THE TRYPHON ODYSSEY (The Voyage Book 1)

by S. D. Howarth

  Dagmar scrutinised both entities for several endless minutes before deciding to depart. To flee. He'd found a shocking and unexpected answer. He moved to leave and gasped at a last look over his shoulder. In a seated position with its back to the far cave wall, another overgrown humanoid sat staring fiendishly at him, leaning out of shadows so he could see it. The immense manlike but misshapen head, with exaggerated brow and protruding maw, tan coloured short tusks either side of the mouth, glowered. If that wasn't horrific enough, what turned his bones to jelly was the huge single eye focusing on him. It bored into him, malevolently seized his courage and made him want to shit it out faster than month dead oysters.

  The eye the size of the sunjammer's hand glowed a sickly cunning orange and pulsed red. Dagmar windmilled over the fire and he crunched into the mossy wall by the entrance, slamming all breath from his lungs. Stunned by the blow, he slid, wheezing feebly. With a tortured groan, Dagmar felt his arm snap as he crunched against the dusty earthen floor.

  It would have been so, so easy just to lie there, even as he felt the pulse of his tendons and ligaments in his foot shriek while twisted under his other leg. Pain saved him. The tortured howl of his forearm muscles forced his flickering eyes to lock onto the bear and seized his heart in a death grip. The snuffling form rolled inelegantly onto its side and opened a bleary, predatory yellow eye from the mottled head. Dagmar's terror fled, as a tremendous jolt of adrenaline as large as the shark-tooth mountain on the West Spires flag flooded him and speared his heart, energising him, shattering the anchor of fear that restrained his panic.

  With a bubbling moan deep in his throat, he scrabbled at the sooty, lichen-coated rock of the cave wall with his good arm as the bear twitched to its feet. Bunching its coiled muscles, it sprang. It was fast, impossibly fast. A terror to behold and far too close for comfort. With a fleeting glance, Dagmar flung himself into the air, blasting himself down the tunnel and out of the cave. Somehow, he ducked a parting swipe of blood-caked claw on instinct and scrabbled into the air in a shower of stone shards. Swerving in panic, he retained the presence of mind to head out to sea in the opposite direction and preserve the route in he'd taken.

  Dagmar wondered how something could attack his spirit form. How the fuck was any of this possible? Was the Citadel's closeted lore that inaccurate? Fuck! It must be a mistake, a total fucking disaster. Their Citadel tutors couldn't err that badly? Shit! Twice now in as many days it had occurred, and on this occasion, almost killed him. It could wait, it would have to, as a savage bellow rattled the cave behind, giving the magus a second surge of adrenaline. Fuck! He hoped they wouldn't pursue. The party wasn't prepared for that—what sane man or woman would be?

  Skimming through the trees, he hurtled towards his body, feeling its pull over the pain pulsing from his arm. Spasming muscles scuffled with twisted tendons and screaming sinews. He gritted his teeth. It was fortunate it was his left arm he'd half-raised in futile protection. The sunjammer despaired. Gods, has it detected us all? It was only blind luck he'd escaped. How had it hurt him? Since when were giant dumb humanoids mystics? Mystics with unheard of sorceries? His control stuttered as his mind spun. Angrily, he suppressed his self-recrimination by swerving upwards and following the trail; he accelerated.

  41

  Everyone jumped as Dagmar twitched and groaned. The magus thrashed, robe dancing in the light through the trees. He gave a violent jerk against the tree in his repose, before flailing upright. He gurgled unintelligibly and swung onto his side. His spasming legs clipped Mathyss' ankle, rolling him to the loam with an undignified squawk of surprise. With an eerie crack that sounded like the snapping of dry tinder, Dagmar's arm twisted to an unnatural angle, forming a drastic triangle within the fabric of his sleeve, before he flopped onto his back and lay still.

  Van Reiver slipped from Carla's grasp, sending uneaten biscuits rolling to the grass. He propped Dagmar against the tree, as Mathyss scrabbled onto his knees to check the magus. The sunjammer's breathing rasped in bubbling gulps, as his chest heaved up and down as though running for his life. Each heave almost threw Van Reiver away, and he had to throw his superior weight against the thinner man. Mathyss leaned past Van Reiver’s shoulder to check Dagmar's eyes, but Van Reiver caught his hand and was almost thrown off the magus as Dagmar's chin cracked into his own.

  "Ouch, fucker. Don't, Mathyss! We do not know what it'll do to him. Let the magic play out. What occurs out there is affecting him here somehow." Mathyss looked ready to object, and Van Reiver dropped his hand and pressed Dagmar back. "I don't know why." In shared concern they stared, waiting for him to wake in silent concern. It was plain something had broken Dagmar's arm. "Son of a bitch-hog!" Van Reiver hissed, reaching the end of his patience. Mathyss stood and surveyed the perimeter, but seemed to see no threat from his silence. Van Reiver looked at the magus as the thrashing diminished to deep breathing. Carla had moved to Dagmar in the space vacated by Mathyss and fumbling in her pack for splints and a bandage.

  "His foot seems twisted," Mathyss observed.

  Van Reiver glanced at the elf, then his friend's foot, and straightened it. Worried, he blew out his cheeks as Dagmar's groans became a long moaning sigh and the thrashing diminished.

  "I've never seen this happen before."

  Mathyss grunted and turned away. "Stand to, be ready for trouble!" He pointed to Merizus. "Guard your officers and prepare a litter. The magus will need help to move." Merizus did a double take. Van Reiver could see the white of his eyes visible from a dozen paces away, and from the way Dagmar's heart thundered under his hand could not blame him for being startled. What the fuck was Dag doing out there?

  .*.*.

  Mathyss glanced at the splint Carla was fitting and nodded approval as his pulse slowed. He bolted back a pace in consternation when Dagmar surged upright, every muscle and sinew bar-taut and shaking as he threw Carla and Van Reiver off.

  "No, it isn't fucking usual! This is very much unfuckingusual!" Dagmar snarled, his face flushing a ghastly shade of crimson, then agonised white as Van Reiver pushed him back against the trunk. The sunjammer sucked each breath in ragged, shuddering gasps and clenched his eyes tight. Mathyss squatted on the other side of Van Reiver to examine Dagmar again and stared unblinking into the magus' eyes.

  "What the hell happened?" hissed Van Reiver, before Mathyss could demand an answer. Dagmar pointed weakly at his water-flask, and Van Reiver unstopped the bottle with shaking fingers, and pressed it into the magus' functional hand. Dagmar drained it in a long gulp, dropped it for refilling, and beckoned Mathyss closer.

  "What did you find?" Mathyss asked, dreading the reply as Trevir collected the flask. Mathyss tried to remain impassive, but couldn't suppress the emotion and felt the pulse in his neck spread to his jaw.

  "The party your people dispatched are dead. An ambush located close to a watchtower. Mangled bodies are everywhere. Their leaders, I'm not sure about. At the least two are missing and injured from the equipment I found abandoned. I would not raise any hope for a rescue." Dagmar's demeanour changed from corpse pallid to grim intensity at the retelling, his voice tightening.

  "Did you find two women?" Mathyss' eyes bored into Dagmar's. "One with armour akin to mine, another in robes like your own."

  "One short woman was a scout, her armour differed, more the normal scout leather. I guess their commander was a woman and a caster the second?" Mathyss closed his mouth and nodded as Van Reiver glanced and saw his eyes moisten. Mathyss looked away, feeling a tick pound in his jaw. Carla placed her hand on Mathyss' shoulder as though knowing what Dagmar would say. Van Reiver's expression suggested he didn't. Mathyss shook his head, seeming unsure what to think. "They are gone, Mathyss," the sunjammer whispered as though assuming Mathyss was in denial. "A broken sword, a damaged buckler, and a spell book lay among significant bloodstains and scoring. I'm sorry."

  "You are sure? Positive Magus, before I speak to my scouts?" Mathyss gasped. He felt cold, as though the heat in his
blood had fled, and winter had taken its place for the foreseeable future.

  "I discovered the party below the headland watchtower. I went to the village and found the cause of the destruction in a cave across the bay. There's a pair of giant humanoids with a pet bear in residence. I'm not jesting with the bear. The fucker is eighteen-foot from its twin heads to filthy stubby tail. I'm positive they ambushed your scouts as they injured it with arrows. The shafts being identical to yours—I checked.

  "I never had time to investigate the complex as one giant attacked me. It shouldn't be possible—it cannot be possible—but the big bastard managed it. I ran. I'm not proud of it, but I picked myself up by my two spiritual balls and fucked off out of the cave, like a cork from a shook-up beer bottle." Dagmar shrugged and winced; that had not been smart. He slid down the sinewy bole to sprawl on the ground.

  "I thought you said your spirit thing's safe?" Van Reiver sounded, horrified. Mathyss had to agree, he was no caster, but everything the magus said was shocking, if not impossible sounding. If it had not injured the man before his eyes, he would have accused him of lying.

  "As I said, I don't know how it occurred." Dagmar looked at the splint for the first time and flexed his ankle, wrinkling his face in unhappiness. "I can't explain it. Both the giants and the shitting animal saw me. They know another party is here nosing around."

  "You won't be running down there for the rumpus; good skive, Dag." Van Reiver flicked a rueful grin at him, relief more than sarcasm seeming to saturate the navigator's voice as he clasped the prone sunjammer's shoulder.

  "Maybe so, but we need to hit them before they react. The one that went for me had a single eye here." Dagmar tapped the centre of his forehead with his good hand.

  "Cyclopta." Mathyss grunted, feeling blood creep to his face as a slow anger built. He had to keep it from the humans, and he forced himself to calm. "Larger and more vicious than giants. What the bear is, I can't say; I've never heard of such a creature. It may be a pet of theirs from the interior. How large are the cyclopta?"

  "Twenty-five to thirty feet, as a rough guess. I can't be precise, as they were sitting in the dark. I'm guessing it's the two; the other openings seemed small—storerooms or natural passages, maybe."

  "Adults. It will not be an easy fight." Mathyss rubbed his chin while thinking hard. "Something must have driven them from the interior. There are many wild animals and other denizens at the heart of the isle. It is normal for them to keep to themselves. We have small settlements around the coast by resources we farm. We haven't seen cyclopta for a century, maybe twice that. Our people need to investigate in numbers. The last family I heard about lived in underground lakes under the central mountains. It is a worrying development. I should send someone back with this, but I fear we need every spear and bow."

  "More questions than answers." Dagmar agreed through clenched teeth.

  "The task at hand. Ideas, anyone?" Van Reiver pressed, cutting into the conversation, seeking a course of action and less conjecture. Merizus shrugged, having to agree. Dagmar groaned as Carla threaded the splints into his sleeve and Grimm looked on, his features matching his name.

  Mathyss heard a throat clear at his back and turned. Merizus sighed, presumably at the amateurish apathy, and spat onto the ground. "Form ranks with spears to keep them off us and plink away with the crossbows. We may get lucky, I can't recall the last time our Spires lads fought something like this, and frankly we're in the shit if they're that big."

  When Dagmar spoke into the dread silence, he sounded drained, sapped of all strength. "Your archers tried for the eyes last time. We need more than luck with the speed it possesses." Mathyss stood to leave, to put telling his scouts into the past, but Dagmar grasped his leg. It was surprising how an injured man could still have such strength, and to Mathyss it proved to him Dagmar was no liar. He looked the human straight in his strange sun-like eyes and they glared back.

  "Tell your people to approach with extreme care. It picked your other company off at a sharp bend. The lead scouts had no chance. It butchered them all in an instant. A massacre."

  "We will not make the same mistake," Mathyss snapped, his face tight to the warning. His men and women knew what to do. He took a breath, calming himself, and had to appreciate the man was trying to help. He nodded to Van Reiver, made a brief gesture to Merizus and stalked off, back stiff. Mathyss could imagine looks flashing like lightning between Tryphon's men, but he needed a moment to himself. A moment for composure before his guilt and despair lost more lives.

  .*.*.

  Van Reiver watched Mathyss enter the trees followed by Merizus and grimaced. "Fuck." A short word, but apt.

  "Hmm. Was he close to both women?" Dagmar asked a minute later, as though ensuring the man was out of earshot. "For an elf, he looks damn emotional. I swear he's aged a century in front of us."

  "His sister," Carla whispered. "The other woman was their younger cousin." She flicked a glance to Van Reiver as she buckled her pack and shrugged into the straps. "They were unusually close. Too close."

  Noticing her pallor, Van Reiver said nothing. They didn't know these elves, and keeping the living alive was his only concern. His conscience writhed with pragmatism, accepted the necessity, but rebelled at feeling comfortable with the decision. Double-shit! It wasn't the time for overthinking. He could feel the tension wiggling in his boots as though infested with ants.

  Van Reiver wanted to cry; he had no notion how to command his men through this. If the monsters were that big, they were all going to die. Horribly fucking die. He hoped they didn't eat people raw—why the fuck would he think of that now? Shit! Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks. He did not want his life to end like that. Van Reiver hoped Mathyss had a plan. Something like the enemy falls over dead double-quick.

  Van Reiver stood, thinking, and spun to Dagmar.

  "How do you feel? Be honest and no bullshit."

  "Battered. I'll be okay if I'm not expected to run, or tie my shoelaces." He scowled at his splinted arm and echoed Van Reiver. "Fuck."

  "Hah! Use the litter and rest up; I wish I could." Van Reiver patted Dag on his good shoulder and helped a now loaded Carla to her feet. His thoughts niggled, just as they had on Tryphon prior to the attack. There was something—"I swear elven bastard is withholding something. I don't know what, but I know he is. Call it a hunch, but I feel it."

  Carla weathered the storm. "It is possible you are right. I know how to read people, but I struggle with elves. They hide their feelings well, and considering the circumstances, I doubt anyone is not tense to some degree—or a liar if they deny otherwise. People keep things to themselves all the time—we all do it. However, I sense no falsehood in him since we departed, and be practical, gentlemen, this is not the time to debate it."

  "We're too far along, Edouard. We see this through." Dagmar agreed, trampling Van Reiver's intuition. The sunjammer's troubled gaze rested on Van Reiver before glancing away. "We've a job to do and I've made it harder. I wish there was someone senior here from The Citadel. Magic on this isle makes no sense. The only good thing is hiding which direction I fled in." Seeing Dagmar clench his fist, Van Reiver cleared his throat.

  "Don't hit yourself, or you can carry yourself down there."

  "Hah, right. I only saw one path, so it is fifty-fifty they try another ambush."

  "Alrighty, gents. I'll have Harcux and Cephill sort the litter and keep an eye on him, sir. They're big lads and won't slow us," Grimm observed, throwing his voice to the crowd. The cox'n looked around the village and each individual in the loitering seamen. Van Reiver followed his gaze to see anxious hands fingered now familiar weapons. Many a white-knuckle appeared and faded; intermingled with scratching, twitching and foot tapping. Grimm forced a smile onto his square face, seeming to squeeze every drop of optimism he possessed into his voice. "Alroy can carry his gear as it isn't much. The Duckfucker won't be a lot of use. I'm surprised he's coped with that arthritic hip o' his being an older lad."

&n
bsp; "Forty-odd is old? Hah! All right, see to it." Van Reiver turned to follow Mathyss but had to check himself as Ephraim cut across his path.

  "Sorry, sir. I'm to stay with 'im. The sarge sent me back here to do it." He waved an unloaded crossbow at the sprawled sunjammer. It was one of the few provided by Mathyss rather than the restrung ankhbow from Tryphon. Despite being one of the smallest men, the rough-mannered marine held it like a toy.

  "Good, we may still need him. If we're doomed, we can feed him to one of them and run fast in the opposite direction. The bony bastard might choke the bugger." Ephraim cackled and looked past the navigator to pull a grotesque caricature of a death mask to the magus. Van Reiver snorted and turned to find Dagmar staring piteously at his back, as Carla developed uncontrollable giggles. Seeming unable to help herself, her shoulders shook as in the release of tension. Van Reiver glared, and as stress and worry built up all too soon, her laughter faded.

  42

  An hour later, Van Reiver lay soaking up moisture on a low-humped rise near the abandoned tower, studying the deserted village through Bullsen's spyglass. It was an eerie vista. The eeriness accentuated by Dagmar's adventure forewarning what they would soon encounter. Too soon. He turned to Mathyss beside him, crouched like a coiled spring and dripping with a soft pat, pat. A brief but dense shower had surprised them, with everyone thankful it was raindrops falling and not something more lethal. Everyone was damp and steamed, yet the leathers stood up well to the downpour as Mathyss had suggested they would. Would their courage do the same when meat met metal?

  The commander's tense expression was marred by a pair of courting cobalt-blue and green veined butterflies cavorting around his torso and shoulders, dancing over pools of moisture as though making up for lost time after sheltering under leaf and branch from the elements, surrounded the cloying perfume of sodden loam.