Swords of Steel Omnibus

by Howie K Bentley et al.

  A wide grin flashed across Blackthorne’s bearded face. “Well, if I had a flagon of ale, I’d certainly drink to that.”

  “To be blunt, I wish to be a part of that glory,” Vyperia said, her ophidian eyes narrowing. “I wish to rule once more. I have watched your queen, the flame haired wench with the heart of a shield-maiden and the tenacity of a she-wolf. Her tenure on the throne will sow the seeds of empire. Her rule will hone the engines of both statecraft and warcraft alike so that subsequent kings may further that ambition and fully seize the grand destiny of conquest and colonization. I mean to have a hand in this.”

  “How?” frowned Caleb. “By your own admission you are trapped here in this sweltering purgatory. How can you hope to achieve what you seek?”

  Vyperia smiled once again, her dark eyes gleaming with a fathomless cunning. “With your assistance, I can transfer my immortal essence into the body of your queen. I can assume control of her mortal shell and rule from her throne, compelling and empowering the realm to ever greater and more lofty heights of glory. This is my destiny, Caleb. Where once I ruled, there shall I rule again. As once I conquered, so shall I conquer once more.”

  “I see,” Caleb rumbled. “In truth, I expected as much.”

  “I shall manipulate the temporal eddies to accelerate the currents of history, subtly influencing their ebb and flow to bring about the desired goals that much quicker. ’Tis no small task, to be sure. But know that I have wrought such plans before with great success.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Caleb said. “I have of late come to appreciate the extent of your ambitions and your capabilities.”

  “And you, mariner,” whispered Vyperia, leaning forward in her carven throne. “Once you have willingly borne my spirit from this spire in a shard of my Soul Crystal, you will act as my vessel and convey me to the court of your red queen. I shall do the rest. All I require from you is the means to travel beyond the veil and make contact with your sovereign’s regal flesh. It will be a relatively simple task, and none too gruelling for you.”

  “Not an overly fortuitous swap for you, aesthetically,” grunted Caleb.

  “Oh, my true body will be quite safe here, my dear captain,” beamed Vyperia. “Frozen in a sorcerous sleep and very well protected, awaiting the day when I return to claim it, once my arcane powers have been replenished sufficiently.”

  Blackthorne folded his arms across his broad chest. “Indeed. And what could you possibly offer me, to make such an act of high treason worth my while?”

  Vyperia chuckled and reclined seductively in her crystalline seat once again. “Why my sweet, simple Caleb… you shall be my king, of course! You shall rule by my side! You will be nothing less than my right hand as I seize my glory and dominate the peoples of the world!”

  A malefic growl welled in Maalech Xul’s throat and he turned fully to face the lissom woman. Blackthorne watched this movement silently and his muscular body tensed.

  “You see, I shall require a man such as yourself to assist me,” said Vyperia. “A man familiar with the minds and hearts of the people. A guardian to protect me as I recover from the rite of possession and assume the arduous mantle of queen. In return, I shall grant thee a modicum of immortality and bestow upon thee power hitherto undreamed of. Think of it! A lowly sea-dog reigning as a king beside his deathless queen for all eternity!”

  Caleb glanced again at Maalech Xul. “And where does your loyal hound fit into this perfidious scheme?”

  Vyperia laughed cruelly. “Oh, he doesn’t. I fear his usefulness is at an end, his purpose all but served. Where I am bound, I shall need far more than a demon’s shade dwelling in the crudely cast patchwork body of a man as my vassal. Maalech Xul shall return to the infernal abyss from whence I summoned him, his role duly fulfilled.”

  A moment of ominous silence enshrouded the shadowy chamber. Caleb warily took a single step closer to the onyx throne. Vyperia still gazed at him expectantly, her eyes sparkling with anticipation. And Maalech Xul slowly leaned in to his mistress until their faces were less than an inch apart.

  “I have heard enough,” the azure skinned giant growled. “Now you will learn that my favour is not so lightly discarded!”

  With terrifying ferocity, Xul’s gauntleted hand lashed forth to encircle Vyperia’s eburnean throat. His iron clad fingers tightened and the woman’s dark eyes widened in pain and shock.

  “You would have this mortal wormcast by your side?” the demon hissed. “So be it. You can be together forever… in death!”

  Vyperia’s delicate fingers scrabbled at the colossal hand in vain. “You… dare?” she rasped, flecks of blood speckling her fulsome lips.

  “I dare anything!” Xul boomed. “I am Maalech Xul, Deathbringer of the Z’xulth! And you will pay the price for your betrayal!”

  Desperately, Vyperia raised her left hand and a violet luminescence suddenly flared about her slender fingers. With a blinding flash and a resonant crackle, a writhing lance of energy suddenly erupted from her palm and smote the armoured giant fully in the chest. Maalech Xul was hurled twenty feet by the arcane blast, his great frame spiralling across the chamber to strike the obsidian wall with a sickening impact. Lucent tendrils of power encased his body like the strands of a spider’s web, and acrid smoke began to rise from the joints in his chitinous black armour. Slowly, his powerful body began to sag in the vice grip of the sorcerous filaments, his cuirass glowing red where the searing magical fingers were scoring the black breastplate. Finally, he crumpled heavily to the floor to lie motionless upon the cold stone.

  Vyperia slumped in her throne, dazed and disoriented, her ivory fingers brushing her bruised and bloodied throat.

  In an instant, Caleb bounded across the chamber to where the crystalline sarcophagus sparkled in the gloom, swiftly taking up the great silver sword once more. The blade thrummed and bombinated in his grasp, its platinum bound hilt warm to his touch.

  “The chains, Blackthorne!” came a faint voice, suddenly echoing within Caleb’s mind as if from some immeasurable distance. “Sunder the chains!”

  At once, Blackthorne recognized the sibilant spectral tone which whispered through his consciousness. It was unmistakably the voice of Doctor John Dee! “Grand to hear from thee again, good doctor!” growled Caleb, tightening his grip upon the gleaming sword. “And most timely indeed is your ghostly missive!”

  With one sidelong glance at the onyx throne, Caleb swung the great sword in a mighty arc, shearing through the black chains which suspended the fulgid diamond casket. With a deafening din akin to the shattering of glass, the sarcophagus struck the black floor and exploded into a thousand gleaming shards. And yet the body of the young prince Araklion remained upright and untouched, the fragments of crystal passing through his form as if they were nothing more than lucent rays of moonlight. Then, a cerulean glow suddenly enveloped the somnolent body of the prince, bathing his serene frame in a gentle spectral light. Caleb stepped back, gazing incredulously at the ghostly image of the sleeping youth.

  “Has that done it, lad?” he whispered. “Is this bloody curse lifted? Or must I slay that damned witch to boot?”

  Suddenly, a great noise like the rushing of a storm-wracked ocean filled the darkling chamber. Turning to the onyx throne where Vyperia still slumped insensate, Caleb beheld a great vortex of shimmering light abruptly manifest before the carven dais. Lances of writhing electrical energy flashed within the eldritch maelstrom, casting a sapphirean glow about the cavernous room.

  Vyperia stirred and gazed up at the caesious vortex before her, her eyes widening in stark fear. And then, coalescing in the lambent depths of the swirling light-storm, a fantastic image appeared.

  “By Aegir, Llyr, Mazu, Ahti, Sirsir and Poseidon!” whispered Caleb incredulously.

  The form of a great winged steed had manifested within the maelstrom, white as snow with eyes of searing blue fire. Upon its broad back was an armoured man wielding a silver spear which crackled with cerulean energy.
An ornate crested helm concealed his features, but Caleb was in no doubt as to the identity of the eldritch rider. As he watched spellbound, the mighty paladin extended his gauntleted hand silently toward Vyperia.

  “Forgive me, Tyberion,” the witch rasped, trembling. “My love!”

  Her terrified gaze suddenly focused on Blackthorne. “Help me, Caleb! I beg of thee!”

  Still brandishing the silver sword, Caleb strode to the side of the onyx throne, shielding his eyes against the glare of the lucent vortex. “I dare say there’s nothing I can do for you now, girl.”

  “You sublime fool!” hissed Vyperia. “I could have made you a god amongst men!”

  “A god?” said Caleb, his brow furrowing. “No, lass. ’Tis enough that men might dream of being kings, without aspiring to the power of gods. And in truth, I’ve no desire to be a king, either. Too much hassle, not enough freedom.”

  Bitter tears welled in Vyperia’s dark eyes. “We could have ruled the world together!”

  Caleb frowned, leaning in close to the woman’s beauteous face. “I sought no part in your tyrannical plot. Although just between you and me, I confess I did consider your proposal for a fleeting moment.” With that, he planted a lusty, lingering kiss on Vyperia’s ruby lips. “Farewell, dark queen!”

  Then, Blackthorne took hold of the woman’s slender arm and hurled her into the swirling maw of the effulgent portal.

  Instantly, the shining paladin gathered Vyperia in his lucent embrace and deposited her roughly across the saddle of his winged mount. Then, in a blaze of azure light, the form of the young prince Araklion suddenly appeared astride the steed behind his father, a gentle smile illumining his noble face. The armoured king nodded once to Caleb in silent gratitude and lifted his hand. With a flare of white light, the silver sword in Blackthorne’s grasp abruptly vanished and immediately reappeared within the hand of Araklion.

  Caleb slowly stepped back from the onyx throne as the portal began to shimmer and fade. Then, as abruptly as it had appeared, the coruscant vortex was gone, leaving only a faint humming and a gentle whisper of icy wind to mark its passing.

  “And that’s the end of that, I’ll wager,” sighed Caleb wearily.

  The mariner wiped his brow and glanced about the chamber, searching the shadows for an exit from the black spire.

  “Well played, mortal,” boomed a sepulchral voice from the gloom. Caleb spun to see Maalech Xul striding toward him, his charred and blackened armour emitting plumes of acrid smoke, his great twisted sword in hand. “The seductress is gone. Now all that remains is for you and I to have our reckoning.”

  Caleb smiled mirthlessly. “It wasn’t my fault you trusted the witch, you great lumbering moldwarp! I don’t suppose you’d simply be content to call the tally even?”

  Xul laughed, the sound dark and devoid of humour. “I think not. You’ve been a thorn in my side for quite some time now. There is no means by which you may leave this place. I considered simply leaving you here to rot, but I would derive scant satisfaction from such a minor gesture of mercy. No, I shall enjoy taking your head before I return to the abyssal realm.”

  Blackthorne raised his empty hands. “You appear to have me at a disadvantage, demon. I find myself without a blade, which is a rare thing indeed for me. Care to settle this by wrestling, or mayhap fisticuffs?”

  “Enough talk!” thundered Xul, lunging forward with his black blade raised. “Die, human!”

  Suddenly, a titanic thunderclap shattered the silence of the stygian chamber, and a vast section of the obsidian wall exploded to rain jagged black fragments upon the stone floor. Caleb whirled to the shimmering ovoid window which overlooked the arid approach to the spire to witness a sight which caused his heart to soar like a raven upon the winds of dusk. In the distance, beyond the twisted bridge which stretched across the wine dark sea, the sails of the Starfire billowed gloriously, a huge shimmering portal pulsing brightly at her stern. The ship’s bow guns flared again, their booming report echoing across the desolate expanse.

  “Gods blast me for a madman,” Caleb shouted joyously. “The whole bloody ship, no less!”

  Scant seconds later, the cannon balls reached the spire and tore another section of the black stone asunder with an ear-splitting crash. The shockwave hurled Caleb from his feet as massive chunks of rock and crystal erupted from the tower’s walls and scattered all around him. Maalech Xul stumbled as huge fragments of obsidian tumbled from the structure to assail his armoured form, the explosive impact rending a great fissure in the floor beneath his feet.

  “That cursed scow won’t save you!” Xul snarled, lurching towards Blackthorne with his benighted blade awhirl.

  Caleb scrambled to his feet in time to see a colossal section of the tower’s lofty interior crumble lazily from its perch, spiralling downward in an inexorably slow and graceful arc. With a sickening crack, the vast slab of broken stone struck Maalech Xul and hammered the dark giant pitilessly to the rubble strewn floor. Xul’s blade tumbled from his grasp as the massive fragment pinned him against the onyx throne, his ravaged armour splitting to disgorge great gouts of dark blue blood.

  “This… is not… the endgame,” Xul rasped, azure liquid bubbling from his lips. “I am eternal… I cannot die!”

  As Caleb watched, the rutilant glow in Xul’s eyes slowly guttered and died, and his great armoured frame finally fell silent and still. Then, from the giant’s gaping mouth, a writhing tendril of pitch black smoke billowed forth and swiftly disappeared into the tenebrous shadows of the sundered black tower.

  “I believe I’ve overstayed my welcome here,” Caleb muttered. Glancing toward the northern section of the chamber, he saw that a great ragged aperture had been torn in the aphotic stone floor through which he could barely discern a faint glimmer of sunlight. Evading further fragments of razor edged crystal which were still plummeting from the upper reaches of the spire, he leaped to the fissure and peered into its murky depths. An expanse of bright sand could be seen amidst the shattered stone, and he knew instantly that he had found his exit.

  “Praise the gods!” Caleb whispered. “But damn it all, I won’t leave empty handed!”

  Blackthorne turned to where the shattered remnants of Araklion’s crystalline sarcophagus lay strewn upon the riven floor and bounded to the nearest glittering fragment. Taking up a vast chunk of lucent diamond, he scrambled back to the yawning fissure and leaped headlong into the darkness. For long seconds he tumbled down the rough-hewn tunnel, its jagged edges tearing many shallow wounds in his flesh. Then, his feet struck hot sand and he finally rolled clear of the black monolith’s ruinous embrace.

  Caleb sprinted across the arid sand for several hundred yards, not daring to look back. Finally, he halted his desperate flight and glanced breathlessly at the great obelisk. Huge cracks were gaping in the spire’s smooth black stone, writhing like shadowy serpents from the base to its lofty pinnacle. As Caleb watched enthralled, the viridescent crystal at the structure’s summit collapsed, falling and shattering upon the stygian pyramidion. With a thunderous crack, the entire eastern face of the spire suddenly buckled and crumbled, tumbling downward in a billowing cloud of dark smoke and debris. A heartbeat later, the entirety of the sinister structure began to utterly disintegrate, groaning its ireful defiance as it crashed to clamorous, earth-sundering ruin upon the desolate sand.

  For many lengthy moments, Caleb Blackthorne gazed at the wreckage of the tower, every painful breath drawn in a ragged, dust-choked gasp. Then he turned silently and began the long walk to where the Starfire waited in the sun-scorched distance.

  From the log of Captain Caleb Blackthorne: Final Entry…

  The dreams have ceased, the curse has been lifted. Many weeks have passed since that fateful day in the desolate spire and I still find myself at a loss to explain much of it. My crew fathomed how to use the demon’s magic stone in a timely fashion, bless their salt-scored hides! They sailed the Starfire through the witch-portal they’d conjured and opened f
ire on the only thing they saw on that blighted horizon; the obsidian obelisk of the dark queen. Although they had no knowledge of my whereabouts and therefore relied on gut feeling and instinct, I am thankful that they dealt with the quandary in the manner best fitting their status as wolves of the sea; with cold steel and cannon fire! Fortuitously, the arcane orb contained just enough potency to transport us back from that sweltering limbo to navigate familiar seas once more. Those brave souls who perished in the battle with the witch-woman’s unhallowed dead were buried at sea; their bodies duly committed to the fathomless depths, their noble spirits unshackled to rove, feast and slay with the glorious fallen legions of the Sea Gods and sail the vast oceans of eternity until the end of time. As for we who survived this benighted expedition, our voyage home was far less perilous than had been the outward trek, as if the ire of the fell forces which opposed us had been duly spent with the sundering of the maleficent curse. The colossal diamond which I looted from the tower, along with the sapphires which young Malachi seized from the jungle shrine, have enabled me to fully repair and refit the ship, as well as bestow upon each and every member of my crew a generous share of the booty. Those who suffered wounds during the battle are now all but healed, and I’ve enlisted a few more hardy privateers to man my oaken deck. On the morrow I shall visit Doctor John Dee once more, and fully relay to him the fantastic and harrowing events of this eldritch argosy. His most recent letter to me which I received via messenger at Southampton revealed that he had been able to witness at least some of my confrontation with the seductress via his scrying mirror, and I thank the gods that when it mattered most, his words of counsel were far from cryptic! He also relayed to me the disquieting news that the Queen has been acting somewhat odd of late; strangely out of character and prone to becoming lost in a cryptic reverie complete with vivid recollections of an ancient time before the great flood devoured the realms of pre-history. I am most concerned by this disclosure and during my audience with the Doctor I intend to quiz him extensively on the ill-omened matter. What’s more, word has reached me that the old sea-dog Drake is marshalling a fleet to sail against the Spaniards at San Juan, and I fully expect to helm my girl as part of that righteous expedition! After that… who can say? Many are the mariners’ tales of uncharted atolls and exotic climes waiting to be discovered by a sturdy ship and a doughty crew such as mine. The seas are vast, and our sails are broad. I know beyond any shadow of a doubt that there are yet more wonders awaiting us beyond the distant horizon. Aye, the siren call of the open ocean is strong in our hearts and our minds, and I am certain that the voyages of the Starfire are far from over…