by Mel Odom
Then the insects were on them. Mat was to his feet but could only start to run as the cloud of insects closed in for the kill.
Darrick swiped at the insects with his sword, knowing it was ineffectual. The keen blade sliced through two of the fat-bodied demonic bugs, leaving smears of green blood across the steel that washed away almost immediately in the pouring rain. In the next instant, the insects vanished in liquid pops of emerald fire that left a sulfuric stench behind.
Staring, Darrick watched as the rest of the insects lost their corporeal existence in the same fashion. They continued flying at him, the haze of green flames getting so thick it became a wall of color.
"Those foul creatures, they have trouble existin' on this plane," Mat said in awe.
Darrick didn't know. Of the two of them, Mat had moreuse for the stories of mages and legendary things. But the insects continued their assault, dying by the droves only inches from their intended victims. The cloud thinned out, and the color died down in the space of a drawn breath.
That was when Darrick saw the first of the skeletons race through the tunnel mouth, war ax uplifted. Darrick dodged the ax blow and kicked out, tripping the skeleton. The skeleton fell and slid across the mounds of muddy debris like a stone skipping across a pond, then smashed against the side of a building.
"Go!" Darrick yelled, grabbing Mat and getting him started again.
They ran, sprinting toward the river again. And the skeletons poured after them, soundless as ghosts except for the thud of feet against the rain-drenched land.
Having no reason to hide anymore, certain that any pirates who might remain between them and the river wouldn't stick around long enough to engage them, Darrick fled through the center of the disheveled city. The ragged lightning that tore at the purple sky made the terrain uncertain and tricky. But the thing that got them in the end was that they were human and fatigued. Darrick and Mat slowed, their hearts and lungs and legs no longer able to keep up with the demand. The inexorable rush of the skeletons did not waver, did not slow.
Darrick glanced over his shoulder and saw only death behind them. Black spots swam in his vision, and every drawn breath felt empty of air, as if it was all motion and nothing of substance. The rain-filled wind made it hard to breathe and slashed at his face.
Mat slowed, and they were only a hundred yards or less from the river's edge. If they could make the edge, Darrick thought, and throw themselves into the water-somehow survive the plunge without smashing up against the stone bottom of the riverbed-perhaps they had a chance. The river was deep, and skeletons couldn't swim because they had no flesh to help them remain buoyant.
Darrick ran, throwing down his cutlass, only then recognizingthat it was dead weight and was slowing him. Survival didn't lie in fighting; it lay in flight. He ran another ten yards, somehow stretched into another twenty, and kept lifting his knees, driving his numbed feet against the ground even though he didn't trust his footing.
And then, all at once it seemed, they were at the edge. Mat was at his side, face pale from being winded and hurting for far too long. Then, just when Darrick felt certain he could almost throw himself into the air and trust his momentum to carry him over the edge and into the Dyre River beyond, something grabbed his foot. He fell. Senses swimming already, he nearly blacked out from his chin's impact against the ground.
"Get up, Darrick!" Mat yelled, grabbing his arm.
Instinctively, driven by fear, Darrick kicked out, freeing himself from the skeleton that had leapt at him and caught up his foot. The rest of them came on, tightly together like a rat pack.
Mat dragged Darrick to the edge, only just avoiding the outstretched hands and fingers of the skeletons. Without pause, Mat flung Darrick over the edge, then readied himself to jump.
Darrick saw all of that as he began the long fall to the whitecapped river so far below. And he saw the skeleton that leapt and caught Mat before he could get clear of the cliff.
"No!" Darrick shouted, instinctively reaching for Mat although he knew he was too far away to do anything.
But the skeleton's rush succeeded in knocking Mat over the cliff. They fell, embraced in death, and bounced from the cliffside no more than ten feet from the river's surface.
Bone crunched, and the sound reached Darrick's ears just before he plunged into the icy river. In just moments since the storm had started, the river current had picked up. What had once been a steady flow out toward the Gulf of Westmarch now became a torrent. He kicked out, his arms and legs feeling like lead, certain that he'd neverbreak the river's surface before he filled his lungs with water.
Lightning flashed across the sky, bringing the sky sandwiched between the cliffsides out in bold relief for a moment. The intensity was almost blinding.
Mat! Darrick looked around in the water, trying desperately to find his friend. His lungs burned as he swam, pushing himself toward the surface. Then he was through, his vision wavering, and he sucked in a great draught of air.
The river's surface was lathered with whitecaps that washed over him. The fog was thicker now, swirling through the canyon between the mountains. Darrick shook the water from his eyes, searching frantically for Mat. The skeleton had gone in with Mat. Had it dragged him down?
Thunder split the night. A moment later, projectiles started plummeting into the river. Tracking the movement, Darrick saw the skeletons hurling themselves from the cliffside. They smashed into the water nearly thirty feet upriver from him, and that was when he realized how much he had moved since he'd entered the water.
He watched the surface for a moment, wondering if the skeletons had been given an ability to swim. He'd never heard of such a thing, but he'd never seen a demon before tonight, either.
Mat!
Something bumped against Darrick's leg. His immediate gut reaction was to push back from it and get away. Then one of Mat's arms floated through the water by him.
"Mat!" Darrick yelled, grabbing for the arm and pulling the other man up. Lightning seared the sky again as he held Mat's back against his chest and fought to keep both their heads above water. The waves slapped him constantly in the face. A moment later, a skeleton's head popped up in the river, letting Darrick know it still had hold of Mat's leg.
Darrick kicked at the undead thing as the river current caught them more securely in its grasp. The cliffsides holdingthe river on course swept by at greater speed and Mat's weight combined with the weight of the skeleton was enough to keep Darrick under most of the time. He only came up behind Mat's back for a quick gulp or two of air, then submerged again to keep up the fight to keep Mat's head out of the water. By the Light, please give me the strength to do this!
Twice, as the current roiled and changed, Mat was nearly torn from Darrick's grip. The water was cold enough to numb his hands, and the exhaustion he felt turned him weak.
"Mat!" he screamed in his friend's ear, then went down again. He managed to call out to Mat twice more as they raced down the river but didn't get any reaction. Mat remained dead weight in his arms.
Lightning strobed the sky again, and this time Darrick thought he spotted blood on his elbow. It wasn't his blood, and he knew it had to have come from Mat. But when the next wave hit him and he resurfaced, the blood wasn't there, and he couldn't be sure if it ever was.
"Darrick!"
Maldrin's voice came out of the night without warning.
Darrick tried to turn his head, but the effort sent him plunging below the waterline again. He kicked the water fiercely, keeping Mat elevated. When he rose again, thunder boomed.
"— rick!" Maldrin squalled again in his huge voice that could reach the top of the rigging or empty a tavern of sailors that crewed aboard Lonesome Star.
"Here!" Darrick yelled, spluttering, spitting water. "Here, Maldrin!" He sank, then fought his way up again. Each time was getting harder. The skeleton remained clinging to Mat's leg, and twice Darrick had to kick free of its embrace. "Hang on, Mat. Please hang on. It's only a little lo
nger now. Maldrin's-" The current took him down again, and this time he spotted light from a lantern on his port side.
"— see them!" Maldrin roared. "Hold this damn boat, lads!"
Darrick came up again, seeing a thick black shadow rising up from behind him, then lightning split the sky and reflected from the dark water, illuminating Maldrin's homely features for a moment.
"I got ye, skipper!" Maldrin yelled above the storm. "I got ye. Just ye come back on ahead to ol' Maldrin, an' let me take some of that weight from ye."
For a moment, Darrick feared that the mate was going to miss him. Then he felt Maldrin take hold of his hair-the easiest part of a drowning victim to grab hold of-and would have screamed with agony if he hadn't been choking on water. Then, incredibly, Maldrin pulled him back toward the longboat they'd arrived in.
"Give a hand!" Maldrin yelled.
Tomas reached down and hooked his hands under Mat's arms, then leaned back and started pulling him into the longboat. "I've got him, Darrick. Let him go."
Freed from Mat's weight, Darrick's arms slid away limply. If it hadn't been for Maldrin holding him, he was sure he would have been swept away by the current. He fought to help Maldrin pull him on board, catching a glimpse of the boy, Lhex, wrapped in a blanket that was already soaked through from the rain.
"We waited for ye, skipper," Maldrin said as he pulled. "Held steady to our course 'cause we knew ye'd be here. Hadn't ever been a time ye didn't make it, no matter how bollixed up things looked like they was a-gettin'." He slapped Darrick on the shoulder. "An' ye done us proud again. We'll have stories to tell after this 'un. I'll swear to ye on that."
"Something's holdin' him," Tomas said, fighting to bring Mat onto the longboat.
"Skeleton," Darrick said. "It's holding on to his leg."
Without warning, the undead thing erupted from the water, lunging at Tomas with an open mouth like a hungry wolf. Galvanized by his fear, Tomas yanked back, pulling Mat into the longboat with him.
Calmly, as if he were reaching for a dish at a tavern, Maldrin picked up his war hammer and smashed theskeleton's skull. Going limp, the undead creature released its hold and disappeared into the whitecapped water.
Darrick's chest heaved as he sucked in huge lungfuls of air. "River's full of skeletons. They followed us in. They can't swim, but they're in the water. If they find the boat anchor-"
The longboat suddenly shuddered and swung sideways, no longer pointed into the current so that it could ride out the gorged river easier. It bucked like a mustang, throwing all the sailors aboard it around as if they were ragdolls.
"Something's got hold of the rope!" one of the sailors yelled.
Shoving the other sailors aside, Maldrin raked a knife from his boot and sawed through the anchor rope as skeletal hands grabbed the longboat's gunwales. The boat leapt into the river, cutting across the whitecaps like a thing possessed.
"Man those oars!" Maldrin bawled, grabbing one from the middle of the longboat himself. "Get this damn boat squared away afore we all go down with it!"
Struggling against the exhaustion that filled him as well as the longboat being tossed like a child's toy on the rushing river, Darrick pushed himself up and crawled over to Mat Hu-Ring. "Mat!" he called.
Lightning flashed, and thunder filled the river canyon through the Hawk's Beak Mountains.
"Mat." Tenderly, Darrick rolled Mat's head over, sickened at once by how lax and loose it was on his neck.
Mat's face kept rolling, coming around to face Darrick. The wide dark eyes stared sightlessly up, capturing the next reflection of the wicked lightning in them. The right side of Mat's head was covered with blood, and white pieces of bone stuck out from the dark hair.
"He's dead," Tomas said as he pulled on his oar. "I'm sorry, Darrick. I know ye two was close."
No! Darrick couldn't believe it- wouldn't believe it. Mat couldn't be dead. Not handsome and witty and funny Mat. Not Mat who could always be counted on to say the rightthings to the girls in the dives in the port cities they visited on their rounds. Not Mat who had helped nurse him back to health those times Darrick's punishment from his father laid him up for days in the loft above the butcher's barn.
"No," Darrick said. But his denial was weak even in his ears. He stared at the corpse of his friend.
"Like as not he went sudden." Maldrin spoke quietly behind Darrick. "He musta hit his head on a rock. Or maybe that skeleton he was fightin' with done for him."
Darrick remembered the way Mat had struck the cliffside on the long fall from the canyon ridge.
"I knew he was dead as soon as I touched him," Maldrin said. "There wasn't nothin' ye could do, Darrick. Every man that took this assignment from Cap'n Tollifer knew what our chances was goin' in. Just bad luck. That's all it was."
Darrick sat in the middle of the longboat, feeling the rain beat down on him, hearing the thunder crash in the heavens above him. His eyes burned, but he didn't let himself cry. He'd never let himself cry. His father had taught him that crying only made things hurt worse.
"Did you see the demon?" the boy asked, touching Darrick's arm.
Darrick didn't answer. In that brief moment of learning of Mat's death, he hadn't even thought of Kabraxis.
"Was the demon there?" Lhex asked again. "I'm sorry for your friend, but I have to know."
"Aye," Darrick answered through his constricted throat. "Aye, the demon was there right enough. He caused this. Might as well have killed Mat himself. Him and that priest."
Several of the sailors touched their good luck charms at the mention of the demon. They pulled at their oars in response to Maldrin's shouted orders, but it was primarily to direct the craft. The swollen river propelled the longboat swiftly.
Upriver, lantern lights burned aboard the single cog fighting the mooring tether as the river rushed against it.Captain Raithen's crew waited there, Darrick guessed. They didn't know the captain wasn't coming.
Giving in to the overwhelming emotion and exhaustion that filled him, Darrick stretched out over Mat's body, as if he were going to protect him from the gale winds and the rain, the way Mat used to do for him when he was racked with fever while getting well from one of his father's beatings. Darrick smelled the blood on Mat, and it reminded him of the blood that had been ever present in his father's shop.
Before Darrick knew it, he fell into the waiting blackness, and he never wanted to return.
ELEVEN
Darrick lay in his hammock aboard Lonesome Star, his hands folded behind his head, and tried not to think of the dreams that had plagued him the last two nights. In those dreams, Mat was still alive, but Darrick still lived with his parents in the butcher's shop in Hillsfar. Since he had left, Darrick had never gone back.
Over the years since his departure from the town, Mat had gone back to visit with his family on special occasions, arriving there by merchant ship and signing on as a cargo guard while on leave from the Westmarch Navy. Darrick had always suspected that Mat hadn't visited his home or his family as much as he had wanted to. But Mat had believed there would be plenty of time. That was Mat's nature: he never hurried about anything, took each thing in its time and place.
Now, Mat would never go home again.
Darrick seized the pain that filled him before it could escape his control. That control was rock-solid. He'd built it carefully, through beating after beating, through bald cruel things his father had said, till that control was just as strong and as sure as a blacksmith's anvil.
He shifted his head, feeling the ache in his back, neck, and shoulders from all the climbing he'd done the night before last. Turning his head, he gazed out the porthole at the glittering blue-green water of the Gulf of Westmarch. Judging from the way the light hit the ocean, it was noon-almost time.
Lying in the hammock, sipping his breaths, stilling himself and controlling the pain that threatened to overfloweven the boundaries he'd put up, he waited. He tried counting his heartbeats, feeling them echo in his head, but w
aiting was hard when he measured the time. It was better to go numb and let nothing touch him.
Then the deck pipe played, blasting shrill and somehow sweet over the constant wave splash of the ocean, calling the ship's crew together.
Darrick closed his eyes and worked on imagining nothing, remembering nothing. But the sour scent of the moldy hay in the loft above the pens where his father kept the animals waiting to be slain and bled out filled his nose. Before Darrick knew it, a brief glimpse of Mat Hu-Ring, nine years old in clothing that was too big for him, flipped down from the rooftop and landed inside the loft. Mat had climbed the chimney of the smokehouse attached to the barn behind the butcher's shop and made his way across the roof until he was able to enter the loft.
Hey, Mat said, digging in the pockets of the loose shirt he wore and producing cheese and apples. I didn't see you around yesterday. I thought I'd find you up here.
In his shame, his body covered with bruises, Darrick had tried to act mad at Mat and make him go away. But it was hard to be convincing when he had to be so quiet. Getting loud enough to attract his father's attention-and let his father know someone else was aware of his punishment-was out of the question. After Mat had spread the apples and cheese out, adding a wilted flower to make it more of a feast and a joke, Darrick hadn't been able to keep up the pretense, and even embarrassment hadn't curbed his hunger.
If his father had ever once found out about Mat's visits during those times, Darrick knew he would never have seen Mat again.
Darrick opened his eyes and stared up at the unmarked ceiling. Just as he would never see him again now. Darrick reached for the cold numbness that he used to cover himself when things became too much. It slipped on like armor, each piece fitting the others perfectly. No weakness remained within him.
The shrill pipe played again.
Without warning, the door to the officers' quarters opened.
Darrick didn't look. Whoever it was could go away, and would if he knew what was good for him.