“And they have some dark magics with them,” said Mahmoud.
Gathelaus smirked. “I saw no sign of that when I sent them fleeing.”
“They believed you were the guardian of the city gates that their shaman had gone to pay homage to. But how did you survive that when captain Tariq and the others did not?”
“And how do you know they didn’t?”
“Because you’re here and they’re not. Khallas.”
“Oh?”
“Saleem and I came to the island, we were not far behind you all when we heard the horrible wail of death and the terrible cries of that monstrous demon. We thought you all dead, so we raced back to the ship and sailed away, but we became hopelessly lost with no star to guide us. We thought we were cursed.”
“How did you survive?” asked another.
Gathelaus grinned. “I slew the monster.”
“What? How?!”
“There is always a way if men have courage.” But then he would say nothing more, just to let the mystery of his skill and might cause them to wonder.
As they unburdened the ship, it rose in the shallow waters and wrenched free of the sands. They dropped sail and spun her about just as dawn lit the sky.
On the beach, a little man even shorter than the others emerged. What he lacked in height he made up for in being of greater girth than the rest. He wore a great feathered headdress and shouted at that them unintelligibly. Another score of the little men followed him, armed with spears and short bows.
“What’s he saying?”
“Don’t know for sure,” said Yar Ali, “but that’s the shaman. I figure he must be shouting that we should surrender.”
“I got that. Do we have a bow left, or a good throwing javelin?”
They shook their heads. “They took whatever weapons they could from us, but threw anything of steel over the side. I think they were afraid of it.”
The witch doctor shouted louder this time as if he were calling down their doom from out of the heavens.
Gathelaus rounded from his men and looked at the squat witch doctor. “Go to hell!”
The cannibals moved to wade out into the surf toward the ship, but she was already coming about and would soon be beyond their reach. They shot a few arrows, but with the wind against them, these did nothing.
The witch doctor shouted and they vanished back into the greenery.
“Think they gave up?”
“Not likely, but so what?” growled Gathelaus.
“They’re mean buggers,” said Yar Ali.
“So am I.”
The Gilded Saber made for the mouth of the bay when a dozen outriggers swooped in and blockaded the exit to the open sea.
“Grab whatever you can, we’ll tear them apart as they try and board us.”
The men found quarter-staves, a broken oar, a length of rope with a light anchor tied to it and even a long-lost frying pan from the galley that was only recovered in their dismantling of the ship.
Gathelaus was surprised to see the witch doctor in the center most out-rigger with his arms upraised. He chanted in an angry, guttural tongue.
Everyone but Gathelaus ducked below the gunwale so they would be out of sight of the angry faced dwarf. Gathelaus stared hard at the little feathered man, wishing he had a javelin.
“Careful, Captain, he does have powers.”
“Eh? Like what? I’ve slain more fearsome sorcerers while half dead.”
“He can summon things.”
“Like what?”
As if in answer, the briny waters beside the ship boiled in a wide semi-circle as big as a house. The Gilded Saber passed the spot without incident and Gathelaus scoffed. “See that? We missed his vortex. His spell failed.”
“No, Captain, it is not over, there are dark magics afoot,” cried Yar Ali, still hugging the deck.
The ship jerked to a terrible halt, and they all went tumbling and slammed against the forward gunwales.
Gathelaus thought perhaps they had run aground, but, picking himself up from the deck, he realized they had been grabbed. Four long, ponderous tentacles held the rear of the ship. He wondered if it was the monster demon of the temple, but these were of an altogether different pallor. These were ashen grey and white.
Venturing to look closer over the edge, Gathelaus chopped at one that held the topmost of the rear deck superstructure. Blood spurted forth blue as twilight and the thing let go in a wild lashing of horrific vigor. Another struck him across the chest, sending him reeling away. The ship lurched forward, still pulled by the sails and a good westerly wind.
The cries of the witch doctor carried, and the giant octopus had not given up despite a near severing of the tip of its limbs.
“Drop the main sail!” cried Gathelaus.
“We risk the wind knocking us into the shoals!”
“Do it!”
Yar Ali dropped the sail and a greater tug pulled the ship free of the monstrous cephalopod. Suddenly loose, the ship raced out of the bay at unexpected speed and crashed into the outrigger with the witchdoctor aboard, smashing his bones into driftwood. The pursuing octopus halted and submerged itself back into the deep blue waters.
“How did you know that would work, Captain?”
“I’ve had a bit of luck in ending terrible, impossible things by slaying the jackass who summoned them. It’s a whole lot easier to kill a damn mage than it is their demons.”
The loss of their witch doctor seemed to take the fight out of the cannibals, and they slipped away around either side of the island as the Gilded Saber pushed out onto the open water.
***
They had no compass and, while the stars did seem out of kilter compared to what they were used to, Gathelaus recognized a few twisted constellations that denoted they must be much farther south than originally guessed. By marking out a longitudinal placement, he surmised they had crossed beyond the known waters of the Blood Sea and were well into the uncharted coasts near the legendary lands of Tultecacan.
“I didn’t think it could really exist,” said Mahmoud. “Khallas.”
Yar Ali said, “The name isn’t native to any of the lands of Vjorn, Shang-Heng, Avaran, or Tolburn, not to Kathulians nor Dar Alhambra. How could such a name and legend exist if it were not based on some piece of fact?”
Gathelaus growled, “There is still much more in the Ring of the World that no man has seen, and I have set my sandaled foot on as many lands as any man alive.”
Mahmoud shrugged. “Makes sense I suppose, but why has no one found it in our lifetimes and returned?”
“Maybe they couldn’t?” offered Yar Ali. “The Invisible River is a barrier that few men have ever crossed.”
“Maybe they tried and failed,” said Mahmoud.
Gathelaus broke the argument. “Who gives a damn? We have an understanding where we are if only to return home. Let’s chart a course due north-west.”
“That’s your home, not mine,” protested Mahmoud.
“I spared your life, if you don’t want to return to my home, you can get out and walk.” He gestured menacingly with his cutlass at the wine dark sea.
Mahmoud held his hands up in a gesture of fealty. “No, just saying once we assist your return, I’d like to go my own way. Khallas.”
Gathelaus nodded at that. “You have my word. But if I ever catch you slaving in my waters, it will be your head. Khallas.” He gestured with his blade across his throat.
Mahmoud eagerly nodded while Yar Ali hid the grin on his face.
Then Gathelaus addressed Yar-Ali. “If your grandfather said he visited such an island after being swept across the Invisible River, did he say how he returned?”
Yar-Ali rubbed at his chin. “That is why most sailors said he was a liar. They said that if you did cross, no one could ever return.”
“So, was it a lie or the truth?” prodded Gathelaus.
“I think he said that he started far to the north, near the Ice Sea and let the current sweep him down
until he was almost to Valchiki. The only reason he survived such a long voyage was because he was the only man aboard, otherwise there should not have been enough food and water. We have no such supplies aboard captain. We are stripped clean.”
“We have my dried meats and skins,” said Gathelaus.
“If we are lucky,that will last five men two weeks,” said Mahmoud.
“We’ll do the best we can, then,” said Gathelaus grimly. “And try to get across the Invisible River with more haste.”
The men grumbled but did not argue. Death, it seemed, would find them one way or another.
“A storm is coming,” said Yar-Ali, pointing to the starboard.
“We best avoid it. Come about,” ordered Gathelaus.
They attempted to skirt around a looming storm out of the southwest, but this only forced them further to the east and off course. After a week of trying to outrun the storm, it caught them, and they were ensconced by driving wind and rain from above and turbulent water from below. The beginning of the end for the Gilded Saber was when both the main mast cracked, and the waves tumbled her over.
Gift of the Waves
He was drowning. Gathelaus’s eyes opened in the briny deep, and suffocation came with awareness of depth. The lighted surface above shimmered like sword blades dancing for a brief second as lightning gave him a glimpse of his surroundings. Dark bodies joined him in the gloom, but he was not sure if they were his crew or feasters of the deeps looking for a meal. He kicked up and strained for that ceiling. A great dark hulk of a thing rushed with a driving swell behind him. Turning, he latched on, holding with the same indomitable grip of the moon upon the sea.
He held to the shattered mainmast as it cascaded down the waves and back up again. Time and again spitting out the salt water that threatened to fill his lungs. The arc of lightning and rolling thunder was primordial and malevolent as sin. He couldn’t help but wonder at the sudden storm and its cataclysmic genesis. Did strange foreign gods dice with his fate as Rogliano had warned before they set sail?
With titanic strength he clung to the mast despite the gale force winds and the deadly kiss of the waves—resolved that he would survive. It turned into a rhythm, plunging into the water and bursting forth to breathe again. If his strength remained, he could wait out the storm. The rigging and cross beams upon the mast kept it from tumbling over and wet hours passed.
Night fell upon his crippled ship. Something alive brushed his dangling leg in the darkness, that it did not make him for a meal was a blessing.
Morning brought the sound of breakers. Gathelaus spied gray stones beaten by the surf, and beyond, a lagoon encircled by tentacled mangroves. White beaches just beyond invited as surely as any winsome milk-maiden of Vjorn. He let the waves carry the mast closer to shore until he felt ready to swim. The torn coat was light by his standards but any amount of soaked clothing threatened to sink him. He still wasn’t sure how he had forced himself up when the ship capsized. He should be dead at the bottom of this alien green sea. He tore away the ripped garment down to his breeches and slipped into the water.
Gathelaus had lost a decent ship, the Gilded Saber, his ragtag crew of both slaves and pirates, and his hard won weapons. Any treasure he had now lay at the bottom of an uncharted sea. He possessed nothing but his boots, a dragon emblazoned tunic of Kathul and the dagger strapped to his belt. Still it was more than he had when sold into slavery.
He struggled to make it to the beach, even in just the few feet of water. He splashed and tripped in exhaustion. He knelt a moment, murky salt-water dripped from his long hair and beard. Damn, had it been so long? He hadn’t a beard when this began. He’d been clean shaven on the morning of the coup.
Two score of lean, dusky people stood at the edge of the forest, watching him. They wore only loin cloths and simple copper jewelry. Gathelaus’s gaze skipped over their appearance, focusing on the obsidian-lined spears they held. He stood up and offered a greeting.
They ignored the greeting and stared and pointed at the red Kathulian dragon upon his white tunic. “KuKulacan,” they muttered. More excited words came but he understood none of it. None of them came too close. He stood a head taller than the next largest man and none had even the thin wisp of beard that he began as a boy of summers. Several of them rubbed their own chins in wonder.
“Is there a chief?” asked Gathelaus. He asked again using his crude butchering of the Kathulian tongue and then again in the common language of Vjorn.
No one responded, but a small boy ran down a trail toward a village almost hidden beyond the thick trees—hopefully to fetch the chief.
A young dark-haired woman appeared from behind a palm tree. Dark tan and beautiful, she seemed to be a slightly different race than these villagers, being somewhat taller and of a different dusky tone. Gathelaus’s eye was drawn to the small green stone that hung upon her bosom. She clasped it tight in her fist and asked him in the perfect tongue of Vjorn, “You have blue-gray eyes. Who are you?”
“My name is Gathelaus. I come from Vjorn, far across the sea.” He looked at the zenith of the sun and gestured to the north and east. “My ship was thrown off course in a storm and destroyed.”
When he pointed to the east the people grew more excited. All of them except the young woman. “Are you KuKulacan?”
“Who?” he asked. “I told you my name is Gathelaus. I am king of Vjorn.”
“A king? So you are the East Star Man, KuKulacan.”
“No.” He shook his head.
She gave a look of concern. “His servant then? A herald of his prophesied approach.”
He was still groggy from the journey and his head hurt. He didn’t want to be confused with anyone else. “No. I know not this Ku-Ku-La-Can.”
Truly puzzled, she pointed at the red dragon on his tabard. “But you wear the image of KuKulacan upon your chest, the plumed serpent. Are you not KuKulacan?”
“I do not know any Ku-Ku-La-Can. This is the clothing of my enemy, Kathulian pirates. I had naught else to wear.”
“You are not a servant of KuKulacan,” she repeated with a quizzical look arcing over her face. She turned toward the apprehensive villagers and shook her head sadly.
“No. Who is that? How do you speak my tongue so well? You are surely no woman from the Ring of the World that I know.”
The ebony-eyed beauty wasn’t listening to him anymore, she looked toward an older fat man with a tall multi-feathered headdress. She turned and spoke to the chieftain and Gathelaus could not hear what was said between them. The chieftain responded to the rest of the villagers with a wild frenzy of animated lunacy.
The villagers became agitated and one or two argued with the girl before succumbing to the rest of the mob. They raised their spears and flint-lined paddles. Some held thick ropes, stretching them taut.
“Devil woman! What did you tell them?” shouted Gathelaus.
“The truth. That you are both an impostor and a gift from the sea, a slave to be sold to the highest bidder.” She turned away. The dusky men looked on Gathelaus greedily and came at him with their spears and flint-lined paddles.
Gathelaus roared defiance, but dire thirst and exhaustion sapped his strength. He grasped a broken shaft of oar lying in the sand. “Come a little closer,” he said, beckoning.
The mob charged and Gathelaus swung the improvised club, knocking teeth loose from jaws and blood free from the constraints of skin and vein.
He batted aside a fist-sized stone thrown at his head, sending it crashing into another man. This grabbed the attention of the feathered chieftain and he shouted orders at the crowd of men who now reluctantly backed away a few paces. Several men picked up stones.
Not to be taken in the open like a game hen, Gathelaus charged the beach, surprising the crowd with his indomitable will. They had thought him a near beaten man, and indeed, he should have been, but the will to survive would not diminish. When the gods of the sea could not extinguish his flame, what were mere men in compariso
n?
The crowd spread out and gave ground. Wherever they clustered, Gathelaus charged and struck. The villagers hesitated to throw stones into their brethren but individually the strange man from the sea was besting them.
The only person who didn’t run was the woman. She stood her ground, curiously appraising Gathelaus as he fought. She would have been an easy target for him to strike down, but she was not fighting him, nor was she commanding the others. But he had little time to contemplate more as the villagers assaulted him.
He knocked two of them back with a long swing of the broken oar, then raced about a tree, beat three more senseless before the mass could force him back to the beach.
Furious, the chieftain shouted at them. Those who had been holding back bombarded him with their projectiles. One hit Gathelaus in the back, but he again swatted several more away and toward his attackers.
A brave few of the villagers charged into the water to surround him, but Gathelaus’s fighting skills proved too much for them, even when encircled. His length of hardwood licked out in every direction and slammed against men’s necks and arms like a serpent’s strike, dazing his foes and breaking bones.
A villager tossed a net, and this caught Gathelaus’s right arm and the broken oar, somewhat disarming him. Men rushed in as he fought to untangle himself.
The chieftain shouted again in his incomprehensible language, bringing more men to assault Gathelaus with ropes and sapling clubs. They appeared to want him very much alive.
Gathelaus fought on, but would soon be overwhelmed by the sheer number of beating, forceful hands.
The ebony-eyed woman cried, “Behind you!” as a villager struck Gathelaus in the head with a stone.
Dazed, he dropped to his knees and they swarmed him. He groggily wondered at her warning in Vjornish, for his ears alone—why? Clearly none of these people spoke his language.
They roughly stripped the red dragon tunic from him and then his breeches and even his ox-hide boots. His steel dagger went to the chief. Bound, they carried him on a pole between them back to the village. The ebony-eyed woman looked on, seemingly indifferent to his predicament. But at the last, did she flash him a remorseful glance?
FIERCE: A Heroic Fantasy Adventure (BRUTAL TRILOGY Book 2) Page 10
