“Captain!” Storan swore bitterly.
But Darke threw aside his long sword, grabbed a short blade, and leapt into the water. Now Storan stood, giving up the oars.
“Elyon look down on us!” Storan cried. “In the name of all we have done, You look down on us now! You will not let this happen!” He ripped his heavy axe from the bottom of the boat. “Damned fool,” he muttered, “going after that pitiful creature! I am coming, Captain!” With a warrior’s cry, he leapt over the gunwale, hitting the water with a splash.
Danwyar dropped the oar. He stood, staring, not knowing what to do. He understood, unlike the others, there was no chance in the waters with them; they had adapted as water beasts now. “I got two daggers,” he said to Hyacinth, taking one from his back. “You?”
“Nothing, Danwyar.”
“It has been good knowing you, little witch,” he said. He flung the first dagger, no doubt straight and true and took the other from his back sheath, leaving it empty.
Hyacinth finally turned, seized Loch by the temples, and looked deep into his face, his skin pale almost to white. He was nearly dead, and this was likely going to kill him, but there was nothing left for them. They would die anyway. “Arsayalalyur!” she spoke in old tongue.
His eyes flicked open. Hyacinth closed her own, then let herself in him; she bled half her life into his, giving him strength, but she held control of his body. It was pitifully weak, but she was able to move.
Danwyar was about to leap into the waters, do what he could even hand to hand against them, when he saw Hyacinth drop into the bottom of the boat. He watched stunned as slowly, the Daath sat up. He moved strangely, as though the air was dense, but his hand curled about the hilt of the Angelslayer and slowly, with difficulty, he stood. He turned to stare over the side of the ship where the others were fighting in a froth of blood and seawater.
The sea, the sky, everything seemed to be spinning and out of focus. Loch found himself looking over the edge of the boat, incensed with panic. It was not his panic, it was the priestess, she was in him, and not only was she in his thoughts, but she was moving his body, his legs and arms. She had literally given him life, a part of her own life, giving his body strength to move. Briefly he noticed her body lying in the bottom of the boat, near Taran. She looked dead, but she was in him; she was searching through his eyes.
There was fighting. As heavy as he and his axe were, Storan was still able to plant it into the head of a beast about to rip open the captain. Darke was stabbing another in the face with a short sword as he clutched the Rat in one hand. Coming at them were a host of the thorn beasts, and they were strong; they would shred all of them like tender meat. The priestess lifted the Angelslayer with both hands wrapped tightly about the hilt. She leveled it off. With a scream, she blew away a monster about to overtake Storan. Loch did not feel the pain; she was blocking it from him, taking it herself somehow.
She searched with the tip of the Angelslayer, showing him there were many, all of them closing at once.
“I cannot do this part,” he heard her voice as clearly as if she were standing beside him. “But you must kill them. Kill them all at once, Lochlain! It is all you have left, a single pulse. Do it now! Do it now!”
A hand behind the captain was lifting. Storan was wrestling with another, still clutching his axe.
When the bolt discharged from the tip of Uriel’s blade, it was like a sky storm rippling over the waters; it spread outward, separating into lightninglike serpents searching in a dozen or more directions, all at once, simultaneously, they struck every target. Heads exploded with whaps and pops, some with cracks of thunder, explosions blew sprays of sea and blood into the air.
The water was left murky, and there was a smell as though the air itself had just been burnt, but it was over, there were no more; every beast had been utterly destroyed.
Loch had fallen to his knees. He could no longer hold the sword; it had dropped from his hands.
Storan swam for the boat, through foam and ooze. His axe was tossed in and Danwyar helped him over the side. He was shredded with claws and teeth marks, as was Darke. The captain took hold of the gunwale with one hand, then heaved the Rat over the side and pulled himself over last.
Storan was lying in the bottom awash in seawater and blood, so tired he could do nothing but struggle for breath. Then he saw Danwyar.
“Captain alive?” he muttered, weakly.
Danwyar didn’t answer at first; he looked to Darke, where the captain had propped himself against the prow post. His chest was an open gash, blood flowing over his stomach and legs. The captain was pale, his eyes barely focused; his life was spilling out of him.
“I said, is the captain alive?!” Storan repeated, forcefully.
“Yes,” Danwyar said, though it would not be for long.
Danwyar then watched amazed as the Daath slowly, painfully crawled toward Darke as if he were struggling through terrible pain. He slowly lifted the sword. He was so weak; the sword was shaking, trembling so badly he could barely hold it. Still, he laid it over the captain’s bloodied chest wound.
“Oh, Captain …” her small voice whispered inside Loch’s head. She then spoke words he did not understand, a binding spell of her own language, but she sent it through the sword. A gentle energy trundled down his arm, but when it touched the blade it surged, and for a second the blade came alive, as brilliant as the sun, then died down to glass crystal. Darke’s body was jolted, but when Hyacinth lowered the sword, the wound left as only a scar across his chest, completely healed.
Loch’s head and body, in every muscle and sinew, every joint, even his skin, was simmering in waves of pain. He would have screamed except his body was not his own. The priestess finally dropped the sword. She crawled back to kneel over her own body. “Like this,” she whispered inside him, touching his fingers to either side of her face, against the temples. “Like this, Loch, you and I, one. We were one beneath the stars. Part of me will always now be you. Pray I live.”
A jolt passed through him, and she was gone. She took the terrible pain with her. Her brown eyes flew open and she gasped. The pain was possibly more than she expected. She cried out, arched her back, and clenched her hands into fists. Crouched on one knee, Loch pulled her against him, held her tight. She wrapped one arm weakly about his neck, then fell unconscious. He feared greatly she would die, but she was still breathing, her head lying against his shoulder.
Darke stood.
“She alive?” he asked.
“I think she will live. She gave much of her life to heal you, Captain, and some to heal me too; the little she had saved for herself has left her weak. As well she took the pain—that is why she passed out. If she lives on her own, she should wake with a degree of the moon or less. The pain fades once the sword is still.”
“And if she dies?”
“She will not. I will take the sword and die first.” Darke glanced to Danwyar.
The ship was near, closing alongside. A rope ladder tumbled over her starboard side.
“You first, Captain,” Danwyar said.
“No,” he answered. “The Daath goes first.”
Loch glanced at him. He stood, lifting Hyacinth in both arms. He let Danwyar take her. He started up the rope. Danwyar put the priestess over one shoulder and climbed until Loch reached to help him, lifting Hyacinth.
Storan lifted Taran’s body, hoisted him up, and climbed the rope. The Fire Rat was next and Darke came last.
Behind them, something was happening to the island. It was falling inward. Huge pieces of its rock were crumbling. The sea had begun to boil about them with waves of steam rising as though they were in a cauldron. The angel wasn’t finished.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Dragon
Darke took grip of a halyard and looked over the starboard beam. They had been moving away from the island at full oars, the beat of the oar master’s drum pounding rhythmically and the oars lifting and falling like wings. The islan
d was gone. It had sunk, and the ocean all about was a cauldron, seeping inward. As seawater hit the molten core, a huge, frothing pillar of fire and steam tore upward into the sky, streaming yellow-red. “Take shields!” Darke screamed.
The heat came at them fierce. Men leapt to the starboard gunwale, ripping shields from where they hung over the edge. Loch lifted one of the oval faces and threw the priestess, now awake but weak, behind him. She had pulled through, but she was barely able to hold to consciousness. Fire hit them. It roared over the deck and passed, striking everything as it did. The Fire Rat stared into it breathless, never lifting a hand to protect himself. His skin was singed, but the hardened scar of his face was hardly affected.
Then it was past.
A pirate dropped, charred and smoking, over the gunwale. Fire Rat staggered, breathless, but his body had somehow adapted to fire. No one knew his origins, perhaps there was some manner of spell binding involved, but fire and the Rat were well acquainted.
From the boiling waters of the hole in the sea, a great wave was rising, rolling outward toward them.
“Hard to lee!” Darke screamed. “Lay into the looms! Stay the mainmast!”
Lines sang as they soared through their staying rings, dropping the mast into its crutch.
Storan took hold of the tilling oar. “Hard over!” he cried, his muscles straining as he brought all his weight against the tilling oar to turn the ship into the current. If the wave took them from the side, they would be swamped.
“Give way starboard oar!” Darke cried.
The command was echoed below. The port oars lifted and swung back. The prow turned about to meet the gathering wave, but the timing was seconds from piercing the wave or sinking. The wave had become a wall of water gaining strength as it rumbled toward them. It was enough to take them. Possibly enough to take them prow-first, toss them like a leaf in the wind.
“Lay hold!” Darke screamed, coiling a rope about his wrist. “Anything you can grab, she will hit us hard!”
Loch curled his arm about a side cleat, and pulled Hyacinth against him, gripping her so tight she could barely breathe.
The serpent head of the prow was defiant as it rode the current, upward, into the center. Dark, purple water; a sheer wall of it. They continued to climb, but the tip of the curl was still far. At one point they were almost completely vertical, near to going over backward. Then the ram pierced a hole beneath the curl and they tore through. The prow soared, as they punched a hole and the wave rolled beneath and over them. For a scant second they were hanging midair. They dropped, steep. The keel hit the sea so hard much of the ship was for seconds underwater. It was almost long enough to take enough sea to sink them, but the blackship broke surface and water gushed from the scuppers. They were undamaged, and nearly everything on the ship was lashed tight, all but men. Loch could see the captain had lost two or three of his crew.
A second wave struck, the prow sending wide sprays to either side as it cut through, water spilling across the decks, but lethal danger was past, the waves were diminishing.
Darke was still on the forecastle, as if all he had faced was a harsh wind.
Beyond, where the island once lay, there was now a wall of steam rising. The blackship spun a moment as the seas calmed and the oars were still laid back. Storan eased off the rudder and lowered himself onto one knee, winded. For the moment direction did not matter; he let the ship turn. What did matter was the helmsman had lost so much blood in battle he was not only weak, but his sight was fading and he was feeling close to fainting.
The wall of steam was slowly fading. In its place was a ship. It was the lord of the choir of Melachim, the seventh of the angel prefects, Satariel.
“Elyon be our armor,” Storan whispered weakly.
Darke stepped forward, leaning over the rail near the prow post, amazed to see the angel’s ship literally rising out of the sea from the steam of the sunken island.
“To the oars!” he screamed. “Hard into the oars! Helmsmen! Hard about to port! Face that bastard!”
“Damn,” Storan hissed, stepping up to lean into the loom of the tiller. “Captain, may I remind you that is a three-tiered Etlantian whore of the sea!”
“I know what she is, helmsman.”
The oars of Darke’s ship lifted like wings and dug hard into the waters, first spinning them to port, then both sides lifted and pulled the sleek blackship forward with a surge. The pace beat slow at first, to gain direction, then stepped up, the oars keeping pace until they were at full attack speed. The emerald eyes of the serpent’s head that was Darke’s ram glittered as it rose from the waters, curling back sprays of the sea to either side.
Darke turned to Loch. “Shadow Walker—up here! I want that bastard to see who you are.”
Loch glanced to Hyacinth first. “Are you all right, able to hold on yourself?”
“I am fine, Loch, my strength returns quickly. My blood grows stronger each passing moment.”
From the forecastle a wind gathered as they pulled through the waters. Loch climbed up to stand beside the captain. He laid his hand on the hilt of his sheathed sword, but offered it no blood. He had learned to control when it took blood and when it didn’t.
“Keep her sheathed,” Darke said. “It is draining you like bloodletting. Keep her sheathed.”
“Through it all, Captain?”
“Aye, what I want the coward to see is you. You have not the strength to contest him.”
“The bastard’s turning about!” cried Storan.
“I can see that,” Darke shouted back.
Loch stared as the painted prow of the huge Etlantian ship turned. It may have been gray and ragged, but it looked imposing and mighty as the distance between them started to narrow.
The oars of the Etlantian lifted with a mechanical motion, three tiers of them, well oiled, moving in unison, up swift, then into the dark waters, taking hold. The Etlantian prow, sheathed in crimson oraculum, surged with the force of the oars, lifting out of the water. Loch could see the dim fire of the throwers flickering through their ports to either side of the Etlantian’s bow. From the forecastle, he could see wraithlike figures of giants gathered, holding shields, javelins ready.
“She is three-tiered,” shouted Storan. “She will rain down all manner of fire from the sky if we pass her close in!”
“Keep your concerns on holding your course, helmsman.”
Darke turned. He looked to Fire Rat standing beside him, watching the approach of the angel’s ship with utter awe.
“Light the throwers,” Darke said.
The Fire Rat literally gasped with zeal and leapt over the forecastle railing, scrambling through a hatchway. He was about to do the one thing he had lived his entire pitiful life to do.
“Man the catapults!” Darke cried.
“Mothering star, your light be our shield,” Storan prayed. “Let us not go alone, good lady; give us your grace and protection.” “Take up shields!” Darke screamed. “She’s coming straight on, Captain!” Storan called. “I can see that, helmsman.” “Damn it all, but we cannot take her straight on!” “And she cannot take us. The angel fears his slayer! Danwyar!” “I am here, Captain!”
“Bring the catapult about! Take out the forecastle and a few of those highborn Nephilim bastards when I give word!”
Fire Rat came from the lower deck, pulling the end ropes of goat bags, black from pitch and oil. He left them beside the catapult and then ran maniacally for more.
The angel’s ship was gathering speed, closing fast, peeling back the sea about the prow in frothed curls, moving twice, maybe three times as fast as Darke. She was not a warship. Rather, the angel manned a ship of the line, heavily weighted, yet the sheer muscle behind her three tiers of oars was that of highblood giants, the sons of the angel, centuries old and as skilled as their age. Though Darke’s ship was faster, the angel’s was heavy and powerful. The ship’s bull’s-head ram—the ancient symbol of Etlantis, of which the angel was once a pr
ince—lifted from the water like a beast. If it managed to strike Darke’s ship, even graze its side, the solid oraculum, with its great horns like mighty spears, would tear anything they caught asunder.
“Daathan, get yourself a shield,” Darke said.
“Call me Loch,” he answered, sliding his arm through the buckler strap of a large oval shield tossed to him by one of the crew. For a moment Darke met his eye. If their circumstance was uncertain, the bond they had formed of mutual respect had overcome it.
As the distance closed, the Etlantian ship looked huge—a mountain tearing through the sea. It was so close it blocked out the sky, a ship as big as a city closing on them, the drumbeat in its belly hammering with an eerie promise of death waiting. On the high forecastle, giants were manning the prow with spear and arrow and crossbows. Her fire throwers were lit and dripping fire like splats of orange-gold blood hitting the water.
Darke knew he had never faced giants as these. They were every one of them a chosen, everyone a firstborn, all of them a Nephilim. Two hundred sons of the angel. In battles he had faced as many as ten or twelve Nephilim hunting in packs, but here, aboard this ship, were minimally two hundred.
Loch stared at the faces near the prow. One caught his eye and held his gaze, the eyes lit an ice-blue, like stars, the face below the helm weathered and angry. At first Loch had thought this was a Nephilim staring him down as a dare, but suddenly he realized it was the angel himself, Satariel.
“Hard starboard!” Darke cried.
Storan swore and heaved all his weight into the tilling oar, the spikes of his boots digging into the deck. He growled with the effort, the muscles in his neck bulging in cords.
“Lay back and lock port oars!” Darke screamed. In the final seconds, Darke’s blackship, far more maneuverable than the angel’s, was set to veer sideways, barely slipping past a head on clash.
“Catapult!” Darke cried just as they closed.
Danwyar rode the catapult as his men swung it about. Danwyar aimed the arm hard back to send his weapon almost vertical. He cut the braided torsion ropes just as the two ships closed. He braced against the recoil of the heavy arm as it slammed into the crossbeam. Fire Rat’s bags soared high, wobbly, straight up, spreading out. They slammed into the railing and prow post of the forecastle. The strike was dead-on, exploding in a rain of fire, along with the Rat’s special mixture of spiked iron balls, spear tips, and twisted, sharpened iron scraps. It sprayed the Nephilim preparing to launch their arrows and spears against Darke’s ship as it passed below; it even struck the angel himself. It was deadly and would have taken out a score of ordinary Etlantians, but these were all Nephilim, and few would have dropped. However, the strike did throw their aims into disarray and their missiles went wild, soaring over the ship, striking the sea, the railing, hitting blind and missing nearly all the crew, though one or two cried out, taking hits.
Angelslayer: The Winnowing War Page 35
