Rise of Serpents

by B A Vonsik

  “I will teach you, Roga of the Blood An,” the Vassal answered.

  Chapter 14

  Sacrifice

  Calm my mind, he said. Rogaan stood thinking to himself leaning over the forward deck railing overlooking a trio of three manned, ship-mounted ballista more forward and slightly below him. Four of the Makara crew tended the mounted weapons, one at each ballista, port and starboard and center, and one assisting them all with loading and cocking in the dim light of an almost-new moon of the morning. On Rogaan’s left stood the Vassal in his strange, almost metallic-red armor watching the approaching lights of the flotilla ahead of them. On Rogaan’s right, Sugnis stood, dressed in his subdued toned eur armor looking ready for battle. At least that is what Rogaan thought of his mentor as he looked up to the night sky still dark except for the light from the sliver of moon and fields of stars and the tiny lantern lights of the three closing ships . . . their prey.

  Calm my mind, Rogaan repeated to himself. Breathing in deeply and exhaling deeply multiple times until he felt calm, then reaching out with his mind, just as the Vassal had instructed him. He sought his shunir’ra . . . to feel it, or more specifically, the black Agni embedded in his metal bow. Nothing.

  “I do not think this is working,” Rogaan warned, trying not to sound as complaining.

  “We need to be closer to the ships before you are able to feel your shunir’ra,” offered the Vassal with an unshakable confidence. “I now have need of yours and your fellow Tellen’s skills at distance telling.”

  “Judging distances in the dark is not best.” Sugnis gave his own warning to all who would hear.

  “Your sight is better than any Baraan aboard,” the Vassal replied confidently and knowingly with his resonating voice. “The ballista is to be fired almost blindly using the lit lanterns of the ships to strike their hulls near rudders. To hit with accuracy, they need you Tellens to both call out distances to the rear most part of the ships . . . in strides.”

  “I don’t see what a bolt from one of these ballistae can do against a Senthien-built ship.” Sugnis sounded a little defensive and a lot skeptical.

  “Jazmaat . . .” the Vassal called out as if expecting a need to answer questions.

  “Yes, me Lord,” the Makara’s crewman assisting each of the three-manned ballista below answered. “Details of da me-made special bolts. Dey be carrin’ scent of dem mu’usumgal. Not da biggest mu’usumgal, of course. Of good size . . . makin’ da biggins see da ships as one of dem. It be simple once a biggin see it dat way. It bites da ship like a mu’usumgal it no like . . . at its tailfin ta make it move no more.”

  The Vassal looked at Rogaan and Sugnis as if the obvious had just been spoken. When neither of them looked to understand the tactics, the Vassal rolled his eyes. “Oh, Tellens. Jazmaat . . .”

  “Explain like dem be younglings?” the Baraan asked, then continued with his explanation without waiting for the Vassal to answer. “Da rudders. Da rudders. Dat be what da mu’usumgal be bitin’. Dey rip dem ta pieces. Da ships can no be controlled after dat.”

  “You, young Roga of the Blood An . . .” the Vassal addressed Rogaan with a knowing tone. “You will then tell me if you feel your shunir’ra on one of the two trailing ships. If so, we board the ship you call out. If you have no feel of your shunir’ra, we attack both ships with fire as we pass and go onto the lead ship and do the same.”

  “How can you be so sure the mu’us . . . the water-dragons will attack so quickly?” Rogaan asked.

  “The mu’usumgal are very, very aggressive,” the Vassal answered with an overly satisfied confidence.

  “Da mu’usumgal be a mean one.” Jazmaat spoke with absolute confidence. “Dey no like da me-made scent. Dey bite and bite fast.”

  “This can work,” Sugnis mumbled deeply almost under his breath and sounded concerned for it. Rogaan gave a silent “What?” look to his mentor when Sugnis no longer gazed at the deck. The Tellen just shook his head and turned his attention to the Vassal. “Who will board the ship with Rogaan’s shunir’ra, and what will you have us do?”

  “Roga is with me,” the Vassal announced. He looked directly at Sugnis with an intimidating grin. “You will remain on the Makara with the crew, defending it from any who board her.”

  “Just you and Rogaan will board?” Sugnis made more of a disapproving statement than a question. “That is not—”

  “Your troubles, Tellen.” The Vassal cut him off. “Me and my Sentii are more than a match for the crew and soldiers. The Makara will break away as soon as we board and set way for the port of Anza.”

  “How do we return to the Makara?” Rogaan asked, now confused about how things were to unfold.

  “Not your troubles, Roga of the Blood An.” The Vassal was straight-faced while Rogaan winced at how the Vassal formally addressed him still. “I will take care of our passages. You . . . feel and find your shunir’ra.”

  They all stood on the forward deck, Rogaan, Sugnis, the Vassal, and his Sentii guardian-companions, watching the distance close between the Makara and the flotilla. Almost no talk between them as the battle drew near and the anticipation, and angst for Rogaan grew. The night kept from his eye the details of the two ships trailing until they were inside of three hundred strides’ distance. The lanterns above and below deck on those ships became clear and defined for Rogaan at just over two hundred strides. Large were the ships.

  “Are you sure the Makara and crew are not outmatched by these ships?” Rogaan felt compelled to ask. The Makara appeared half the size of just one of the ships.

  “Makara with her crew and us are more than a match for them,” confidently answered the Vassal found under his helm, though Rogaan long gave up trying to discern what those symbols on the Vassal’s eye glass were. “Call out distances every ten strides once we get within one hundred fifty strides of the ships. Call out loud enough for the crew on the ballista forward us to hear.”

  Rogaan watched and waited. One hundred ninety, one hundred eighty, one hundred seventy, one hundred sixty. He spoke aloud concerning the ship they approached on their left, “One fifty.”

  “One seventy,” Sugnis started calling out distances to the ship on their right. It was slightly ahead of the one Rogaan watched.

  “One forty,” Rogaan called out aloud.

  “One sixty,” Sugnis called out in his deep voice.

  “One thirty,” Rogaan called out. The heavy thump of a ballista reverberated in the air. Immediately, the crew started to recock and reload it. A stout thud combined with a pop Rogaan heard a few moments after the bolt’s release.

  “One thirty,” Sugnis called out. The ballista on his side let out a heavy thump at the bolt’s launch that reverberated in the air and around the ship for a moment. A few moments later, a repeat of the stout thud and pop rang out.

  “Load catapults,” came the command from somewhere behind Rogaan. “Load ‘em with da burnin’ stones.”

  “Distance . . . young Roga,” the muffled voice of the Vassal sounded anxious.

  “Ninety strides,” Rogaan called out as his eyes started to make out the details of the ship ahead and on their left. That ship’s crew was frantically moving about its decks while yelling unintelligible commands and orders. Remembering he needed to be calm and with an empty mind to feel his shunir’ra, Rogaan closed his eyes as he tried to rid himself of all thoughts except his masterwork blue metal bow. It took him a few moments to feel calm and with the image of his shunir’ra the focus of his thoughts. He stood oblivious to everything around him. There was only the bow. He waited . . . and waited . . . and waited, hoping to sense his shunir’ra. Nothing.

  “I do not feel my shunir’ra,” Rogaan announced. He opened his eyes to find the Vassal looking at him with a contemplative head tilt.

  “Strike with fire the ship on port!” the Vassal command.

  Echoes of the Vassal’s command sounded twice more behind Rogaan as the Makara pulled up alongside the Senthien-built ship splitting the di
stance between it and its sister ship on the Makara’s starboard side. Rogaan turned to watch the crew make a near simultaneous release of the port-side catapults, sending two, dark round objects arcing through the air toward the twice taller sailing ship. Immediately, the crew tending the empty catapults ran from one side of the Makara to almost the other, pulling ropes and resetting the weapons. In the distance, bursts of flame splashed across the larger ship in two locations; one on the side of the aft-raised decks where the command crew would be and one on the lower aft deck under one of the sails, catching both the deck and sail on fire.

  “No . . .” Rogaan heard a pain-stricken moan from Sugnis.

  Turning, Rogaan found Sugnis’s pain-filled eyes staring at the burning ship, making Rogaan’s head swirl in confusion. What upsets Sugnis? As Rogaan sought an answer, Sugnis desperately looked to the other Senthien-built ship starting to come alongside on their starboard side.

  “Strike with fire the ship on starboard!” the Vassal command, this time for the second ship of the flotilla. The ballista commanders echoed his command.

  A sense of dread filled Rogaan as he watched, with an almost expectation, Sugnis draw his crossbow and in one smooth move, nock a bolt into place and fire in the direction of the catapults on the Makara’s starboard side. His Tellen mentor then dropped his crossbow as he burst into a sprint for the catapults, drawing his sword and long knife while leaping from their elevated deck to the one below where the weapons sat ready to launch their deadly fire stones. The individual catapult crewmen started echoing the Vassal’s command for the second time when one of them fell to the deck with Sugnis’s bolt in his neck, fletching on one side and the bolt’s flint head on the other. Sugnis smashed into the catapult crew striking down several before the Vassal’s Sentii companions tackled him. Rogaan had not even noticed them leaving their positions. Knowing his mentor’s open-hand fighting skills, Rogaan expected the fight with the two Sentii to be over quickly with Sugnis the victor. Instead, Sentii and Sugnis rolled struggling on the deck as the one catapult untouched by the fight sent hurling in an arc its deadly payload toward the starboard ship.

  “No!” Sugnis growled. The Tellen kicked free of one of the Sentii, then spun into a crouch and stood with the other Sentii wrapped about his shoulders. Letting Sugnis’s neck go, the Sentii retreated a step from the Tellen as Rogaan caught a red blur of movement on his right. Landing on the lower deck near to Sugnis, the Vassal in one attack move kicked his booted foot directly into Sugnis’s chest, sending Rogaan’s mentor flying seven strides to the Makara’s outer railing, crashing through the stout wood and into the abyss of darkness beyond.

  Stunned, Rogaan stood. He disbelieved his eyes. What happened just cannot be. A moment Sugnis was next to me . . . the next . . . gone. His eyes looked about the ship, hoping to find his mentor. The port catapults launched another pair of fire-stones at their target, setting it further in flames as the ship listed and started turning sideways. The rudder must be gone . . . mu’usumgal. The crew finished resetting their starboard catapults, then launched a pair of fire stones at their target, the already-burning ship on its side near the aft command deck. Splashes of the deadly fire spread across the ship’s main and elevated decks setting fire to both wood and sails. The port catapult crew was now reloading their deadly weapons for a third strike as the starboard crew ran their ropes, recocking their weapons. All this was happening around the red-armored Vassal who watched the efficient crew from the lower deck where he sent Sugnis flying overboard . . . to his death.

  The port crew called out their firing cadence again, launching another pair of fire-stones to strike the forward decks of the disabled ship, adding the forward sails aflame to those center and aft, now in a full blaze. Uniformed Tusaa’Ner and the ship’s crew were dropping rowboats into the dark waters. Others leapt from the ship, some on fire. Water-dragons immediately taking them as meals. Screams of agony came from all over the burning wreck. Rogaan felt . . . a disturbing sadness for the dead and the dying. The dreading anticipation of battle being a much-better feeling than the realities of blood spilt.

  More ropes got ran as the Makara’s port crews again made to reset and rearm their deadly weapons. With bellowing echoes of command, the starboard catapults once again launched a pair of fiery death stones toward the other ship, striking it center and slightly forward, sending the sails and much of the decks aflame. That ship too started listing and turning out of control on the gloomy waters. With the first of their battles all but won, Rogaan stared at the burning death traps as the Makara quickly left them behind.

  So absorbed in the sorrowful reaping, Rogaan did not notice the Vassal and his Sentii guards climbing to the forward deck until the first of them dismounted the ladderlike stairs. They were acting as if nothing had happened, chatting amusingly among themselves. As if practiced, the Sentii strode to their previous positions taking up their at-the-ready stances while the Vassal returned to the railing next to Rogaan. Still stunned and even a bit in shock at everything, Rogaan simply stared up at the Vassal, him being a head taller.

  “Am I to have issue with you, Roga of the Blood An?” The Vassal’s reverberating words carried a sharp tone as he stood unmoving looking forward at the last ship of the flotilla.

  Rogaan felt sick . . . angry. His heart pounded, and his breath came in rasps. Anger filled him. He wanted badly to strike the Vassal, beat on him until the Baraan, or whatever he was, lay bloodied on the deck. Then, a ripple of fear racked Rogaan as he did his best not to let it show. This one so callous, so volatile. Rogaan started realizing the full and deadly nature of the Vassal. He was on a quest, focused to a fault. And I at the center of the Vassal’s need. Rogaan’s thoughts returned to the image of Sugnis and the Vassal’s kick. So powerful. No hesitation. Rogaan swallowed hard, not only of the spit in his mouth but for the uncontrolled anger he felt. He was on dangerous ground, or at least a deck. He needed to take care of his words and actions . . . and even his expressions as they might get him in a worse predicament, but he needed to know of his mentor, his friend. “Sugnis?”

  The Vassal remained silent and unmoving. He simply stared forward at the lights and silhouette of the ship ahead, closing fast, as the first blue hints of dawn shown high in the predawn sky. “Water-dragons surround our ships . . . ravenous and vicious. Your Tellen mentor has no chance of living. He betrayed me. That, I will not allow. Now, tell me when you feel the Isell-Dingiir you take for your bow.”

  Chapter 15

  Ancient Revelations

  Many of the crew and more of the Tusaa’Ner on board leaned over the outer rails looking far behind the Khaaron at a scene of shocking destruction, the Khaaron’s sister ships, the Erebuus and Nyx, burning and adrift. Hundreds of Tusaa’Ner and almost as many in support likely lost, if not already lightless. And the supplies for the journey ahead, also lost. A shadow of a dark ship with full sails periodically visible against the backdrop of angry flames burning the decks and sails of the wrecks. Daimons. An eerie silence fell over the decks of the Khaaron. Aren heard himself breathe as much as the rasping of those near who weren’t holding their breaths, though Aren wished those around him would have bathed for the sake of his wrinkled nose. His hopes rose as he gazed upon the scene of death and ruin, concluding with two ships lost that the expedition was now doomed and that they wouldn’t be traveling into the Blood Lands. He breathed a sigh of relief at that. Breaking the silence, above on the command deck, a female Baraan’s voice rang out in shouts of rage at the ship’s commander and everyone else near making accusations of their incompetence and collusions to thwart her expedition. Aren recognized and winced at the piercing screech of Za Irzal.

  On the command deck with the Za, as best as Aren could make out, were the Khaaron’s commander and first and several of their crew who steered the ship. Za Irzal’s aides, Ganzer and his aide Lucufaar, kept to the outer rails of the deck, allowing Irzal to rant without them getting the brunt of things. Irzal’s daughter, the Tusaa’Ne
r sakal, stood near her mother with a hand ready to draw her sword at anyone thinking to raise a weapon against the ranting Za.

  Something pulled at . . . vibrated Aren, drawing his attention to the burning wrecks. Amidst the roaring flames, bluish lights swirled forming a mesh, like a fishing net around one of the ships, until all the fire was enclosed. Then, in an instant, the flames were gone on the left of the two burning ships. At first, Aren thought that the ship sank, but the bluish mesh remained with the moving ship then started fading away. What did I just see? he asked himself with his curiosity stirred. It was a simple pattern of what Aren reasoned as air, though he didn’t understand why he thought it so. Shouts from the crew announced to all the sinking of the Nyx. Should I tell them? Aren decided not to encourage their thinking of continuing this expedition with one of those ships surviving. Besides, it’ll be dawn soon enough for them to see the ship with their own eyes.

  With a surprise, Aren found himself moving his hands in a manner of the shaped mesh. Yes. I see how that is the pattern of the net, but I still don’t know how the air made the flames die. With a little frustration, Aren looked away from his hands and up at the command deck, certain that Ganzer would have a task for him to attend. He caught Lucufaar staring at him with a look of something between surprise and concern. It was a quick moment before Lucufaar glaring at him with those dark, deep-set, squinty eyes, started yelling at him, “Dawdle no longer, Evendiir. Return to my cabin.”

  Aren didn’t understand why he was to go to Lucufaar’s and Ganzer’s cabin. He felt as he did being sent to his room by his father as a youngling and made to challenge the aide of Za Irzal’s aide. Before he could raise his protest, Ganzer, in his blue jacket and kilt, bore down on Aren with his contempt-filled eyes, scolding him. “Not another tongue of protest, Evendiir. To our cabin.”

  They’ll pay for this! Aren promised himself as he trudged the deck toward the outer door leading to the narrow hallway within. Again, he cursed them, but Ganzer mostly for not allowing him boots or sandals so his feet didn’t touch the splinter-rich deck. Aren felt a vibration sensation in front of him. He stopped. Whitish “sparks” of flames rapidly formed a Baraan-sized rotating, rainbow-colored circle above the deck ahead. Three individuals stepped from the circle before it collapsed into a faint trail, leading to the bow of the ship. The vibrations disappeared with the visible circle. On the forward deck of the ship, another rainbow circle opened wide again, allowing a single, red-armored being to step out before the circle vanished completely. Aren stood taking in the details of remnant trails trying to learn all he could. I can use this . . . if I can figure it out. The slamming of a door snapped his attention back to his deck. Looking back to the new arrivals, Aren saw the two Baraan-like ones, dressed in subdued browns and greens worked-hide armors and carrying spears and long knives, entering the hallway to the inner area where the cabins of the Za, her aides, and commander were, now unguarded. The third arrival was that Tellen . . . Rogaan, dressed in hunting clothes and armor, bow over his shoulder, short sword over his other shoulder, and long knife on his side, now standing with his eyes closed and arms outstretched. The Tellen then opened his eyes looking forward of the ship before noticing Aren standing only strides away. With eyes growing wide in surprise, he asked, “What are you doing here . . . Aren?”