by Nick Horth
‘What in Sigmar’s name was that thing?’ he said, shocked at the swiftness and horror of the reaver ship’s demise.
‘The spawn of something that lives deep, deep below, in lightless realms that no mortal can ever reach,’ said Oscus, still wearing that vicious grin as he savoured the screams that rippled across the water. ‘Something for which there is no name.’
Chapter Twenty-One
‘Armand!’ yelled Shev, as she watched the man get swept overboard, dragged by the rope that had entangled him. She raced across the deck, and peered out over the rail. There was a terrifyingly small amount of ocean between them and the edge of the maelstrom, and between that and the Thrice Lucky was the largest of the reaver ships, close enough to touch the hull. Warriors were hurling more grappling claws, and she ducked aside as one slammed into the deck at her feet. Callis lay sprawled on the prow deck of the daemon-headed ship, half-dazed, while a giant of a man advanced on him wielding an axe as tall as Shev herself.
Desperately, she looked around for something to use, something to distract the hulking killer. She had no weapon. Nothing.
He is a dead man, said Occlesius sadly. You cannot save him. Do not watch this, Miss Arclis.
Callis snorted with helpless laughter, shaking his head. Against all the odds he had somehow managed to survive being thrown over the side of the Thrice Lucky, only to find himself crashing to the deck of the very killers hunting them across the seas. He had to see the funny side, even in situations like this, with his impending death at hand. A scarred brute of a man advanced on him, carrying a vicious broadaxe as if it weighed less than a blade of grass.
Callis reached to his belt and drew his dirk. Melt about seventeen similarly sized weapons down and re-forge them, and you’d have almost enough metal to make the hilt of his opponent’s axe. He was too tired and bruised to let the fear overcome him. Better this way. Better to die under the strike of a longaxe than plunge into the seas and be dragged down into the inky blackness.
‘What are you waiting for?’ he laughed, flipping the blade into a backhand grip, as he had learned to fight on the streets of Excelsis. ‘I’ve killed half a dozen of your gutless kin today. It’s about time one of you gave me a proper fight.’
His opponent’s mouth twitched just slightly, perhaps revealing a flicker of amusement.
Callis barely even saw the strike coming. Like a striking spider the savage snapped forwards, bringing his axe down to carve Callis neck to waist. It was only a fortuitous roll of the waves that sent him stumbling back out of the big man’s reach, splashing in a great puddle of bloody water that had gathered in the prow of the reaver ship. Callis rolled, and the axe crunched into the deck, sending water splashing into the air. He kicked out and connected with the brute’s jaw, but the man didn’t even seem to register the blow. He grabbed Callis by the front of his shirt and lifted him into the air. His face was older than Callis had expected, lined and weathered, with a covering of grey-white stubble. The man slammed a fist into his side. Dizzy, and sputtering for air, he stabbed out with his dagger. The blade pierced the man’s hide wraps, and he felt it scrape across bone. The savage growled, hurled him against the totem at the front of the ship. He slammed into the unyielding surface and slid to the floor, losing his grip on the dagger.
The man stalked purposefully after him, hefting his axe. The longboat heaved to the side, and Callis gazed up blearily to see the towering whirlwind of the waterspout, no more than five hundred paces from the ship. This close, the sound was apocalyptic, a rushing roar of wind and hammering rain. The timbers beneath him groaned and creaked, and he felt the back half of the ship sway to port, drawn inexorably towards the approaching catastrophe.
The reaver lord stepped close and smashed a fist into his face. His vision went black for a moment, and when he came to he was being lifted into the air, and he was staring into the man’s bloodshot eyes. His breath smelled like smoke and dried blood.
‘Weak,’ he growled, and his vice-like grip tightened around Callis’ throat.
The boat swayed again, and the reaver stumbled, his foot slipping just slightly on the rain-swept deck. His grip slackened just a fraction, and Callis made a spear of the two forefingers of his right hand and thrust them into his assailant’s eye. The man grunted in pain, and Callis followed with a knee to the groin. Not a technique they taught you in the Freeguild drill schools, that one. More fool them. The big man’s grasp weakened just slightly, and Callis twisted and wriggled free. He crashed to the deck, rolled and snatched up his knife. As he turned, he just barely ducked aside from a swipe of the reaver’s axe. His opponent’s eye was pouring blood, and the man’s posture had changed. Gone was the slow, assured menace, replaced by a killing fury.
Callis rose, exhausted. He clutched his pitiful blade in shivering fingers. The meagre weapon was not going to be nearly enough. The reaver was too big, too strong. Sooner or later, no matter how much he skirted around, that axe was going to crash into him, tear him in two. He glanced around desperately for something he could use, some way to escape the drifting vessel, but saw nothing. To his horror, the Thrice Lucky was slowly pulling away from the longship, away from the raging waterspout that threatened to grasp him up in its raging mouth.
The man stalked closer, raising his axe. A strobing flash of lightning illuminated the drops of blood that slid along its surface, and the raging fires in the reaver’s eyes.
Something sailed in over the water, arching gracefully over the waves, and struck the advancing warrior in the side with both feet. It was Shev Arclis, a thick rope secured around her waist. As her momentum was suddenly reversed, she swung back out over the water.
The savage barely even staggered under the blow, but it stopped him in his tracks. He stared up at the dangling aelf, and as she began to swing back towards him once more, he swept his axe back, ready to strike her in two. Callis surged to his feet, leaping up and wrapping his arms and legs around the barbarian’s sturdy frame, locking his hands tight around his foe’s throat so that the man could not bring his axe to bear.
Shev crashed in again, and all three went down in a tangle of limbs. Callis clung on like a gryph-hound with its beak locked around an intruder’s leg, knowing that if he released his grip they were both dead. The big man slammed elbows into his side, and bucked and rocked with furious strength, but still he would not let go, even through the haze of pain. Shev darted in with a blade, seeking to sink it between the struggling warrior’s ribs. A kick sent her flying backwards, almost disappearing over the gunwale. From the rear of the ship a burly figure dressed in rain-swept rags rushed forward, attempting to tackle her, but she slipped out from under his searching hands with easy grace, planting a boot in his back and sending him tumbling into the waves.
She bellowed something at him that was lost in the storm, face pale with terror as she stared up at the approaching whirlwind. Forking tendrils of lightning were reflected in her eyes. Beneath Callis, the towering warrior finally found his feet, and began to rise. With an animal howl he bent his body forwards, bucking and sending Callis somersaulting into the air. He lost his grip around the man’s throat and landed in a shuffling roll, staggering towards Shev, who was entranced by the catastrophe about to swallow them. The silksteel rope was fastened tight around her waist, and he prayed that it would hold. He grasped the rope and wound it around his wrist, and turned to see the warrior leaping towards them, murder in his eyes.
Callis stepped up onto the gunwale, dragging Shev along with him, and let himself fall backwards into the sea. The waves rose up to claim them with a stinging slap, and he could not help but gasp, and therefore swallow a mouthful of bitter, ice-cold seawater that burned his throat. Shev was clutching his arm so hard it hurt, her fingers digging into his flesh like claws, but he welcomed the pain. It was the only thing he could focus on in the swirling, pummelling madness that enveloped him. An undercurrent caught them, lifted them hig
h, and for a moment his head broke the surface of the water. His arm was almost yanked out of its socket by the force of the tightening rope, but still he held on.
He saw the horn-helmed warrior, standing upon the prow of his ship, eyes fixed upon his own. The man’s colossal, muscled form was shaking, and Callis realised that his foe was laughing. He thought he could even hear the booming sound for a moment, above the churning waves. Like the great head of a sea-serpent, the tempest rose behind the laughing man, a monster with a body formed of whirling corpses and whipped-up shards of flotsam. As if he weighed no less than a feather, the man was lifted up into the air, and sent whirling into the heart of the beast, and Callis saw a bright spray of blood as rushing knives of wood and bone flayed the flesh from his body. Then he was lost in the whirlwind, absorbed by the ravenous monster.
Callis felt, almost imperceptibly, a slight tug upon the rope he clutched in bleeding, scraped-raw fingers, and then a wave rose up and crashed down upon him, driving him deep beneath the waves into a world of swirling bubbles and inky blackness. His head struck something solid with enough force to snap his jaw shut, splintering teeth, and he knew no more.
‘Stronger than he looks, this one,’ was the first thing Callis heard. He recognised that voice, harsh and dismissive, but not the faint undercurrent of grudging respect that it carried. Light speared into his skull and lit a thousand painful fires behind his eyes, but he forced them open anyway. Oscus loomed over him, his angular face spattered with blood and marked with several ugly bruises.
‘Oh gods,’ muttered Callis, as he hauled his aching body upright. ‘Where is the aelf? Where’s Shev?’
‘Here,’ came a voice from beside him. The aelf lay on the deck of the Thrice Lucky, nursing an ugly scrape on her forehead, but otherwise looking largely unharmed. She flashed him a pained grin.
He stood, and felt a firm hand take him by the shoulder and steady his feet. It was Toll, and though the man’s face was lined and his eyes baggy with tiredness, Callis felt he saw a flicker of concern cross those pale, grey eyes.
‘We dragged you out of the water,’ said Toll. ‘Thought you were dead, at first. Both of you.’
‘The reavers?’ Callis asked.
‘Dead,’ said Arika Zenthe. She was leaning on the fore gunwale, staring out across the oceans. ‘All of them. The storm took them.’
For the first time, Callis noticed how quiet it was. Warm light filtered down from above, bathing the deck of the Thrice Lucky in soft amber. There was a light, refreshing breeze that felt like cooling water on his skin. It seemed like they had entered another world entirely in the time he had lain unconscious. He could not reconcile this sunny, calm place with the raging violence of the tempest that had so nearly devoured them. Toll released Callis’ shoulder, allowing him to find his own feet. The deck beneath him was stained a dark brown. Against the forecastle, he could see a pile of torn bodies. From a glance, it looked to be at least thirty or so. More than a quarter of the ship’s crew.
He glanced up, and saw the splintered lance of the mainmast. It had been shorn free, along with the mizzen and a great chunk of the bowsprit. Jagged lumps of torn wood and coils of sea-soaked sails were piled across the deck. A kneeling workband was pulling one of the fallen sails taut against the hull on the starboard side, nailing the fabric into the deck with heavy wooden stakes. Callis was no expert on sailing ships, but even he could see that the Thrice Lucky was limping like a wounded auroch. If another daemon-headed longship appeared on the horizon, they would have not a hope of outrunning it.
‘We’re half a day out from Bilgeport,’ said Oscus. ‘We’ll make it, if the weather holds.’
Callis walked over to Shev. With a wince, he knelt down beside her.
‘Thank you,’ he said simply. He’d have liked to be more eloquent in his gratitude, but right now the words just wouldn’t reach his lips. She smiled and shrugged.
‘Forget it,’ she said. ‘At least, until I get myself into trouble. Then return the favour.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
The first they saw of Bilgeport was the curving arc of a shell, reaching over the horizon like a crashing wave frozen in time. Beneath that enormous mass lay a mountain of bone, painted green-grey with weed and algae. As they drew closer, Callis could see five immense ribs, carved open and filled with ballistae and cannon – organic watchtowers facing out over a great harbour of swaying sails. The head of the dead beast lay perpendicular to the rocky shore. It had been hollowed out and carved to form a bizarre dock, sheltered by the strange, crested skull. Two rows of razor-sharp teeth, each stained by age and the size of a ship’s mast, formed a formidable defensive wall around a series of jetties, upon which they could see the hustle and bustle of movement: ships unloading and stowing their sails, and bare-chested figures of all descriptions hauling crates and barrels up a gentle slope and into the darkness of the main body.
‘There she is,’ said Zenthe. ‘The reaver port. You get used to the smell. Eventually.’
‘Certainly hope so,’ said Callis. It was a unique aroma. Fish oil and urine, mixed with smoke, tallow and rot. There was also the slightest hint of fragrant spices and perfume trying vainly to mask the stench.
‘Take us in,’ Zenthe said to Oscus. ‘And handle the docking fees. We’re the Black Dragon, out of Sayron. You’re Captain Duventhe, and you’re here to trade ghyreshark skins.’
At Callis’ questioning glance, she explained.
‘We’re limping into port half-dead. I’d rather not draw any unwanted attention, if possible. I know this place. We’re sailing into a den of hungry sharks while seeping blood. Maybe we stay out of sight and mind until we’ve got ourselves a ride out of here.’
‘We?’ said Toll. ‘There is no “we”. We’re done, Arika. You can find your own passage. I thought I had made that perfectly clear.’
There was a tense silence as the two glowered at each other.
‘As you like,’ said the captain at last, with a cold smile.
They’d changed sails on the approach to Bilgeport, exchanging the Thrice Lucky’s familiar black and yellow array for dull, grey leathers. There was little they could do about masking the ship’s sleek, obviously well-crafted hull, beyond patching up the gunnery ports. Still, the vessel hardly looked like a Fleetmaster’s flagship with half its hull shattered, its mainmast lost and blackened fire damage across the deck. They passed ships of all shapes and sizes as they drifted between the great jaws of the harbour. War-galleys gilded with silver and gold, bearing great palanquins upon the forecastle from which fat, powdered merchants sprawled, attended to by dozens of scrawny slaves. A duardin cog-hauler chugged past, thick smoke billowing from its three chimneys. Upon the jaws, which had been widened and abutted with stone walkways, sailors, servants and merchants lay sprawled in the sun. At the eastern edge of the port a tower rose, crafted from pink stone, with its own secluded harbour amidst the chaos. It reared into the sky, protruding from a wide, circular socket of the dead behemoth. A perimeter wall enclosed a harbour in which bobbed a great, three-masted vessel, its sails blood-red and white, marked with a winged serpent in flight. Gold-barrelled cannon rippled along its length, gleaming in the sunlight.
‘That’s the Blood Drake,’ said Zenthe. ‘High Captain Kaskin’s ship. It’s said she’s the deadliest vessel on the Taloncoast. It might be true, as of now.’
‘This thing,’ said Callis, gesturing to the carcass that housed the reaver city. ‘What in Sigmar’s name was it?’
‘They say it was one of the spawn of Nharvolak, the dweller beneath the waves,’ said Oscus. ‘Every five hundred years the great beast would rise from the deeps, destroying cities and civilisations, unleashing its spawn upon the oceans to devour all life. Less a creature than a god of beasts, a deity of ruinous power created to destroy those who dared attempt to conquer the majesty of nature.’
‘So what happened to it?�
� said Callis.
‘The God-King drove his hammer into the great beast’s eye, or so the legend goes,’ said the first mate. ‘Blinding it, and sending it back down into the depths, back to its lair. Its spawn were slaughtered. Most sank along with their progenitor, but this one was beached upon the shore and expired. Carrion-beasts and savages picked the flesh from its bones, and finally something even worse happened upon its remains. The High Captains.’
‘Their kind has lurked here since the founding of Excelsis,’ said Toll. ‘Picking off the bones of the dead. They range south as far as the Coast of Tusks, preying upon merchants, travellers and whoever else strays into their path.’
‘Why are they still here?’ asked Callis. ‘Why have the freeguilds not been sent to wipe them out?’
‘Because they’re clever,’ said Zenthe. ‘They steal and kill only when they know they can get away with it, and they leave no witnesses. And they know when not to let their greed get the better of them. The Stormcasts, the guilds, they’ve too many foes on all sides as it is. They can’t spare the ships or the troops. Anyway, the High Captains make sure the right palms in Excelsis are greased. As long as they’re careful, they stay outside of the law.’
‘For now,’ said Toll, eyeing the ships lazily drifting out of the bay.
They slid into a berth alongside a barnacled wooden pier, upon which stood a small, yellow-toothed man surrounded by a gang of burly-looking fellows armed with spiked clubs. The small man was carrying a slate and a quill, and peered at them through his crab-like eyes as they drifted past.
‘Name and cargo,’ he yelled, in a high-pitched, raspy little voice.