arches of the Reaver’s central cliffs. Several
robed figures plummeted down the castle-ship’s sides to be ground to a paste by the crunching hulls of the two mighty warships.

  “Templus guns,” bawled Roth, frantically waving at the galleon’s rear as the Reaver ground onwards.

  The gun decks mounted in the Heldenhammer’s aftcastle sounded their fury, blasting a massive breach in the Reaver’s keep and causing a landslide of masonry to crash down onto the teeming figures below. In return, the Reaver fired point-blank into the Templus, smashing apart stone-faced Grand Theogonists and sending griffon-headed gargoyles tumbling into the waves.

  Roth grimaced, spitting oaths as he sprinted down the length of the deck towards the fight. With the Heldenhammer locked in battle with the Black Kraken, the Reaver would be free to come about his stern and pound their aftcastle until it was little more than sanctified rubble.

  Though he hated to admit it, Noctilus had completely outclassed him.

  “Hold fast, men,” shouted Roth, frantically trying to regain control. “Chasing cannons, she’s coming about. Blast her to pieces!”

  Casting about for a shred of hope, Roth spied something heading towards them from the mainland. Seven sets of sails, the yellow and red of their livery shining like gold in the dawn light. The Tilean fleet. Thank the Seafather, the Tilean fleet was coming.

  Roth plunged down the stairs leading from the forecastle, slipping and falling and righting himself, bundling into an oncoming man o’ bones with a splintering crunch and stumbling onto the deck to join the battle. With the arrival of the Tilean warships the tide of the battle was certain to turn.

  “Rally to me. Rally to me. Hold positions, the Tileans are coming. The Tileans are coming!”

  A man o’ bones darted towards him, but Roth smashed aside its rusted cutlass with his sword, punching it so hard with his sickle-hand that its head snapped back and it went over in a clattering pile. His eyes fixed on the Bloody Reaver, Roth ran across the deck, anger rising. Let Noctilus do his worst. He would climb to the steeples of the Templus, swing onto the Reaver from a rope, and throttle the undead scum himself.

  Without warning, a blazing beam of light speared out from the Nehekharan war galley’s bejewelled stern, searing across the waves into the silken sails of the Flaming Scimitar. The embroidered sails burst into flame and the tempest djinn that had been filling them dissipated with a low howl.

  The Nehekharan ship turned in a tight arc, heading back out to sea, and the Bloody Reaver came about to the match the same heading. Out to port, the Shadewraith disengaged from the Swordfysh, drifting sideways through the mists and leaving Aranessa’s warship hopelessly out of position.

  “No!” shouted Roth, spinning around to the forecastle. The oily tentacles of the Black Kraken were unwinding from the masts and releasing their stranglehold upon Sigmar’s Wrath before clanking back into the sea. The Dreadfleet was retreating, just as the tide looked set to turn.

  “Cowards,” screamed Roth, hoarse with anger and frustration. “Craven, yellow-bellied bastards!”

  The captain rushed to the gunwale, climbing up onto a great cannon’s wooden framework to get a better view. Sure enough, the Bloody Reaver was wrapping the mists about itself like a shroud. Something was bobbing in its wake, something that looked like a broken circle of white orbs. Roth squinted. No, not orbs. They were skulls, without a doubt, describing a loose spiral.

  The tang of magic crackled in the air. Roth felt a trickle of blood seep from his nose as a powerful wave of pressure broke over him.

  By the time Roth had his spyglass fixed on the Reaver again, the Dreadfleet had disappeared into the mists.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Great Ocean

  22nd Day of Sigmarzeit, 2522

  With the retreat of the Dreadfleet, Roth and his allies limped out to sea as best they could. The three once-mighty warships were ragged shadows of their former glory. Sails flapped loose, trailing broken spars and tangled rigging. The Swordfysh was taking on water, her hull holed by a direct hit from the Shadewraith. The walls of the Grand Templus had been breached in a dozen places and countless crew had been wounded or killed. Even now, the dead were being burned on great metal pyres raised up between the mortar emplacements in the centre of the top deck. For its part, the Flaming Scimitar had almost nothing left of its once-beautiful triangular sails. The Golden Magus was relying on the strength of his salt-devils for propulsion as his once-magnificent palace slunk out to open waters.

  As dawn broke, Roth hoist the flag of parley. Before the sun had fully risen, the three warships came alongside one other, made clumsy by the damage they had suffered. Rowboats were lowered from the Swordfysh and the Flaming Scimitar, and their captains made their way to the aftquarters of the Heldenhammer. The detritus of battle was scattered all about, and the mood was grim.

  The temple-ship’s war room was illuminated by flickering candles and gently swinging storm-lanterns. Amber sunbeams fell onto the oaken chart table through stained-glass portholes ranged about the roof. Roth, Aranessa and the Golden Magus sat on tall-backed chairs carved from wyvernbone.

  Roth sat in silence, his good eye burning under a furrowed brow.

  “Am I the only one thinking that didn’t quite go according to plan?” said Aranessa, crystal-blue eyes looking out from behind a curtain of plaited locks. She slouched, listless and defeated, her sawfish legs jutting out from under the table.

  The Magus was deep in thought, absently fiddling with his little clockwork dancer and setting the complex toy onto the chart table so she spun in perfect little pirouettes. “We survived,” he said. “And we learnt more about our enemies.”

  “Easy for you to say, fathead. You lost, what, a few dozen slaves, a couple of your pretty sails? And your rope-monkeys are rigging up spares as we speak. I lost almost a hundred men, blown to pieces by cannons or cut down by the blades of ghosts. Ghosts we couldn’t cut down in return.”

  She glowered fiercely at the Magus, who showed his teeth to her in something that wasn’t quite a smile.

  “Roth lost several times as many,” continued Aranessa, “and got this ugly great beast all but scuppered into the bargain. They made us look like a pack o’ land-lubbers. And I can’t help but notice they don’t tend to stick around long enough to get hit back.”

  “That’s the bloody problem,” shouted Roth, slamming his fist down onto the chart table so hard the lacquer cracked. “This is no way to fight a war. They come on hard, and fast, but every time any amount of resistance is marshalled against them they just melt away into the mists. Tell me, how am I supposed to kill the fiend now? We squandered our best chance, damn it!”

  There was an uncomfortable silence. Motes of dust danced in the shafts of amber light.

  “I think we all know how, do we not?” said the Golden Magus, slowly and deliberately as if speaking to dim-witted children. “Though, perhaps understandably, none of us are keen to be the first to say it.”

  Roth gave a shuddering sigh, and shook his head for a moment before getting to his feet.

  “You’re right, Magus. There is one option left. I’ve been meaning to show you something. Some things, rather, that my father left to me.”

  Heading over to the baleen-fronted cabinet in the corner, Roth pulled out his map-case and unfurled his father’s parchment in the centre of the table, carefully placing the exotic moondial atop it to stop the sides from rolling up.

  Aranessa raised an eyebrow, but the Magus’ eyes practically bulged out of their sockets. Composing himself, the sorcerer wound up his clockwork toy and set it spinning on the table in order to weigh down the opposite corner of the map.

  “A map of the Galleon’s Graveyard,” said the Magus, affecting an air of nonchalance. “How unusual.”

  Roth nodded sombrely. “Something close to it, at least. The inside of my old homestead was covered in this sort of thing. My father was never the same after that voyage, the one that took him into this place. Believe it or not, this is his most cogent rendition. And this,�
� he said, gesturing to the moondial, “this is the key to getting us in.”

  Aranessa looked dubious, though her eyes still flicked back to the map and the moondial.

  “Looks like the scratchings of a madman to me.”

  “It’s more than that, I think. Nessa, what was it you said down in the Burke’s basement?” asked Roth. “About the spiral? Well, that’s exactly what I saw in Noctilus’ wake. A spiral of skulls. It was the spoor of the maelstrom—this one, right here.”

  Roth tapped at the whirlpool of teeth and gibberish that dominated the right half of the map.

  “This whirlpool is what’s drawing in those who die at sea. This is the source of the Sea-Curse.”

  The Magus was already poring over the parchment’s crazily winding text, an expression of extreme concentration on his face.

  “Not only that,” he said, “but by the looks of it, that ‘whirlpool’, as the captain rather charmingly puts it, is the source of Noctilus’ power. It is a vortex of magic just as much as it is of brine.”

  The Golden Magus got up from his seat and moved around the chart-table, following spirals of text with his finger before continuing.

  “The master of the maelstrom is able to use its power to shift from one side of the veil to the other, moving between worlds at a whim,” he looked up at Roth. “Or so your father believed, at least.”

  “And you want to do something about it, right, Magus?” said Aranessa. “What’s in it for you?”

  “All I want is to see Noctilus burn,” interrupted Roth, staring coldly at her. “It doesn’t matter how. There was the small matter of a chest full of sapphires that changed hands to impress that fact upon you.”

  She clicked her tongue in irritation, leaning over the map. “It looks to me like that particular deal gets worse every day. You didn’t tell me I would have to sail into the realm of the dead, navigate a landscape of… are those volcanoes? And lots and lots of shipwrecks—and look, there’s a giant fish-monster vomiting up crabs…”