THE TRYPHON ODYSSEY (The Voyage Book 1)

by S. D. Howarth

  "Steady lads, steady. There's no shame in droppin' a steamin' turd down your leg, but fuckin' stand put when squeezing it out," Merizus soothed his men. To Van Reiver's ears, it was as though he was calming a draft animal pulling a plough, rather than a dozen men in packed ranks who stumbled a pace back as one man of one singular thought. "Steady!" His roar throbbed off the cave and echoed. A bird cawed far-off, audible over the surf, and someone sniggered. There was always one. Leaning back, the torso of the giant sucked in an immense lungful of air. It was an eldritch rasp, like the vacuum-sealed door of a long-forgotten tomb cracking ajar. A huge single brown eye glowered with endless malevolence, roaring its anger at the dead animal. The bellow shook everyone as the roar echoed through the forest, sending hundreds of birds screeching inland. It killed the snigger dead.

  "Fuckshit, we're goin' to die! This will be so much fun, gettin' snabbed," Trevir said from somewhere in Merizus’s phalanx. Van Reiver winced as his men recoiled again. He wanted to himself, but terror pinned him more rigid than any limpet. No surreal dream surrounded him, but one almighty fucker of a nightmare.

  "Steady. You know, Trev, I might need someone to find my balls," Merizus grunted conversationally, unmoving. The serjeant waved from where he stood for the three injured to return and pointed straight at Van Reiver and Grimm's reserve.

  Shit. Van Reiver bit his lip at the serjeant’s wisdom. He knew they needed every blade and the will to use steel and not run. Shit, don’t think on running.

  "Reform," he called, furious at himself and his dozen men. "Get back into your bloody ranks." Anger for leadership, his mind mocked in a sibilant whisper—how inspirational.

  "It's a fuckin' woman!" Carilon gasped from the front rank of Merizus' men, as a massive pair of breasts heaved clear of the surf, swaying a ponderous figure-of-eight inside a tattered tunic sewn in a crude patchwork from the skins of dozens of creatures.

  "It's hard to miss that, fuckwit!" Hatch snarled back across the spears.

  "She'll eat moronic piss-weasels like you, even with ditties like that!" growled Dorad, cuffing Carilon on the back of his helm, to the amused chuckles of men used to such lacklustre observations. "Do your fuckin' job. How a dimwit like you gets your dick wet with half a fuckin' brain is beyond me." If Dorad said anything else, they lost it in the crash of cascading water, as the immense woman kicked clear of the sea in mighty ground-eating strides.

  Someone snorted over the water, surging up the shingle against their feet as clumps of seaweed fell from her flesh, "You'll need a giant golden cock if yer fancyin' her." Brak mocked in a lightning-fast response, smirking at Dorad and jerking his head at the leviathan.

  "Aye, she'll never feel you," another voice ribbed Carilon, who Van Reiver imagined must surely regret opening his mouth.

  "Shut it, sons of whores." Hatch growled. "An' get yer fuckin' hats on." Van Reiver winced as the intolerant eyes passed over him. It should be him. He should force the men to overcome their fear and allow Hatch to tighten the ranks. They had fallen into that on Tryphon and held it together longer than most. Here was worse—far worse. It looked beautiful, and a man could lose themselves in the forest with a head start.

  "Focus on your damn jobs!" Van Reiver forced himself to yell, to reach for the anger inside at everything which had happened. To quell fear, to face the fury to come. To make them fight—make him fight! Van Reiver wanted to say something more—give the men inspiration—but nothing passed between from brain to mouth. Some fucking leader. He in turn looked to Mathyss. The elf forced a smile, then turned to his scout, who stood face slack, his mouth agog. A single question and from Mathyss' face he didn't like what the scout whispered back.

  "This one needs downed fast. She is closer. The male is outside the reef, by the end of the bay." Mathyss announced in a voice to seize attention and pointed back towards the path from which they had entered the bay. The commander slammed his helmet down and spoke twice, once in elven and once again in spires. "Archer's aim for its eye. All phalanxes move together to pin her limbs. If you can, get in a maiming blow, but keep it tight. Grimm, stall the male and buy us time. Edouard, leave a third of your spearmen with me. Take two of my archers and the others as skirmishers for Grimm and give us the time."

  .*.*.

  Merizus's phalanx advanced, with Mathyss leading the other, then moved left to flank the tree-like legs in enfilade. The tight grouping lasted seconds before the ranks dissolved into a mass of spear jabbing men, two rows deep to form a wide 'V' formation with arrows and crossbow bolts hissing over heads and spears.

  They thrust at the lower legs and swayed back as her over-sized sandals kicked out. The tight formations wavered as gargantuan hands swung at them. Elven steel bit, drawing blood on calves, lower thighs and forearms, but the thick skin and lashing feet yielded little beyond pinpricks. The humans did little beyond irritating the giantess. Mathyss's breath rasped. Each lungful never seemed enough to meet his needs and growing frustration, and his helm became a furnace. An unholy crucible. Stand back, gasp, move to a man out of position, heave against his back to shove the ranks straight, back off a pace, loose an arrow with Kandra's bow. And repeat. And repeat.

  Gods, he felt exhausted. Anger already spent. His legs burned, his mind raced, and his armour felt leaden with sweat. Make it end. He found himself uncaring. He wanted to howl the words, scream his anger, before he stumbled, barged in the chest by the man he'd pressed in a moment before. Cursing, he sprang back to preserve the bow and his quiver.

  He looked up as he raced back to reposition the humans and scan over his archers. His surging blood went from furnace hot to deep, catacomb cold. Her colossal iris glowed a vile mustard-yellow, then pulsed with a blinding orange light. Sand and shingle under Merizus' second rank exploded. It hurled men like toys to tumble on all fours; others staggered into groaning heaps as the beach roiled.

  The sailor at the centre of the giantesses' spell wailed a godawful shriek. The stumps of both legs lay several feet away from the caramelised chunks in the crater, wisping greasy smoke. Mathyss gagged, ears ringing a yard away, and gestured for the man to his left to take the place in the line of the legless man. Lang, to everyone's mercy, dragged the cripple behind their ragged ranks, his last breath an enfeebled sound of a life snatched away almost unnoticed. Mathyss heard the gurgle and forced himself to ignore it. A dying man, a human, wouldn't kill him, but inattention would.

  Cackling with a laugh like a ship's timbers being crushed on rocks, the cyclopta used one splayed lichen-crusted hand to shield her face and with the other snatched the end man from Mathyss's front rank. Holding his ankles between finger and thumb, she smashed the wailing man into Merizus's company with as little effort as a child swishing a stick. Mathyss's orders died stillborn as two of his sailors crumpled. More seamen had their shields and spears smashed as the giantess flicked the human's back.

  The giantess toyed with them. Playing like a vengeful cat pawing at a mouse. Poking, prodding, dragging and shoving. Mathyss and Merizus got their men together, but the return swing of her moaning human club collapsed them like a tower of cards. Even with the extra bodies from Van Reiver filling gaps, they struggled to match giant brawn. Blood sprayed in a crimson mist. From where, Mathyss couldn't tell when ducking and cajoling the archers. His sword was all but useless in this contest of man and giant, and his bow little better.

  "Get up, or die where you lie!" Mathyss screamed, dragging seamen off each other and ignoring their curses and their looks of hatred. Their fear. His heart raced. His fear. They would be doomed if they allowed the beast to dictate the fight. The cyclopta was unaffected, her bulk too gargantuan and the humans ineffective. The third crunch of her sandal into the beach tumbled everyone onto their backsides. Every formation shattered as shingle seemed as firm as quicksand. Mathyss fell like all the others as despair rose. He chanced a look behind and saw the male cyclopta rise from the surf to its full prodigious stature, and Van Reiver and Grimm's men stumbled. A puny sacrifi
ce to a manifest god of nature.

  Mathyss sprang to his feet, chivvying weary men and women to their feet. To face death standing. Mathyss and his elven archers saw Merizus's danger as the serjeant's phalanx took the brunt of the cyclopta's strikes. His archers bombarded the giantess' head to tear her attention from the fallen. Leather-clad feet danced to new positions for precise shots, as the monster covered her eye with a scarred hand. Several arrows penetrated forearm and wrist, staggering her with a hiss of annoyance as her thick flesh bristled and their quivers emptied. None of the arrows came close to her vulnerable eye, a single gash on her cheek their greatest success. Mathyss grimaced and waved to the huge marine. Seizing Merizus' attention, Mathyss made stabbing motions at his ankle. They had no time, they had to cripple or kill the creature now.

  "Reform!" Merizus roared and backed up his men several paces. He reshaped them into three ranks of four, dragging extra men into position and cussing them silent. He looked at Mathyss and thundered, "Break that fuckin' leg!"

  The man does not have enough men, Mathyss thought as they bunched and pounded spears into the giant's flesh like a battering ram. The creature stumbled as Merizus added his muscle and urged his phalanx to unleash their ferocity at the monster's ankle and knee, stabbing, slashing and heaving to relieve pressure on the rest of Tryphon's crew.

  "It's working," Mathyss said in elven, surprising himself as this was not how his scouts fought. "When she moves that arm, get the eye!" A hellish steel rain slammed into her tree-like forearm, a jet of blood encouragement that they could hurt her. With a thunderous, yet womanlike cry, the giantess stepped back, indecision showing for the first time. He ground his teeth as she spread huge fingers to shield her face while recovering.

  "Merizus, back off and repeat! Archers wait for your shot," snarled Mathyss, urging them better aim. He saw Brak, and the recovered men stab at the hand holding her improvised club. Harcux alone stood steady. As the bloody club swished overhead, he used his reach to thrust his spear into the gap between thumb and forefinger. Mathyss grinned to himself when she snatched her hand back, tearing the flesh by her thumb, then screeching as her fingers snapped open, her bloodied club spun away from sight.

  Snarling at the rising number of painful, bloody pinpricks, the leviathan kicked out wildly, more madly. Because of her size, each swing of her foot was made clear by her posture. However, because of the number of men being flung around and felled in groups, it was becoming harder to counter. To dodge each crushing blow and attack.

  "Wait." Mathyss drew the word out while praying for the opening. It was taking too long. As if proving him correct, his company chanced their luck once too often. Mathyss heard a dull thwack as he moved to the back of the phalanx and had to throw himself aside as a man flew past as though launched from a ballista. Mathyss thrust himself against the humans, forcing as many upright as screaming muscles would allow. It wasn't enough as they weakened under the hammer blows. Half of the seamen sprawled, groaning. Dorad stayed down, helm dented from the unfortunate man, and one of his archers knelt behind them, shaking her head while holding an unused arrow.

  "Distract her!" Mathyss yelled and dragged the closest man to his feet, then the next, and pointed to those still down. Others struggled to free themselves, caught on wriggling flesh, tearing oaths and tangled equipment. The cyclopta stamped, splattering one sailor deep into the beach. Blood and gobs of meat arced from gaps in his armour and the beach heaved underfoot. Men, the elf pulled up, staggered, unable to keep their balance. Windmilling arms and weapons scattered the ranks out of Mathyss' control as the men sought to not stab friends. The cyclopta seized the initiative by stepping back a giant pace and stamping her foot forward with even greater force again and again. Merizus's men finally folded as the beach mounded like a rising wave. Mathyss's phalanx followed as though in slow motion. The men he pressed upright toppled one after another onto him. Mathyss heaved himself upright to breathe, and his arms lifted him by a hand's width for one luxurious gasp of salt-tasting air. Then the beach hit him, and his vision swirled into pulsing stars.

  .*.*.

  Van Reiver looked away from Mathyss along the beach, back towards the headland. He shook his head. It seemed unreal, so peaceful in one direction it would be an enjoyable stroll. And in the other direction—gods, what a sight would it ever end? His stomach lurched and turned back to his men—and found Cephill snatching the opportunity to drag an injured man clear, while waving for Ephraim to attend to him. To Van Reiver's surprise, Lady Carla was crouching by the comatose man bashed out of ranks earlier.

  "Shit." He didn't care if anyone heard. Why was she here? Horrified at the risk she took, he strode over, stepping around the downed men as she moved to Cephill's man and stripped off his helmet. Van Reiver reached to grab her shoulder, but recoiled and gagged at the stench of the bottle she uncorked. The seaman gasped in a full lungful and coughed until Van Reiver thought he would bark out his innards. The man's response was worse. He twitched, writhed twice and arced to his feet, goggled as Carla flew backwards into Van Reiver, and sprinted towards the trees.

  "Hey get back here!" Van Reiver called in vain, then swore as the running man swerved towards the cave.

  "Shit. Cephill, get him back into ranks." Van Reiver called, half winded at her impact. He pushed Carla to her feet, bent to collect the helmet and tossed it towards Cephill. "Why are you here?" She spun around and glared. He broke the exchange by coughing again. Whatever reeked in her vial smelled repugnant. She smirked at his expression.

  "They guarantee this to get anyone with life in their blood back to their feet. You need the men, Edouard."

  Fuck. He didn't say it, but could hear his teeth grinding together and knew he was frittering away precious time. "Fine, get them to the cave and stay there. Have Ephraim bring the injured to you." He pushed past, too angry to debate and far too much to do. Where to start? "Grimm!"

  The cox'n spun. Unlike his men, he had his helm off and looked in equal parts pissed off and frustrated.

  "Sir?"

  "We need to hustle, but it might be best to form up halfway in case he tries to flank us and mince the others."

  "Right. You heard the skipper, have you all got spears?" Mumbles greeted Grimm, and he scowled as he formed five men with spears into a rank. Hatch directed five more into line and formed up behind Grimm as the two elven women raced ahead, not bothering to wait for the humans.

  "Vaska, check the packs for rope and hooks. The rest gather rocks you can throw. We need to add something to the remaining arrows."

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  "Go!" Grimm hollered.

  "Cep, how many have we?" Van Reiver called out, feet crunching as he ran, while watching the other fight.

  "Eight, including us, four spears."

  "Flank him landward with the two handers. Go for his toes, take pressure from Grimm. I'll take the skirmishers and fill in around you to split its attention."

  "Right, Sir. You heard him. Form up an' wait up. Let Grimm past, he's an old fucker so hang back a few."

  "Fuck you, Cep!" Grimm wheezed past with his men, and Hatch huffed a few paces back. Hatch gave Cephill the finger.

  "See what I mean? Go on, make the old bastards run!"

  The swell increased and heaved higher as the second colossus stormed from the depths. The courage Van Reiver recouped from Merizus and the bickering sailors wobbled as water sheeted back into the sea with a shattering hiss. This leviathan loomed taller than the female, looked even more pissed, tectonically furious, and its single orb narrowed in ominous forewarning. The dripping cyclopta stood scanning the bay from the burning village to the barricaded cave, and the scarlet ringed corpse on the top tide line. In a human-like gesture, it raised a meaty hand and knuckled its eye.

  "Stay together, lads, steady yerselves," Hatch assuaged the men. It was a strange sound. Strange hearing that tone as he didn't threaten or curse, or even shout. He calmed men with hammering hearts and sweaty palms. They knew they were
outclassed. Was there less panic because they were a token force? The dripping cyclopta stood as the female had. It scanned the bay from the burning village to the barricaded cave and the scarlet ringed corpse sprawled on the top tide line. In a human-like gesture, it raised a meaty hand and knuckled its eye.

  "The whoreson's weepin' over the fuckin' bear!" Jenkans gasped, pointing with a jagged rock.

  Van Reiver took in an astonished breath as he realised the lookout was right. It might help, he thought, pressing his helm on. An angry, upset enemy was better than a calculating one. He no longer considered it a monster. The mannerisms were far too human for comfort. A tearing wave of regret encompassed him, suffocating all breathing. He knew he should say something, but his mouth seized as though rusted and formed a desert around his tongue.

  Hatch, resolute as always, only had so much tolerance and barked at his subordinate. "What good is that, eh? The soddin' village and rottin' bodies back in the cave can't cry, can they? If the over-sized clit-licker isn't smart enough to fuckin' run, you get to play at soldierin', like a proper prince's tinhead, clear?"

  "I'm just sayin'," Jenkans whined, like a dog brought to heel.

  "Well, don't! Leave the thinkin' to 'orses. They've the heads for it. See if you can get lucky with yer rock since you lost your stick. 'Just sayin'. Fuckin' dog's dangler." The latter remark, in a biting undertone, was almost inaudible to Van Reiver.

  "Thanks." The lookout chuntered, pretending not to hear the sniggering. He adjusted his shield piled high with rocks and took a smaller, more rounded rock. Van Reiver could see him looking at Hatch while he rolled the rock in his hand with discordant delicacy.

  Van Reiver looked at his men. He pointed to three and gestured behind Grimm's phalanx. "You three, there." He pointed to the other and the elven women. "You three there," Van Reiver hissed, trying to help. They'd already collected a small pile, but no-one questioned the order. It busied them while the lull of despair lingered.