“Shields!” Darke screamed.
The shadow of the angel’s ship fell over them. With a mighty roar the fire-throwers off the Etlantian’s bow exploded in a blast that curled over the railing and forecastle of Darke’s ship. It hit the face of Darke’s shield and peeled back as he knelt behind it. Loch used a large oval shield to guard both himself and Hyacinth as they crouched behind it. The heat striking the shield’s face burned against the skin of his forearm where he gripped the straps.
Parts of the deck caught flame, but all of Darke’s ship was waxed against fire strikes.
Storan screamed, red-faced, heaving all his weight into the tilling oar for the tight swerve while still keeping a shield over one shoulder. The horns of the bull’s-head ram were high out of the water, eager to catch his rear, so as soon as the bow cleared the ram he moved his hand to shift and pull away the stern. Darke wanted his blackship at the very edge of the Etlantian. It was a move they had perfected, but Storan was weakened and it took all he had to maneuver the rudder. Both ships were cutting through the waters at full speed, in a spray of sea.
The blackship barely slipped past the dark red horns of the angel’s ram, so close the left horn screeched as it left a scar across the hull near the stern.
Arrows rained thick from the gun ports of the Etlantian ship, and Danwyar dove for the cover of the catapult base. One of his men went down with a scream.
Darke stood, lowering his shield.
As Darke’s ship slipped past the bull’s ram it purposefully slammed into the lower tier oars of the dragon’s port side, snapping their timber, wiping them out with blow after blow of the prow post and port side of the blackship. The pirates were destroying the port oars of Satariel’s ship like cutting saplings.
“Loch,” he said, “stand, lower your shield, bare yourself.”
“Captain,” cried Hyacinth, “he will be killed!”
“I think not, I do not believe the angel dares; he fears the sword—fears prophecy.”
Loch stepped forward and held his shield to one side. He did draw the Angelslayer and let it take his blood, the blade flashing white-hot.
Red-faced, the veins in his neck standing out, Darke screamed at the angel, “Here is your Slayer, you bastard! You told me to bring him—here he is, Satariel! Kill him yourself!”
From above, the angel’s eyes were still following Loch. Loch wasn’t sure of the captain’s intent, but he did sense Darke’s gamble was correct; the angel would hesitate, seeing the sword of Uriel, he was left uncertain. Even from the distance, Loch could see it. In the last second, seeing Satariel make his move, Loch touched the blade against the oval Tarshian shield, leaving its metal simmering with a covering of white fire.
Loch bore into the angel’s eyes with his own. It was as if the distance between them had closed. He could clearly see the angel’s dark blue eyes, and with his own black and defiant, he used Eryian’s teachings and stared back fearless and defiant, body and soul. As the angel lifted his hand, Loch brought the shield about. With a sizzling crack that left an ozone smell, a midnight-blue bolt of light struck the face of the Tarshian shield, but did not pierce through—the Angelslayer’s light left it strengthened. But Loch had no chance to return fire. The angel’s bolt hit so hard, Loch was thrown into the air. He struck the railing of the starboard bulwark, his skin, his whole body sizzling with energy. He disappeared over the railing’s edge.
“No!” Hyacinth screamed and ran for the bulwark.
Darke threw his own shield aside and lifted a javelin. As they passed below the bow of the angel’s ship he flung it—not for the angel, he had no hope of slaying an angel, but he chose a firstborn standing next to the Watcher and his spear pierced the giant’s throat, below the larynx and out the back of the neck. Even for a Nephilim, it was a lethal blow. The Nephilim arched his back and fell, dropping out of sight.
Hyacinth climbed nearly over the railing, clinging to its side, searching below for Loch. He was there. He hung from a swifter rope with one hand, his sword in the other, but he looked barely conscious. Darke turned to her.
“He is here, alive,” she cried. “Someone help!”
“Get the king aboard,” Darke commanded. He then screamed below to the Rat. “Fire the throwers!”
Below deck, Fire Rat crouched at the loom of the bellows. He stoked them hard back, and the siphons sucked in seawater where it curled back in against the bow, creating a suction and letting loose a stream of fire from the nozzle of the thrower. The thrower jet extended through a port at the edge of the bow and the Rat had modified it. Unlike most ships, he could swivel the jet, aim it in different directions. Using his feet against the bulwark for leverage, with both hands on the harness he had constructed, Rat angled the jet of fire directly into the hull of the Etlantian ship as they passed only a few feet from the side. The thrower was roaring, and Fire Rat screamed along with it, throwing his head back and using all his strength to keep it centered directly into the heavy strakes of the Etlantian hull. This is what the captain had saved him for, and this is what he would deliver. A flaming scar. If the wood of the angel’s ship had not been proofed against fire, it would have burned the entire port side, but the oraculum plating protected the upper wales. Still, a long, deep gash ripped through the side of Satariel’s ship; at times it was so focused it pierced the hull, striking rowers who screamed as the naphtha spilled over them.
The hulls of the two ships slammed together with a crack of wood as Darke’s oars continued to press from the port side and Storan guided the collisions, timing them. The ships veered apart, but Rat kept the thrower trained on target. His fire cut a straight line of black, curling flame up the side of Satariel’s galley.
Hyacinth had cast a rope to Loch. He caught it. He had sheathed the sword, but he was weak, and he could barely hold the line she had thrown. Fearing he might black out, he wrapped it about his waist and curled his wrist through it, as well, so he would not be left hanging as if he were a fish being reeled in.
Hyacinth was trying to pull him up, but all she could do was tug at the line. A muscled Tarshian came to her aid and hauled Loch in.
Loch held as they pulled him up. It was with difficultly that he kept himself conscious. The lightning stroke had ripped through him with paralyzing pain. His skin, everywhere, was still flickered and sparking with tendrils of blue light, burning as they continued to ripple in coils about his arms and chest. He dropped his head back, teeth clenched against the pain.
Belowdecks, Fire Rat screamed as the flames of his own jets were curling back against him in a spray, but the Rat held, both feet, against the wood of the bulwark. He wore hardened, waxed leathers, even a hood protecting his face to the nose, holes for his eyes. The fire bursts curling back on him were burning through most of the leathered armor, searing more of Rat’s already scarred flesh, but Rat held. He was in his moment; the searing heat seemed to bring him to life as he screamed, swiveling the jet against the beams opposite.
The hulls separated wide. Storan then threw his weight into the rudder and slammed them back against each other, this time with force. One section of the gunwale of Darke’s ship cracked and sent splinters flying. But the fire jets of the Rat had weakened Satariel’s hull so badly the blow crushed in a vertical sanction, splitting a hull section, all the way to the waterline. Satariel’s ship would take on seawater. It would be quickly repaired, of course, but the angel would from now on know his ship had been pierced through, had taken on sea, and by a mortal. As well, he would never quite erase the blackened, deep scar Rat’s throwers had burned through the entire length of his port side.
From the stern, Storan screamed as a javelin lanced through his side. “Too much to ask, my lady,” he muttered to himself as the pain burned thorough his side. It wasn’t deep, he still held the tilling oar fast, but he continued to complain. “Clawed, eaten, and now lanced—just to let you know, I have not much left in me to keep alive, my lady.”
The top of Darke’s prow pos
t, with its serpent head and emerald eyes, was sundered by a thick oar of the Etlantian ship. The serpent head spun wide and dropped into the sea.
Darke stepped down from the prow; the two ships were almost past each other. He backed carefully to Hyacinth’s side where she sat against the bulwark. Loch was slumped beside her, still conscious. Darke crouched and glanced at the priestess who gave him a hard look in return.
They were finally pulling free of Satariel’s ship, and Darke had left her crippled, sundering the port oars. If it were anyone but the angel, he would have circled for a center strike and split the weakened bulwarks open with his ram, but he was certain the firepower would overwhelm him if he tried. He was content for now having crippled a Watcher, a Star Walker, a prefect of the choir. No other mortal in history had done an angel such damage. It wasn’t over. The angel would certainly repair and then begin to hunt Darke for all he was worth, but the moment tasted sweet. He had clashed with the three-tiered Etlantian monster, and his blackship had left a scar to always be remembered.
“That was reckless, Captain,” Hyacinth scorned, “standing the king in the open to take a full strike of the angel. He could have been killed! What were you thinking?”
“That Satariel fears Uriel’s sword like a child fears wraiths of the night.”
“What if he had not!”
“Then your Daath would be dead.”
Loch looked up. He met Darke’s eyes with a half smile.
“What?” queried Darke.
“Just that you remind me of someone, Captain.” “Anyone I know?”
“I would doubt.”
Darke nodded. “This was all a study of you, your majesty. He was gathering what he needed to know before he attempted a kill. It is why he has gone to all this trouble, the island, my son as a prop, Euryathides’s crew in an attempt to take us out from a distance—the angel was not ready to face you. It was obvious.” He glanced to Hyacinth. They were pulling free of the angel’s ship. Darke had completely disabled Satariel. Unless he had magick, he wasn’t going to follow.
“I see your eyes flash, Little Flower.”
“Do you really?”
“He could not have attempted a death strike; he feared Uriel’s sword, you would see it in him.”
“What I think, Captain, is that you were guessing. All along. This has been nothing more than another bean game to you, and at its end you risked Lochlain’s life just on the chance the angel would not kill him!”
“So it is Lochlain now?” Darke said, amused. He stood, watching them pull away from Satariel’s wounded ship, watching the Nephilim staring back from the helm as he sailed for deep water, leaving the angel crippled.
“He was in no danger,” Darke assured her without looking back. “I have been a gambler all my life—I know when to hold and when to play, and the angel was bluffing, mark me, he was bluffing all along.” He sighed, eyes narrowing. “Problem we have now, I think he has finished bluffing. He is not dead and it is for certain he will hunt us. The next time we meet, it will be for the kill, no holds, nothing in reserve. His games are over now.” He glanced to Loch. “Is the innate ability to regenerate quickly a Daathan trait?”
“So they say.”
“Let us hope, your majesty.”
He motioned toward Satariel’s ship. “Something we have learned, as well. See there, his ship is crippled, but it appears there is nothing he can do about it. He has no magick to repair the oars and turn about, or he would try to take us not at sea. He has lost many of his powers. He is almost left mortal in many ways. Keep it in mind when next you face him, Daath.”
“I will, Captain.”
Darke turned and walked away. The fact that Loch’s skin was still occasionally sizzled with blue star fire seemed not to bother him, but Hyacinth did not leave Loch’s side, and she kept her hand over his forearm where it rested on his thigh, letting the remaining crackles of light spill across her, as well, one of them wrapping up the side of her arm.
“I have never been angry with him before,” she said quietly.
“He was right, Hyacinth, he made no wrong moves,” Loch answered.
“Hard oar!” Darke cried, stepping up the forecastle railing. “Lift the main mast! We head for home.”
The oars unfolded from where they had been laid back against the hull, and hit water in a spray. The mast soared upward, the sail billowing as it was angled to the wind.
Darke’s own ship was still ablaze, both midships and the stern where Storan still crouched, hanging off the tilling more than guiding it. But the fires were being extinguished and the torn stay lines replaced.
“Let out the sheet! Bring her in against the wind!” Darke cried. “More speed to the oars; let us put some distance from the bastard.”
The oars master stepped up his cadence below, and they were soon moving swiftly through the sea, peeling back white water.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Hericlon
The bodies in the high passage of Hericlon, near the gate, were at least two weeks old. Rhywder guessed they had fallen here not long after he had left the gate. The smell of rotting flesh was stifling. Rhywder reached forward to touch Satrina’s hand as she reined in the horse. It danced, eyes wide.
“Oh, Elyon’s grace,” Satrina gasped, seeing the death before them.
Rhywder dropped off the horse, drawing his short sword. He circled, studying the fallen. He recognized one body, propped upright against the edge of Hericlon’s rock. It was the young captain, Anoric. His face was now stretched, leathered skin, mouth open in an oval wail, the eyes empty shadows.
“Have the Unchurians been here?” Satrina whispered. “The terror spreaders?”
“No. These are weeks dead. More.”
“Who killed them, then?”
“I believe they killed each other.”
“Why would they do that?”
“I do not know. But we are lucky in one thing; no raiding parties or Unchurian hunters have yet reached the gate. The portcullis is open, and she is manned by dead alone, but she is still ours.”
“What do we do now?”
“Simple, we close the damned gate.”
He took the reins and walked the horse forward. The dark gray, cyclopean blocks of the Etlantian gate were shadowy and quiet as they passed beneath it. He looked up at the jaws of the portcullis—its line of teeth waiting to drop, aged but flawless, solid oraculum. The garrison’s yards were emptied and dark. Rhywder paused, tingling when he saw the winch assembly. There had been terrible slaughter over it. Bodies were literally hacked in pieces and strewn at its base. Rhywder stopped, Satrina beside him.
“I think we are alone. They have fought each other to the last. No survivors.”
He studied the heavy, rusted chain stretching to the high portholes of the stone facing. The links of the chain were as large as a man’s arm. “We are going to drop the gate.”
“Can we do it alone?”
“Gravity will help us.”
Rhywder walked slowly about the bodies and hoisted himself onto the winch assembly. The assembly was a large wooden base with complex machinery of great wooden cogs. He saw what had stopped the gate from lowering. An axe blade had been driven into the cogs of the main wheel, between the teeth. The massive wheel had crumpled the axe like thin plate. Rhywder looked up, following the line of the heavy chain.
“This will not be easy,” he muttered. “We are going to have to slacken the chain enough to pull this axe free. Come up here, Satrina.”
Rhywder studied the platform carefully. The torsion bearings were still holding. To lower the gate slowly, it normally took three men manning the winch handle, since it was built for an ancient giant, but Rhywder only had to pull it back enough to lift weight off the axe keeping the rest of the teeth from shearing away.
He spat on his hands and slid his palms around one link, taking hold. Satrina had pulled herself up onto the platform and took position beside him.
“When I tell you t
o pull that axe head out, pull it! Then get clear quickly, this thing may lose control.”
“But how can you lift the gate, Rhywder? It is not very heavy.”
“It is. But I am very strong.”
Rhywder braced himself, slammed his boots against the sanctions to either side and putting all his strength into the release lever. He wrenched back with everything he had, every muscle in his body, both feet braced for leverage. He threw his head back, his teeth clenched. The muscles of his arms bulged, the cords of his neck strained like cables, his face red. One cog began to lift, slowly. He screamed, pulling harder—all he had left, but the axe blade shivered.
Satrina sprang forward and grabbed the broken stub of the axe haft just as Rhywder’s feet slipped. The heavy, ironclad wheel slammed back down with a thud and instantly the teeth of the cog wheels sheared as it spun, the full weight of Hericlon’s portcullis ripping it to pieces.
Rhywder tackled Satrina, and they went over the edge of the platform.
As the portcullis of Hericlon fell, its metal pulleys within the stone screamed, the chain tearing across it in full flight. The portcullis dropped with a warm wind, gaining momentum.
Angelslayer: The Winnowing War Page 36
