Shadowgod

by Michael Cobley

  As the moments passed, the invading fleet grew nearer and the sheer size of some of the vessels became apparent. While most were the long, narrow two-masters favoured by the Islesmen for their speed and manoeuverability, another six or seven were of a different scale entirely and had two or three decks, three or four masts, and a bank of oars. Still closer they came and Keren could feel the mood about her become sombre, and heard lowered voice pointing out the banners flying from the large ships, identifying the clan each belonged to. Yet everyone agreed that these giants of the sea came from across the Bay of Horns to the north, from the Jefren Theocracy.

  The fleet slowed, the greater vessels moving into a rough line parallel with the eastern shore while the smaller ones formed groups at either end with a sizeable cluster holding close formation nearer the centre of the wide channel. Frowning, Keren peered out at the nearest of the Jefren ships and noticed what appeared to be large outriggers attached to either side of its hull with heavy booms. It looked like nothing she had seen before on a ship that size and as she stared, trying to make out more details, fires bloomed on one of the upper decks, amid a jumble of large, upright supports. For a moment she was buoyed by hope that some mishap had occurred. Then a ball of fire shot up from the ship's deck in a long, high arc towards the city.

  There was a collective gasp of horror, and the reason for the outriggers was suddenly clear. As the deck-mounted catapults hurled more missiles into the air, the great ship bucked visibly but the outriggers kept it from rolling back.

  The soldiers around her, and the Wrackfolk watching from their decaying hulks, cried out in anger and fear as the first blazing knot fell like a comet into a cluster of buildings well within Scallow's perimeter wall. Burning chunks erupted from the point of impact and fire took hold on nearby roofs and walls. The missile was probably an oil-soaked bale of rags, hay and tinder bound around a keg of pitch.

  Mothers name! Keren thought. If they're using such weapons against the city, what are they going to do to us? Or are they just going to ignore us?

  The militia soldier next to her raised his axe, a long-hafted, double-bladed piece, tugged off its waxed canvas sheath and laid it flat on the crate before him, As he retied his long black hair into a warrior's knot, he glanced at Keren and offered a small, grim smile.

  “I'd return to my horses, ser, if I were you.” He looked up at the sky. “The koltreys are gathering.”

  She followed his gaze and saw the dark, soaring carrion birds. “On the north Cabringa coast,” she said, “they're known as blackwings, but they mean the same thing. I think I'll wait a little longer, see what happens – ”

  A mass roar of defiance went up from everyone along the edge of Wracktown as several ships tacked their way out from the shore, the few ships remaining from last night's chaos. Keren knew little about sea warfare, but she could not see how half a dozen vessels might prevail against such a fleet as this. And sure enough, they had covered less than half the distance when a volley of boulders fell upon them, swamping two and smashing one into a floating wreckage of timbers and struggling figures. The other three veered round to bear west, as if trying to get behind the firing arc of those terrible catapults. But the enemy had other weapons and as the Scallow ships approached the nearest Jefren dromond a flock of long black spears leaped out from its forecastle. The effect was devastating – two of the ships sunk immediately and the third, listing badly, turned away and headed for the jetties of Wracktown.

  Angry murmurs came from the onlookers at this terrible onslaught, then someone shouted – “Look!”

  All eyes gazed past the crippled vessel to the tight formation of Islesmen ships. Some had unfurled sails and were moving slowly west, opening the formation. From it emerged a larger, wider vessel, mastless and flying no banners, and even at that distance Keren could see that a sorcerous emerald nimbus hung about it. A dread chill trickled down her spine as the ship turned to move straight towards Wracktown.

  “One ship?” snorted the axeman beside her. “They'll have to do better than that.”

  “They probably will,” she muttered under her breath. Then she glanced over at the continuing bombardment of Scallow and cursed – almost a quarter of the city seemed to be on fire and a great pall of smoke was drifting north on the breeze. For a moment she thought she could hear the screams of the trapped and the dying but knew that was impossible. The wind, she thought. The sound of the waves.

  Looking back out at the attacking fleet, she saw that the mastless, eldritch ship was closer and on a course that would cross with the fleeing Scallow vessel. The crippled vessel's helmsman managed to turn it slightly to avoid a collision but then, to Keren's horror, the glowing ship altered course to ensure that it would happen and sailed on relentlessly. Crewmen on the Scallow vessel gesticulated frantically at the oncoming ship, all to no avail. In the remaining seconds figures leaped into the cold waters and struck out to either side.

  Then the sorcerous ship struck. The Scallow ship did not shift or roll over, for the attacker's prow crunched straight into the port side near the stern and carved right through all the timberwork of hull, deck and keel without pause. The attacking ship ground its way through, exiting the starboard just to the rear of the prow. Almost hacked in two, the wrecked craft sank. The glowing ship, its wake aswirl with wreckage and bodies, quickly veered to port, bringing it back on course for Wracktown. It was, Keren reckoned, more than a minute away.

  Her feelings of peril and foreboding surged. She turned to the axeman and his companions. “We can't stay here – that thing's coming straight for us!”

  Some of them just laughed. “Don't get afeared girly. We'll protect you!…”

  “Fools!” she cried and ran back along the wharf, shouting at the people up on the hulls to either side, telling them to abandon their homes and flee along to the main quay. A few obscenities were the only replies, until someone back at the end of the dock shouted:

  “Night's blood – she's right!”

  Once glance over her shoulder told her volumes. The eldritch ship was mere seconds from ramming the old vessel on the right, and people were starting to stream out of its wharfside doors in hysterical panic, joining those already bolting away from the dock end.

  She ran for dear life, boots hammering the planks, arms pumping. At the steps she took them three at a time, expecting at any moment to hear a massive impact. She reached the top, not daring to look back, and dashed over to her horse, wrenched the reins loose and vaulted into the saddle. Only then did she look behind her and what she saw froze her to the marrow.

  More than a hundred people had fled the hulks and jetties to gather on the lower wharfside, thinking themselves safe from peril. But from her higher vantage Keren saw everything, in terrible detail.

  There was a thunderous, tearing crash as the sorcerous glowing vessel slammed into one of the decrepit, old ships. The half-rotten hull burst apart and the enemy ship carved an inexorable path through it, ripping open cabins and holds given over to homes and taverns and workshops, obliterating them all. For a moment Keren thought it would slow, lose momentum and stop, but on it came as if it were an iron blade thrusting through toys made of twigs.

  The whole quayside shuddered and Keren's horse whinnied, jerking to the side in fear. With a tight grip on the reins and a warm hand to stroke the beast's neck, she calmed it. Then another deep wooden crunch sounded above the din of smashed timbers, and shrieking, terrified voices grew near as the hulk-folk came pouring up from the lower wharf. Beyond them, the unrelenting enemy vessel was grinding its way through another old ship on a course heading for the dockside near Keren. Unlike the lower wharfs, the main quay was massively built on ten-foot wide piles sunk deep into the river bed. Keren wanted to believe that it would be solid enough to stop the marauding destroyer but certainty failed her and she yanked on her horse's reins, urging it up the long ramp that led out of Wracktown.

  She got out ahead of an uncontrolled mob and up onto a wide stilt road
which curved westwards through a dense district of warehouses. She wheeled her horse in time to see the glowing ship strike the edge of Wracktown's main quay. As if it was tinder it broke with a loud splintering crack and huge, shattered pieces of timber flew into the air as the vessel battered on through the long, heavy planking to plunge into the great framework of supports underpinning South Bridges itself.

  She stared in shock disbelief as the ship, surely driven by the power of the Wellsource, disappeared from view. Yet she could hear the destruction it was wreaking, and feel the tremors, and see the crowds of people abandoning their workshops and homes. Then a long swathe of densely packed buildings and walkways began to slump and fall inwards, opening up a jagged chasm. Tall timbered goods houses either collapsed fully into the rift or toppled in from both sides. Many of the undersupports anchoring the Bridges district had been interconnected down the years, joists resting on founderframes that were braced against load-bearing walls or crossbeams which, when they failed, pulled all else down with them. A score-strong crowd some distance in front of Keren suddenly found themselves scrambling for safety as the wide walkway section they were watching from tilted forward and began to break apart.

  Keren was too busy trying to control her horse to help. As she fought the panicking beast away from the widening rift the stilt road she was on gave forth a sickening groan and lurched sideways. I can't stay here, she thought. I'll die like the rest! Digging in her heels, she urged her mount into a gallop along the unsteady road to a nearby junction and down onto a lower thoroughfare which climbed and ran north, almost parallel with the chasm of destruction. Reaching the road's highest point she stared at the still-unfolding catastrophe. I'm watching hundreds upon hundreds of people die, she realised, the horror of it settling hollow in her stomach.

  Then the glowing, Wellsource ship burst into view on the north side of the Bridges district, destroying a loading dock and marina as it did so. Wreckage was strewn in the waters as the ship surged out into the dark expanse of the Sarlekwater. Keren breathed in deeply, almost afraid to look back round at the scene of chaos, but forced herself.

  A tangled forest of shattered timbers was mingled with collapsed walls and roofs, and twisted ironwork balustrades. Buildings had been torn open to expose bedrooms, kitchens, offices, workrooms, with water trickling from broken pipes while the scattered contents of hearths were starting dozens of small fires. Bodies lay on fallen floors, or were impaled on upthrusting spars, or wallowed lifelessly in the debris-choked waters, or….

  She averted her eyes, gazing north to see the evil vessel turning in a leisurely curve, coming back round towards the eastern wards of Bridges, its speed undiminished, its course starkly evident. In her mind's eye she imagined the dread ship repeatedly smashing in and out of the Bridges district until all that was left was a wide stretch of devastation and death. For a wild moment, she thought of riding towards the ship, somehow leaping on board and confronting the one behind all this….

  Who could probably kill me by just looking at me, she thought. Medwin, I've got to find him.

  Which meant heading for the east bank before the enemy ship cut her off.

  Hauling on the reins, she turned her horse's head and spurred it into a canter back down the stilt road. As she passed the junction with the now-collapsed roadway, a long crashing sound announced the enemy ship's return. Fleeing people crowded the roads and walkways leading east and Keren had to use her horse to force a way through. Soon she was riding up to the platform on one side of a bridge linking South Bridges to a rocky islet from which a larger bridge stretched to the shore. The bridge before her was a sliding structure that crossed one of the two main canals which snaked through this side of the Bridges district. People were crossing in a constant stream, most on foot, most carrying bundles of possessions or small chests, or pulling small carts piled with belongings.

  Keren was just approaching the bridge, edgily aware of the rumble of destruction drawing near, when a knot of youths off to the side began shouting excitedly and pointing. She looked south to the invading fleet and was surprised to see a flotilla of low, narrow ships, each driven by a bank of oars and moving fast up the inlet. Each flew a banner from its stern, a slender pale blue standard whose details were lost at that distance. As she watched, the lead craft swept straight towards one of the outlying Islesmen longships and rammed it amidships. Everyone who saw this let out a massed shout of triumph…

  Later on, Keren was not sure if it was that or what was about to happen that startled her horse. But the creature reared then plunged forward, bucked violently, hurling Keren out of the saddle, then bolted for the bridge, scattering people to left and right. Keren half-landed on top of a group of Bridges-folk who helped her back to her feet. Cursing the horse for a jittery beast, she thanked her helpers then hurried after it, squeezing past people, trying to keep the horse in view.

  The unending sound of destruction beneath the timber façade was suddenly a close roar getting closer. The other side of the sliding bridge dropped, throwing everyone on it forward. Terrified people fell, scrabbled for handholds or were crushed. Keren dived at the bridge's side frame, wrapped her arms around a solid wooden beam. At the same time, the road and platform she had so recently passed along split apart in a cascade of wrecked timbers as the long, mastless shape of the Wellsource ship smashed its way out. All of this happened in only a matter of seconds but Keren, hanging on while people fell screaming past her, found herself staring down at the vessel as it passed by.

  Through a shifting green nimbus she saw a man in loose-fitting garments standing at the prow, bare arms folded as he stared ahead; she saw the decrepit state of the ship; she could see into the hold and espy torrents of rushing water within; and she could see a figure lashed to the stump of the main mast, kneeling on the deck with head bowed.

  Almost before recognising the light brown clothing, she knew it was Gilly. She wanted to cry out to him but the vile ship was past and gone before she could draw breath

  She swung her legs up to the beam to sit astride it, trying not to look down for too long. Her side of the bridge was attached to a solid set of piles that were crossbeamed to others which were part of the still-standing canalside. But as before, buildings and other structures were collapsing into the gulf of destruction wrought by the sorcerous ship. Soon, the spreading devastation would drag the bridge supports down with it.

  Then something flew past and thudded into the woodwork nearby. It took her a moment to realise that it was a light cord attached to a crossbow bolt. Quickly she reached out to grab it then stared up at the other end to see Medwin and Golwyth feeding out heavy rope which was tied to their end of the cord.

  Feeling almost weak with relief, Keren let out a hoarse, dry laugh and began winding in her lifeline.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Divine Mother!

  All who live and breathe take from thee,

  And all who sleep and die go to thee.

  —from The Word Of The Fathertree, 5th Cantation

  As Golwyth's men hauled Keren up from the wrecked bridge, Medwin was appalled at the state of her but kept the anxiety from showing in his face. Her riders' jerkin was torn at the shoulder, there was mud spattered up her left side, scratches and bruises on her face, scratches on her hands and blood smearing from a cut on her temple which she seemed not to notice. Yet she still had that indomitable air of readiness, a slender-faced, wiry woman willing to rejoin the fray.

  Not this time, my lady of swords, he thought. I want you kept safe - we may yet find your affinity with the Daemonkind of use.

  He gazed across at the devastation gouged through the nearer part of the Bridges district. Crowds of people were scrambling down stairs, ladders and gantries to low jetties where small boats were ferrying survivors to the shore, a sight sure to be repeated all across this stricken place. Not that the shore was so safe from attack, although the catapulted fire bales had become infrequent since Yared Hevrin's ramships joined battle w
ith the Jefren dromonds.

  May the Earthmother grant you surcease of woe and pain, Yared, and a return to the flesh in a time of peace…

  Wiping her face on her sleeve, Keren came over to Medwin, her eyes full of hard, contained anger.

  “Medwin, I have to get back across,” she began. “Redrigh's still over there, so if Golwyth can lay hands on a boat, a raft, something - ”

  “Wait now - Captain Redrigh can take care of himself, and in any case we have to send someone up along the lakeside with a vital message…” He paused, looked closer at her and frowned. “You seem close to exhaustion, Keren. We'll get you back to the compound….send someone else…”

  “No, you….you can't send me back to the city!” She was dismayed and angry. “Please, Medwin, I'm not even tired…”

  He gave her a long, piercing stare. “Have you the strength for a fast gallop up the lake?”

  “I have, I swear it.”

  Medwin made a great show of reluctant mind-changing, ending with a deep sigh. “Very well. There are another seven of those ramships waiting in a cove north along the lakeside - one of Golwyth's men will lend you his horse so you can ride with all speed up the lake shore. Once you find the ships, tell the captains I sent you.” From an inner pocket he pulled a pale blue banneret and gave it to Keren. “They'll know this is a token of proof from Yared's allies. When you have their attention, tell them to sail down the lake to the city and engage that accursed ship. They may not be able to sink it, but they might delay it and let more innocents escape from the Bridges.”

  Keren stared out at the receding Wellsource ship with a hawkish hate in her eyes, then stuffed the banneret into her jerkin and nodded to Medwin.

  “I shall not fail you,” she said, then turned to Golwyth who led her over to a group of his men, standing by their mounts. Moments later she was off at a spirited gallop, crossing the great span to the shore where she climbed the main way and turned south along the shore road.