Demon Wars 01 - The Demon Awakens

by The Demon Awakens [lit]

  "They've no sail," argued Pellimar, as if logic alone should dismiss the possibility that this was a powrie craft.

  "Powries need no sail," Adjonas answered. "They pedal, turning a shaft to a great fan aft of the ship."

  "Pedal?" Pellimar scoffed, thinking the notion ridiculous in so vast a sea, where distance was measured in hundreds of miles.

  Adjonas' voice was grim and unrelenting. "Powries do not tire.

  Avelyn had heard as much. Powries were not often seen, except in times of war when they were dealt with all too often. Their battle prowess was the stuff of legend, of terrifying fireside tales. Though diminutive in stature, they were said to be stronger than an average man and with incredible stamina. They could suffer brutal hits with club or sword and keep on fighting, and they could wage battle for hours at a stretch, even after a forced march of many miles.

  "So far out," Quintall remarked. "Surely there's no land within ten days sail."

  "Who can know the minds of powries," Adjonas replied. "They have been quite active of late, so my friends in Jacintha informed me. They slip into the shipping routes and take their fill, then move back to deep water, following the blues or the cod or other favored fish. A hardy and stoic type, do not doubt; powries have been said to be out on the open water for a year and a half at a stretch."

  "But what would they do with their booty?" Avelyn reasoned innocently, drawing looks from the other five. "If they waylay ships, what goods do they extract and where, then, do they drop off their newfound cargo?"

  Adjonas and Bunkus Smealy exchanged grim glances, telling the four monks that they simply did not understand this enemy.

  "They take lives," Adjonas answered calmly. "They waylay ships simply to kill. They attack only to pillage enough stores to get them to the next ship and for the simple thrill of the hunt and torture."

  Avelyn blanched, so did Thagraine and Pellimar, but Quintall only let out a low growl and tarried his gaze back in the direction of the distant powrie ship.

  "But for us to pass so close to one of them," Pellimar offered nervously. "What dumb luck is that? We'd not even have seen the craft if we were but a hundred more yards to port."

  "But they would have seen us," Adjonas replied. "Our sails break the horizon for miles, and powries have magic of their own, do not doubt. It is said that they have friends that swim under the sea, returning to them with whispers of passing ships. This is not dumb luck, my good brother Pellimar."

  "What could they know of us?" Quintall demanded, not turning back to face the others.

  "Only that we are a lone ship far from home," Adjonas was quick to answer.

  "Of our mission?" Quintall pressed.

  "Nothing," Adjonas assured him. "It is doubtful that any aboard the powrie craft would even recognize your abbey robes."

  Quintall nodded. "Then run away from them," he instructed.

  Avelyn and the others held their breath as they watched Captain Adjonas' face tighten. Avelyn feared that Quintall, in issuing such a clear order, might have overstepped his bounds this time.

  "Hard to port!" Adjonas screamed out, then he calmed and turned to his first hand. "Fill our sails, Mister Smealy," he instructed. "I've no desire to do battle with powries."

  Smealy ran off. Adjonas let his dagger-throwing gaze linger on Quintall's back for a long while, then calmly turned and, with a quick nod to the other three monks, walked away.

  Avelyn moved to the rail and shaded his eyes with his hand, peering hard into the vast gray-blue expanse. He thought he caught sight of the barrelboat but couldn't be sure - it might have been no more than the shadow of a wave.

  The Windrunner veered hard to port, sails filling and pushing the square-rigged caravel on with tremendous speed. But the powries tailed her; the lookout called down repeatedly, his tone growing thick with frustration and fear, that the barrelboat was keeping pace, was even beginning to close a bit.

  Now at the taffrail the four monks and Captain Adjonas watched the powries' progress. Avelyn could see the craft clearly now; no longer did he confuse the strange barrelboat with any wave shadows.

  Adjonas looked up at his sails, then at his crew, tacking frantically to keep them as full of wind as possible.

  "An amazing design," Quintall remarked of the closing craft. "Why is it that we humans have not copied it?"

  "There is a human barrelboat in Freeport," Adjonas replied, "and several were constructed in Ursal for use on the river. But men are not powries. The quarters within such a boat are tight - far tighter than even your small cabin on the Windrunner. And men have not the powrie endurance. The dwarves can pedal all day, while most men tire within the hour - or after a couple of hours, at most."

  Quintall nodded, his respect for the stoic, tireless enemy redoubled. "If the powries will not tire, then we cannot simply keep up the run," he remarked.

  "I will set bowmen firing flaming arrows upon the vessel when it closes a bit more," Adjonas answered, his tone far from hopeful. "But most of the craft is underwater, with little above to aim at, and none of that critical. Hopefully we will be able to keep our pace swift enough so that the powries' initial ram causes little damage. Then we will fight them - what choice do we have? - as they try to board us."

  Quintall was shaking his head before Adjonas even finished. "We cannot allow them to ram," he argued. "Any damage would slow us, at the least, and that we cannot afford. We have less than a week of extra time - and that if our calculations to our destination are correct and the winds hold."

  "I see few options," Adjonas remarked.

  The other three monks were looking grimly at the distant barrelboat or at each other, shaking their heads, but Quintall had turned his thoughts in a different direction, digesting all the information that Adjonas had given him of the enemy.

  "Tell me," he said at length, "how swift will a barrelboat run if its great fan becomes entangled?"

  Adjonas looked at him curiously.

  "We have extra netting," Quintall added.

  "The fan is not so exposed," Adjonas said. "Even if we placed the netting perfectly in the barrelboat's path, it would not likely snag on anything except the catch hooks protecting the fan."

  "Suppose that we did not simply place the net but rather took it to its destination?" Quintall asked slyly, drawing a confused look from all but Thagraine, who had caught on and was more than eager.

  "That would be foolhardy," Adjonas began, but he stopped as the hatch of the barrelboat flipped open and a red-capped head popped into sight. Up came a skinny arm, holding a funnel-shaped tube.

  "Humans!" the powrie shouted through the funnel. "Yach, trader, give her up! You cannot outrun us, yach you cannot, nor can you hope to give a fight. Give her up, I say, and some of you might be spared."

  Adjonas looked all around at his now-stationary crew. He saw the expressions there, the sudden faint hope in the powrie's promise.

  Bunkus Smealy spoke for many of them by Adjonas' estimation. "Might that we should harken to his words, Captain," the first hand said. "If we offer them no fight-'

  Adjonas pushed him aside and walked in from the rail so that all on deck could see him. "They shall kill us, every one!" he shouted. "These are powries, bloody caps, looking to wet their berets in human blood. They'll not let a ship sail from them, nor do they have room for prisoners! If we stop, or even slow, they'll only ram us all the harder."

  Even as Adjonas spoke, a flaming quarrel arched over the taffrail of the Windrunner, slashing into the rear sail. Three crewmen ran to the small fire immediately, minimizing the damage.

  "Yach, how long can you keep up the run, trader?" the powrie howled, and then he disappeared, closing the hatch behind him.

  "Who are your best swimmers?" Quintall asked, moving up to the captain. Adjonas looked at him curiously.

  "The Windrunner is a ship of cold northern waters," he replied. "As a habit, we do not swim."

  Quintall nodded grimly and turned to his three brothers. He hated ris
king them all but realized the success of the mission hinged on their actions right now. Before he ever finished his motion, Avelyn, Pellimar, and Thagraine dropped their robes to the deck and began stretching their muscles and swinging their arms.

  "We are swimmers," Quintall explained. "Even in the cold northern waters. Fetch me a net."

  Adjonas motioned to Bunkus Smealy; this was Quintall's operation now, and the Windrunner captain, with no other apparent options, was more than willing to give the sturdy monk his chance.

  The four were at the port rail out of sight of the barrelboat soon after. Quintall tossed the net into the water, and Thagraine went in right behind it, taking hold.

  Adjonas grabbed Quintall by the shoulder. He pulled a stone from his baldric, a small red ruby, and handed it over. "Only if you see a need," he explained. "That stone is more valuable than all my ship."

  Quintall looked it over curiously. He could feel the magic within it, a faint pulsing of energy. He nodded to Adjonas, then unexpectedly handed the stone to Avelyn. "Not a man alive knows the power of the stones better," he said to his companion. "Use it well if we find the need."

  Avelyn took it and fingered it for a few moments, feeling the energy clearly, understanding the purpose of the stone as surely as if it had spoken to him. He moved to put it in his loincloth but didn't feel secure with that, so he popped it into his mouth instead, rolling it behind his teeth.

  Then they went in, swimming fast to join Thagraine, who was still bobbing with the net, many yards behind the swift-running Windrunner.

  They split into two groups, with Thagraine and Quintall holding the net between them while swimming out to the side, trying to find an angle to the closing barrelboat, and Pellimar and Avelyn putting themselves right in line with the craft, keeping low in the water in case that hatch should open again or in case the powries had some other method of looking out.

  Adjonas watched nervously from the taffrail. He knew things about powries and about the sea that the four monks apparently did not. If the barrelboat got by the net holders, for example, they would never catch up and Adjonas couldn't turn about for them. They would be stranded in open water, and thus, surely doomed. Even more dangerous, powries were said to have waterborne friends, often ones with a distinctive dorsal fin.

  The captain nodded, confident that even if brave Quintall knew all of this, he still would have gone into the South Mirianic with the net.

  * * *

  "Swim hard!" Quintall gurgled to his companion, moving fast to close the remaining distance. The barrelboat was moving much more swiftly than it appeared, for it cut no prow wake, as did the Windrunner. Thagraine worked as furiously as he could, flailing arms and legs, but he would not have gotten to the mark had not Quintall, the other end of the netting hooked about his broad shoulders, tugged him along.

  Exhausted, the two men dove under for the last expanse, swimming so the craft would pass right over them. Fortunately, the water was crystal clear.

  Up ahead, Avelyn and Pellimar waited anxiously. They would have to get aboard the barrelboat, whatever the outcome of Quintall's attempt. If the net failed, then these two would have to find some way to stop the powries. Avelyn rolled his tongue over the ruby. The stone wouldn't be nearly strong enough, he realized, to take out the wet barrelboat's sturdy hull.

  The barrelboat closed - fifty yards, forty, twenty - cutting the water smoothly.

  Then it jerked suddenly and its straight run shifted to the diagonal. Avelyn and Pellimar swam with all speed. Pellimar reached the drifting boat first, pulling himself cautiously up its slick, rounded side. He shuffled for the hatch and got there just after it opened.

  The first powrie out was truly stunned. The fan had snagged on some seaweed or on something the caravel had dropped, so the dwarves thought, and it was not so uncommon an occurrence. But to see a human standing on the deck!

  The sight was no less amazing to Pellimar, who had never seen a powrie up close. The dwarf stood just over four feet, with gangly arms and legs that seemed too skinny to support its barrel-like torso.

  The dwarf's expression did not change, its pale, wrinkled face staring openmouthed as Pellimar hit it with a solid right cross.

  The monk stared at his wounded hand, and at his opponent, so much more solid than it appeared! The hard-headed powrie shook its head vigorously, lips flapping.

  Pellimar hit it again, a series of three quick left jabs, then brought his right leg up hard, snapping out his foot to connect right under the powrie's jaw. The dwarf's head snapped back, and it fell to the deck and rolled over the side of the barrelboat.

  But another was in its place, this one not surprised. Pellimar, quick as a cat, hit it, too, with three solid punches - a left, right, left combination - but the monk's impetus was lost when his right hand, still pained from the first hit, connected that second time.

  Avelyn, rushing in behind his brother, saw Pellimar jerk suddenly and then fall to the side, a bright red line across his chest. There before Avelyn stood the powrie, its short sword dripping Pellimar's blood. The dwarf squealed in rage, seeing its victim falling off the side, seeing a chance to heighten the color of its already bright crimson beret tumbling into the Mirianic. That moment of distraction gave Avelyn his chance.

  He could have bent low and barreled into the dwarf, but he sensed its solidity and saw another powrie coming through the hatch behind it. Putting his personal safety aside, Avelyn had to consider the greater good.

  He ran forward and slid down to the deck, scrambling fast and taking the ruby from his mouth. He rubbed it in his hand, calling forth its magic, finding its center of energy and bringing that to a volatile level.

  The powrie came across with a backhand slash, but Avelyn managed to duck beneath it. He reached between the powrie's legs and tossed the stone upward, toward the hatch. Then, guided purely by his survival instinct, Avelyn curled his legs under him and came up fast.

  The ruby, shining with power, arced lazily over the open hatch. The next powrie coming out saw its sparkle and, mesmerized, reached for it. The dwarf caught the gem securely, but surrendered his hold on the ladder. Thus, when Avelyn and the other powrie came up suddenly, rising over the stone holder, the surprised dwarf fell back down into the barrelboat, glowing ruby in hand.

  Avelyn clung to the powrie's sword arm, for all his life. He had one hand below him and managed to push the hatch back as they descended, Avelyn rolling right over the hatchway, the deceivingly agile powrie hopping to its feet atop the now-closed portal. The dwarf lifted its sword, grinning evilly, and let out a wail that shook Avelyn to the marrow of his bones as he lay prone not far away.

  But then the dwarf was flying, the hatch spinning through the air behind it, and a stream of thick black smoke poured from the open hole.

  The jolt sent Avelyn tumbling, and he didn't fight the motion. The blast had not likely killed half the powries - the barrelboat was nearly as large as the Windrunner! - and they would be up on deck soon enough.

  And Avelyn had no desire to face another.

  Quintall and Thagraine came up breathless after setting the net in place. By the time Quintall got near the barrelboat a powrie was in the water, and Brother Pellimar was tumbling close behind.

  With their heavy bodies and spindly limbs, powries were not strong swimmers, and Quintall easily overtook the dazed creature, pushing it under the water and gaining a seat atop its shoulders. The powrie struggled desperately, but the powerful man locked his legs tight and fought to keep his balance.

  The dwarf would not find the surface ever again.

  Once in the water, Avelyn found Quintall treading high not so far away, half his body clear of the sea. The sight surprised Avelyn at first until he noted the "seat" his companion had found. Thagraine, some distance to the side, had Pellimar under one arm, swimming as hard as he could for the turning caravel.

  As soon as his grim business was finished, Quintall, easily the strongest swimmer, relieved Thagraine of his burden
and nearly kept up with his two companions, despite the added weight of an unconscious Pellimar.

  Adjonas watched it all anxiously, moving along the rail as his ship executed a turn. The barrelboat was disabled temporarily, but the fight was hardly over. The captain ordered archers into place and told them to take whatever shots presented themselves if the powries came out through that smoke, which was already diminishing.

  Then he watched, because there was nothing else he could do. The Windrunner came right about, bearing down on the four monks, and on the barrelboat. There were indeed powries on her deck now, some with heavy crossbows; taking potshots at the swimming monks.

  Even worse for the monks, Adjonas knew, was the trail of blood the wounded Pellimar was leaving in the water.

  Thagraine was first to the Windrunner, grabbing frantically at a line thrown from the deck. He had barely taken hold, Avelyn twenty yards away, and Quintall and Pellimar that distance again, when the lookout gave a not unexpected cry.

  "Dorsal fin!" he shouted. "Shark, white shark!"

  "Get them up quickly!" Adjonas howled, moving to the rope to lend a hand. "More ropes into the water!"

  One thrown rope splashed right near Avelyn, but understanding the frantic lookout and the newest danger, he refused it, turning about for Quintall and Pellimar.

  "Brother Avelyn!" Thagraine shouted from his perch on the Windrunner's rail. "You and I are the Preparers! They are expendable!"

  The words assaulted Avelyn with the force of a cold slap. Expendable? These were monks of St.-Mere-Abelle! These were human beings!

  With a growl, Avelyn pushed on, finally reaching the tiring Quintall. To Avelyn's surprise, Pellimar bobbed in the water behind the stocky man.

  Avelyn asked no questions, nor did Quintall, who was swimming hard for the rope. Avelyn finally reached Pellimar and hooked his arm around the bobbing man's shoulder.

  A crossbow quarrel skipped across the water right beside Avelyn's face as he turned. He saw it, then - a dorsal fin sticking fully two feet out of the water - and though he had never seen or heard of sharks before, he could well imagine the horrors that lay beneath the telltale fin.