THE TRYPHON ODYSSEY (The Voyage Book 1)

by S. D. Howarth

  They never had the chance for a third, as two glowing yellow orbs emerged behind the first wave of skiffs and rushed towards the stricken Tryphon. The first struck the forrard larboard catapult and set the weapon and crew ablaze. The second exploded on the aft weapons mounting that projected abaft Tryphon's stern, tearing through support framing as though it was kindling and sending it sagging towards the titian sea. Both the detonation and cloud of splinters decimated the marines using it as cover, before the wreckage crashed into the sea. The platform decking and several bodies slid after it, flinging spume as high as the main deck to part the curtain of fog for an instant to reveal a different world.

  Van Reiver's legs took him an unconscious, uncomfortable pace forward, allowing him to look in wretched fascination down the main deck. The marine ankhbowman nearest to the gangway staggered away, covering his mouth while retching. Even Bullsen ceased his incessant pacing to stare at the tattered figure crawling away from the sundered weapon platform. Mewling, torn and bloody, the artillery mate dragged himself forward, his blubbery mouth crying pitifully on red claw-like hands as he drooled blood and snot. He'd lost one leg, and dragged the other behind, held to him by a solitary tendon and a fragment of trouser leg, leaving thick black smears of blood on the deck. An abstract brush stroke by the reaper's artist.

  One marine from Tryphon's decimated contingent leant to pull the injured officer into cover, only to receive one of the heavy arrows in his stomach. He collapsed, gauntlets clutching at the thick foot-long projectile, legs drumming on the planks like a tantruming child.

  A commanding voice roared in frustration as more projectiles clanged on raised shields, "Stay in cover! Get your shields, then pull them under fuckin' cover! It's a free trip to greet Red Ararakta if you cretins never fuckin' listen!"

  Van Reiver stepped back as Merizus murmured to the marine whose stomach was empty. His words were soft, but the towering man's eyes were not.

  "Back to your post, lad; you don't want to be next. Stand fast, and we will get out of this."

  .*.*.

  The cox'n looked sideways to Bullsen, and Van Reiver could see the alarm on the stocky man's face, as none of the anti-boarding nets were rigged and their remaining sails hung limp. Grimm's usual post, the wheel, drooped, splintered by the earlier blast.

  Van Reiver cleared his throat and inclined his head to the stern. The words leaden on his tongue, "The boats are astern, sir. If we need them."

  Bullsen swung around, blistering anger blooming as he took a step forward, then checked himself. The captain sagged as the cox'n steadied him by the arm. No one else on the ship would dare act like that, and their captain recognised it. Bullsen leant against the shattered binnacle as his crew rained bolts on their infrequently glimpsed attackers. Bowing his head in defeat, he accepted the inevitable. "I think you will need them, Edouard," Bullsen sounded sick as he looked at the nominal effect of the marines' ankhbows and the remaining larboard catapult. For each score of men in every skiff, only a few fell, the rest protected by shields. Some wicker, some feathered, which prickled with steel-tipped quarrels.

  Van Reiver flicked a look to the cox'n, and they exchanged the same thought. They were not doing enough. Tryphon's crew seemed powerless to kill enough of the approaching enemy to gain any breathing room. Well planned, simple and devastating.

  "Don't you mean us, sir?" Van Reiver asked, a suspicious note of alarm prickling at the back of his mind at Bullsen's odd wording. He knew the man was under immense pressure, but it was hardly reassuring to the crew to have their leader acting out of character.

  "Perhaps, but I do not intend for my ship to be captured. The pride of the Western Spires Navy will not go meekly. If I'm losing my ship, I will ignite what we have aft." Grimm shrugged, his face resigned as Bullsen looked between them.

  "What do you want me to do, sir?" The question stuck in Van Reiver's throat like a fishbone.

  "Gather the crew, collect the passengers, and get off when the time comes. If we lose the upper deck, they will swarm us. Go before they smoke us out. You will know when. Their damn casters have done for us! Damnation to all the Gods! An eternal curse to Raphpoten and his ilk!"

  "That, and they pin us here like sitting ducks." Van Reiver spat, looking towards the raging inferno at the bows, with dozens of firefighters dead, or forced away to wield weapons instead of buckets. Sithric appeared to be failing as the blaze was slowly spreading aft.

  If the crew tried to back the ship off with boats, it would be a massacre. Dare he suggest it—with the associated cost? Bullsen must have considered it and dismissed it to preserve the crew. Now, it too late with losing the sunjammer dome, Tryphon might not reach port as damaged as she was. Van Reiver pressed aside, thinking about Dagmar. The threat was up here and soon to be in his face. Gods above and below—the tension was terrifying. As destructive on taut, stretched nerves as the flames on the decks below.

  "Distance?"

  "Fifty yards, Capt'n!" the larboard lookout snapped, his voice quavering. "Closin'."

  "Shall I leave eight men here, sir, as support?" asked Merizus. Lacking officers, he organised his men into two steel-clad divisions of twenty-four and twelve men apiece. A section to repel the invaders and a smaller section to continue firing ankhbows. Their missiles had a faster rate of fire than the ragged crossbow bolts that returned.

  At Merizus's curt order, twenty-four Marines passed ankhbows to the seamen behind them and unslung shields and swords. Ignoring the rasp of steel, Bullsen moodily stared at the burning bow, pondering options. Van Reiver nodded at the serjeant's initiative, still surprised at being refreshed from a small phial in such a short time. If only Robsin had one to calm him, any price would be worth it.

  Van Reiver said to the big marine, "See if you can get their magic users, Serjeant; they appear to be key. Where're your officers?"

  "Right. No idea, sir." Merizus, the wily campaigner, didn't waste words, as hooks appeared between the bows and the broken catapult mounting, biting into the deck and handrail. Two lines dropped, as a grey beard wielding hacked them away, before a spear felled him. More spears sailed over the side, forcing crewmen back. Their defensive positions dwindling as Tryphon burned. Bullsen knew the competency of his non-commissioned officers on the ship better than most captains and left Merizus to do his job. Van Reiver had no inclination to second guess either man.

  "Who the fuck are these bastards? I never seen 'em afore!" A marine asked, breathless and baffled as he hefted his shield. Dutifully, he shuffled a pace towards the gangway as he raised the question on everyone's minds. He looked at the silhouetted figures of men scrabbling up the hull sides; like the others so far seen, scant clothed men held barbarous weapons to their sweaty bodies, faces pierced with gems, obsidian and wooden ornaments. Oddly metal-less, the horde unleashed a cry of feral savagery, then threw themselves into Tryphon's crew with a bestial roar. 'TEPOLOLIZTLI!'

  "Fuckin' shut up! It doesn't matter! Don't drop yer fuckin' guard, just kill 'em!" snarled a clench-faced old campaigner over the fading battle cry. Sager advice had never been given before a battle.

  Another glowing orb appeared, this time from the overturned hull that had originated the attack, and roared with a sizzling snarl into the gratings forward of the wrecked weapon mount emplacements and against the front of the small deck-house. Boom! The remaining glass in the shattered frames scythed at waist height into seamen desperately flinging water on fires and felled them like wheat under the death goddesses' scythe. Their new enemy carved an ominous foothold, an implacable tide driving seamen back, as bodies from both sides piled up by the rail like a perverse human surf.

  Fuck, Van Reiver thought and looked to Bullsen, was he waiting too long?

  "Go, Merizus! Hold the deck and secure my crew!" Bullsen urged. Like Van Reiver, he sensed the tipping point and snapped curt orders to the remaining quarterdeck runners. Without hesitation, the colossal marine snatched a standard issue longsword out of the scabbard beside his fa
vourite deep-bladed shortsword. Van Reiver saw him angling his shield against arrows from the larboard side and pound down the gangway, his huge leather clad feet thundering like an avalanche down a hillside.

  "Charge!" Sword high, shield up, Merizus slammed into the boarders, thrusting them aside through sheer ferocity. Almost to a man, they lacked bodily protection, and with cruel discipline, he felled them mercilessly. His detachment fanned out, protecting his blind side and stabbing down at stunned invaders, forcing their backs to the sea.

  Soon bodies littered the deck, and Van Reiver felt a sudden hope seize him. Men dancing with death slipped on blood and gore. Another ball of flame exploded onto the main deck, killing his hope and half the marines poised to repel the boarders. It shredded some forty men into smoking fragments in a heartbeat. Others shrieked, mindless in burning agony as their chainmail and flesh sizzled. Deck hands bravely pulled the injured back, or pounded at flames, gagging at the lingering repugnance of long-pig.

  Other men by Van Reiver fired back with ankhbows, knowing it wasn't enough, but with vengeance burning in their hearts they made their bolts count. The chaos changed when several deckhands clutched at leather hoops thrown unexpectedly around their necks and torsos as they veered near to the ship's side. With suffocated howls, the crewmen vanished over the rail before they could be freed.

  Van Reiver saw the bodies pile up around Merizus's wedge, but the attackers seemed undiminished. For every corpse, another filled the void. Almost-naked attackers became painted and tattooed axemen, with wicker and vibrant green-blue feather shielded swordsmen. Van Reiver had the horrible thought skirmishers were being replaced by regular infantry. They may look different, but their tactics held a familiar logic. Shit.

  Rippling in the fires, leather tassels swayed and undulated in snake-like motions against heavily engraved wooden swords and broad tipped spears. Even more savage in countenance, they spread like a tide directed by tall men in orange striped quilted armour and turquoise feathered regalia. Van Reiver stepped by the seamen and pointed over their ankhbows.

  "Him! Shoot the feathered guys, they must be officers!"

  They tried. By the gods, they tried. Two bolts struck him with no effect as Tryphon's assailants scythed a broadening toehold. The armoured men seemed impervious to ankhbows, as they redirected their followers into knots of resistance. Only in one place could Van Reiver see progress. Where they encountered Merizus, they met death.

  11

  Van Reiver ducked as a notch-edged axe sang past his head and sent splinters of rail tumbling overboard. The navigator slammed his foot on the handle and heard the man hurl a curse as his boot wedged the blade. To his incredulity, the blade shattered like glass and jerked both men off-balance. Hesitating in a moment of gut-churning terror, he swiped an awkward slash under an iridescent blue feathered headdress. The man dodged deeper into the melee and slammed a knife into a sailor's side, making Van Reiver swing into an ever-narrowing gap. Shit!

  Van Reiver's sword swung again. Madder. Faster. Sweat from panic coated him like a scaly, suffocating skin. Beside him, the sailor slumped, clutching the stab wound. The dark-haired attacker screamed several blows later and staggered, fingers gripping his thick brow, blood and feathers running out from between his fingers, black snakes glistening like oil in the firelight to run down tanned forearms. Van Reiver slashed, and remembering a vestige of skill, jabbed with his sabre. Two thrusts of his sabre cleaved the neck open, showing vertebrae. He gagged, leaving the corpse and ducked again on instinct, as something flashed over his head, flicking his hair by his ear. He barged the fresh attacker over the rail. Taller and more substantial, he grunted with the impact and barely caught himself following the man. The figure slid down the tumblehome and splashed into the sea with a final despairing wail.

  Stifling terror, seething like he'd trapped a primordial beast within, Van Reiver snatched up the broken axe and flung it opportunistically back into the mass of men scampering down the gangway. Another short, wiry man, with a thick thatch of curly hair poking above hideous earrings, swerved towards him, howling like a rabid wolf.

  Van Reiver didn't hesitate and stepped into wolfman, taking advantage of a monumental burst of adrenaline and his better reach. He yelled something incomprehensible and narrowly avoided a wild slash to his head for his recklessness. Van Reiver punched his sword into the stomach of the attacker, twisted, then kicked out, showering blood everywhere. The howling man's head snapped back, face stupid, disbelieving. It couldn't happen to him, could it? How? Stunned stupefaction flickered and faded. Then the maddened eyes rolled up, and he slid from the blade.

  Fighting at Van Reiver's back, Petty Officer Hatch, with typical prudence, kicked out the man's legs, allowing the second mate to rip his blade free. The howler became another body. The tubby petty officer cackled, covering the second mate with deft swings of his heavy cutlass, clasped in thick blunt fingers, gutting, maiming and slicing heads as though splitting a joint of bacon. Stab, parry, parry, shove, feeble stab, low jab, stumble. All movement and thoughts vanished into the blurring dance of survival.

  .*.*.

  "Link up with the third mate, over there, by the forrard capstan!" Van Reiver rasped when he gained the luxury to breathe. He caught a lungful of acrid smoke and staggered, whooping and coughing. Some rest, his brain protested at the exertions being demanded as Van Reiver hacked and thumped to clear his chest.

  "Let us go first, sir—we've the gear, you sea-crabs don't," said a dark-eyed marine, his eyes resigned and bitter in his helm. Van Reiver recognised the logic and stepped aside. Shields high, the four marines shouldered past and stabbed at exposed torsos, battering through the fresh wave of boarders, leaving them as tattered, leaking heaps. For a moment, his hope bloomed. Their attackers lay dead or dying through the sheer ferocity of his small chain tipped force. Surviving deck crew joined Van Reiver, cursing, shoving and stabbing the fallen to safeguard the marines. Bunching behind the armoured forms, the seamen followed into the smoke like children seeking the solace of a parent.

  An unfamiliar man crawled crying, a hand pressed to his bleeding side, and the navigator kicked out on instinct. The man whined with pain and scrabbled to flee with his free hand, a bloody slug whimpering over the deck, staining it with his filth. The second mate glared, willing his sword hand to move, goading himself to murder. He couldn't do it. Shit, he couldn't move his arm. Spitting on the prone form, the marine jabbed the downed warrior in the armpit. Skin parted, and blood pooled to silhouette the dying man.

  Van Reiver stood like a coward, his idle voyeurism witnessing a pointless death, but inside, he felt a curious satisfaction. He shook himself—if he didn't dissipate his mental haze, he'd join the fucker on the deck. Gods, please make me never enjoy red work. He felt a tiny part of himself perish with each fatality. Shit. He needed to reject everything to survive, or he'd die ignominiously, pissing himself with fear before a gory end. He'd do anything to avoid having one of those scary wooden swords cut into his balls. Fuck, what a thought.

  Van Reiver shook. Mind racing, lungs pumping to his limit, to the boundary of terror. Dark, seductive and near. Come, it suggested. Mocking, more lethal than a succubus spreading her legs and parting her lips with honeyed words on her forked tongue. What could he do? What? Damnit, what? He glanced to Hatch who returned the look, understanding in his angry eyes.

  "Tryphon!" Hatch bellowed.

  "Try—phon!" Van Reiver repeated, unable to prevent a stutter.

  "TRYPHON!" The men thundered, gaining strength from their unity.

  "THE BIG 'T'!" The men threw their defiance into the smoke.

  The navigator saw Hoyle, his eternally running nose as red as the livid knife scar running over his face. Ducking a slash, the seaman leapt astride an attacker, trying in vain to crawl away. The savage-looking topman proved his shady past was no rumour by pouncing with his short blade. Snick, snick, squelch went the steel into a squealing neck before it sliced the windpipe. Too much fury wa
s dangerous, and a thrown spear thrust Hoyle over charred decking across the choking man. To Van Reiver's relief, Hoyle's friend, Thian, acted out of character by reaching through the rising smoke from the deck planking to drag his friend sternwards.

  "Get him aft!" Van Reiver shouted. Then as an afterthought, "Anyone else with serious injuries too!"

  The air blanketed any reply as it swirled, dragging fire, death, curses and screams in an ungodly symphony of despair and death. He could feel heat under his feet as they paused, then a dozen men stumbled into them. Ankhbowmen decimated the new attackers from aft with quick, accurate fire, but seamen still fell. His men, fell. Van Reiver jumped as projectiles hissed overhead. He felt powerless, impotent. Seafarers, he commanded daily, died needless deaths as the savage scuffle edged backwards and forwards, forwards then back, with brutal futility. Men fought with anything at hand, eyes wide, panicked, desperate, and resolved to delay their fate. Then, one marine went down from a blow denting his helm, stunning the man long enough for several blades to gut him like a hog.

  Van Reiver stepped into the void. Without thinking, pissing, or shitting himself, he moved up, grabbed the dead man's shield and clasped the unfamiliar grip. He lacked the heavy steel breastplate and chain coat of Tryphon's sea soldiers, but he couldn't run. Nowhere to run to.

  The fight took on a surreal quality as images swirled in and out of sight. The more heavily armoured attackers seemed driven to pair off against the Tryphon crew, with almost naked men swarming in packs like hyenas. It was a well-worked tactic with light-clothed seamen, but Tryphon's marines were a hardier breed, well-protected by chainmail and slashing steel.

  Van Reiver stabbed with growing confidence at exposed abdomens, faces and throats, ignoring the gasps, bubbling moans, or shrieks of frantic, sweating men as he tore them apart. Satisfaction surged. Joy dancing in time to terror. This was no cut and run pirate assault. It was organised murder. He lacked the time, men, or space, to have their new foe die a deserved slow death. Instead, Hatch and the deckhands oversaw without quarter.