Colony - Blood Kin (Colony Series Book 3)

by Gene Stiles

  The ghost screeched anew, turning on flame-filled legs that splintered the ice that had held him prisoner and bolted up the stairs, his skin peppered with pink bumps. Sharp edges and slivers of metal tore at his flesh as if the terrible talons reached out to yank him back into their hungry embrace. His shoulders slammed against the wall to his right, splinters of wood embedding deeply inside him, rivulets of fresh red trickling down his arm and hip. He cared not. He sought only the hopeful safety of the quiet deck above. There was none.

  The ghost stumbled out onto the damp deck, shaky legs collapsing beneath him, landing on scraped and bleeding hands and knees, and retched vile, brown, thin liquid in a stinking pool between quavering arms. For the briefest of moments, he heard nothing but the pounding of his own heart and the rancid air being sucked greedily into his aching lungs. Then it began. Moans and sobs, whimpers and mewls hammered into his senses surrounding him is a gale of pain and torment, rising in volume with winds of a monstrous storm.

  He dared not look up. The ghost stared at the wet planking as if to find solace in and peace in the shifting lines of the grains. His face was flushed with a red-hot fever that coursed throughout his body with such fury his Enviro-Suit could not contain his sweat. It poured from his brow like a breaking thunderstorm, dropping steaming rain on the deck beneath him. Still he refused fiercely to listen to the raging hurricane surrounding him; refused to raise his eyes to the repugnant abomination he could smell with each tortured breath. He heard the mournful murmurs, the mumbled words of fear, the screamed words of anger and accusation, but he refused to hear more than mumbles and jumbled voices.

  The ship swayed under his shaking arms, the deck rolling back and forth with a sudden swell of surf and tide. The ghost felt a trembling in the planks and a rising cadence of cacophonous shouts and screams. He did not want to raise his blurry eyes, but he could not stop the straining muscles of his neck from lifting his head. His own howl lodged in his tightly constricted throat, watching the coming onslaught to his shattering mind on knees of stone. The ghost threw his hands before him as if he could somehow ward off the crumbling mountain of flesh and blood before him. He could not.

  The ghost bolted to his feet and up the stairway before the first of the tumbling bodies could reach his booted feet. He flew up the steps as if an apparition of purest evil snapped at his heels, ravenous and eager to sink long, bloody fangs into his flesh. He only turned his head on the deck above him, just long enough to witness a gigantic golden phantom walking over squirming, crying and weeping corpses. The ghost shrieked so loudly a gushing of crimson poured from his ears. He reached the silence of the main deck, running as if a pack of rabid murcats bounded behind him. His fractured psyche still blasted his mind with a clamor of mournful sounds and vociferous shouts of hatred and fear. He clapped his hands over his bleeding ears, never breaking his stumbling stride toward the broken bulwarks. Eyelids clenched so tight they hurt, the ghost leaped into the rolling, green sea.

  The noise left him then as he sank beneath the salty waters, the cold numbing his burning body. For the first time since he boarded that black death ship, the ghost smiled with the sweetest of joys. He spread his arms out like the wings of an angel, opening his cracked, pink lips, inhaling the liquid breath of the Creator with serenity filling his soul. The arms of the sea embraced him and gently pulled his lifeless body into its depths.

  Iapetus awoke amid a warrior’s worst nightmare. He lay in the darkest, deepest bowels of hell unable to see in the inky blackness of the purest of nights. Demonic bodies of those he had killed by his own hand, those tortured by his order and the multitudes of deaths carried out by his command pressed against his flesh. It burned like hellfire where they touched every inch of his skin, their mewing cries squirming in his brain as if a nest of mind worms infested his skull. Iapetus struggled inside a mountain of the vilest of horrors. Living, dying and rotting corpses squirmed and slithered around him, crushing him with the razor claws of their ghastly embrace. The horrid stench of decomposition blended with the foul odors of naked fear and slimy sweat assailed his flared nostrils with each weak and ragged attempt at inhalation.

  Yet amid his torment, Iapetus retained his iron will to survive. His gigantic form glowed like fiery gold, bathed in the light of Healing. He drew the flickering life force from the keening, mewling wraiths choking him, ignoring the wails of despair the phantoms screamed into his ears. Some of the whimpers went ghostly silent, the last of their energies sucked from their bodies in an involuntary Lend. The twisting of limbs encased him like the growing roots of the One Tree, in one moment crushing him with the strength of a monstrous serpent, at another giving the warmth and light of a mother’s loving arms.

  Iapetus battled the choking serpent, the rippling muscles of enormous arms seeking to shove away the heavy hordes entrapping him in their crushing grasp. He attempted to curl his tree-trunk legs to kick away his imprisoners, the sinews and tendons quivering with stress, but all was for naught. With each shifting, twisting limb or torso that inched from his touch, another would rush in to fill the gap. For the first time in his long life, Iapetus felt the shiverings of panic and fear chilling him to the core of his soul. His prodigious strength was as meaningless against this choking, repugnant mass as that of an insect against a boot heel. He lay enshrouded in a cocoon of death and torture, unable to fight, unable to move, encased in rotting flesh.

  Was this to be his end, a prisoner of all the evil he had wrought in his life? Was he to spend an eternity wrapped in the noxious touch of agony, drawing extended life from the screams of the dying and the whispered recriminations of the departed? The sticky sweat that soaked him stunk with the sickening odor of despair, sinking deeply to the dark marrow of his bones. He began to look forward to the time when there would be no more cries, no more wails, no more life force to suck dry, when his own energies would expend themselves, sending their crystals into the heavens and to the judgement of the Creator.

  As weariness overcame his mind, despondency reducing his struggles to mere twitches, Iapetus felt a rising in the mountain lightening the monstrous weight from his chest. Was he to be freed, welcomed into the loving embrace of his Creator or was this to be a new, cruel punishment? He used the respite to draw his legs upward, slamming his feet into his captors and assaulting the serpent with arms of solid stone. Appendages, broken and bleeding amassed against him, the shrieks and moans growing into a canopy of horror that made his ears bleed.

  As the battle raged, the lightness ended in a sudden plunge downward. The mountain slammed into him, crushing the miniscule breath from lungs that burned from lack of oxygen. Iapetus tumbled and rolled, helplessly thrown forward, a cascade of flailing limbs striking his skull with such force that his eyes sparkled with a million stars.

  How long unconsciousness soaked him in sweet oblivion, he had no idea, but when his crusty, glued eyelids cracked open amid soft agony it was to dim and smoky scatterings of light. He easily tossed aside the twisted branches of carcasses that encased him, standing above a putrid puddle of anguish. He stood for long moments like a statue of gold, drawing in the foul air as if it were the nectar of Heaven. Somewhere in his limited awareness, Iapetus could have sworn he glimpsed a dim ghost racing away from him, flailing arms and howling in a high-pitched voice.

  Reality enclosed him and Iapetus knew he stood amid the remains of his crew, few moving and glowing with the dim light of Healing. Most would never move again. In the flickering light, he saw the wreckage and devastation surrounding him and felt the sharp tilt of the deck beneath his booted feet. Still shaky but growing stronger with each moment, he climbed the stairs to the main deck, sickened at the appalling destruction laid out before him. Piles of black ash littered the deck, marking the spot where good men had once stood, now reduced to powder. Not a single thing moved. There was absolutely no sign of life. Wide gashes with burned edges rippled along the wood, sometimes exploded outward with sharp spikes of torn planking. The prow sunk he
avy in the blue/green waters, the curl of the high nose seeming to gaze at the shifting sea. With quiet determination, Iapetus made his way to the bridge.

  Cronus felt as if his body had been disassembled and tossed back together in a maelstrom of pain and blood. The thick, black webbing that once held him to the helm cut strips from his flesh and snapped bones as if they were the smallest of twigs. The coils of a great serpent slithered around his chest making each labored breath a testament to will and hate. Curly ringlets of fiery red hair plastered his head and brow, burning saltwater filling open wounds. He could not feel his left leg and tugging on it only brought a brilliant explosion of light that left dancing stars behind his tightly closed eyelids. He tried to open his eyes, but they were crusty and stuck together. Cronus wiped the sticky layers away, tears streaming down his face as the brilliant morning sunshine threatened to blind him.

  When at last he could see, Cronus found himself lying in a tangled heap of snapped leather and splintered wood. His leg was still attached to the helm by a torn strand of webbing and a sharp spear of decking that oozed wetly around the gaping tear in his thigh. Pain rippled down the entire length of his body as he struggled to sit upright, burning sparks threatening to pull him back into the welcoming arms of unconsciousness. Taking long, deep breaths, he shoved the darkness away and wrapped his wide hands on either side of the wound. With a sudden jerk, Cronus slid his leg free, rolling to his side to choke out a vile smelling puddle of green phlegm. The nausea passed quickly and he tore a strip of leather, tightening it around his thigh to stem the steady stream of dark, thick blood oozing from the ragged-edged hole. Gripping his leg in his mammoth paws, he closed his matted eyes, centering his focus on his hands and the wound beneath them. A brilliant, golden glow seeped through the small cracks between his fingers shimmering like the bright rays of the sun beaming through gaps in early morning clouds. The flow of blood ebbed and the tattered skin pulled itself together like the edges of a seamless puzzle.

  Cronus laid back, resting his head on the wet, gently rocking deck. His mind sought out every torn muscle, every ripped tendon and every broken bone and enshrouded them in the darkness of his iron will. Fueled by pure hate and fury, his powerful body virtually exploded with the blinding light of a Proto-sun, twisting and shuddering on the saltwater and blood drenched planking. The scorching heat burned away the pain as easily as if it were blades of dry grass in a raging brush fire. White shards of shattered bone crept around ripped tendons and torn muscles seeking their place in rapidly reforming cartilage.

  For a small eternity, Cronus lay in a cocoon of golden light, his wide, corded chest rising and falling in a near deathly slow rhythm. His mind sought a quiet grain of solace within the turbulent, twisting river of his fury. A bright, silvery light drew him into a glowing sphere of peace and serenity, pushing away the blackness and surrounding his fetal consciousness like the womb of a loving mother. He his curled mind reposed in silence, all other sound and emotion held at bay by that grain of soft, white tranquility.

  How long he bathed in the light, he did not know, the moments broken by a violent rolling of the deck beneath him. Emerald green eyes snapped open, the dark serpent of rage and hate swallowed the tiny globe in its gapping, razor-fanged maw and burned his body into full alertness. Cronus raised his pain-wracked, but whole body, standing on legs so shaky he needed a steely grip on the helm to remain upright. His shimmering vision scanned the deck below him, seeing broken and bent timbers and decks with burn-edged, ragged holes, smoke still arising from many. A few twisted corpses were scattered around the planks, their faces horribly contorted in masks of agony. Not a single life cried or crawled within his darkening vision. No one answered his rough growls into the coms. The only sound he heard at first was the lapping of waves against the hull of his once mighty ship. He was alone.

  A low rumbling reached his straining ears and Cronus raised his green, burning gaze and searched the churning seas around him. To his left, the Wind Star lay crumpled against the rocks of the tall, granite cliffs, her hull cracked and blackened, exposed above the blue waves of water that entered her torn timbers with a sickly sucking sound. On the eastern horizon to his right, Cronus found the source of the deep humming, the Northern Star struggling against the shifting seas, attempting to flee into the sun.

  His teeth bared in a predatory grin, twisting his once-handsome, square-jawed visage into a horrid mask of seething hatred. Knowing the vessel was still in firing range, Cronus screamed into the coms, his only replies an echoing silence. He raged against the coms, cursing their quiet as if his fury could raise the dead and force them to his bidding, but no lines of white plasma burst toward his enemy. He hammered the helm with his massive fists, denting the metal and shattering dials.

  “They shall not escape!” Cronus screaked into the light winds. “They shall not!”

  He slammed the port lever forward, jerking the starboard into full reverse. The Black Death shuttered, unwilling to respond, the vibration causing a spider web of lines to appear on the cracked, dark-stained deck. Cronus ignored the protests of his ship and the whine of his engines, holding both levers in a vice grip, sending his twisting vehemence into the bowels of his hull forcing it to obey his commands. With crackling moans, the vessel responded with a slow, tormented turn until its prow pointed directly at the fleeing ship. Cronus could not see because of the wings of his serpent, yet shoved both controls forward, howling in ferocious madness as the sunken prow rose from the sea, bleeding torrents of blood and turquois water from its many wounds. With each ghastly cascade, the Black Death picked up speed, clawing at the waves, the curled nose rising higher into the bright blue sky.

  Captain Kaikinos heard the animalist roar to his stern and hazarded a glance behind him. His pupils spread so widely that only a thin brown ridge was visible at the edges. As if it were possible, they appeared to sink even deeper beneath his sun-darkened, wearied brow staring at imminent destruction converging on his path. Even at full power, his crippled beloved creeped through the sea, barely able to make any headway against tide and wave. The muscles of his clenched jaw stood out in high relief even covered as they were by his soggy, curly, black beard. The Captain watched in quiet resignation the grim work of his brave crew toiling to save their injured brethren from the wreckage heaped upon the battered deck. With that malevolent beast baring down upon them, he felt to the pit of his soul that their valiant efforts would be all for naught.

  Kaikinos flashed his pearly-white teeth into the morning sun in a slash of a smile, sending up a prayer to the Creator, not for his own life, but for the lives of his crew. He planted his pillar-like legs in a wide stance, gripped the wheel with hands that could crush stone and locked his gaze upon the horizon, not wishing to witness the coming of that final darkness.

  Iapetus heard the echoes of a screaming voice roaring inarticulate words into the wind and glanced up at the bridge. Cronus raised his fist into the air and bellowed like some enraged animal. With a sickened stirring in the pit of his stomach, he realized his Lord Father, Commander and friend was, at that moment, completely insane. This madness could not be allowed to continue! Moving like a ghostly apparition, Iapetus made his way silently to the aft deck, careful to keep out of Cronus’ line of sight.

  The aft deck rose nearly ten feet above the main making it an easy leap for the seven-foot frame of Iapetus. He caught the guardrails in his wide, thick hands, vaulted over and landed silently on the balls of his feet. His quiet, graceful movement belied the sheer, animalistic power within his gargantuan body and the torment swirling within his slow but keen mind. Iapetus coiled his tree-trunk legs, using the rising prow to shorten the length of his flight. Unleashed, his bulging thigh muscles propelled him into the crisp morning air like the engines rumbling beneath the vibrating deck.

  As he descended, the deck beneath him wrenched violently to his right, tumbling Cronus away from the helm and throwing him against the port rail with the ease of a thin reed tossed
in a gusty wind. Iapetus twisted in the air, landing lightly on still-roiling planking that kicked his feet from under him. Only a desperate grab at one of the silver levers kept him from sliding into his Commander, the sudden act of urgency only adding to the chaotic spin of the injured vessel. His slippage caused him to jerk the starboard lever all the way backward, slamming the engine into full reverse. Booming snaps like rolling thunder reverberated within the bowels of black ship as weakened timber and tortured decking buckled and cracked, crying out in horrifying agony.

  The Black Death groaned like a wounded beast, shaking as if to rid itself of some vicious predator clawing at its hide. It rolled hard over, howling in pain, fracture lines spider webbing the main deck. Bulwarks and rails split in an explosion of flying splinters, showering the ship in a storm of needle-sharp spears. Both men were caught in the maelstrom, bleeding profusely where the spears of wood pierced their flesh. The curled prow snapped loudly at the base, ripping its wings free, flying into the depths of the dark blue waters as if to escape the carnage. The bow dropped low into the churning sea sending fresh torrents of salty waves into the breaches in the damaged hull. With each assault, the ship sunk lower into the sparkling waters, pulled down by the arms of the sea.

  So intent had they been on their private quests, neither man had noticed the vessel racing toward their stern.

  Chapter XV

  From the moment she had awoken, strapped to the bunk in the Healing Room, Thalassa screamed inside to return to the fray, to wreak vengeance upon the evil coward who had attacked her from behind. The golden glow surrounding her aching body barely began to dim before she released her restraints and jumped from her bunk, firmly, but politely brushing aside the concerns of her attendants. Bright sparks crackled in the icy, blue eyes beneath her furrowed brow at the sight of so many in bunks and so many more scattered around the floor that she had to tread lightly to keep from stepping on anyone. Most lay peaceful in their own cocoons of light, but others lay encircled by the uninjured who freely Lent their own strength to Heal the most severely broken.