The Witch of Torinia

by Clifford Beal

  “Ship!” came the cry from the crow’s nest on the mainmast.

  Gregorvero hollered up to the sailor. “Where away, boy?”

  The sailor’s arm thrust out to larboard. “Four points off the bow!”

  Danamis had already spotted the newcomer. She was low on the water with practically no canvas out but still she was making headway. It was a galley, and virtually the only galleys were those of Perusia—the king’s fleet.

  “Gregor, raise our standard.”

  The master gave a nod and sent a sailor below to retrieve the colours. Fully fifteen feet long, the white and red pennant emblazoned with dolphin and falchion, glided up the line until it reached the top, the two men in the crow’s helping to unfurl it. In the paltry breeze, it barely trailed out in their wake.

  Gregorvero stood alongside Danamis watching the approaching galley with interest. “Where do you suppose they’ve come out from, Perusia or Torinia?”

  Danamis shrugged. “Could be either. We’ll hail them when they’re close. Might get some useful intelligence of the situation in Perusia, and what Duke Ursino might be up to.”

  Gregorvero grumbled. “Not likely to be good either way.”

  “You’re ever the optimist, Master Gregorvero. Nudge us a few points larboard so we may meet them the sooner.”

  “Ring to quarters?”

  Danamis’s brow furrowed. “You are a distrustful bastard, aren’t you?”

  “Trust never got me anywhere.”

  Danamis rubbed his chin as he watched Necalli ascend the stairs to the deck. “Aye, break out the charges for the swivel guns and get the bowmen assembled. Just in case.”

  Gregorvero turned to go but quickly pivoted around. “Netting?”

  Danamis frowned. “You want them to think we’re attacking them? No. Just get the swivels primed. I’m burning to hear what their captain may have to tell us.”

  “A problem, Captain Danamis?” Necalli said.

  Danamis tried to reassure himself. “It is a royal galley, but we’re just being cautious.”

  The soldiery became raucous, chiefly at prospect of even seeing another ship even if it was an ally. The boredom of the last few days evaporated as they chattered, setting to spanning their crossbows or stringing their ash-wood longbows. The cast iron breeches were manhandled into the little falconets mounted on the foc’sle and stern rails while gunners lit their saltpetre match, blowing gently to stoke it. Gregorvero oversaw all, directing the two soldier ‘captains’ of the stern and the foc’sle to order their men.

  When the galley had closed to about five hundred yards, Danamis leaned forward over the rail. The thirty oars on either side of the great galley—over a hundred and thirty feet long—began rising and falling faster.

  “Do you see that?” said Danamis.

  “Aye,” muttered Gregorvero. “What do you suppose they’re up to?”

  The great square royal standard of Valdur, two golden griffons upon a field of blood red, rippled lazily behind the mizzen lateen spar. Danamis could barely make out the men aboard but it appeared there were many. His soldiers crowded about the larboard side to watch the galley approach, most wearing just their arming jackets, hose and shoes. Many were already laughing and pinching their noses in allusion to the stink that usually accompanied galleys: the reek of seventy rowers in a broiling hull would soon announce its presence downwind.

  Gregorvero shielded his eyes from the glare coming off the sea, smooth as blue marble. “There’s something swinging up on the main mast. Halfway up.”

  “I see it. And I think it’s someone’s head.” Danamis could see a gaggle of sailors out on the broad flat prow of the galley. A small serpentine gun was mounted, fixed straight out over the beak of the vessel. Danamis looked further aft. The sun glinted off dozens of polearms and swords. His stomach dropped. The king’s galley was attacking.

  “Sweet Elded’s blood. Get the polearm men over to the railing!”

  Gregorvero swore and dashed across the quarterdeck, nearly tumbling down the stairs. Danamis turned to the dozen bowmen around him. “Take your positions, you fools! We’re under attack! You! Gunner, get that falconet ready!”

  Necalli was now at the railing, watching the approaching vessel intently. “May I be of service to you, captain?”

  “I’d prefer you stay here on the quarterdeck, Master Necalli. If I got you killed my father would be even more trouble than he is to me now.”

  This set Necalli to blinking furiously. “You would not begrudge me a sword, I hope?”

  “Arm yourself, but don’t leave the quarterdeck.”

  The cracking boom of a cannon was near instantaneous to the sound of splintering wood as the bow gun on the galley fired. The grape shot ripped across the carved railings of the Royal Grace tearing chunks of oak from the edge of the foc’sle. Three men were writhing on the main deck, screaming. Just yards away from them, Danamis watched as a second flag was hurriedly raised up the main mast, joining the royal standard that flew further back. It bore two red towers flanking a golden bull—the standard of the Duchy of Torinia.

  Danamis grabbed the captain of the stern castle by the shoulder. “Don’t stop firing until your arrows are spent! And keep those falconets firing.” Then he was down the stairs and into his great cabin to find his falchion. With no time to don his brigantine he was as naked as most of his men as he ran out onto the main deck to receive the attack. He was cursing a stream, mainly at the foolhardiness of allowing Bassinio to push on ahead. He could still see the Vendetta but could not tell if it was turning back. Surely they must have heard the shot, he thought, as he jostled his bill men into position. There had been no time to ready the main deck guns and the low sleek galley was too close to engage now.

  The carrack listed drunkenly to the sound of a deep grinding noise before righting level again. They had been rammed. A shower of arrows flew across the deck, most of them sailing high and over the other side. Danamis instinctively ducked and then heard his own guns explode into action. His men, some one hundred, crowded together amidships, crouching instinctively as the deadly steel-tipped rain fell. The galley sat low on the water and the Royal Grace, fully laden, rode low as well. They were holed above the water line, the iron-crowned prow having pierced their hull just below the rails. But there were a few precious feet of difference which gave his men a fighting chance: the enemy would have to climb up and over to reach him. Already the clatter of the wooden shafts of dozens of glaives, billhooks, and spears was drowning out the shouts. Danamis felt the air move as an arrow shot past him. A soldier next to him groaned and sank, the bolt of a crossbow protruding from his chest. His death spurned on his men to push back the Torinians. So broad was the galley’s fighting platform, a few of their men were already flanking the main hedgehog of combat, scrambling for a handhold up to the carrack’s deck.

  The screams seemed to be growing louder as volleys from his own bowmen on the high ground of stern and foc’sle sent their deadly missiles over and down the short distance between the vessels. Three Torinian soldiers clambered through a wide cut-out port and over a now useless orichalcum cannon and sprang up, swords at the ready. Danamis was on them, joined by one of his own swordsmen, a small buckler in his left hand.

  He seized his falchion in both hands, left cupped around the disc pommel, and raised his guard. The closest enemy rushed him, feinted a thrust and brought a rapid downward cut that Danamis caught, the man’s blade sliding down his own to catch on the cross hilt. Danamis pushed forward even as he parried the cut, stamping on the man’s lead foot and then slamming his pommel into his face. The Torinian staggered back two steps, dazed, and Danamis swung his blade again, bringing it down diagonally upon his shoulder and neck. A fount of blood erupted, spattering him, even as the next opponent swung at him. Danamis’s man deflected the thrust of a glaive, stepped inside while choking up to grasp his blade halfway, and stabbed his opponent in the throat.

  Danamis was deep into the heat of the figh
t, unthinking, moving on instinct and not artfulness. The rest of the battle was far away, unknowable. Two more engaged him and as he deflected the thrust of a bill, it shot past his blade and across his bicep, ripping his shirt and slicing his arm. His opponent suddenly dropped, an arrow in his back. And the other Torinians around him had fallen too. His sword grip felt slick. It was his own blood pouring down his arm. He turned back to the main knot of the battle, the rise and fall of spears and glaives still sounding a terrible din across the deck. But the enemy had failed to breech them yet. Fewer salvoes were coming over from the galley. Had their bowmen run dry?

  His eyes shot up to the quarterdeck. Gregorvero was yelling down at him and gesturing over to the galley even as Necalli stood behind, strangely still and quiet despite all that was happening. He staggered, wiping his brow with his sleeve and moved down towards the stern, sidestepping the great sleeping orichalcum guns. He looked over to the galley, now locked in a deadly embrace with the Grace. At the stern command deck, under the cover of a red and gold striped tilt, a separate battle was being fought. He froze, horrified, as he watched a single mer fighting with two officers. Even from a distance, he knew it was Citala. She bore a swordfish bill spear, jabbing it outwards and deflecting the Torinian’s desperate attempts to thrust her with his light curved sword. Her reactions were faster than any man he had seen fight. He watched her parry a cut and then thrust the officer through his belly, pulling the spear out in an instant and engaging the next.

  The oarsmen had emptied their benches, joining the fray and adding their numbers to the press of steel that was pushing hard up on the side of the carrack. One of his falconets roared again and a hail of iron dice-shot cut a swathe of red amidships on the galley.

  Danamis’s mouth opened as he saw half a dozen soldiers make for the stern platform and Citala. Then, emerging up from the stern, he spotted a blue form climbing aboard behind her—a lone mer warrior. He looked again up to Gregorvero and then over to the galley. The two mer were holding off more than half a dozen soldiers and sailors, aided only by the fact that the narrow decking that ran between the oar benches forced them to advance only two abreast. Danamis dropped his bloodied falchion to the deck. He was up and over the rail in the next moment, half diving, half falling into the sea. He burst to the surface and began digging into the broad low swell with all his might.

  The vast galley seemed to go on forever. The banks of oars were raised and locked like some monstrous water bug, towering above him as he pushed himself through the water. His boots, now sodden through, felt as heavy as lead as he kicked. None of the combatants on deck could see him past the oar banks and he worked his way quickly to the stern and the little wooden stairs that reached down to the water. With a groan he pulled himself up and staggered onto the small quarterdeck. The merman wheeled at the sound and made to thrust at him but Danamis raised his hands, palms forward.

  “Danamis!” he yelled. “I am Danamis!”

  Citala parried a spear thrust and turned her head at his voice, before wheeling back to continue her fight. The merman, his eyes bulging with intent, turned back to help Citala. Danamis looked about the deck. He saw two swords lying near the bodies of the slain, one a Darfan blade. He retrieved it and went forward, legs wobbling. Two Torinian men came at him, clambering over the rowing benches. One shot his glaive forward, aiming at Danamis’s chest. Danamis twisted and grabbed the haft with his left hand as it glided past. His light curved blade he thrust forward, burying it in the man’s belly. He was aware of a noise behind him. Shooting a glance over his shoulder, even as another Torinian lunged at him, he saw four or five mermen pulling themselves up over the stern, each armed with black swordfish bills.

  The mermen launched themselves into the fray, pushing past a startled Danamis. The lead mer tackled a burly soldier, tossing him into the oar bank like a plaything. And then the others were stabbing and leaping across the benches, dispatching men with a frenzy that caused Danamis to stop dead and stare in stunned amazement. The mer warriors were head and shoulders taller than the galley men and twice as strong. One merman took a spear thrust in the thigh, paused only long enough to pull the spearhead out, hefted the weapon, and then swept the deck like he was shooing chickens.

  At the bow, the Torinian push had stalled. A few more well placed shots by the swivel gunners on the Grace and they lost heart. In threes and fours, they began falling back from the prow of the galley and as they lost momentum, the surrenders began. Polearms began clattering to the blood-slick deck, bodies sprawled along the rowing benches. The sight of the mermen was enough for some to throw down their arms and raise their hands. By now, the Vendetta had arrived, having husbanded every scrap of wind she could find to make it back to aid the Royal Grace. Danamis looked to the main mast of the galley. He was now close enough to see what was indeed a human head dangling from a rope, tied by its hair, face as grey as cold ashes. It was Captain Alandris, the same man who had come to his rescue a year ago; not far from where they were now. His crew had apparently decided that the rightful heir to the throne of Valdur should be Duke Ursino—and had taken rather forceful measures to convince him to surrender his ship. He moved his eyes from the grisly trophy to the mermaid.

  “Citala!” he called, his voice hoarse.

  She walked to where Danamis stood dripping, his chest still heaving. Hefting her spear, she reached out and took his hand, her face beaming. “Danamis son of Danamis, I am not letting you out of my sight again!”

  Thirteen

  ACQUEL STOOD WITH his arms folded at the foot of the High Priest’s bed as the shafts of sunlight pouring through the stone window traces projected strange and beautiful shapes upon the coverlet. Kodoris was propped up by pillows, his hands cradling a cup of water which he brought slowly up to his lips. His colour was improving each day, the poison having been cleansed by the unconventional skills of Ugo Volpe. Now, Kodoris was merely pale, dark bags hanging under his eyes and a week’s worth of grey beard on his cheeks.

  “It was Brother Volpe that saved you. You realize this do you not?”

  “I accept that,” he said grudgingly. “But he’s probably damned my soul with his... methods.” He pulled away the collar of his white shirt and peered at his chest. “He’s painted me, for the love of Elded.”

  “You would have been dead otherwise.”

  Kodoris fixed him with a look that carried worry, even fear. “In my delirium I saw things. Terrible things. So vivid I can see them still.”

  “And what sort of things did you see, Holiness?” It was Volpe who had entered the large bedchamber. “I am glad to see you are made of sterner stuff. All that vile refectory food in Astilona in your youth must have hardened you to any poison.”

  Acquel smiled as the monk shuffled forward and stood at the bedside. Whatever Kodoris thought, he was beginning to believe in the old man’s methods. He had killed the tree and he had cured Kodoris; that was two contests won thus far, and it seemed to him that there was more to the powers of this refugee of Astilona, much more than that which his own amulet could offer.

  Kodoris looked at Volpe. “What medicine did you use? “

  “A woodsman’s medicine, using some of the extracts that I carry, and... a fair amount of prayer. Old prayer. You have no doubt noticed the talismans I inked. But I asked you a question, your Holiness: what did you see?”

  Kodoris pushed his head back into the pillows, his eyes staring up at the dark embroidered canopy above him.

  “Things that even now I cannot rid my mind of,” he replied. “Terrible visions that were fantastical yet so real I could have reached out and touched them. As if I was there rather than lying asleep.”

  “Perhaps you were there—for a time,” said Volpe. “That venom—like the creature it came from—was not of this world. You have glimpsed the darkness beyond our plane.”

  Kodoris swallowed and shut his eyes. “I saw a white wolf come towards me from out of a swirling ether. It was the size of a horse, shrouded i
n bright white light; a beautiful radiance. But its rider was not wholly human. It was a youth—naked and powerful—who rode the beast. But he had the head of a night bird—a raven or crow—black as pitch with shining black eyes. The scent of many flowers came to me as the thing drew closer. He had a burning sword in his hand.”

  “What happened then, Holiness?”

  Kodoris opened his eyes and turned to look at them. “It was as if a canvas tent was riven behind the thing, ripping and falling away, and I saw what lay beyond. A blasted, withered landscape, lit by the glow of raging fires on the horizon. A landscape peopled by horrible twisted things. Mockeries of man and beast. And moving from the distance towards me, I saw another youth, naked and fair of face, driving a golden chariot pulled by two black horses. Next to him, another, upon a pale horse whose bones I could see through its skin.”

  “Did the creature speak to you?”

  Kodoris shook his head. “No, not with words as such. But somehow, I heard him. The raven man said, ‘The light comes’. Light.”

  “The light of Andras,” said Volpe. “You were afforded a glimpse of the other side of the divide. For it is the demon Andras who appears as the raven man upon a white wolf. His companions are Belial and Belith, demons of a slightly lesser order. We know this from the ancient scrolls of the Old Faith, when their followers in Valdur elevated them to so-called gods.”

  Kodoris took a breath. “I fell back as it raised its flaming sword. A screeching filled my ears—a terrible wail. And then I felt as if I was falling. I remember nothing more until I awoke again.”

  Volpe’s voice was low and urgent. “They are at our gates; the gates to our plane of existence.” He turned to Acquel. “We must find Lucinda della Rovera and kill her before she opens them further.”