by Kai Meyer
Ebenezer released him. “Jasconius and I will hold the fort down here.”
“Be careful out there in the water.” Griffin was worried about Jasconius and the monk. The waters around Aelenium would soon be swarming with kobalins. Men could flee onto land before them, at least for a while. But the whale was at their mercy. Griffin had a terribly guilty conscience over bringing Jasconius and Ebenezer here. If anything happened to either one of them, it would be his fault.
“I know what you’re thinking.” The monk waved the idea away. “Jasconius and I have coped with worse.” Griffin doubted that. Hadn’t Ebenezer told him just a while ago that the whale had never been attacked by kobalins before?
He took a step to one side and looked over at Jasconius. The giant whale floated like a buoyant mountain beside the jetty at the end of a sea star point. His left eye looked right over the edge and seemed to return Griffin’s gaze. Again the boy was seized with sadness when he looked into the depths of that eye. The whale was not a happy creature. The sight was heartrending.
Disregarding the alarm bells that were calling him and all others to their positions, he hurried over to Jasconius. He stopped at the edge of the jetty, stretched out his right arm, and bent over until he could touch the whale’s skin. He laid his hand flat on the smooth surface, only six feet away from the gigantic melancholy eye.
“Good luck,” he whispered so softly that not even Ebenezer could hear. “I hope that everything you want comes to pass.”
He was astonished at his words, which had risen up out of his mind without asking him for permission.
A dull rumble sounded from the whale’s half-open mouth, similar to the noise that occurs when you blow across the neck of a bottle. Jasconius’s voice. He too was taking leave.
Griffin had to turn away to keep the tears from coming. With a shake, he collected himself and ran off.
“See you later,” he called, without turning around one last time to Ebenezer and the whale.
He ran as fast as he could along the bank of the sea star arm to his ray, which was waiting for him with outspread wings on one of the lower squares. D’Artois had moved all the animals that were going to be assigned to the first waves of attack out of the ray shelter to the vicinity of the shore, to shorten the distance.
“Griffin, about time,” came the greeting from Rorrick, an experienced guardsman, whom the captain had assigned to him as sharpshooter.
Rorrick was a red-haired man in his forties, who claimed to be able to hit unerringly any point on the water from the swaying back of a ray. When the kobalins dared to show their ugly mugs over the waves—and no one doubted it anymore—it was his job to target them from the ray and, it was to be hoped, keep them from going on land.
He had a mighty mustache, just as fiery red as his barely controllable hair. Besides, he had the longest fingers Griffin had ever seen on a human being. With them he handled his gun as sensitively as a musical instrument, and what he lacked in patience for handling rays and hippocampi, he made up for with his precision shooting and an incredible sense of balance. Griffin had already undertaken some practice flights with him and learned to attune himself to Rorrick’s shooting. He knew when he should keep the ray low or had to slow the wing beats to guarantee Rorrick a better aim. The man was more than twice as old as Griffin, but he never gave him the feeling of lording it over him.
Griffin returned Rorrick’s greeting and swung himself into the saddle, bent over the animal’s head, whispered a few encouraging words, and took up the reins. Around them other rays were rising in mighty thrusts, always only a handful at once, so that the animals never crossed courses. Griffin and Rorrick were among the last to leave the square.
Everywhere swarms of rays were streaming from lanes and openings between the roofs. Like black plumes of smoke they shot up in many places over the cliff before they drifted away from each other and dispersed in the air. Then they fell into ring-shaped formations, which circled around the city in opposite directions.
There were three such ray rings in the air. The farthest out sailed just in front of the fog wall, the next halfway between the fog and the city shores, the third over the sea star points. At the last minute d’Artois had decided against the use of the sea horses, although he went against the express wish of the council in that.
“I will not send the sea horses to their certain deaths,” he announced to the council members. “They haven’t a chance in the waters outside. The kobalins will attack them from underneath, without our being able to get near them with our weapons.” As he spoke he was probably remembering the death of his wife, who’d been pulled down with her sea horse by the kobalins.
Some of the lords of the council had argued against it, but d’Artois had turned away, with the excuse that he must concern himself with the defense of the city, and left them standing there.
Once in the air, Griffin looked over at him. The captain had placed Griffin in his own squadron, as if he wanted to make sure that Griffin stayed near him during the battle.
Griffin was still unpracticed in handling the ray. Riding Matador came much more easily to him. Also, it was easier to form a bond with a hippocampus than with a ray. The black flying giants were too big, too majestic, almost a little remote in their silent elegance. You could admire them or fear them, but you never felt really close to them—except for their caretakers in the ray shelter, who were quite beside themselves with concern for their pets and hours before had already charged each rider not to let any of the animals come to harm. This showed once again that everyone had something different to lose in this battle. Some were concerned for their lives, others for the future of the world, and some for those that they cared most about: rays, sea horses, even the chickens that ran free in the streets of the city because they couldn’t all be caught in time.
The wind created by the flapping of the ray’s wings on takeoff was immense. The riders who were still on the ground had to brace themselves against the wild gusts not to be lifted out of their saddles. But then all were finally in the air, and soon each ray had taken a position in one of the three defense rings.
“Why isn’t it raining any dead fish?” Rorrick shouted into the blustering headwind.
“It only does that when the master of the kobalins is in the vicinity,” Griffin replied over his shoulder. “Probably he’s still somewhere outside the fog. Or not close enough to the surface.”
“I thought the kobalins only obeyed their chieftains?”
“Sure. But the chieftains follow the orders of a being that is subordinate to the Maelstrom.”
“The people say you and the polliwog, you’ve seen him.”
“Not seen,” contradicted Griffin. “I think no one’s done that yet. At least no human being. You only know he’s there because the dead fish are raining from the sky.” He thought for a moment, then added, “I guess we should be grateful for any minute in which he doesn’t turn up here.”
“Oh, he will,” replied Rorrick resignedly. “He most certainly will, if he’s as powerful as you say.”
Griffin strained to see down from that height. They were in the inner ring of rays, about ten yards over the water surface.
“Kobalins!” cried Rorrick suddenly, his voice hoarse. “Down there in the water!”
Behind him Griffin heard the gun hammer snap into place as the sniper brought his weapon into firing position: Three of his rifles rested in firm hangers, which were attached to the saddle of the ray and pointed backward, similar to a triple cannon. Unlike Griffin, Rorrick wasn’t secured by a belt, for he had to be in a position to turn quickly in the saddle in order to fire backward as well as forward. Every movement was deft, no reach was too far. The maneuvers of a marksman had something almost mathematical about them, for the whole time he was calculating in his head: distances, angle, and the impact of his shots. This he had in common with the cannoneer aboard a pirate ship.
“Do you see them?” Rorrick asked.
Griffin guided
the flying giant in a gentle slant while at the same time remaining with his orbit of rays rotating around the city. “Yes. It’s begun.”
Dark spots were flitting under the water surface, recognizable only with difficulty in the shimmering light on the waves. Now Griffin understood why the kobalins’ attack was taking place before sundown, not at night, which he’d been considering much more likely: They’d waited until the sun sank deep enough. Now the beams broke on the wave combs, they sparkled and glittered, and their light blinded the shooters on the rays. Obviously this offered the kobalins a greater advantage than an attack by darkness.
Rorrick cursed. But while Griffin was still worrying whether the sharpshooter would hit anything at all under these conditions, the first shot cracked. The wind of their flight carried the smell of the powder and a part of the noise to the rear, away from Griffin.
The marksmen on the other rays now opened fire too. Soon the surface of the sea appeared to boil with the mass of shots. Countless pockmarks bloomed on the waves. The first kobalin corpses floated to the surface, while here and there scrawny, shimmering arms broke through the waves, pulled back a lance or a harpoon, and flung it up in the direction of the rays. In the course of his first three circuits Griffin saw only one single ray fall out of the sky: The animal hit the surface, and immediately rider and marksman were snatched from the saddle and pulled down under the waves. The kobalins attacked the ray itself like a swarm of ants, instantly burying it under scrambling bodies, and it sank into the water.
Griffin shuddered with horror, but then he was already beyond the crash spot and must again concern himself with his task. Rorrick called instructions as to where he should steer the ray, and Griffin hastened to carry out everything to his marksman’s satisfaction. Once he ducked away under a kobalin harpoon; another time a lance glanced off the ray’s wing, but it left only a slight scratch.
During each circuit he stole a worried look at Jasconius, who had detached himself from the jetty and thrashed under the surface as a mighty shadow. When Griffin saw him down there the first time, he was astonished at the mobility of the giant whale and at the same time deeply concerned about the mass of dark spots that crowded around him. But by the second orbit the whale clearly had fewer opponents, and by the third the kobalins were keeping at a respectful distance from the titan who raged in the middle of them. However, Griffin didn’t deceive himself: If the deep tribes focused a part of their strength and took concerted action against Jasconius, he wouldn’t be able to hold out against them for long.
When the rays crossed the sea star arm beneath which the anchor chain was fastened, Griffin noticed that a particularly dense mass of kobalin swarms were clustered there. He thought with chills of Soledad, who must be down there somewhere. As long as the kobalins didn’t go onto land—and until now they’d made no attempt to do so—the area around the anchor chain was the most dangerous place in the entire battle. The princess must have lost her mind to let herself be deployed right there. At the same time he admired her courage. If anyone truly deserved to lead the pirates of the Caribbean, it was she. Maybe she thought she still had to prove it.
The next harpoons flashed into the air around his ray like steel lightning. All the horrific visions of Soledad’s fight in the deep faded, as he had enough to do to keep the ray under control.
From behind him came a gurgling scream.
“Rorrick?” Griffin looked over his shoulder.
He looked into the lifeless eyes of the marksman.
The man sat swaying in the saddle, hit by a kobalin lance.
Griffin screamed with shock and fury, but when he tried to reach back with one hand to hold his companion, the ray shifted unmanageably beneath him, and Rorrick lost his balance. The body slipped back, tore one of the munitions pockets with it, and plunged down through the emptiness.
Stunned, Griffin turned away from the sight as the body struck the waves and was pulled under by a dozen clawed arms.
As Griffin lost his marksman, Soledad had long ceased to fight for the anchor chain or the future of the sea star city.
She was fighting for sheer survival.
Around her reigned a chaos of kobalins, dead divers, shredded protective suits, and dark red clouds, which made it harder still for the humans to defend themselves against the attack.
The kobalins had just broken through the light pillars of the torch shafts in a mighty attack wave. They’d drawn a ring of attack around the defenders of the anchor chain like a noose of lances and claws and snapping jaws. Within one or two minutes the number of defenders had decreased by half. About a dozen humans were now fighting desperately against the attacking deep tribes.
Soledad had a handful of bolts left, but she had no chance to reload the two crossbows. A kobalin shot toward her through a cloud of blood, his claws outstretched and fangs bared. Soledad kicked her legs to rise, and at the same time was aware that her air supply was growing thinner. It was long past time to change the bubblestone, but the attackers left her no opportunity for it. Somehow she succeeded in avoiding the first attack and in pulling the corpse of another kobalin between her and her adversary. For a moment the creature was distracted and sniffed at the dead one like a hungry wolf, without taking his eyes off Soledad. With trembling hands she loaded one of the two crossbows—and was just able to aim when the kobalin shoved his dead comrade aside and shot toward her in a flowing movement.
The bolt hit its target. However, the kobalin’s stroke was strong enough to get him up to Soledad as he died. In his death throes he struck and kicked about him, his clawed fingers whirled like shears in front of her face, and he almost tore the diving helmet from her head. But then she succeeded in drawing up both legs and pushing him away from her with a powerful kick. Moments later he’d already disappeared behind a wall of dark clouds.
Soledad swam through the thick, dark fog. Her vision did not reach much farther than a doubled arm’s length. This hindered her, but at the same time it protected her from the malignant eyes of the kobalins. Nevertheless she was swimming farther upward, toward the danger of leaving the mist and thus becoming visible to her enemies again.
Suddenly her head struck resistance. In the first moment she was seized with panic and struck about her, fearing that she was being attacked again. But then she realized that it was only a cross brace of the labyrinthine iron-and-coral construction in whose center the anchor chain was fastened. Close by her shimmered brightness from one of the torch shafts in the underside of the sea star point.
She froze as several silhouettes flashed in front of her, kobalins in search of opponents. But the creatures didn’t notice her, perhaps because their sense of smell failed in the bloody water.
Soledad pulled herself still farther up into the web of the support structure. Once she saw a second diver. She gave him a short wave and pointed up, but she couldn’t tell if he’d noticed her. He also was concealing himself between the braces, obviously just about to give up.
She took a break, forced herself to be calm, and changed the bubblestone before her lack of air could save the kobalins the work. Then she began to move away. The light now became more intense and bathed the surroundings in a red glow, through which lighter and darker streaks ran.
She was aware that she was approaching the true goal of the kobalin attack, the upper end of the anchor chain. If her luck were bad, it would already be swarming with soldiers of the deep tribes who were trying to destroy the fastening.
Her fear was confirmed when the fog thinned and opened up to a view of the chain. A dozen kobalins were climbing up the mighty iron links like monkeys, pulling themselves up by the floating curtain of plants and the mussel colonies and using the chain itself like a ladder that led up from the bottom of the sea to Aelenium. However, something was still keeping them from covering the last bit. Now Soledad realized that three or four divers had taken positions up there. They received each kobalin who approached them that way with a steel bolt.
Silently
Soledad wished them luck and changed her direction. She had no chance of getting past the kobalins and advancing to her comrades. She must choose another way to safety.
Again she looked up to the torch shaft and wondered where it led. To the interior of the sea star city, that much was certain. She herself had never been in one of the shafts, but she knew that stairs within their walls wound to the top. From there the countless torches were regularly renewed in their holders. She might have tried to get to the surface through one of the shafts and run on up the stairs. But the gates to the shafts were barricaded so that no kobalin could get into the city this way. There were probably gratings under the water surface as well.
Soledad was thinking feverishly and at the same time keeping an eye out for other kobalins, when suddenly an enormous silhouette poked through the murk in front of her.
In the first moment she thought it was yet another monstrosity of the Maelstrom, a gigantic monster out of the abysses of the sea, which was going to help the kobalins in the destruction of the chain.
But it was Jasconius.
The man in the whale and his titanic friend had come to the aid of the divers at the chain!
The whale plunged into the middle of the kobalin pack and whirled the attackers around with mighty blows of his tail. Even Soledad, who was some distance away from him, felt the current, was flung against a brace, and cried out in pain beneath her diving helmet.
When she opened her eyes again, she saw that panic had broken out among the kobalins. The giant head of the whale rammed them and broke all the bones in their bodies. His fins smashed them like insects. The sea giant moved with inconceivable agility. His speed gave the lie to his clumsy appearance. The kobalins could not have reckoned on such a fierce attack.
Soledad weighed her chances. The only remaining possibility for flight was the way past the chain in the direction of the undercity. Whether there was a chance of climbing up into the upper city from there she did not know. But she had no choice.
