The Warrior's Tale (The Far Kingdoms, Book 2)

by Allan Cole, Chris Bunch

  Their drumsticks were enormous and tasty, and the white meat of their breasts better than any delicate fowl I’d ever nibbled. We filled our meat casks with their flesh — both smoked and brined. We found sweet water on that island that rivaled any liquor we’d ever drunk. We emptied the sulfurous stuff we’d collected on the geyser island, scrubbed the barrels and filled them all to the brim.

  So good was our luck during those days, that it became the norm — the expected. I guess childishness is at the heart of all our natures. Set the most sumptuous banquet before us, and we will marvel at it, revel in the myriad tastes in almost sexual ecstasy. But serve that same banquet ever day, and soon we’ll begin whining: “What’s this? Honeyed humming bird tongue — again?” And so it was with my fellow adventurers.

  The wind was the best any sailor could hope for, but Captain Stryker complained it was so constant he never had time to repair the sails. Duban the rowing master griped that his charges were getting soft. The quartermasters were upset that the rat population had increased because our holds were full of fresh food, Ismet worried the soldiers were exercising with such enthusiasm they might become overtrained, and my officers fretted something must be amiss because it was not possible for morale to be as good as it seemed.

  I did not fall prey to this weakness, but it was not because I am any less petty than my sisters and brothers, but because I knew all was false to begin with.

  Then the winds died; and with them our luck.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE DEMON AND HIS FAVORITE

  On the day our luck vanished, I awoke just after dawn with a blinding headache. It was hot for such an early hour and I felt short of breath. The air was thick, syrupy. It had an odor of damp things, old things and things long in death or slow in dying. I heard the sails being lowered and stowed. Duban cursed his rowers onto their benches. The drum sounded — increasing the pressure on my throbbing temples — and there was a shudder as the ship pulled slowly forward. It moved with difficulty, as if the water had turned to mud and I heard things rasping along the sides. I groaned up and stumbled into my clothes. As I passed Polillo’s hammock to go up on deck I heard a piteous moan — I was not the only the only sufferer that dreaded morning.

  A bizarre scene awaited me above decks. The light was a murky yellow that blurred detail; our shadows seemed bloated and indistinct. The rowers, working to a slow drumbeat, grunted at their task, rising completely off their benches with each stroke, then digging in hard with their heels as they muscled the oars through the water. Despite their labors, the ship only inched along.

  The trouble was apparent. The ship — nay, the entire fleet — was mired in a vast waste of kelp. On other ships I could see men dangling from the sides on ropes, cutting away fleshy vines that’d snared them. Captain Stryker was gathering a similar work party as I approached to ask what had gone amiss.

  “It’s not my fault,” he growled, surprising me that he thought there was anything to defend. “I said there was gonna to be a squall last night, an’ Klisura agreed, but would th’ Admiral listen to th’ likes of us? Me, who’s got so many years in th’ salt you could stuff me in a brine barrel and sell me for provisions? Why, I was a sailin’ master before that damned Phocas was a wet spot on his father’s prong, if you’ll be beggin’ my pardon, Captain Antero. But th’ Admiral, he just listens to that ignorant son of a Lycanthian whore. Pays no mind when I says we oughta heave to, drop our sea anchors and wait’ll she’s done.”

  The squall had awakened me during the night, but it hadn’t seemed too fierce. Actually, it soothed me and I’d been easily coaxed back to sleep by the slow rolling of the ship, while listening to the sounds of the falling rain and hissing seas. As I listened to Stryker I remembered earlier days when the smallest chop sent the landlubbers among us running to spew our guts over the rail. I nearly laughed, covered with a cough, then put on my best Concern For My Fellow Officer visage.

  “You saw danger in the storm, I gather?” I asked.

  “Any fool could’a seen it,” Stryker said. Wasn’t th’ strength of th’ winds that troubled me, but th’ visibility. Rain was fallin’ thicker’n my oldest wife’s curses when I’m late from th’ tavern. An’ it was th’ blackest night I’d seen since I was a lad just gone raidin’ off th’ Pepper Coast. I was fearful we’d lose each other in th’ blow, or worse, come up against some reef in th’ dark. Best thing to do, I signaled th’ Admiral, was wait it out and take new bearings in th’ morning. But Phocas was all for makin’ time, an’ Cholla Yi agreed.

  “Time to get where, I ask you? Don’t even know where we’re goin’! Anyways, we stuck together okay, although I had to practically mutiny to get ’em to hang out lanterns so’s we could see each other. Then th’ wind quit quicker’n a whore hauls in her tits when she sees you got an empty purse. Ain’t been a breath of wind since. But that’s not so bad. What’s bad is what we got ourselves tangled into.”

  He waved at the kelp forest, so thick that in places you couldn’t see water, but only a slow rising and falling as waves passed underneath.

  “Never seen a thing like it,” he said. “Not this size and this thick! But I’ve heard tales. Oh, yes, I’ve heard things that’d get your heart movin’ right sprightly.”

  “I’m sure you have, Captain Stryker,” I said. “But I hope you keep those to tales to yourself until we’re out of this. No sense frightening people unnecessarily.”

  “If we do get out,” Stryker said darkly.

  I paid no mind to his gloomy words. He was only trying to add drama to the wrong that’d been done him and what had come of Cholla Yi ignoring his sensible advice.

  “We’ll be all right,” he said, relenting to reveal his true thoughts. “Just need us another good blow and we’ll be out and smellin’ sweet.”

  We didn’t get another good blow. Not a breath of air stirred that day, or the next, or for many a day to follow. And it was hot! By the gods who forsook us yet again, it was hot. The yellow haze that cloaked us only seemed to intensify that heat, making us feel we were simmering at the bottom of a soup kettle. Meanwhile, the kelp prison tightened about us. We found what seemed to be a channel leading out, cut our way to it, then muscled each ship into the passage.

  But that channel, instead of carrying us out, led us into a maze of dead-ends and narrows that curved back on themselves, and others that went deeper and deeper into that tangle. We had no choice but to go on, for no sooner had we hacked a passage and rowed through it, then it closed behind us, with the kelp quickly tangling itself again.

  I cast the bones each day, but they had returned to the stultifying sameness as before. No matter how I hard I tried, no matter how I cast them, the identical pattern showed up again and again. And that pattern, Gamelan had taught, showed no change in our near future. As the crew labored in the awful heat, dragging us foot by foot through the watery forest, Gamelan and I tried every trick the old wizard knew to raise a wind.

  We got out the magical wind bags that’d been brought along for just this purpose. They were the best Gamelan and his assistant Evocators could create before we left Lycanth. Much magical talent had gone into them, but all for naught. Each time I performed the ceremony and recited the words to call forth the winds, when the bag was opened only a hot, foul-smelling gas escaped. Gamelan worried over this, saying a spell must have been cast over this immense Sargasso to assure no wind could ever disturb its horrible symmetry.

  The deeper we drew into it, however, the more it changed. What had first appeared like a gently rolling plain, soon proved a false perception. Once in the canals, the seaweed piled higher and higher, in places forming banks that reached half the height of a ship’s mast. The kelp branches were tumbled into all kinds of odd shapes. Some appeared to be the turrets of a fleshy, brown-toned castle. Others took on the images of people, or beasts. I passed one I swore looked like a woman’s torso growing out of a rearing mare’s body. Astride that mare was a young woman, breasts heaving, tresses f
lying, as if she and her steed were moving at speed. Polillo said I was only seeing such things because I’d been too long without a lover. I laughed, but secretly worried she was right.

  A week into our struggle we broke into a channel whose current moved more swiftly. It was still a leisurely pace, to be sure, but to see any motion at all in this swamp was a cheery sight. The joy, however, was short lived. It was Santh — old Pillow Nose, himself — who ended it. One minute I was conversing with Stryker, the next we were running forward, beckoned by Santh’s hoarse cry. We had to push our way through a knot of crewmen to reach him at the bow, where he stood pale and jabbering nonsense.

  “What is it, man?” Stryker said.

  But Santh was too hysterical to respond. “May th’ gods forgive me,” he wailed. “I’ve been such a villain all me life, but no man deserves t’ die like this!”

  Stryker grabbed him roughly by the shirt front. “Quit blubberin’ you fool,” he barked. “You ain’t dead. And you ain’t got no cause to fear it.”

  Santh recovered enough to jab a shaking finger to his right. “Look, Captain,” he cried. “Look!”

  We peered in the direction he pointed. I saw something grayish white poking through the kelp forest. As I recognized it with a jolt, I heard Stryker suck in a fearful breath.

  “By Te Date, we’re in for it now,” he harshed.

  We were looking at the clean picked bones of a human skeleton. A small crab scuttled out of an empty eye-socket, waved its claws about, then scurried back inside. I looked closer and saw the rotting rags of the man’s clothing scattered about. Just to one side was what appeared to be a belaying pin.

  “Th’ poor whore’s son,” Stryker muttered, pitying his fellow mariner. He turned back to Santh and the others. “Get your arses back to your duties, lads,” he snarled. “There’s no lesson to be learned here, ‘cept what’s plain as that sack of puddin’ Santh calls a nose.” He pointed at the skeleton. “There’s a lad what didn’t listen to his cap’n’s orders. And his ship had to sail without him, leavin’ his bones for th’ crabs to sup on.”

  He harangued them some more to get some spleen into them and they went back to work — looking nervously over their shoulders as they went about their business.

  “Well dealt with,” I said in praise.

  Stryker shook his head. “I’m a lyin’ shit, and they knows it,” he said. “Weren’t for th’ conjurin’ you did back on that island, there’d be no talkin’ to ’em.” He shuddered. “We knows th’ gods be with us. We seen that right plain. But they ain’t makin’ it easy on us, Captain Antero. Not one bit, they ain’t.”

  He moved on to keep watch on his men, leaving me to gnaw on my guilty knowledge that my vision had promised nothing. Our future might lie west, but only the gods knew how it would end — or when. At the moment that future might well be to have our bones picked by the low forms that scuttled about in our prison, just like the mariner we’d just seen. I was about to seek out Gamelan for counsel when the uneasy peace was destroyed again. There was a shout from our lookout. I didn’t need to be told what he’d seen, because no sooner had the cry burst from his lips than I saw for myself.

  Both banks had become an enormous charnel house. Countless skeletons — both of men and animals — littered the scene. Some were whole and still carried the remnants of clothes, others were hurled about, with their large bones burst open, as if cracked by scavengers for the marrow. Some of the crew wept, others spewed their guts over the sides, while the rest stood pale and mumbling prayers to whatever gods they hoped might rescue them from such an end. As that horror burned itself into our dreams, the channel turned, spreading into a small lagoon, and an even greater terror was unveiled.

  The rotted hulks of ships of every age and nation spread out before us. Some were caught in the tangle by the edge of the lagoon, others jutted out of the kelp as far as the eye could see across the slow-rolling plain. Some of the ships were of recent design, but others were — even to my untutored eye — of great age and scabbed with centuries of time. The whole thing was a great graveyard of all the ships that had been lost without a trace since history’s beginnings.

  Something made me duck and as I did so, a shadow passed over me. I heard a squeal of startled pain as an object struck a sailor behind me. I dropped to the deck and tuck rolled back to my feet, drawing my sword as I rose, and dodging once again as a missile hurled past. A shrill chorus of battle cries rent the air and scores of heavy objects crashed down. I saw skinny, naked figures swinging from the banks on kelp vines, brandishing all manner of weapons. A rusted spear was thrust at me, I brushed it aside and cut my attacker down, roaring for my Guardswomen to repel boarders.

  The deck swarmed with small brown figures with limbs so slender they looked as if you could snap them with two fingers. But they made up for size with fierceness and surprise. Many sailors went down under the first rush, but as my women smashed into our attackers, the crew rallied, clubbing with anything in their reach. I saw Corais and Gerasa — a superb bowwoman — shielded by an ax-swinging Polillo, fire arrow after arrow into our attackers. Three rushed at me.

  My left hand found my knife and I put my back against the mast as the three crowded in. The one on my left jabbed with a trident. With a quick blow of my sword, I cut it off at the haft, ducked forward and came up to slip my dagger between his ribs. It stuck as he fell, so I left it there and pivoted — making a two-handed slice at the axman beside him. My blade bit deep, nearly cutting him in two. Blood gouted from his wound, blinding me. As I desperately yanked on my sword to pull it free, I felt the presence of the third man rushing forward. I dropped to my knees and he tripped over me. Before he could recover, I’d ripped my blade free and chopped blindly at him. It was a lucky stroke — lucky for me, at any rate — and it sliced through his kidney as he tried to roll away. He shrieked and before I’d clawed the gore from my eyes he was choking a death rattle.

  Somewhere a horn trumpeted and by the time I’d reached my feet again, our enemies were scuttling away. But as they ran, many were carrying grisly burdens — arms and legs and huge pieces of flesh hacked from the bodies of our fallen comrades. And it was no rout — they were retreating in an orderly fashion, with flying squads to protect those burdened with meat.

  I rallied my women and we charged into those remaining on the deck, but we’d only managed to kill a few before the rest scampered off jeering as they scuttled along kelp vines thicker than a large man’s trunk. I heard sounds of fighting on the other ships, but that too faded to be replaced by the shrill ridicule of our attackers. I could see lines of naked bodies moving along like ants. They converged into a single column and headed off. I sheathed my sword and swarmed up the foremast to see where they were going.

  I found Santh’s tall skinny friend cowering on the foretop. He was blubbering something, but I paid no attention as I peered this way and that until I spied the line of men. In the distance I saw an enormous mound shaped like a ship. I looked closer and saw it was a ship — like no other that I’d ever seen. It was so huge it could have housed our whole fleet. The top consisted of a crazy scrap wood edifice that formed three turret-like structures — the one in the center towering twice as high over the others. Smoke curling out its peaked roof. The line of men curled toward the strange ship and in a few minutes I saw them disappear into a huge maw of a hole that pierced the side.

  I shinnied down, ordering my officers to set guards and see to the needs of my troops, and sent for Cholla Yi. As I waited, I learned that I’d only suffered a few wounded, and those were minor. Poor Stryker, however, had lost ten men — and all of their corpses had been carried away.

  “But we gave better’n’ we took,” he said with grim satisfaction.

  Our attackers had left thirty six bodies behind, but I saw no cause for celebration. They were hardly in mourning when they’d fled with their booty of limbs and flesh hacked from our comrades. That they were cannibals was no great revelation. What puzzled me mo
re was why they all looked like such starvelings, with arms and legs like twigs and swollen bellies. Water was a problem in these plant choked seas, but not food. There was much edible life among the kelp vines, and a plenitude of fish to be gotten out of the channels. But all of the corpses sported the orange-tinted hair and swollen bellies of malnutrition, and the running sores pocking their skin would’ve never healed if they’d lived.

  Admiral Cholla Yi arrived shaken by the encounter, but spoiling for a fight.

  “They’re nothing but bags of bones,” he scoffed. “They caught us by surprise, is all. Who’d expect anything human to be living in this perdition? They’re probably nothing more than survivors off those wrecks. And they aren’t trained fighters. Most of those hulks look like merchantmen.”

  I agreed. “It’s not likely they’ve ever encountered a war fleet before. If we try to work our way back out, they’ll pick us off a few at a time. But if we put the fear of the gods in them now, they’ll cower in their bolt-holes until we’re well gone.”

  “One thing to take note of,” Gamelan broke in, “is they seem to act in concert, and with purpose. Which means they have leaders — perhaps even a master.”

  I nodded. “Probably makes his headquarters in that big ship I saw them parading into. Maybe that’s where we strike.”

  “It would seem so,” Gamelan said. “But that’s not what I was getting at. What occurs to me is this might be the opportunity we’ve been hoping for. There’s no doubt in my mind there’s some kind of magical force at work in this place — the permanent lack of wind, this maze of vegetation. It was created, not formed by nature.”