Linden had dispatched scouts to ride into the hills above Tanimura, looking for any sign of General Utros’s army, but the scouts had not yet returned. Meanwhile, the Norukai were attacking now. The soldiers lined up, ready to protect the city.
In front of a group of waterfront warehouses, General Zimmer sat high on his warhorse, surveying the tremendous naval battle under way out on the water. His mount snorted and shifted from side to side, sensing the violence in the air. Along the extended wharves, all the piers were empty, every ship dispatched to fight the Norukai. His men moved restlessly in ranks, hands on the hilts of their swords, anxious to cut down any raiders that made it to shore.
The serpent ships plowed into the Tanimuran blockade. The gifted fighters summoned great waves to disrupt the Norukai advance, and even from the docks Nicci could hear the distant clamor of raider ships smashing into one another. Thunderclouds gathered as the wizards lashed out with storms.
At the forefront, King Grieve’s ship rammed into the Chaser, causing tremendous damage. Nicci watched two Norukai vessels flank Captain Mills’s ship and throw grappling hooks so the raiders could swarm aboard. Though many serpent ships crashed into one another, hammered by waves and driven back by the gifted defenders, others succeeded in breaking through the blockade and pushed directly toward the city. Dozens of enemy vessels had already sunk, and yet they kept coming.
Angry, Nicci longed to be on the front lines using her gift to destroy the Norukai. She did not like to feel safe while others were dying, but she would not leave Tanimura so vulnerable. “We will have our time soon enough,” she muttered under her breath.
Waiting on dry land, the soldiers sent up a cheer, hurling angry insults out toward the enemy. General Zimmer shook his head in disbelief. “The Norukai are insane. Look at them! They do not value their own lives. They sacrifice five or ten for every one that gets through.”
The Norukai plowed forward despite the storm winds and crashing waves. Thirty raider ships penetrated the blockade, leaving many more behind as they charged straight toward the docks.
Nicci turned to the Sisters. “Nathan and the others will do their best on the water. Now it is our turn to mop up the rest.”
“I’m glad to fight beside you again, Sister Nicci,” said Eldine. “It is good that you came back to the Sisters of the Light.”
Nicci’s eyes hardened. “I did not come back. I’m not a Sister of the Dark, nor am I a member of your order. I serve Lord Rahl, and I serve myself.” She flashed a glance at the gathered women. “But we are Sisters in our own way, against a common enemy.”
As the handful of serpent ships careened toward the docks, Zimmer dispatched armed companies up and down the waterfront to meet them. Their boots created a staccato thunder as they ran along. Vengeful refugees from Renda Bay and Effren joined the D’Haran army to help fight, but the professional soldiers would bear the brunt of the first onslaught. Zimmer spurred his horse, and the soldiers yelled as they charged.
Several raider vessels also approached the shores of flattened Halsband Island and the new connecting bridges to the main city. Sister Rhoda looked at where the Palace of the Prophets had once towered above the city and flashed a hungry smile. “Maybe Halsband Island will grow green again if we drench it with enough Norukai blood.”
Nicci smiled. “I like that kind of thinking, but these nearer ships will cause a problem first.”
A trio of battered raiders headed for a patch of open shore at the far end of the main piers. One hull bore burn scars from where lightning had scorched the wood. The dark sails showed gaping holes, but a few intact oars pushed the ships along on a drunkard’s path until they ran aground on the stony shingle. Scarred raiders boiled off the decks and dropped onto land.
Two more serpent ships slammed into one of the empty docks, grinding against the pilings. Muscular slavers leaped over the rail and bounded toward the city, weapons drawn and ready for mayhem.
Nicci and the D’Haran soldiers were there to stop them. The Sisters of the Light lashed out with icy rain and sharp projectiles of hail, but the Norukai hunched down and charged ahead with their axes, spiked maces, chained balls. Opening their scarred mouths, they howled.
One of the new D’Haran soldiers was terrified. “They’re monsters.”
Nicci said, “They bleed like humans and they die like humans.”
To demonstrate what she meant, she summoned wizard’s fire in her palm. As raiders stormed toward her, their screams changed when Nicci’s flaming ball exploded in the first man’s chest and spurted out his back. The unstoppable fire roasted three other Norukai close behind him.
She summoned a second sphere and hurled it higher, so that the fireball dropped down into the ranks behind. Though many died screaming, the Norukai did not halt their charge for an instant. Even as their comrades fell dead, waves of raiders stomped over the charred bodies and kept running.
“Shields!” Zimmer shouted, and his soldiers held their shields edge-to-edge to form a solid barrier. They advanced slowly, swords extended to meet the enemy with a resounding slam of leather, wood, and metal.
Nicci lobbed another fireball high over their heads, and it exploded on the nearest serpent ship, igniting the deck and mast and killing the last few Norukai trying to disembark.
The disciplined D’Haran soldiers held a firm line, but the Norukai were in a mindless battle rage. Many angry refugees broke ranks and ran into the fray, throwing themselves upon the wild raiders who had destroyed their homes and killed their loved ones. Town leader Thaddeus leaped in, swinging a boat hook. He bashed skulls and stabbed faces with the pointed spar. Renda Bay survivors followed his example with enough fury to stall the initial Norukai charge. Zimmer’s men regrouped and moved forward.
From the roofs of waterfront warehouses, D’Haran archers fired volley after volley into the swarm of raiders. Soon the streets were piled high with Norukai bodies, and blood ran through the gutters. But the raiders kept coming.
Ten more serpent ships crashed against the empty piers and disgorged a thousand yelling warriors. Heedless of their own safety, raiders rammed into the lines of D’Haran defenders, plowing past the shields and running to the warehouses, which they set on fire. As flames caught on the wooden walls, bales of fabric, and stored sacks of grain, thick smoke curled upward. The archers on the rooftops had to leap for their lives.
With twin bolts of lightning, Nicci blasted several attackers into red mist and blackened meat. Every Norukai that ran onto shore seemed to expect death, and they meant to cause as much destruction as they could before they died.
One warrior with a face like a misshapen potato stalked toward General Zimmer, who was engaged in mortal combat with another opponent. Seeing that he needed help, Nicci extended her gift, found the ugly raider’s heart, and made it explode. The Norukai man dropped like a felled ox. Four of his comrades looked at him, unable to understand what had happened. Nicci released her gift again and stopped their hearts as well.
Out in the water, the naval battle continued. At least forty serpent ships had already been wrecked or sunk.
As Nicci worked to create more wizard’s fire, a Norukai woman swung a spiked club at her head. Nicci ducked and plunged her dagger into the woman’s heart. Even with the blade stuck in her chest, the woman still pressed the weight of her heavy body against Nicci. While Nicci was distracted, the wizard’s fire flickered in her hand, but she slapped the remnants into the woman’s face, and her head burst into flame. Nicci shoved the weight aside and turned to face her next victim.
Then, in the heat of the battle, the sound of the clamor changed. Nicci heard loud shouts from the outskirts of the city, a banging of drums, a howl of alarm. Scouts galloped along the hill roads and raced into Tanimura, shouting in panic.
Though their voices were diminished by the distance and the chaos of the battle at the waterfront, Nicci recognized the scouts. Ice formed in her gut as she saw a long line of soldiers coming behind them at a fast march
. They wore armor and carried standards that she had seen before, the mark of an emperor who had died fifteen centuries earlier.
Nearly a hundred thousand strong, the army of General Utros rolled over the hills toward Tanimura.
CHAPTER 77
When King Grieve’s ship collided with the Chaser, the impact threw Bannon against a crate on the deck so hard his head rang. He smashed his elbow, but managed to keep his grip on the ornate sword.
But he couldn’t react in time to save Nathan from being thrown overboard.
“No!” Bannon lunged, but the deck boards were slippery with spray and covered with a hard varnish of kraken slime. He sprawled on his back and rolled. Lila seized his wrist before he, too, fell overboard.
“The wizard can take care of himself.” Lila pushed his shoulder, turning him. “No time. Look!”
Bannon reeled backward as dozens of barbaric raiders leaped across the gap. The Norukai were a storm of bladed weapons, bulging muscles, and scarred faces. Their battle cries made them sound like hungry beasts.
“Hold together!” Jared yelled. With a hard, out-of-place laugh, the krakener captain wielded a long-handled hatchet designed for lopping off tentacles. With a sideways sweep, he caught one of the overconfident Norukai by surprise, proving that the hatchet could slice off a human head as easily as it severed kraken appendages.
Bannon braced himself with his sword, while Lila stood at his side with her sword in one hand, a dagger in the other. Her hungry grin looked more intimidating than any of the Norukai did.
King Grieve crashed onto the deck of the Chaser. His heavy boots thudded on the boards, and he swept his war axe back and forth with one hand as if it were a toy. Recognizing Bannon, he laughed aloud. His snort sounded like a loud belch. “Walking meat.” He strode forward. “Dead meat.” The blade of the war axe was as broad as the king’s head. The sharpened crescent edge gleamed like a silver smile.
The ugly and uncouth Atta thumped beside Grieve, and Lila hissed at her own nemesis.
The Chaser’s crew ran forward armed with boat hooks and clubs. They were strong from hard work and brave from wrestling kraken. The ten D’Haran soldiers aboard the ship also threw themselves into the fray.
Ignoring the other raiders on the deck, Bannon stepped up to face King Grieve with his fancy sword raised. “Of all these enemies, you’re the one I want to kill the most.”
Grieve charged like an Ildakaran bull, and the studs of his boots dug into the layers of hardened slime. He swung his axe with both hands, putting all of his effort into the blow.
The weapon would have shattered Bannon’s chest, but he twisted his body out of the way, calling upon instinctive training. He dodged the axe and twirled like a dancer, dropped, bent, and came up again. Keeping his sword low, he struck hard and sideways.
Grieve turned his thick torso so that the sharp steel clanged against the iron links of the chain around his waist, striking sparks rather than drawing blood.
Attacking him from the opposite side, Lila sprang upon the king with her dagger and short sword, slashing with a blur of sharp edges. “We’ll both kill him, boy.”
Then, like an avalanche, Atta slammed into her with crippling force, knocking her away from Grieve. Lila rolled on the deck and turned on her new foe, shifting focus without the slightest hesitation. While sprawled and scrambling to her feet, Lila swung at Atta’s lower legs and stabbed her dagger point deep into the woman’s meaty calf. Bellowing in pain, Atta smashed a hard fist down on Lila’s head, but Lila sprang to her feet and crouched, coiled to fight.
Grieve swung his war axe again with enough force to chop down a mast, and Bannon barely avoided evisceration. “Chalk talked with you. You twisted him. You tricked him. My Chalk!” He swung the axe again. This time Bannon met the blow with the sword. The steel was strong, but the vibration of impact shuddered all the way to the young man’s shoulder.
“Chalk was mad,” Bannon taunted. “You should have let the razorfish eat him down to his bones the first time.”
As expected, the comment sent the king into a blind rage. Bursting with sorrow and hungry for revenge, Grieve snapped his mouth open so that his face looked like a yawning, wet hole. “You will die for that!”
As he fought, Bannon felt a red haze rising around his vision. “A lot of people tried to kill me, and I am still here.” He became stronger, faster, every movement fueled by instinct and adrenaline. The deafening sounds of hand-to-hand combat all around him became more distinct.
Bannon hacked with the sword and carved a bright red furrow across Grieve’s chest. The king didn’t seem to realize he had been cut. He twirled the battle-axe and chopped down again, driving Bannon backward. The young man parried with the sword, slashed low, and nicked Grieve’s thigh, but the king continued pressing.
In the harbor around them, the gifted defenders maintained the turbulence, swamping or crushing serpent ships, slamming wooden hulls against one another. Even with the blockade, dozens of the serpent ships had broken through and headed for the inner harbor, where they smashed into the docks and disgorged wild Norukai. They swarmed into the city, which had already started to burn.
Bannon couldn’t help them, though. He had enough trouble just trying to survive here. He would have to leave the rest of Tanimura to Nicci, Zimmer, and the others.
As if trying to cut down an oak with a single blow, Grieve swung his huge axe again. Bannon lurched to the side and collided with Atta just as she brought down her curved sword at Lila. If he hadn’t dislodged her, she would have severed Lila’s arm. With a snarl, the Norukai woman spun to lash out at him, but Bannon blocked her blade with his own and turned back just as King Grieve followed through with his axe.
Using the moment of distraction, Lila threw herself upon Atta, hacking deep into the woman’s right arm. The Norukai clacked her teeth together as blood spouted from mangled muscle, but she effortlessly switched her blade to the other hand and attacked Lila again. The air around them was filled with a mist of blood.
Grieve struck at Bannon again and again, each blow powerful enough to cleave a man in two. The young man dodged and recovered his balance. He was not afraid of King Grieve, and he did not want to back away. He wanted to kill the awful man. He met each blow with Nathan’s fine sword, striking back as hard as he could.
By now, though, his muscles ached from the effort, and his bones rattled from the abuse. As the red haze crowded in and tunneled his vision, he breathed harder; his pulse accelerated, his muscles tightened. His throat went dry. Every fiber of muscle, every drop of blood, every bead of sweat, every strand of his long hair became consumed with defeating the Norukai king.
Bannon never knew what caused his blood rage. Maybe it was some angry flaw he had inherited from his brutal father. When the mindless fury consumed him, he became a killing machine with no thought or awareness other than his opponent. He couldn’t remember every blow or even every victim.
As he hacked at King Grieve and his vision blurred into that fugue of murderous energy, Bannon fought to hold on to himself and push back the haze. He wanted to remember this! He slashed hard and up, barely missing Grieve’s throat.
“Sweet Sea Mother!” Bannon said, grinding his teeth. “I’ll slay you, and I will remember every instant of this fight.”
The king flung his shoulders back to avoid the sword tip, then lunged toward Bannon. Grieve’s face turned ruddy. “You cannot kill me. I am the serpent god!”
Bannon made a scoffing noise. “I’ve already seen the serpent god killed.”
With a shout as loud and as violent as the king’s, he collided with Grieve, swung, chopped, stabbed. The king defended himself, using the metal cuff around his wrist to deflect a blow, turning to let his sharkskin vest catch the glancing blade.
Bannon did not relent. He thrust and swung and hacked at the big man’s shoulder, chopping loose an implanted bone spike. Grieve yowled as blood sprayed from the gouge, but the pain triggered additional energy. “I am King Gri
eve. I am the serpent god!” Bannon dodged another vicious sweep of the war axe. “You’ll all grieve!”
The explosive strength of his attack was unstoppable. The king drove Bannon backward, pressing him against a crate near the rail. Grieve raised his war axe over his head and brought it down with enough strength to split his victim from head to waist. Bannon evaded death by a hairsbreadth, and the axe embedded itself deep into the wood. The blade wedged into the rail and stuck in the thick layers of adhesive slime. King Grieve grasped the handle, tugged, twisted, tried to break the axe loose.
As King Grieve struggled to wrench his weapon free, Bannon seized the instant. Putting all the strength of his back and shoulders and arms behind his sword strike, he chopped down on King Grieve’s neck.
The sharp blade cut all the way through the king’s spine. Grieve’s head rolled off, held by just a scrap of skin. His jaw yawned open and his tongue dangled out as blood spouted. Stretched by the weight, the thin ribbon of tissue snapped, and Grieve’s head dropped over the side of the ship and into the churning water.
Bannon collapsed to his knees and felt a sudden indrawn breath of silence. He seemed to hear Chalk’s voice, the shaman calling out gibberish again and again. And now Bannon understood.
The axe cleaves the wood. The sword cleaves the bone.
A scream loud enough to shatter glass rolled out behind him. Atta looked as if her heart had just been torn beating from her chest. “My Grieve!” She thundered toward him with all the fury of a combat bear.
Grieve’s headless body collapsed to the deck. Some of the krakener crew cheered, then threw themselves on the other Norukai with redoubled force.
Atta came at Bannon like a rabid dog, and he raised his sword to block her. Everything seemed to move slowly, and his weary muscles were cold sludge. When Atta was one step from him, her sword raised for the killing blow, Lila appeared behind her and thrust her blade directly through the other woman’s back. She shoved hard with both hands, pushing the blade through Atta’s heart, and the point sprang out like a sharpened sapling between her breasts.
Heart of Black Ice Page 45