by D. M. Almond
CHAPTER 6
Another hour passed without the Walker brothers slowing their pace, running as if the creatures were hot on their heels. The fact that they had not heard any calls from the giant gastropods in half that time did not curb their caution in the least. Based on what he knew of their insatiable appetites, Logan assumed the beasts were most likely feasting on their slain kindred. But why take chances?
Corbin had applied some ointment to Logan’s knuckles, which quickly stemmed the bleeding from his swollen hand. He then packed Logan’s wounds with some chewed granch leaves, saying they would help keep it sterile, and wrapped some strips of cloth around his hand. Trying to flex his fingers gave little reaction, and the whole hand ached from the wrist down. If they did not get to the city soon, it would be too late not only to warn them of the swarm, but also to get Logan to a healer in time to save his hand.
Logan was growing more weary by the second. Corbin outpaced him now by a good ten strides, and Logan was rapidly losing ground. He needed to stay focused on running and clear his mind of all else. The forest was getting sparser, letting in more light from the waning Crystal.
“It will be good to be out of these rotten woods,” Logan said.
“The town is just ahead!” Corbin called back to keep him moving.
“Corbin, we can’t stop for too long. I have to get to a healer…” Logan moaned feverishly. Waves of nausea had been washing over him for a while now. His younger brother stopped and waited for him to catch up. He grasped Logan’s hand in his own, examining it with concern, then pulled the makeshift bandage tighter. Logan winced silently, refusing to let his brother see any sign of weakness.
“We will be there soon,” Corbin said, patting his shoulder reassuringly. “Keep strong as long as you can, and I can carry you the rest of the way if need be.”
That earned him a scowl, and Logan slapped his hand away, shocking him.
“I can run on my own, Peck,” Logan said.
Corbin hated that nickname. They had read it in an old fantasy tale, and it always irked him to hear it. When they were children, Logan would call him Peck when he wanted Corbin to leave him alone. Corbin thought it was uncalled for. Did Logan really need to be so stubborn at a moment like this? Corbin was only trying to help him, after all.
“Fine, rest for five, and then we are on our way,” Corbin replied curtly.
Logan ignored him, continuing along the path toward the cliffs, where a rope bridge extended across the wide valley below. It appeared not to have been used in many years, yet seemed sturdy enough to hold his weight.
Corbin shook his head at his brother’s stubbornness, dropping down to pull up a kala root. He quickly caught up to his brother and handed it over as a peace offering. He did not want to get into another petty argument when so much was at stake.
Eating the root immediately invigorated Logan’s body, clearing his mind from the fog of pain he had been mired under. It would not heal his hand, but it sure gave him a necessary pick-me-up and would help get them to their destination three times faster than without.
The bridge did not sway even half as much as it looked like it might. It was very secure, and they were over it in no time, running back onto the stone walkway. Around the bend, they quickly came to the break steps that ran down the face of the cliff to the docks below.
As they neared the bottom of the steps, Corbin pointed excitedly at the ferry pulling away from the dock. “They’re just leaving port now. We have to catch the boat!” he shouted, running faster down the steep stairs.
Logan cursed, hopping off the last steps onto the wooden planks of the dock just as the harbormaster came hobbling out of a little building to the right.
“Garth, we must get on that ship!” Logan called out to the bald gnome who visited Elder Morgana often.
The old man laughed at Logan, pulling his pipe out of his mouth for a second to smack his lips. “Come now, boy, you know that’s not possible,” Garth replied calmly. “Now you go have yerself a seat like a good lad until she comes back this way. It’ll be just under two hours, like clockwork.”
“But Master Garth, we need—” Logan began, sharply cut off by Garth’s waving hand.
“Never you mind, boy, I’ve heard it all before, don’t you be doubting it none. You heard me, now go have a seat!”
His patience seemed to be stretched easily when it came to dealing with Logan. Possibly because he had never gotten over the time Logan had put mealworms in his tea to embarrass him at Elder Morgana’s birthday celebration. Corbin was not sure, but he thought he heard the harbormaster grumbling something about damned rotten troublemakers as he turned back toward his little seaside shack of an office.
Corbin quickly outflanked the old gnome, blocking his path. “Master Garth, please listen. The village has been attacked by a swarm of skex and Elder Morgana is…well…she’s dead, Baetylus bless her soul.” His voice cracked trying to spit out the words.
The harbormaster’s pipe hit the ground.
“Those monsters are heading right toward Fal in a massive swarm come up from the southern expanse,” Corbin continued. “We have to get on that boat and warn the Council of Twelve immediately.”
The harbormaster wrung his hands for a moment, pondering what to do. His eyes darted left and right as if the skex might already be there lurking in the shadows to capture him. “What in the Nine Worlds will we do?” he sputtered. “Once the ferries are set out, there ain’t no way of pulling them back!”
“Then all is lost,” Corbin lamented, feeling the weight of it hit him square in the chest. “We failed.”
Logan bit his thumbnail. This was not something they had foreseen. Apparently the boat worked on a series of pulleys that were mechanically managed so the vessel moved nonstop. Garth explained that the ferry operated through an extended power system, feeding off the magical energy of a very rare lightning stone. A massive coupling climbed up from the vessel to grip a beam overhead, suspended with hanging cables that affixed to the cavern ceiling. That beam powered the boat’s movement with an electric current that ran from the magical artifact and around the hull of the ship, protecting it against the creatures below. If that power went out, there would be little defense against the large squids that lived in the oily black waters of Lake Ul’toh.
“Never say never, right?” Logan mumbled. He turned to Garth with a burning light in his eyes. “You have to turn off the power grid so we can swim to that ship!” he shouted, already heading for the generators.
Garth had been nervously twiddling the tobacco pipe in his hands and now dropped it again at the outlandish suggestion. “Listen, lad, the two of you wouldn’t last more than five minutes in that water before something ate you up like bait, and she’s already a good ten minutes out as it is. Besides, you turn that power off, and we jeopardize the lives of every single man and woman aboard that vessel.”
Corbin grabbed his brother’s hand, stopping him from pulling the switch on the generator and earning himself a look that was so cold he did not even realize he had let go again until the sound of the motor died down, opening the locked gates to the waterfront.
“We don’t have a choice, Corbin. Either we make a break for it now, or Fal is doomed,” Logan said.
“We’ll never make it across the lake in time,” Corbin said.
Logan bit his lower lip wanting to scream, his eyes gazing out at the ferry, which moved further away by the second. There had to be something they could do to get on the vessel. His forehead ached, a pounding headache forming in his temple, then he gasped and snapped his fingers. “I have an idea,” he said, pointing up the metal tower to the steel beam that guided the ferry. “With a little luck we can use it to make our way onto the ship before anything in the lake is the wiser.”
“It’s a longshot,” Corbin said with uncertainty.
“What else can we do?” Logan said with a shrug.
“You’re right. It’s either try this or watch as the swarm de
stroys the capitol.”
Garth came up behind them, muttering to himself. “Damned crazy kids… Fine. Get yourselves up on that platform and be ready for my signal. I’ll take care of the lightning stone, you’re going to need every second we can spare. Quick now, not a moment to lose,” he urged, shoving them toward the ladders that worked their way up the tower to the beams over the lake.
They scrambled up them in no time, Logan remarkably nimble considering he was unable to use his left hand, wrapping his forearm around every other wrung for support instead. Garth worked the control panel to open the cylindrical chamber and removed the lightning stone, tossing the hot thing from one gloved hand to the other. Logan was just reaching the top when Garth set down the stone and hollered up to him.
“You boys have exactly ten minutes to get across! Like it or not, I’ll not risk a moment past that. There’s too many lives at stake down there. If you’re not going to make it, you’ll just have to do your best to get a warning out to the ship.”
With that, he disappeared back into the harbor shack. A long fluted tube extended toward the water, shooting a series of bursting flares to warn the vessel that there was an emergency.
On the ferry deck, the crew and traders stopped what they were doing to stare at the bright warning flashes. Captain Higgins started shouting commands to his crew to get to their defensive positions, wondering what the mad gnome back at the dock could be thinking. Had he finally lost what few wits he had left after all these years?
The vessel came to a screeching halt as the wheel settled in a shower of sparks across the bare metal of the beam above. The ship sank heavier into the water, no longer buoyed by the electric current. Crew ran all around the deck, sending passengers below, racing into positions around the perimeter, and pulling black steel lance batons into nervous hands.
There was no telling whether they would be attacked while the power was down. Captain Higgins wondered how long they had before the squids were upon them, punching his hand down into the wooden rail outside his cabin in frustration. The wood splintered under his fist, which had been strengthened by a lifetime of hard labor on the ferries.
A frantic older sailor ran up to him, waving his finger at the steel beam overhead. “Captain, we’re being attacked from above!”
Higgins brought his seeing glass up to his eye and focused the lens. There were men running toward them across the thin metal platform above! From this vantage point, he could see the renowned hunter Corbin Walker and his troublemaking brother, two lads he had seen plenty of times when he visited his cousin in Riverbell. Corbin was looking right at him, wildly waving his arms in the air and shouting something he could not make out over the frantic murmurs on deck.
“Fool, get back to your post. Those be no enemies. It’s just the stupid Walker brothers!” Higgins shoved the sailor to his post. What was going on here? Why would Master Garth put all of our lives in jeopardy for those two nitwits?
Screams rose from the deck when the ship suddenly lurched violently sideways.
“Curses and damnation, the monsters are already attacking!” Higgins snarled.
Large barnacle-encrusted purple tentacles slithered over the starboard side, feeling the area for food. They were met with the stabbing of electrified lances.
“That’s it, lads, don’t ye be letting them gain hold of our ship! Hold that deck from the bastards and teach ‘em what we’re made of!”
Higgins barked out orders to his men, knowing that if the large squids below got a firm enough hold of the ship, they would tear it to pieces within minutes. His sailors worked together to stab at the vile creature wherever it tried to gain a grip on the boat.
Logan was worrying he would be sick, already dizzy from being up so high, when the vessel first rocked to the left below. He tried not to look down, flinging his arms about wildly to keep his balance, which was hard with the fever that was settling over him. The kala root was wearing off and he felt nauseous.
The dizzying height slowed them down, with Corbin focusing every step to be as accurate as possible while they worked their way across the beam with as much speed as they could muster. Master Garth had given them a window of only ten minutes to get across before he switched on the power again, and it had already been seven.
From their vantage point, the brothers could see the ship lurching to the other side, being pulled now in two different directions as another squid arrived for the feast.
Logan screamed in rage as he helplessly watched the creature assaulting the vessel below, causing him to twist his ankle and lose his footing on the beam. He desperately waved his arms, trying to regain his balance, but he fell off the precarious platform toward the oily water below.
Corbin grabbed the sleeve of Logan’s shirt just in time, the weight of his brother almost tugging him off the beam as well. Working together, they managed to get Logan back up onto the thin platform, with only time for a look of gratitude before they headed off again.
The shipmaster bit his own fist as he watched the boys nearly fall from the beam, pulling it away when he realized they were okay and cursing loudly to no one in particular. Darting his eyes between them and his sailors, he was all sweat and desperation as a third squid joined in and began attacking the ship.
“Brolnan, help Tala over there!” He roared to his shipmates, who were desperately defending the boat all around.
Every man and woman, crew and passengers alike, was now fully engaged in battle against grasping tentacles all about the sides of the deck. It seemed each time they stabbed a lashing tentacle, a new appendage appeared to take its place.
Some of his men were screaming hysterically about the futility of trying to stop the squids from pulling the ship down. Higgins threw himself at the complaining sailors, rolling them to the deck, as a man-sized chunk of the side railing flew away in the aftermath of a smashing purple tentacle.
“Quite yer belly aching and get back at it!” Higgins shouted. Their distraction had almost cost the fools their lives. Chaos erupted as a fourth squid joined in the fray, seemingly sealing their doomed fate.
Corbin flung himself down onto the coupling that held the ship, twirling around its base and using his spear as a handle to fly down to the deck. He leapt off the last few feet of cabling, guiding the tip of his weapon right through a tentacle that was reaching for a woman fighting another at her side. The injured squid squirmed violently, shaking the boat about and throwing sailors to the deck.
As soon as Corbin’s feet touched the deck, Harbormaster Garth shoved the lightning stone back inside the chamber, powering the generators back online. There was no sense waiting for Logan; only one person was needed to relay the message, and with the ship in mortal danger, there was no sense losing innocent lives, not over a fool boy with nothing better on his mind than bothering old men with his pranks.
Logan heard the motor spring back to life and ran harder. His lungs were already set to burst, throbbing with each gasping breath.
He had almost reached the coupling when he stopped dead, the sound of crackling energy racing across the beam behind him. Freezing, he could see the burst of electricity as the lightning stone’s energy coursed through the studded metal, the beam heating up under his boots as the deadly sparks headed his way.
“You said ten minutes!” he gasped. His shock turned to rage and Logan shook his fist toward the dock. “You old goat! It was only some damned worms!”
He threw himself off the beam in a half-suicidal attempt to escape the electric current. His hand caught the coupling of the ship, spinning his body around just like his little brother. Corbin watched in horror as Logan screamed in agony, the chain tearing the flesh from his already wounded hand.
The current licked his skin just as he let go, giving him an extra nudge and throwing him down to the ship.
As the power surged around the hull of the vessel, it raised slightly on the current. The tentacles released the boat, quick to escape the stin
ging pain of the electricity. The deck fell silent as the ship whirred back into motion across the water.
Corbin was pulling his brother from the bushel of corn he had landed in when he realized all eyes were on them.
“Guess corn ain’t that bad after all, eh, Peck?” Logan mumbled in a daze.
Corbin had never been happier to hear the nickname, grinning at his crazy brother. Both men quickly wiped the smiles off their faces however, when the shadow of Captain Higgins fell over them.
He stood there, clapping his fist into an open palm, with a look that could freeze lava. “Somebody better explain what in the blazes is happening around here!”
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