Kelbor moved behind Slaayde. “Stand down, Slaayde,” he said, menace in his voice.
A flash of anger covered Slaayde's face, and he paused for but a moment, considering, and then took a breath, glanced again toward Bertha who stared back at him. Tears streamed down her face. He relaxed and ceased straining against Glimador. Gesturing toward the old monk, he said, “Fine. I'll leave him be. Let go of me.”
Glimador nodded and released the Captain. Slaayde rushed to the ladder to join his men in battle.
More crossbow bolts flew by. One embedded in the housing for the ship's wheel.
“What do we do now?” said Kelbor.
“We hope that Seran found them and that they get here soon.”
“And if they don't?”
“Watch the monk and see to the woman; I'm going downdeck. Keep your head down.”
Little Tug wreaked havoc on the gangway. He cursed and taunted the monks that crumbled and shattered before his monstrous hammer. He trod on the broken bodies, their blood, brains, and guts stained the ramp as he pummeled his way down to the pier. Several corpses bobbed in the reddening water beneath the gangway, Tug's blows having launched them over the rail.
The smell of blood and men’s innards hung heavy in the air as it always did over a battlefield, breeze or not. The horrid sounds and sickening sights and scents of battle were new to the young Lomerian soldiers aligned behind Tug. Several retched. They formed a column one man wide behind Sergeant Vid, all silent and shiny silver, shields and swords, their faces pale and stoic, their eyes betrayed their fear. Beside them, Slaayde’s gritty reavers, old friends to blood and gore, formed a second column, their eyes wild and weapons notched, their voices raised loud and wild, urging Tug on. They chanted his name in unison, in tone and tenor that made the monks’ blood run cold.
Sergeant Vid and seaman Chert crouched behind Tug; their shields protected his and their flanks from crossbow bolts fired in panic by the monks arrayed along the pier. Most shafts flew wild, but some few slammed into or shattered against their shields.
The dozen Malvegillian archers lined up along the ship's rail were far more skilled than the monks. Several Thothians went down with arrows through chest, neck, or belly. The others took cover behind broad crates and barrels stacked about the pier.
The remaining monks on the gangway backpedaled from Tug, spears extended before them in hopes of keeping the brute at bay. Whenever Tug drew close enough, his hammer battered away the spear-tips, sundered shafts, and shattered limbs. Not a man amongst them could stand against him for more than a single swing of Old Fogey.
The cluster of monks at the base of the gangway parted when at last their champion arrived. His brethren whooped and hollered at the very sight of him, relief on their faces, their courage renewed, their ground now held. Their hero swaggered forward, a giant even to match Tug.
Sarq, champion of Tragoss Mor, towered above his fellows, and was near as tall as Tug. Bulging, chiseled muscles defined him; arms thicker than most men's legs; chest as broad as a wine barrel; his face lined and stony, his skin bronzed, and pate bald as his brethren. His arms and torso, tattooed here and there, women, dragons, and bones. The scars that crisscrossed his face and body bespoke of a bloody, brutal life. Not the life of a soldier, but that of a killer. A creature that lived for battle, reared in blood, his skills honed in the pits of Tragoss Mor’s arenas. He gripped the short-hafted spear in his right hand with ease and confidence. He lifted it above his head and his comrades cheered, their voices heard across the breadth of the docks, chanting his name, over and over. Sarq grinned and posed and flexed as they roared behind him and urged him on. His eyes wild, manic; his body shook with battle rage.
Tug grinned at the challenge. “Let's feed the fishes, boys,” he roared. He charged and pulled back his arm, poised to launch an overhand swing of his hammer. Sarq braced for the rush, spear readied before him.
Not ten feet from Sarq, Tug halted midstride and his hammer arced forward. A throw! He let Old Fogey fly, aimed at Sarq's midsection. A daring, even reckless move to throw his prized weapon when facing such an opponent. But perhaps Tug knew it was his best chance, for as quick as he was with the hammer, it was a ponderous weapon against an expert's spear. If he failed to crush Sarq with his first strike, the monk's spear may well skewer him.
The hammer sped in, too fast, and too large to dodge at that distance. Sarq sprang to the side with almost inhuman speed, spared of the deathblow. Fast as he was, the hammer caught him a glancing blow to the thigh. That and his leap took him from his feet. The hammer careened into other monks behind Sarq and sent several down in a heap.
Tug barreled forward, his tower shield braced before him, pinned with broken shafts. Sarq recovered his spear and made his feet, but before he was ready, Tug's shield barreled in and struck him a crushing blow that splintered the shield and brought Sarq to his knees, his face and arm broken and bloody.
Tug pummeled Sarq in the temple, once, and then again, knocking the Thothian unconscious. The other monks scurried back, shocked and terrified. Tug grabbed Sarq by the belt, hefted him overhead, and dumped him into the harbor, the Tragoss champion never even having struck a blow.
Seamen and soldiers swarmed past Tug, cheering, and waded into the fray, weapons flailing.
Slaayde slithered up against the ship's rail between where Guj, his half-lugron boatswain, and young Sir Paldor crouched. Both they and the monks on the pier were pinned down. Archers and crossbowmen traded shafts to little affect, as most everyone was now well behind cover.
“Orders, Captain?” said Guj, glancing over at Slaayde. Slaayde studied the scene as best he could, peeking over the gunwale.
“We've got to clear the pier,” said Glimador when he crouched down beside the others, “or Claradon won't be able to get to us.”
“Agreed,” said Slaayde.
“Up and over?” said Guj.
Slaayde nodded.
“I’ll go,” said Guj. “You stay with ship.”
“Agreed.”
Glimador looked at Guj quizzically.
“We jump over side,” said Guj. “Then kill all them monks.”
“Oh boy,” said Glimador. He peered over the rail at the gap between The Falcon and the pier. “That’s a ten or twelve foot drop and at least seven feet across. You can't be serious.”
“It's the only way,” said Slaayde. “We're pinned down here and bottled up at the gangway. We have to hit them across their whole line at once. They'll break and they'll rout.”
“Are you a soldier now, Captain?” said Glimador.
“I'm a lot of things,” said Slaayde.
“You tin-cans best stay put here,” said Guj to Glimador. “Too far for armor and I'm not fishing for you.”
Glimador looked over the side again. A crossbow bolt whizzed just over his head. “You'll get no argument from me.”
Word of the plan passed down the line in moments.
Guj sprang up. “Ready, you scum,” he shouted. “Up and over.” He stepped atop the rail and leaped toward the pier as he shouted a war cry. A good thirty crewmen followed him over in two quick waves, even the cook, the navigator, and one of the cabin boys made the leap, weapons in hand. The pier’s planks screamed and crackled but held when the men crashed to the boards. Amazingly, every man landed on the pier, though one or two went down, either taken by crossbow bolts or some injury from the jump.
Glimador looked down the line of the deck. Only Malvegillian archers and a handful of House Harringgold's regulars remained.
The pier now hosted a wild melee. Tug's group had partially broken the bottleneck at the gangway and was fully engaged with a troop of monks and a squadron of Tragoss Morian soldiers. Soldiers and seamen still crowded the gangway with no way to join the melee until Tug pushed the Thothians farther back.
Guj's seamen fell like madmen on the monks arrayed along the pier. They hacked and slashed with no mercy or regard. Their wildness was both their strength, since i
t struck fear in their enemy, and their weakness, since they fought as individuals, not as a unit.
Even over the din of battle, Tragoss whistles blared, a claxon call to arms. The city rose against them.
“Where are they?” said Slaayde as he strained to look down the pier.
“They'll be here,” said Glimador.
“The pier will be ours in minutes, but with those whistles will come troops,” said Slaayde. “Not just more monks, but squadrons of Tragoss regulars, trained soldiers. If they come in force, we're finished. To save our necks, we would have to push off at first sight of them and even then, we might not make it. Where's N'Paag? I need—-” Slaayde's words cut off in a grunt.
From the corner of his eye, Glimador saw Slaayde violently wrenched from his feet. He turned and witnessed a horror unlike any he'd seen before. He gasped and banged back against the gunwale in surprise. “Dead gods!?”
A fiend, a thing out of nightmare that moved like the wind, dragged Slaayde by the leg across the deck, then pounced on him, teeth and claws. The thing had been a man but moments before — it had been Prior Finch, a monk of Thoth, but was no longer. Now he was a monster, a fiend. Finch's bronzed skin was now a putrid gray; his teeth elongated into wicked fangs, his fingernails now razored claws, long and sharp as small daggers. His eyes burned red, blood red, illumed with an unholy light. A stench of death, putrid and vile, hung about him.
Slaayde squirmed and yelled and tried to spin and bring his sword to bear, but the thing had him well-pinned. It clamped its jaws on his leg, its dagger-like fangs unhindered by pant, flesh, or bone. Deep into Slaayde's calf did it bite. Slaayde roared in pain and anger.
Glimador bounced to his feet, sword in hand. Without hesitation, he extended his arm and pointed the tip of his sword at the monster that had been Finch. He recalled and bespoke his secret words of power; words not of the new, modern magic taught him by the masters of the Knights of Tyr, but olden words passed down from his mother. These words held eldritch power beyond the ken of other knights, well trained or naught. They called up energies that dwelt beyond the pale, plucked power from the primordial ether, and channeled it to his purpose. At Glimador’s behest, crackling blue fire engulfed his sword and bounded from its tip. It arced through the air like storm-fire, crackling and popping, and blasted into Finch's shoulder. It seared the monster’s flesh, bored deep into muscle and bone, smoke and sparks flew.
But that arcane spell that would have incinerated most any man or beast barely fazed the wanton creature. It didn't even cry out, though its head shot up from its victim. Blood dribbled down its mouth and neck, bits of Slaayde's pant and flesh dangled from its teeth. An inhuman growl — deep and guttural escaped from its maw; its eyes afire, locked on Glimador and promised only pain and death.
The fiend launched itself at the young knight, and leapt the twenty feet between them in a single bound. Glimador's sword sizzled by, wisps of blue fire still licked its steel, but the creature avoided the blow and struck back. Its horrid claws raked along Glimador's shoulder-plate and greaves, and gouged deep rivets in the tempered steel.
Glimador backpedaled and spun his sword over and over to parry the flailing claws that rained in. A dozen murderous blows he deflected, though it took all his speed and skill. Then Paldor was there; two Lomerian soldiers with him. They assaulted the beast from all sides, but it ducked and dodged with inhuman speed, capered and leaped to and fro, and sidestepped sword and axe. Its claws were everywhere and took their toll as it cursed in some guttural tongue unknown to mortal man.
A metallic tinkling sound filled the air and heralded the death of one brave soldier. It was the sound of chainmail links severing beneath otherworldly claws, the flesh beneath shorn and ruined as blood showered the deck. Just as quickly, the sound came again and another man fell to the claws, his entrails spilled on the boards.
Bertha appeared and dragged Slaayde farther from the fray as a volley of arrows took the beast in neck, shoulder, and chest. No blood sprang from the wounds; the missiles creating but a momentary pause in the melee.
Glimador and Paldor stood shoulder to shoulder, breathing heavily, and braced for the beast's next rush. Much of Glimador's armor hung in tatters. Paldor winced and tried to blink away the blood that trickled into his eyes from a wicked gash in his forehead.
“My magic can't stop it,” said Glimador.
“Our swords fare little better,” said Paldor. “What do we do?”
“We fight,” said Glimador, “until we put it down or death claims us.”
“Victory or Valhalla,” said Paldor.
Kelbor appeared at Glimador's side, sword at the ready. Ganton the Bull charged in, roaring and cursing, several soldiers in his wake.
“Just in time,” said Glimador.
The knights and soldiers encircled the fiend and pressed their attack. They cut off all escape and all room for it to maneuver. Hack and slash, stab and whirl, sword, hammer, and axe. Blow after blow struck the undead thing. No mercy, no quarter given.
A vicious slash from Glimador’s sword severed the fiend’s arm well above the elbow, but still it fought on. Kelbor's thrust pierced its chest; the sword's tip exited the creature's back. Kelbor twisted the blade and held it fast, transfixing the creature in place. Paldor stabbed it in the abdomen just as Ganton's hammer crashed down on its head and mashed it to pulp. The fiend's broken body collapsed lifeless to the deck; the evil power that had held it, now no more. It was dead, again.
“What in Odin's name was that?” said Ganton.
Glimador dropped to his knees in exhaustion. Paldor did the same.
Kelbor ran to the gunwale and looked out across the docks. “We've taken the pier,” he said. “The monks flee.”
The battle was over for the moment, though the cries and screams of injured and dying men filled the air, and Tragoss whistles blared all the louder, all the nearer.
“They’re here,” said Kelbor.
“Claradon? He's back?” said Paldor.
“Not Claradon,” said Kelbor. “The Thothian army,” he said turning back toward the others. “We’re finished.”
“You brought this on us,” yelled Slaayde, his voice weak and crackling. The men turned towards the forecastle. Slaayde sat on the deck, his face deathly pale, his legs outstretched before him, a pool of blood expanding about him. Bertha was on her knees and tears streamed down her face. Awash in the Captain's blood, she desperately tightened a tourniquet about his leg. “You stinking Eotrus,” said Slaayde. “You brought this evil to my ship, you bastards. You brought this death.” His voice grew weak and his eyes closed. “Damn you, damn you all.”
III
THREE MINOR EDICTS
The walls of the High Council chamber in old Tammanian Hall reverberated from the tensions that filled the air. Broiling tempers, shouted warnings, subtle threats, and dire predictions consumed the place these last many hours and all but continuously for several days.
Three days previous, with barely a quorum present, the Vizier — the Royal Archwizard of Lomion and recently anointed Grandmaster of the Tower of the Arcane, invoked a little known and less used point of order called Fastr that required the High Council to remain in continuous session until its present business was concluded. Matters could not be tabled and breaks were limited to mere minutes every few hours. No recess for meals or sleep. A grueling process that inevitably led to resolutions voted up or down, for good or ill.
Three diverse and controversial edicts were put forth for the Councilors’ consideration. First, Chancellor Barusa proposed, of all things, that the government provide daily meals to Lomion City’s needy, the treasury to foot the bill. Second, the Chancellor proposed that the Council extend Lomerian citizenship to Thothian immigrants residing within the borders of the Kingdom of Lomion. The council made no headway on either measure, the Chancellor having insufficient votes to press his measures until he and the Vizier went off for a time in private conference. When they returned, the Vizie
r proposed that the Council appoint a tenth High Magister to the Tribunal, the realm’s highest judiciary body. The Vizier then called for Fastr, which Barusa and his faction curiously supported. Together they had sufficient votes to bring Fastr into play given the limited attendance at the time. Runners notified the absent Councilors and those in the city arrived to assume their seats, angry and insulted at the Vizier’s tactics. For three long days and two nights they argued and debated and threatened, reaching no agreement. The hour grew late on the third night of debate before progress was made.
As customary, the High Council was assembled on the Councilors’ Mezzanine, high above the audience floor where the courtiers and various petitioners lurked and whispered, though at this late hour only the most die-hard politicos, sleepy sycophants, and pathetic toadies haunted the lower hall, the bulk long fled to their beds or other more entertaining pursuits.
The councilors reclined in ornate, high-backed chairs better described as thrones. Their expressions varied one to another, running from dejected, to angry, to befuddled. All looked exhausted and to varying extents, disheveled.
Prince Cartegian, unkempt and wild-eyed as usual, squatted atop the center seat, capering and gibbering. At his right hand sat Barusa of Alder, Chancellor of Lomion, the most powerful man in the realm. Nearby, Bishop Tobin snored loudly, chin on chest. Arch-Duke Harringgold was there, as was Guildmaster Slyman, the Vizier, Lord Jhensezil, Lady Dahlia, and the rest of the august body, save for Lords Glenfinnen and Aldros, both away, as their duties took them. The areas behind the Councilors brimmed with their personal guards, all armed to the teeth. The petitioner's hall below, and the stair leading up to the Councilors’ Mezzanine were guarded by a squadron of Myrdonian Knights in dress uniform, arms and armor gleaming.
Dwellers of the Deep (Harbinger of Doom Volume 4) Page 4
