Ocean Of Fear (Book 6) (18 page)

“No monsters coming?” Kormak shouted. His words were barely audible over the clamour on the deck.

Rhiana shook her head but her expression was strange. “There is something but it is far, far below us. Leviathan perhaps.”

“Be sure to tell me if it rises,” he said.
 

She smiled. “You’ll be the first to know.”

He stared off into the distance. “They are not running,” he said.

“With the wind we have they could not get far,” she said. “They will try and take the weather gauge away from us, move into a position where we are sailing against the wind and where their oars give them the advantage.”

Kormak understood at once. The Ocean’s Blade had sweeps but the Sea Dragon was much larger, slower and more cumbersome, more like a floating castle than the long, sleek war-machine they faced. The trireme’s course would take it past them and to the south.

Zamara bellowed at the helmsman and the prow began to sweep round. The Ocean’s Blade changed its course too. Kormak noticed its sails had been taken down and it was now moving completely under oar-power. Against the wind, sails would only be a disadvantage. And again, it made the ship less of a target.

The engine crew shouted to each other and began to adjust the tension of the ropes on the ballista. They loaded an alchemical shell. The engine commander bellowed an order and the great arm swept forward, sending its missile arcing through the air towards the Ocean’s Blade. It fell short and the engine commander nodded, undismayed. He had just been trying to find the range.

Rhiana looked pale and tense. Her eyes narrowed. The long slits in her throat were sealed so tight as to be almost invisible.

Kormak’s hand toyed with the hilt of his sword. He kept it sheathed from force of habit. He would not draw it until a foe stood in front of him.

He flexed his knees, his movement in time with the vessel’s as he prepared himself to fight on the unsteady deck. From behind them, Zamara’s voice boomed out, giving orders, adjusting the course of the ship, to keep the distance between the two craft closing.

The catapult fired again.

The war-engine on the sterncastle joined in to bracket the trireme with fire. By accident or design, the war-galley turned tightly and began to come straight at them, avoiding both shots. The
boom-boom-boom
of its drums rolled across the water. Its oars moved in unison and it surged forward. It was going to ram.

Kormak took another deep calming breath. The Sea Dragon rolled in the swell. The galley raced closer. The second of the Kraken’s ships altered course. Its siege engines fired, sending huge rocks tumbling through the air. As they splashed into the nearby water huge spouts leapt into the air.

Rhiana’s knuckles went white on the shaft of her spear. Frater Jonas kept up his prayers from the rear of the ship. The war-engines fired at the Ocean’s Blade once more. One of the jars of alchemical fire hit. The warriors on the Sea Dragon roared triumphantly but nothing happened.

Perhaps the flask had failed to break, or perhaps its contents had proven to be inert. The intensity of the drumbeat from the trireme increased. The ship surged through the water, the great beak of the ram breaking the waves into a foaming mass.

Within heartbeats it was within crossbow range. The command to fire rang out. A hail of crossbow bolts flickered between the two ships. The pirate crew crouched out of line of fire. Towards the rear and on the sterncastle a few were visible from the elevated height of the Sea Dragon’s forecastle. The arrows scythed down on some but men with shields protected the helmsman and the captain. Kormak could see no sign of the Kraken.

Smoke rose from the decks of the Ocean Blade. Perhaps the ballista shot was taking effect after all. Less than two hundred strides of open water separated the two ships now. The ram aimed at the Sea Dragon like a great spear.

A massive rock tumbled out of the sky over the Sea Dragon. Wood splintered near Kormak. Men screamed. He heard howling and whimpering from nearby and saw a man lying crushed where a huge piece of shot had landed. It had driven a hole in the deck and the man’s broken body lay beneath it. Blood turned the deck around him red.

The Sea Dragon’s war-engines fired again. One shot missed. Another shot hit the Ocean’s Blade. This one erupted into a conflagration. Perhaps it had hit a pot of lantern oil.

Flames ran along the deck of the ship. Burning men leapt into the water, their bodies outlined by halos of green flame. Jumping into the water did not extinguish the fire. They sank into the depths still surrounded by the baleful alchemical glow.
 

Another hail of crossbow bolts flickered out at the oncoming galley. One struck a shield-bearer and sent him screaming to the ground. Another hit the helmsman. He slumped over the wheel. His weight moved the Ocean’s Blade’s rudder. It swept out of the line of its attack run.

The oars no longer rose and fell with a regular rhythm. Pirates leapt overboard, trying to get away from the flames. Some of the oarsmen, braver, drunker or more crazy than the rest, kept rowing. In the confusion of the battle they probably had not yet realised what had happened.

Zamara altered the course of the Sea Dragon. The great ship heeled round as the galley moved closer. It was not just the remaining oarsmen keeping it going—it was pure momentum.

The Ocean’s Blade burned from end to end. More and more of the crew jumped overboard.

Even crewless the galley would be deadly. The ram would not even have to bite deep. It would just need to hit them and have the flames spread to the Sea Dragon’s pitch-soaked timbers.
 

Another massive rock smashed into the Sea Dragon’s sails. The canvas tore with a ripping noise so loud it sounded like a scream.

Zamara bellowed more commands. The war-engines turned on their pivots to face the second pirate ship. The crossbow men strode across the deck to new firing positions. Kormak glanced over to see how far away the second enemy ship was.

Not so close yet. There would be more missile fire before any conflict. He glanced back at the blazing trireme. It was only thirty strides away now.

Twenty strides. He could feel the heat coming from the floating bonfire. Another man leapt overboard, screaming, covered in flame.

Ten strides. The Ocean’s Blade was so close now that the fire might leap between one ship and the other. Kormak held his breath.

The galley slid by the prow of the Sea Dragon as the great cog completed its turn. Its oars no longer moved. It was losing momentum. Soon it would be a floating funeral pyre for the men who had died aboard it. Kormak smelled the stink of their burning flesh now.

The second pirate ship bore down on them. It was even larger than the Sea Dragon. Armed men crowded its rigging. They lined its sides, howling battle cries, shouting challenges and obscenities. The engine crews kept a rain of missiles arcing between the ships. The Sea Dragon no longer lobbed alchemical fire. Zamara did not want to risk a collision with a burning vessel.

It was obvious the pirates wanted to get to grips with them and take them as a prize. It was equally obvious Zamara wanted to do the same to them. Kormak looked at Rhiana. She smiled, not afraid but wary.

Kormak studied the twisted faces of the screaming pirates and remembered the dead of Wood’s Edge, the raped woman, the men and children with their throats cut. He thought of all the other places he had seen devastated by men such as these. He did not bother to force his anger down. He let it warm him. He welcomed the coming conflict.

The two ships came together with a mighty crash. Pirates vaulted over the railings and swung from mast to mast using the guy ropes of the sails. They came over with swords in their hands and daggers between their teeth.

At an order from Terves, the marines raised their shields and formed a solid line. They met the pirates with the discipline of first rate line infantry. They blocked blows with their shields and stabbed through the gaps with their swords. The crossbowmen kept firing into the enemy ship. Some pirates returned fire with a mixture of spears, darts and bolts.

Kormak took a moment to assess the situation. The pirates outnumbered them. The Sea Dragon had taken a beating while Zamara dealt with the trireme. The pirates charged with as unnatural savagery and no concern for their own lives.

Someone dropped out of the rigging above him, smiling, brought a long curved blade down towards his head. He stepped away, unsheathed his own blade from the scabbard and took the man’s head off. It rolled away, dribbling blood, still smiling.

The sheer weight of the pirates pushed the marines back from the barrier. More of the enemy swung down from above to attack from the rear.

Kormak leapt down from the forecastle, booted feet crunching into the shoulders of a pirate, sending the man sprawling. Even as he struggled for balance, Kormak stabbed down, piercing his target through the heart.

He confronted a small group of pirates. His blade flickered out, removing a hand, an arm, penetrating a chest. In as many heartbeats he killed three men. The rest did not even blink but came on fighting.

Drugged, judging by the way their pupils were dilated, or under the influence of evil magic. The image of men still rowing even as alchemical fire burned their ship sprang into his mind. These pirates were not going to retreat and their morale was not going to break.

Zamara’s marines had realised the same thing. Shouts of dismay went up under the berserker onslaught. Men slid in blood, tripped over loose entrails. The tight packed formation of the marines was breaking up.

The amulet on Kormak’s breast warmed. There was magic at work here.

Rhiana dropped into place beside him, spear taking a pirate through the chest. Bubbles of bloody froth emerged from the man’s lungs as he fell over, still trying to claw at her.

“There is a Quan here,” she said. “Its magic is goading on our foes and undermining the morale of our allies.”

Her face looked strained, as she struggled to resist the spell.

“We’d best do something about that then,” Kormak said. “Where is it?”

“On the enemy ship,” Rhiana said.

“Then let’s kill it.”

KORMAK RACED UP the stairs to the command deck. Zamara fought there side by side with Frater Jonas. The captain’s face was pale but not panicked. The Elder Signs he and Jonas wore shielded them from the enemy magic, but not from the madmen throwing themselves across the gap between the two ships.

Jonas had a knife in each hand. The hilts bulged and something that looked like black ink dripped from the tip. A number of dead men lay near the priest. They showed no fatal wounds.

 
Poison in the blades, Kormak thought. Bulbs in the hilts to inject it. A scratch would be fatal. The priest was a more dangerous man than Kormak had at first believed.

A pirate on a swinging line barrelled into Zamara, knocking him over. Kormak chopped down the corsair and stood over the captain as he pulled himself to his feet.

Kormak made sure that the captain was all right—without Zamara to guide the fight the crew would be overcome—then leapt across the gap onto the pirate ship. He tore through a group of reavers like a whirlwind of death.
 

Rhiana landed beside him and stabbed a man through the eye. Her prey fell back, still slashing. She hit him with the butt of the staff, breaking his nose and sending him reeling to the ground.

“Where?” Kormak asked.

A flicker of concentration passed across her face. “Above.”

A long way above them black robes fluttered among the sails. He chopped down every man in his way until he reached the mast.

He sheathed his sword and pulled himself hand over hand up the rigging. It flexed under his weight, sending him swaying. The pirates in the crowsnests but were too busy sniping at the decks of the Sea Dragon with their crossbows to pay much attention to him.

Kormak kept moving, wondering how long it would be before someone spotted him. All it would take would be one arrow. It would not even have to kill him, just make him lose his grip for a second. The deck lay a long way below.

Looking down he saw scores of pirates still swarming on the deck. The powerful sorcery of the Quan drove them to rage. The Siderean sailors faltered under its baleful mental influence. The protective amulet blazed against Kormak’s chest.

His arms burned with the strain of climbing. The effort of hacking his way across the deck had cost him an enormous amount of energy.
 
His lungs felt empty. No matter how hard he breathed it was difficult to get enough air into them.

The Quan floated above the mast, anchored there by two of its tentacles. He remembered the Kraken’s long slow descent from the balconies back in Triturek. The Quan had similar magic, allowing it to float in air as easily as it floated in water.

He pulled himself up to where the cross-spar joined the mast. The monster did not appear to have spotted him but who knew what senses the creature possessed? He glanced down. Rhiana clambered up below him, slowed by the spear she held in one hand.

He drew his sword and ran out along the spar. About halfway to his target, the Quan’s robes flowed and swirled. Its tentacles changed their grip and the squid-like head swung towards him. A strange glow blazed in the Quan’s eyes. The Elder Sign grew even warmer against his chest as the creature concentrated its malevolent energies on him.

A moment before he reached it, the Quan’s tentacles unwound from around the spar and it floated free in the air. Long sucker covered limbs lashed out at Kormak, attempting to push him into space.

He lashed out with his dwarf-forged blade, separating one tentacle from the Quan’s torso. He struck again. The squid-like creature writhed bonelessly and eluded him. Something long and moist wrapped itself around Kormak’s leg and tugged.

On the narrow piece of wood fifty strides above the deck, he could not keep his balance. He started to fall. He grabbed the creature with his left hand and stabbed upwards into the cowl of the robe with the blade in his right. If he fell to his doom on the deck below he was damn well taking the creature with him.