by Dante King
To counteract this and to give myself a little leeway, I injected a dose of Tree magic into the ship’s timbers. This gave them the bendy flexibility of a living tree and made them a lot harder to snap and splinter. They would now be able to bend a great deal before breaking.
With the ship prepared, it was time to go under.
I gave Rami-Xayon a slight slap on her cheek, but her head just flopped around. She was still out cold, and there would be no giant reverse tornado. That couldn’t be helped now; we had to go under. I unwrapped the kusarigama chain from around the mast, freeing both of us, then I slung Rami-Xayon over my shoulder and made a dash for the stairs that led down to the interior of the ship. Just as a gigantic wave broke over the deck, I dived down the stairs.
Down below, Layna was finishing strapping herself to one of the wooden pillars with spider silk, after she’d used it to strap everyone else to pillars and posts. She was looking utterly drained and exhausted after having had to produce so much spider silk in such a short space of time. But when she saw me, she smiled proudly, for she’d done it. Everyone was secure and nobody would get flung around the room and battered to a bloody pulp by a tornado raging in here.
Except now I wasn’t even sure that there would be a tornado.
I used the kusarigama chain to lash myself and Rami-Xayon to a post.
“We’re all ready, Lord Vance!” Rollar yelled. “Bring on the tornado!”
“There’s a little problem with the whole tornado thing,” I said. “but don’t worry, I’ll figure something out. For now, everyone, hold your breath!”
“What?!” Isu shouted. “You’re sending us under the ocean with no air supply?!”
“Nobody’s drowning in here.” I gritted my teeth with determination. “Not on my watch. Get ready, we’re going under in three... two... one!”
In the blink of an eye, I was seeing the world through the enormous eyes of the kraken. I felt the press of the ocean all around my massive form. Up above, a storm was raging with crazed fury, but down here below the waves, all was calm and serene. A hundred yards above me was the Death ship.
I now had to control my many limbs with both strength and finesse, like a mighty warrior handling a delicate sparrow’s egg.
I shot my kraken limbs up, and they burst out of the rolling waves like a hundred angry sea serpents, writhing and eager. I grabbed the ship, wrapping my tentacles around it. My suckers gripped the shiny black timber, then I pulled down while I swam into the black depths below. The ship creaked and groaned, and I could feel that even with the additional strength and flexibility provided by the Death and Tree magic, the structure of the vessel was taking immense strain. But still I pulled, exerting powerful pressure, just enough to drag it under the waves, but not quite enough to break it.
And then the ship was underwater. I dragged it down just deep enough that it was below the vicious turbulence of the humongous waves. This part of the plan completed, I jumped back into my own body, allowing the kraken to move autonomously.
Back inside the ship, the scene was one of chaos. Water was gushing into the ship, filling up the interior with alarming rapidity. The whole interior would be completely filled with water in half a minute, I guessed, or perhaps less. Rami-Xayon was still unconscious.
I had to take care of this situation myself.
I was able to create small tornadoes with the Wind magic of my kusarigama, but even if I enhanced them with all the Death magic of my undead army, they wouldn’t be big enough to fill the interior with air.
However, I had another idea, one that was prompted by my romantic liaisons with Yumo-Rezu the previous night. Divine power was present in the bodily fluids of gods and goddesses, and I had the Dragon Sword, which was capable of wielding any form of magic, so therefore it stood to reason that I should be able to use the Dragon Sword to commandeer Rami-Xayon’s mastery over Wind magic, and create a huge tornado myself. And, I remembered, the Blood God’s servants had been fanatical about wanting to sacrifice a goddess to gain the power that was in her blood. I was sure this would work. The only question was whether I could get it done in time.
I reached over and dragged the razor-sharp edge of the Dragon Sword across Rami-Xayon’s arm, opening up a shallow cut from which blood oozed. I then nicked my palm with the blade’s edge and put my bleeding palm onto her open cut.
Immediately, a surge of immense power electrified the entirety of my being. It was like the previous night with Yumo-Rezu, but far more overwhelming, so much so that I almost blacked out with the intensity of it all. My blood felt as if it was boiling in my veins, my muscles like lightning were being blasted through them, and my mind as if it could see the entire universe at once.
The feeling was beyond intoxicating, but I fought through the euphoria and forced myself to think rationally through the giddying high. The water was up to our chests now and rising rapidly. I pointed the Dragon Sword at the stairs, where the water was gushing down, and called up my Wind magic, which usually came from my kusarigama. Now, however, I could feel the Wind power within me. It was connected to my spirit in the same way that Death power was, as though I’d fused my soul to Rami-Xayon’s and sucked up all her Wind power.
Creating a gigantic tornado, previously completely beyond my ability, was now as easy as raising a basic skeleton from a corpse. I didn’t understand how I was doing it; I just knew on an instinctive level how to create a monster of a tornado.
With a flick of the Dragon Sword blade, a tremendous howl roared through the interior of the ship. A funnel of madly spinning air blasted down the stairs, immediately stemming the flow of water and filling the remaining space with air. The pressure of the howling tornado was incredible. Even with the kusarigama chain securing me to the post, I could feel its force tugging at my body like the hands of a greedy Jotunn. Without being secured like we were, everyone in here would be flying around and smashed to bloody piles of meat pulp in seconds.
It was difficult to breathe but at least it was air coming through our mouths and noses into our lungs and not seawater. With everything taken care of, I closed my eyes and flung part of my spirit into the kraken and another segment into Talon, who was soaring high above the storm. Viewing the world simultaneously through the harpy’s eyes and the kraken’s was quite a trip, but I had long since learned to handle the mentally taxing task of viewing completely different things simultaneously.
Using the two undead creatures, I guided the ship underwater, navigating out of the swirling madness of the super-storm. Once we’d gotten out of it and back into calmer weather, I released the ship and allowed it to float to the surface. After it surfaced, everyone breathed out a sigh of relief, but I held up a hand to silence them before anyone said anything. We weren’t off the hook just yet.
“I have to get the water out of here!” I said. “Hold tight!”
Rami-Xayon was finally coming to, but she was groggy and disoriented, so I used the power of her blood to create another tornado. This tornado was a regular one, sucking air rather than pumping it in, and I used it to suck all of the water out of the ship. Then, and only then, I unwrapped the kusarigama chain, freeing myself and Rami-Xayon. Everyone else was still secured to the pillars by spider silk threads, so I went around and cut them all free.
They were groggy and weak, for they’d all taken a beating from the forces of the tornado and had struggled to breathe. None were injured, though, but they needed rest. Now that we were out of danger, they could recuperate. One of them, however, was feeling far weaker and more drained than the others.
“What happened back there?” Rami-Xayon groaned. Her face looked deathly pale, and she couldn’t stand upright. “The last thing I remember … was falling from the rigging … then … nothing … until I woke up. But I dreamed a terrible dream … that a vampire … was draining my blood.”
I flashed her a guilty smile. “I’ll explain later, but let’s get you to a bunk where you can lie down and rest.”
“Tha
t would be good,” she murmured, still looking terribly disoriented and confused.
I picked her up and carried her to one of the cabins, where I laid her down on a bed so she could sleep and recover. When I turned to leave the cabin, however, I saw Isu standing in the doorway. She stared at me, an eerie smile on her luscious lips and a dark gleam in her eyes.
“I saw what you did back there with the tornado,” she said. “As powerful a god as you are, Vance, only the Wind Goddess could create a tornado like that. Yet the whole time we were underwater, she was unconscious. There’s only one way you could have achieved what you did … you have tasted Blood magic, haven’t you?”
“It was the only way to create a strong enough tornado to prevent us all from drowning. I did what I had to do,” I said.
“And you liked it, didn’t you?” she whispered, shifting her hourglass-shaped figure seductively.
I nodded slowly. “Taking Rami-Xayon’s power like that was a rush like nothing else,” I admitted. “But I only did it because it was that, or death for all of us. As incredible as it felt, I’ll never do it again. I hate to say it, but now, on some level, I understand the Blood God and his insatiable appetite for blood, especially the blood of gods and goddesses. And now I have an even greater understanding of why he has to be stopped at all costs.”
“The rush of power, taken from someone else’s blood, is terribly addictive,” Isu said. “And now, after tasting it, I’m sure you can see just how easily it can turn men into monsters. Is it any wonder that your uncle Rodrick, the Warlock, and Elandriel became such evil creatures after experiencing such power?”
“I can see how it turned them into what they became,” I said, “but there was greed and evil within all of them anyway. The Blood magic only fed and amplified what was already there.”
“Indeed,” she said. “But beware, Vance … once you have tasted this forbidden fruit, its flavor will always linger somewhere at the back of your throat. And that flavor will always beg for more. Always.”
She chuckled softly and humorlessly. For a few seconds, a glow entered her eyes, and she looked like the powerful Death goddess who’d given me my first taste of Death power, way back when I was still just an assassin. The glow faded, though, and once more she looked like the gorgeous, mortal necromancer she now was.
“Be cautious, Vance, that’s all I’m saying. When fighting monsters, we must be careful not to become monsters ourselves.” Then, with a swish of her skirts, she turned around and glided like a phantom out into the dark hallway, leaving me alone with the sleeping Wind Goddess and dark thoughts about the final battle to come.
Chapter Ten
The next week of sailing was relatively smooth; Elandriel had likely exhausted himself calling up that titan of a storm and would need time to recover before launching any more attacks on us. After two or three days of rest, Rami-Xayon recovered. I disclosed to her that I’d had to make use of her powers while she’d been unconscious, and she was understanding, given that it had been a life and death situation. When her powers returned, she called up a powerful wind to propel us forward in our journey, and we made excellent time, covering a great distance at speed.
Below us, on the floor of the ocean, my army struggled onward. We left them far behind, greatly outstripping them with our superior speed. I only hoped that it wouldn’t take them too long to reach Prand; the timing of their arrival would be crucial in terms of determining whether I could defeat Elandriel and crush the Blood God once and for all, or whether the outcome of the final battle would be much less favorable to me.
A few days before we got within sight of the Prandish continent, I was scouting ahead via Talon’s eyes high in the sky when I caught sight of a pirate ship a few miles in the distance. It looked as if they were heading in the direction of Yeng. Figuring that they would probably have some information on the current state of affairs in Prand, I decided to adjust our course so that we could intercept them.
Percy steered the Death ship their way, and late in the afternoon we saw their ship on the horizon. They spotted us too, and turned to sail toward us. They had surely seen that this was a warship, but the sight of a gray skull on the black sails rather than the insignia of the Church of Light Navy must have told them that this was no ordinary vessel.
I didn’t want a fight—we would obliterate them in battle, of course, but that wasn’t the point. I wanted information from these pirates, and loosening their tongues with a bit of gold, which I had more than enough of, would surely yield me more honest information, given more readily, than beating it out of them … which wasn’t entirely off the table if they decided to act like assholes.
One we got within a nautical mile of the pirate ship, I suited myself up in my full set of black plate armor, which was always a good look when it came to impressing and intimidating people, and filled a sack with gold coins. I got Percy and his pirate crew to load and aim the Death-enhanced ballistae at the pirate ship and punch their hull full of holes if they didn’t cooperate. Then, I commanded Talon to lift me up and fly me over to the pirate ship.
The pirates gathered on deck to watch me as I approached, and their scarred faces were twisted into expressions of wonder, awe, and more than a little fear; it wasn’t every day that these ratty seafarers got to see a harpy transporting a fully armored knight through the air.
All of the pirates had bows, crossbows and spears, and they aimed them as us as we approached. Their captain, an obese pirate with a huge red beard, twisted into beaded plaits, climbed up onto the prow. He pointed his cutlass at me and yelled. “Who are you, ye strange winged bastard?! Come any closer and my boys’ll turn ye both into pincushions, we will!”
I pulled out a handful of gold coins from the sack and flung them onto the deck of the ship. They bounced around, and when the pirates saw what they were, they scrambled eagerly to snatch them up, fighting and shoving each other out of the way in their haste and greed to grab a coin.
“All I want from you is some information!” I yelled back. “Tell me what I want to know, and this whole sack of gold coins is yours!”
“Arr, fair enough, fair enough,” the captain replied, a glint of greed glistening in his eyes, “but you still haven’t told us who you are! Give me that courtesy, stranger, an’ then I’ll decide if I want to wag me jaw with ye! I am Captain Thegramm, by the way,”
“I am Vance Chauzec, God of Death!”
A look of awe and disbelief came across the captain’s face. “You’re … real!” he gasped. “The legend is true! The God of Death lives! Come aboard, God of Death, come aboard! Lay down your weapons, ye scurvy dogs! Make space for the God of Death to come aboard, go on, make some room!”
The pirates moved to the edge of the deck, leaving a space in the middle for me to land. Controlling Talon with expert finesse, I got her to hover a few feet above the deck and then drop me there. I landed with acrobatic grace, and then tossed the sack of gold at Captain Thegramm’s feet. “All I want is some information, Thegramm, so answer my questions honestly and you can keep everything that’s in that sack.”
He slashed his cutlass across the side of the sack, and when a pile of gold coins poured out of the cut a gasp of surprise rippled through the crowd of pirates. I could almost taste the greed and lust for gold hovering in the air.
“Aye, I’ll answer your questions, God of Death,” he said. “Tis more gold than we’ve seen for many a week, and there be precious few ships to plunder now, not with all the cursed new rules in Prand.”
“So, you’ve come from Prand then?”
“Aye, we have, and we won’t be going back for a while, no bloody way, not with how things are back there.”
“I’m guessing this has something to do with the Church of Light,” I said dryly.
“Damn right it does! That Elandriel’s a real bastard, he is!” Captain Thegramm said, scowling. “He’s got every bloody port in Prand in lockdown. It’s almost like he’s expecting an invasion from the sea or some bl
oody thing. Every ship that comes within a mile of Prand has to wait in the open water and be inspected by Church of Light officials. They’ve got hundreds of ballistae set up around every port, and plenty of eagle-eyed snipers to man ‘em. One signal from a Church official that anything’s suspicious about a ship and the bastards sink it.”
“So, there’s no way to get onto the Prandish continent without getting past the Church of Light officials?” I asked.
Captain Thegramm shook his head grimly. “They’ve got every port sealed up tight. Nobody leaves or enters without the permission of the Church. They’ve even set up ballistae squads by our secret pirate coves! I don’t know how they found out where they were, I suppose those landlubber whoresons tortured the information out of some pirates they captured. Either way, we won’t be going back to Prand any time soon. There’s nothing for us there … and, dare I say, nothing for you either, God of Death, from what I’ve heard about what’s going on further inland.”
I frowned. “What do you mean by that?”
“Well, I’m sure you must know how popular the Temple of Necrosis has become back in Prand,” he said. “After all, it’s you they bloody worship, isn’t it?” He paused here to let out a boomy belly laugh.
“I’ve felt my power growing from my many worshipers, yes,” I said.
“And that’s something old Elandriel has not been happy about, not at all!” Thegramm exclaimed. “He’s doing his bloody best to purge the Temple of Necrosis from Prand completely. That rotten eel, he’s made it a crime punishable by death to worship at the Temple of Necrosis, and all the priests of the Temple have been arrested. Rumor was that he intended to burn down Brakith, which is the main stronghold of the temple in all of Prand, as I’m sure you’re aware.”
“Yes, seeing as I’m the Lord of Brakith,” I muttered.
“I hope you’ve got a mighty force of defenders there, then, God of Death,” Thegramm said, “because I heard that a massive Church army was marching there with express orders to raze the city. Elandriel has conscripted soldiers from all over Prand to swell the ranks of the Church army. By all accounts that have reached these here jug handles,” he continued, tapping his hairy ears, “the Church of Light army is bigger than it’s ever been. And I don’t know if Elandriel’s losing his damn mind, or if he’s lost it already, but there’s been talk of strange things happening in Luminescent Spires. People disappearing, murders taking place every night, corpses found in back alleys drained of blood. As far as I’m concerned, the whole of Prand is about to go up in flames. The entire cursed continent is about to become a bloodbath, and I’m not taking any chances by being anywhere near anything like that, no bloody way!”