Dante brought more shadows to him and edged closer. Blays circled to the aspect's flank, spear lifted to strike. The aspect tried to push himself into a sitting position but couldn't manage to do more than rock himself up on his elbow.
"This doesn't matter," he gasped. "I will return to the greater whole. The Spire of the Nautilus will fall. And you will fail to do anything more than watch and despair."
"Wrong," Blays said. "And now you're dead."
He speared the aspect through its face. The weapon pulsed. The aspect's head crumbled into gray sand that hissed as it poured onto the dirt. Its body did the same, along with its clothes, the remains piling themselves in the road and skittering away on the wind.
Dante rubbed his face. "Drag the boat off the road. We have to go back to the Spire and deal with whatever Nolost thinks he's about to do to it."
Blays shrank the spear down to the rod. "What d'you suppose it'll be this time?"
"Bad." Dante took hold of the boat and lugged it off the road into some grass to give it cover. Then, realizing that the grass was likely to catch fire shortly, he dug down into the dirt and began to drag it over the hull.
"Stop what you are doing," Gladdic said. "The aspect lied to us. The Spire is under no threat."
Dante glanced up from his work. "The fire raining down on us from the sky suggests otherwise. To say nothing of the presence of the aspect in the first place."
"If the entity has the power to destroy the Spire, then it must have the power to destroy any of the houses of the Four That Fell. It would have no need to confront us when it could simply destroy Barden or one of the other sites while we are expending our efforts here. This is an attempt to deceive us."
"Into going back to the Spire? What would that accomplish?"
"I do not know. But if the aspect was not lying to us, then even if we were to save the Spire tonight, our task would still be hopeless."
Dante gazed at the tall finger of the Spire. Scattered across the island, the fires burned higher and harder, yet he saw no other hints of trouble.
"You're right," Dante said. "Time for us to leave this land and get back to Maralda. She might have a better idea what the aspect was trying to get us to do here." With a wave of his hand, he swept the soil from the boat and made to flip it back over.
"You're leaving?" Elis ran up to him and looked as though he might grab Dante's shoulder. "What if you're wrong? What if it can destroy the Great One? You can't just abandon her!"
"You would be shocked and appalled by all the things we can actually abandon," Blays said. "Now come help drag."
"But I'm sworn to protect her. All of my people are."
"Then take solace in the fact that if we're wrong, we've just killed everyone, freeing them from any oaths and duties."
The boy gaped at him, then turned toward the Spire, looking as though he might burst into tears. He whispered something Dante didn't catch, then jogged over to help them wrestle the boat back onto the road and continue dragging it toward the coast.
A bank of smoke rolled over them. Eyes watering, Dante pushed his mouth into the folds of his cloak. The air flowed in disorienting currents, alternating bands of clear cold marine winds with hot and dry and smoky ones. The Astendis' homes were made of shells and bones, so they wouldn't burn to the ground, at least, but the same couldn't be said for their thatch and their fields. He wondered if they'd be allowed to rebuild what was ruined, or if whichever member of the Lineage succeeded Lidenda would have to invent a batch of new laws to produce enough slaves to do all the forbidden-work ahead of them.
"Get down." Blays' voice was flat as a plank.
Dante dropped to his knees next to the boat. He waited for Blays to say what they were hiding from—normally if you found yourself in a situation where you were flinging yourself into cover, you didn't want to be blurting a bunch of questions—but his eyes were drawn straight to the movement Blays had seen. Off to their left, eastward, what looked like a dark river flowed among the dunes. Except it wasn't flowing to the ocean, but from it: and rather than winding between the dunes, it ran straight over them.
"My gods," Dante said. "Gladdic was right. That's why the aspect was trying to get us to go back to the Spire. We'd never have been able to escape."
The light of the brushfires gleamed on wet, dark carapaces. The creatures rushed along on four limbs, but that was where any similarities to natural life came to an end. For the limbs of these things were scythe-like, and their heads were like long slender teardrops, with hard crests extending two feet behind the thick part of the skull. Their bodies were either scaled or chitinous. Perhaps the distance obscured the details, but he couldn't see any eyes on their faces. Just their mouths, and the stout triangular teeth within.
He couldn't count how many there were. Many hundreds at very least. And who knew how many had already passed beyond sight, and how many more were on their way from the sea.
Blays shifted in his crouch. "Suppose there's any of those things between us and the water?"
"Normally I'd wait here until they all went by." Dante got to his feet. "But the aspect wanted us to stick around, so I suggest we do the exact opposite."
He leaned into the boat, sliding it over the path. The motion of the lights and shadows of the fires drew his eyes constantly. The road took them between a pair of humped dunes, leaving them unable to see anything but what was immediately ahead of or behind them, and Dante cursed himself for not having found something to use as a scout. Yet they came through the little canyon without any trouble, and on the other side he could hear the wash of the ocean competing with the snap of the fires.
"Oh no," Elis said. He dropped the boat and edged forward, holding one palm out in front of him. "Here, boy. Shh. Come here."
A creature wandered out from the brush. It was the size of a sheep, but its skin was leathery like a turtle's, its limbs were more akin to fins, and a long straight horn projected from its brow.
"Good boy," Elis soothed. "That's a good—"
The otobi cocked its head, then tossed it back and bleated its piercing conch-like cry.
"Gods damn it!" Dante lifted his arm, preparing to liquidate the thing with the nether, but Elis gave him a shocked look the same as he'd look at a man who'd just chopped a smiling dog's head off. He cursed some more and picked up the boat. "The plan's unchanged. We might just have to do it a little faster."
He couldn't run while carrying the boat, but he found that he could jog, his boots scraping over the packed dirt. As the two dunes fell behind them, the view to the left opened back up. A fist gripped Dante's heart within his chest.
"The creature has doomed us," Gladdic said. "They are coming."
The stream of monsters had diverted course. No longer were they loping toward the Spire. Instead, they galloped headlong toward the otobi, which sat in the middle of the road behind them watching the humans struggle toward the sea.
Meaning there was still a chance to get down to the water and launch the boat before the horde caught on to them. Or there was, at least, until the otobi trotted after them and unleashed a questioning howl.
"Now you see what mercy can cost you," Gladdic said.
"An excess of mercy isn't something I'm usually accused of," Dante said. "Now lend us your hand, old man."
He hoped the words sounded more spirited than he felt. For the creatures were crashing through the short grasses like a dark wave. They came on as fast as a charger, their sharp feet landing with hard thuds. Already less than a quarter of a mile away. Dante had just caught a glimpse of the ocean. They were close, but they wouldn't reach it in time.
One of the beasts appeared on a dune ahead of them. It squawked, mouth opening wider than should have been possible, and sprinted toward them. Gladdic dropped the boat—he wasn't able to help much anyway—and pelted it with nether. The first hit slowed it, the second staggered it. But it didn't go down until the third and fourth landed.
"They are tougher than most creatures,"
Gladdic announced. "Yet they are not invincible, and are more easily felled than most of what has come from the Becoming."
Blays took a quick peek behind them. "So you're saying at least we'll be able to kill a few of them before we're chopped to bits."
"Is that not better than dying without having been able to drench your hands in the enemy's blood?"
At the mention of blood, Dante bit the inside of his lip until he tasted it. Assuming the earth would obey him, which was no sure thing on the island, he could split the ground in front of the column of creatures. That would kill more than a few of them and buy a little time as the rest of them diverted around the crevice. But there'd still be thousands left after that, and they'd catch the four mortals well before they made it to the water.
A wall, then? He could raise the earth on both sides of them and run it all the way down to the shore. But no, that wouldn't work either: the creatures' scythe-like limbs looked capable of climbing up just about anything short of sheer cliffs, and anyway, they were fast enough to get out ahead of it before he had it finished. The main problem was quite simply that, as long as the boat was out of its element, they were going too slow.
Which meant the problem could be solved by putting the boat back in its element—or some bastardized imitation of it.
"Drop the boat!" Dante dropped the hull and plunged his mind into the ground. "Quick, hop inside!"
"Are you insane?" Blays said. "We're not even—"
"Get your asses in the boat!"
Dante had already flung himself in over the side. Elis was the first to obey, though he looked frightened and confused. Gladdic and Blays clambered in after him.
"Hold on tight," Dante said. "I have no idea what's about to happen!"
"That makes all of us," Blays said.
Dante barely heard him. He lifted up the ground beneath and behind them. And then surged it forward. The sudden jolt threw him backwards into the boat. Somehow, he kept his focus, propelling them forward on a rolling wave of dirt.
Blays clutched the top of his head as if to keep an invisible hat from flying free. "What the hell is happening?"
"We were going too slow," Dante said. "I made us go faster."
Elis laughed and whooped. Behind them, several of the creatures uttered short little shrieks. The vanguard had closed to within a hundred yards, but no longer looked to be gaining any ground. Dante would have liked to open some pits in front of the creatures anyway, but couldn't spare the attention, as it was taking everything that he had to keep them flying forward without accidentally smashing or overturning them or filling the hull with dirt.
A bright fire sprung up ahead and to their right. Its path was angling toward their own, advancing faster than what the winds should have allowed.
"This ocean is a lot more flammable than I thought they were," Blays said.
Elis became very still. "Is it coming for us?"
Gladdic had been letting loose a few bolts of ether behind them, plunking the few monsters that could sprint fast enough to gain ground, and he now turned toward the oncoming fire, its light flickering over the crags of his face.
"It will be upon us within the minute," he said. "It is as though it wishes to herd us toward the horde."
"Crazy idea," Blays said. "How about we not plow right into it?"
Dante shook his head. "Can't break from the road. The rest of the soil is too sandy. I won't have firm enough control of it."
"Then what are we going to do?"
"Hope that we don't burn as well as grass does?"
They zipped past another dune. Just ahead, the dunes ended, replaced by the flat blackness of the sea. Smoke whirled across them as the fire sped along the grass, sparks shooting madly. Dante pressed his mouth into his cloak again. He shot a glance over his shoulder. The column of creatures had crept closer. Close enough for him to make out the grit and sand flying from the strike of their limbs.
He braced himself as the fire neared. Abruptly, it vaulted across the space remaining between them, the air gone stiflingly and painfully hot, the smoke thick enough to make his eyes water and his lungs burn. Gladdic shouted out and hurled a wave of ether into the ground between them and the fire, showering it with earth.
Keeping his mind on propelling them along on a wave of dirt, Dante dropped into the bottom of the boat. He shielded his face as flames whoomped past them. Heat flashed, then faded. He opened his eyes and pulled his head from his cloak to discover said cloak was on fire. As were the clothes of the others. And three or four parts of the boat. Blays gave a little yelp and beat his cloak against itself.
Dante did the same. The fire had jumped the road, but there was nothing within the road itself for it to burn, and it was already falling behind them. A gust of wind brought the smell of the sea with it, so clean and cool after the smoke that it made Dante feel like all their troubles must now lie behind them.
"Hang on!" he yelled. "The water's just ahead!"
Better heeding his own advice this time, he cemented himself to the gunwale. The path vanished as they came to the sandy beach, yet he still had a pillow of dirt to push them along with, and the sand partly obeyed him as well. They slowed, yet still had the speed of a man running at full tilt as the dirt lifted them above the waves—and then dissolved into it.
The boat hit the surface with a hollow thump. Dante was just able to cling to the side. Water spattered his shoulders and head.
Blays thrust a paddle into Elis' hands. "If we're not out to deep waters before those things catch us, we're going to wish we'd let the fire get us instead!"
The two of them beat at the water with their paddles. Dante didn't think they had far to go—certainly not as far as it had taken to get to the reef on the shore of the dead city—but the first of the creatures was already tearing across the sand of the beach. He positioned himself in the stern and lobbed nether at the shore, knocking one of the things down, then another. Gladdic joined him. Streaks of ether lit up the beach and the severed chitinous limbs spinning across it.
The beings flooded the sands in such numbers that Dante and Gladdic couldn't keep up with them even as they slew them by the dozens. The boat pitched up and down in the waves, fighting through the surf. The front line of creatures came to the water and threw itself in. The water boiled as they thrashed their way forward. If they'd been able to swim, Dante might have made preparations to commit group suicide, but as the water got deeper, they had to thrust themselves upwards through it, bouncing along like dolphins leaping in and out of the water.
The wave of them jumped closer and closer until Dante drew his sword and scythed into them like a wheat farmer at the harvest, the Odo Sein weapon cleaving through creature after creature. Yet the things were leaping less high with every second. It only took a few more before the water got too deep for them to break the surface.
Limbs and heads bobbed in the water as gruesome flotsam. On the beach, the beings stopped hurling themselves into the water, staring out at Dante even as he stared at them.
"I don't hear slaughter," Blays called, paddling hard. "Is that because we're safe? Or are you dead?"
"For a moment there, I thought we were about to be swarmed worse than when the Blighted overtook us in Bressel." Dante kept his eyes on the swells, but put away his sword and let out a long breath. "Well that was exciting. Now we just need to endure a couple of very boring hours of rowing and—"
"Holy fucking shit!"
Dante spun about. They looked to be moments away from crashing headlong into an islet. However, there were at least two things wrong with this theory. One, it was presently rising from the water. And two, it bore a huge pair of eyes.
The creature—it didn't look to be one of the mollusks or crabs, but rather more like one of the fish-like or reptilian beasts that had prowled the waters of Gallador—cleared its head of the water. Enough to see that it didn't have much if any neck, leaving it unclear just where head ended and body began. Both head and body were armored in large,
bony plates. Its mouth was a huge beak and its eyes, large as they were in absolute terms, were small for its head, and slitted.
Dante flung a shadowy javelin at its widening maw. "Keep paddling!"
"You keep paddling." Blays tossed him the instrument and drew his spear. "I'm doing more harpooning."
With a flick of his wrist, he extended the spear to its full length, its light shining from the beast's narrow eyes. Dante drove the paddle through the water, holding their position as a wave attempted to push them back; it crested and they raced down the far side. He shot some nether at the thing's face, but it only scratched the thick armor.
It lunged forward, beak yawning. Blays leaped to his feet, bending his knees to keep his balance against the rocking of the boat, leveling the spear between them. It bit down and he jabbed toward its open mouth. Yet it halted the forward motion of its bite—a feint?—and clamped down on the spear instead.
"That's mine!" Blays dropped to his knees and braced his feet against the hull.
Stomach sinking, Dante hammered at the creature's face with the nether, Gladdic matching him with ether. The thing pulled back its head, keeping a tight hold on the spear. Somehow, likely in large part due to the divine qualities of the spear's cord wrapped around his wrist, Blays managed to hang on to it, but he was dragged halfway out of the prow and had to drop one hand from the spear to grab the gunwale.
Dante tried to fire a bolt of nether inside its beak, but couldn't find a crack. The thing shifted its footing. Preparing for a second pull. The one that would drag the spear away, and Blays with it.
Something rushed past Blays. Elis, running right up the slope of the creature's head. He lifted his arm and stabbed a long bone knife down into its eye.
The thing blew a deafening hoot. Blays was flung back as it dropped the spear from its beak. Elis turned about, a wild look on his face as he ran back along the creature's head toward the boat. The thing tossed its head.
The Twelve Plagues (The Cycle of Galand Book 7) Page 29
