Into The Void

by Nigel Findley

  Most of the remaining bodies were obviously and messily dead, but a few still moved and called feebly for help. Nobody aboard the deathspider paid them any attention, and the crew of the Probe was too busy to help them.

  There was a cry from the foredeck. One of the attackers, with a sudden burst of fury, had broken through the cordon of hammership crewmen. The man was bleeding profusely from a dozen wounds, but he was still very much alive. His wild, empty eyes fixed on Teldin, and he rushed forward, swinging his notched broadsword.

  Desperately, Teldin snatched up the short sword he’d dropped and brought the weapon up to block the mighty cut that would have taken his head off. The blades clashed, and Teldin cried out at the agony that shot through his wrist at the impact. He backpedaled quickly, keeping the sword out before him. Sweat blurred his vision, and the tendons of his forearm burned like fire. The light sword in his hand felt like a bar of lead. He sought within him, desperately, for the calm, the focus he’d felt earlier, but there was no response – either from the cloak or from within himself. Maybe the flare of power had drained all energy from the cloak, or perhaps in his exhausted state he was simply unable to call it forth.

  If he’d ever been able to call it. Even at the best of times, the power he’d felt had never been anything he could really depend on.

  He blocked another swing, deflecting his opponent’s blade so that it clove the air above Teldin’s head. While the man was open, Teldin tried to lunge, but his movements were slow and his enemy jumped back in plenty of time. It was all Teldin could do to get his own blade in position to parry the man’s cat-quick riposte.

  There was no hope that he was going to last, Teldin realized dully. The man he faced was a good swordsman, infinitely more skilled than Teldin, and the man seemed almost fresh, unaffected by the wounds that had turned his clothing burgundy. Teldin had just managed to block his preliminary attacks, but there was no way that would last. If nothing else, the man would be able to wear Teldin down until he couldn’t hold his sword up anymore, then the broadsword would end his life.

  He had to do something desperate. He backed away again to give himself a few precious moments. With his left hand he drew his belt knife and turned the weapon so he held it by the broad base of the blade. His enemy stepped forward again, readying for another cut.

  Teldin yelled – a last-ditch attempt to distract the swordsman – and simultaneously flipped his knife out in an underarm throw. The blade flashed in the flow-light, and sank into the left side of the man’s belly. He cried out with pain. Teldin lunged, but his enemy was better than that. Even distracted by the agony of the knife in his guts, he was easily able to bring his sword down and parry Teldin’s thrust.

  Teldin threw himself back again, barely evading his opponent’s riposte. The swordsman stepped forward once more, and Teldin looked into his eyes. They were dull with pain, and with something more than pain. The man was dying; he knew it and Teldin knew it, but the swordsman also knew that he’d have more than enough time for one last kill before he collapsed. Teldin tried to yell, to scream for help, but his throat was too tight. The only sound he could make was a pitiful croak. The man raised his sword for a final strike.

  Teldin heard a swish and a meaty truwk. The swordsman lurched forward, the broad head of a spear growing – magically, it seemed – out of his chest. Teldin looked for a moment into uncomprehending eyes, then the eyes closed and the man collapsed.

  Teldin saw Aelfred across the forecastle. The big man was still following through after his spear cast. The spear, Teldin realized, was the one that had been buried in the forward turret wall. The warrior bad torn it out and thrown it at the last instant. Aelfred smiled grimly, then drew his sword again and rejoined the fray on the foredeck.

  Exhaustion and the aftereffects of terror hit Teldin like a blow. His belly cramped, and it was all he could do to stop himself from retching. His sword arm hung limply by his side. If another enemy came upon him like this, he realized, he wouldn’t even be able to move while the other struck him dead.

  But there were no other enemies on the forecastle. Vallus stood by the starboard rail, as unruffled as always. He gave Teldin a reassuring smile. Teldin crossed the deck to join him. As he did, the Probe lurched slightly beneath his feet. The helm is operating. Estriss’s “voice” was crystal-clear in his mind.

  “Vallus, do it!” Aelfred ordered.

  The elf mage hadn’t waited for the instruction. Once more his hands wove the threads of magic. His voice echoed across the deck. Again the blinding lance of green light shot from his fingertip, this time striking the root of the remaining grappling leg beneath the Probe. Black crystal exploded into dust, and the slender leg sheared off cleanly at its base. The hammership lurched again.

  “Get us out of here!” Aelfred bellowed.

  Slowly at first, but with ever-increasing speed, the Probe dropped away from the deathspider. With both lower legs gone, there was nothing to hold it from beneath, nothing to prevent its escape. As the hammership drew away, Vallus delivered one final stroke. Multicolored beams of light slashed through the void once more, this time striking directly through the spidership’s bow port that had been shattered by an earlier spell.

  “I take it the helm is on the bridge?” the elf said dryly. Aelfred smiled broadly. “You take it right.” He patted Vallus on the shoulder. “That should slow them down, maybe permanently. Good move.”

  The hammership accelerated away from the deathspider. It changed course rapidly, just once, to avoid the severed leg that was wheeling slowly through space, then it poured on the speed. The distance between the ships grew rapidly. As if to bear out Aelfred’s words, the hideous ship remained stationary, presumably unable to pursue. It would only be minutes before the Probe could accelerate to its full spelljamming speed, then there would be little chance that the neogi could catch them.

  Teldin watched the receding spidership. The space around it was littered with debris – fragments from the shattered leg, small chunks of hull, and the small shapes that were the dead and dying. He was glad when the distance was so great that he could no longer see those figures.

  When the hammership pulled away from the deathspider, the situation on deck changed drastically. There were half a dozen human attackers and one umber hulk still alive. As soon as it was obvious that the Probe had escaped, most of the humans immediately threw down their weapons and surrendered, begging the hammership’s crew for mercy. The others turned on the single remaining hulk, attacking it ferociously. With the full surviving complement of the Probe plus the erstwhile slaves attacking it, the monster didn’t last long. Teldin heard its barking shrieks getting fainter and fainter, then the monster was silent.

  Teldin looked around the ship. Casualties had been horrendous. Most of the dead were the unarmored and lightly armed slaves from the deathspider, but many of the Probe’s crew had fallen as well. Sweor Tobregdan lay on the main deck, coughing out his last breaths in bright blood. Teldin spotted Miggins crumpled against the port rail. The young gnome was still alive – barely – but he clutched the torn ruin of what had been his left arm. Liono, the spear still transfixing his chest, lay on the starboard side of the forecastle. The cloying smell of blood was thick in the air, and Teldin’s ears were filled with the moans of the injured and dying. The Probe was like a charnel house.

  Teldin slumped down against the forward turret and let the sword slip from his cramped hand. His stomach knotted with nausea. So many dead. He remembered the other battlefields he’d seen and recalled Aelfred’s words: To the Nine Hells with the fools who think it’s glorious. The big warrior was right. There was no glory in battle, just horror, pain, and death.

  Dully he looked up to see Aelfred standing at the forecastle’s aft rail, surveying the carnage below. The big man had bound a cloth around his brow to staunch the bleeding of his head wound. Small wounds showed almost everywhere on the warrior’s body, but he seemed unaware of them. He shook his head and bent down to
clean his blade on the shirt of someone who had no further use for it.

  A junior officer – Julia, Teldin thought her name was – climbed the ladder from the main deck to the forecastle Teldin had always thought she looked pert and attractive with her short-cropped red hair and petite figure. Now she was covered in blood, and she looked utterly exhausted.

  Aelfred looked up as he heard her approach. “Report,” he said quietly.

  The woman’s voice was dull, as though she were tired unto death. “Limited structural damage,” she responded, “nothing serious. We’re spaceworthy.”

  “Casualties?”

  “Fourteen dead, to my knowledge. Four missing that I know about: Shandess, Morla, Zeb, and Kevan. Probably overboard and dead —” she paused “— maybe captured.”

  Aelfred shook his head. “Let’s hope dead,” he said flatly.

  Teldin recognized one of the names. Shandess was the old man who’d spoken to him on the foredeck immediately after they’d passed into the flow. He looked back at the receding deathspider and remembered the tattoo on the shoulder of one of his attackers, the wild, soul-destroyed look in his eyes.

  He nodded to himself. Let’s hope dead.

  “Can we run the ship?” Aelfred continued.

  Julia nodded. “Just. If we use the slaves to help, we should be all right. In no shape for another battle, but all right.”

  Estriss joined the two at the rail. There was blood on the tips of his facial tentacles: red blood, human blood. Teldin tried to blot the significance of that from his mind. Do we trust them, the illithid asked.

  “We have to,” Aelfred said flatly, then amended, “to some extent, at least. I’ve seen this before. They’ll work for us – we saved them from the neogi, remember? – and they’ll follow orders. It’s the slave mentality.” He swore viciously, then forced himself to be calm. “They’ll follow orders,” he repeated, “but that’s all they’ll be good for. Don’t expect any initiative, any motivation. Sometimes they can come back, learn to think for themselves. Sometimes. It all depends on how long they were on the deathspider, what happened to them there.” Teldin looked away. His fear was draining from him, but horror and disgust still remained.

  “Teldin.”

  He turned at the sound of his own name. An exhausted-looking Horvath was approaching across the forecastle. He was carrying something, a bundle not much smaller than the gnome himself. “Teldin,” he said again.

  Teldin struggled to his feet. He read in the gnome’s expression, in the dullness of his voice, what the burden must be, but knowing and seeing were two different things. He didn’t want to look at the bundle that the gnome had set gently down on the deck, but he had to. He stood beside his friend and looked down.

  It was Dana, as he knew it had to be. Her face was peaceful, at rest, for the first time in his experience. Her eyes were closed, and her lips were curved in a faint smile. She could have been asleep, if it hadn’t been for the great wound in her chest.

  “She wanted to see you,” Horvath said, his voice cracking with emotion. “She wanted me to take her to you, but she went before I could reach you.”

  Teldin’s heart was cold in his chest, and tears that he couldn’t let himself shed stung behind his eyes. If he let himself cry, he thought, he’d never be able to stop. Hers was another death, another innocent laid at his feet, this time quite literally. The responsibility was his. He and his burden had brought death to another friend. He knelt beside the still shape and laid a hand tenderly against her cheek.

  The cold in his breast burst into fire. He threw back his head and howled his torment and fury at the colors of the flow. “Damn you!” he screamed. “Damn you to the Abyss!” If anyone had asked, he couldn’t have told who he was cursing. The neogi, the dying stranger who’d laid this burden – this curse – on him … or maybe himself.

  A soft hand was on his shoulder. He tried to shake it off, but the grip strengthened. He looked up into Sylvie’s troubled eyes. “I’ll take you below,” the half-elf said gently.

  His anger faded to a dull ache. He hung his head. “All right,” he mumbled. Horvath and Sylvie helped him to his feet, and she led him away.

  *****

  Prissith Nerro walked through the red-lit slave quarters of the deathspider. All around, the neogi could hear the sibilant speech of others of its kind, the rattling growls of umber hulks, the moans of the surviving slaves. Normally it would feel the fierce and burning pride that came with viewing its possessions: its slaves, its umber hulk lordservants, its lesser neogi kin-slaves, most of all the great ship itself, the Void Reaper. Now the pride was submerged under a tide of anger. Nerro hissed its rage and frustration. It wanted to lash out with its jaws, to tear the flesh of a human slave, to taste its victim’s hot blood, but it knew that too many slaves had already died today, that it couldn’t spare another even for the worthy purpose of settling its own troubled spirit.

  Another neogi was in the hallway ahead of Nerro, sidling forward tentatively, its claws clicking on the crystal deck. The pattern of colored dye on the other neogi’s fur identified it as second in command of the Void Reaper. Prissith Ulm, its name was. Prissith Nerro could smell its brood-brother’s fear, and that, at least, was some consolation. The prize that Nerro sought was still out of its reach – perhaps farther than ever, after today’s failure – but at least the overlord knew that it still commanded the fear and respect of its underlings.

  “Prissith Nerro Master,” the subordinate neogi hissed, bobbing its head in a gesture of respect. “The captive meat is prepared, as you commanded.”

  Nerro snarled its satisfaction. “Take me to it,” it ordered. The captive human was in one of the slave cells. He lay on a hard wooden pallet, his limbs bound to prevent escape or attack. His clothing had been ripped away, leaving him naked and defenseless. Nerro examined him with a stirring of interest. The man was old, obviously, older than any neogi slave would be allowed to become. His body was withered, his white skin wrinkled. Nerro found itself wondering how the prey’s flesh would taste, whether age would improve or worsen the flavor, then it dismissed the thought. This food was probably too old to be palatable, except in an emergency. Once again, Nerro found itself wondering at the strange habits of these humans. Why would they leave one such as this to survive for so long? To eat the food that could be given to other, more deserving, creatures? To decay? It was sheer waste, and waste disgusted and angered Prissith Nerro.

  The human was unconscious, Nerro noted. Possibly blood loss from the deep wound that marred the man’s chest. Nerro brought its head closer to that wound and sniffed. Withered or not, the creature’s blood still smelled appetizing.

  “Prissith Nerro Master,” Prissith Ulm said softly.

  Nerro turned on it with a spit of anger. “What?” it demanded.

  “We believe it is dying, Prissith Nerro Master.”

  Nerro considered for a moment. “If this is true,” it hissed, “it is well you told me.” There was much to do, to learn, and if the time remaining to do so was limited, it was best to know it. “Wake it,” Prissith Nerro ordered.

  *****

  All Shandess knew was pain. His body burned with it, his thoughts were filled with it. Darkness was all around him, and the darkness danced with pain.

  He was vaguely aware of his body. He knew that he lay on his back upon a hard surface, and he knew that he wasn’t cold. Most of all, though, he knew that his chest hurt with an agony that spoke unmistakably of approaching death.

  Something grasped his jaw, forced his mouth open. He felt something cold and hard being driven cruelly between his teeth, then a liquid struck the back of his throat, a liquid that burned like all the cheap liquor he’d drunk on a dozen planets, all combined into one harsh draft. He coughed, and agony tore at his chest. This must be death, he thought.

  Somehow, though, he didn’t die. In fact, he felt a little control returning to his body and mind. After the initial burst of torment, the pain seemed to retreat
to a manageable level. He forced his eyes open.

  For a moment, his brain couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing, then the meaning penetrated. He screwed his eyes shut again to block out the scene – to deny the reality of it, if he could. He would have screamed in horror, but he couldn’t draw a deep enough breath.

  He was in a small room or a cell, perhaps five feet wide and not much more than that long. Walls and ceiling were dull black, and the only illumination came from a small disk over-head that glowed with a dim, blood-red light. Two faces were above him, looking down at him. Not human faces. They were more like the heads of giant snakes – or perhaps the moray eels he’d seen on one of the worlds he’d visited. Their grinning mouths were filled with needlelike teeth, and their small eyes were red-tinged and staring.

  Shandess knew he was dying, but he also knew, suddenly, that there were some things he feared more than death. Instinctively, he tried to fend off the hideous creatures with his hands but found his wrists – and his ankles, when he tried to move them – securely bound. He whimpered deep in his throat.

  “Withered meat, eyes open.” That voice could never have come from a human throat. It was the voice of a giant snake, if such a creature could have the power of speech. From the order of the words, Shandess could tell the monster was struggling with a foreign language. “Meat eyes open,” the sibilant voice repeated, “or master eyelids from meat tear.”

  Shandess forced his eyes open once more. One of the monsters had backed away. It was the nearest one that had spoken. “Good,” the neogi said. “Meat master ‘Prissith Nerro Master’ call. Meat speak.” Shandess couldn’t force his throat to work. The monster lashed down with its head until its teeth were a mere hand’s span from the old man’s face. Its breath, reeking of corruption, washed over him, and its saliva dripped on his face. “Meat speak!”