Out in the bay, darkness gathered above the Bone Face ships. He’d been apprised of their threat and had placed galleys to deal with them. But he wondered about that blackness. He’d wondered about it since Argoth and Eresh had come back with tales from Woolsom and Fishing. Something moved inside the blackness that caught his eye, but he didn’t have time to assess it. Right now, his job was to take care of Shim and then Nilliam.
He flew over his troops. Then the wind lessened and dropped him toward the firelance crew in the middle of the wall.
He had wanted an orderly harvest, a beautiful procession, and by the Mother’s love, he would have one.
The skir changed its direction, releasing him in a howl of wind. Berosus dropped out of the sky onto the wall right behind the lancers. They’d seen him coming, but his might and speed were upon him.
The Shimsman closest to him shouted and struck with his axe.
Berosus ripped the axe out of his grip and slammed the butt of the axe into the man’s head. He crumpled under the blow and tumbled off the wall.
Another raised a bow at point blank range and released an arrow with a bodkin point. Berosus dodged it and hurled the axe, burying it deep in the man’s chest.
Another one of the crew charged. Berosus snatched up an arrow from the fallen archer and stabbed the man in the eye with it.
The firelance crew had stopped to avoid having his wind blow their flames back in their faces. The lancer now turned the brass weapon on Berosus and yelled for his pumpers.
Berosus sprang. A stream of fire shot under him. He flipped and landed behind the crew. He kicked one pumper in the knee and caved his leg in. He struck the other pumper in the chest and sent him flying through one of the gaps in the crenellation.
The lancer tried to turn his stream, but Berosus already had his sword in hand and skewered the man.
A number of Shimsmen on the wall lined up and drew their bows.
Berosus threw himself to the ground. The bows twanged, and the arrows sped above him and into the Shimsmen at his back.
He grabbed the lance, rolled up, and kicked the barrel of seafire over so the contents spilled along the wall and down into the courtyard. Then he hurled the firelance out over the wall.
More Shimsmen ran down the wallwalk toward him. He charged them, and they stopped, then tripped over themselves trying to get away. One man did hold his ground and slashed with his sword, but Berosus sprang to the top of the crenellation, took two huge strides, dancing on the merlons, then jumped back down onto the wallwalk behind the man and ran for the other firelance crew that was spraying a hammer of Urzmen trying to get over the gap of rubble made by the fallen hoodoo.
He passed a fallen Mokaddian, reached down, and picked up the man’s sword, then charged two Shimsmen who tried to protect the crew. With the first stroke he hacked an arm from one of the men’s bodies. With the next, he slit the second’s throat. The men fell. Behind them the firelance crew turned.
“Time to die,” he said.
“Regret’s eyes it is,” one of the pumpers said and drew his war axe.
It was Argoth.
“Excellent,” Berosus said. “When I’m done with you, I’m going to stick that fat one-eyed pig.”
* * *
Argoth had taken this filth of a man in, put everyone at risk, maybe destroyed the one good chance mankind had received these last thousand years to throw off its chains. He was furious. Furious he’d allowed himself to be duped. Furious that he’d let Shim talk him into moving so fast. Furious that this vile creature and his masters thought they could harvest whom they pleased.
His Fire rippled in waves of power through his body. He was multiplied to his very limits and swung his axe in a blow that could cleave men in two, but Flax dodged to the side and scuttled away.
Argoth pressed forward. Flax rose, thrust, but Argoth easily batted the sword away with his axe.
Flax smiled. “When this fort falls,” he said, “we shall raise a monument here and call it Shim’s Folly.”
Argoth lunged.
Flax parried and danced back a step. “Not bad,” he said.
“We will beat your masters,” Argoth said.
“We had a debate,” said Flax. “What to do with the sleth we found here. The fledgling Glory, of course, we will preserve. The majority wanted to utterly destroy everyone else. However, I spoke up on your behalf. When I infiltrated the Hand, I learned you have quite a reputation, Argoth.”
“And I’m going to add a bit more to that today,” Argoth said. He rushed forward, his Fire raging. His axe flashed. But Berosus blocked it, dodged. He flicked his blade out in a move that was almost too quick to see and sliced Argoth in the back of the leg down by his calf.
Argoth didn’t feel any pain, but he did feel his calf lose some of its stability and strength. He pressed forward, swung his axe, and drew his dagger.
Flax parried again, lunged, but Argoth met him with the dagger. He would have stabbed Flax square in the chest, but Argoth’s sliced calf turned traitor on him and made him stumble. He lurched, missed Flax’s chest, slashing harmlessly across the mail protecting Flax’s arm.
Flax struck Argoth in the face with his fist. The blow sent Argoth reeling backward, turned his world into light purple spots against black. The rushing sound of water filled his ears, and then his vision and balance returned.
Flax smiled and struck again. Argoth blocked the blow, but Flax flicked his sword up, scraping Argoth’s face from jaw to cheek with the sharp point.
Flax was far faster than he had assumed. Far faster than any dreadman or sleth Argoth had ever faced. A terrible foreboding filled him.
Flax pointed at Argoth with the tip of his sword. “You should have learned when you were enthralled to Rubaloth that you cannot resist. Man is too weak. And today will prove that yet again. It’s true, in the beginning the Mothers experienced some setbacks domesticating you. But we learned.”
“You mean they learned,” said Argoth.
“I am one with them. They are one with me. And since our rise we have never fallen.”
“You’ve never fallen,” Eresh bellowed, “you vomitus maggot, because you’ve never faced a proper Kish before!”
Argoth turned. Eresh was rushing up stairway with his sword, his helmet gone, hair askew. “Out of my way!” he shouted and pushed through the clutch of Shimsmen trying to get a good shot. “You’ve been stinking this place up ever since you showed your face. It’s time we got down to cleaning.”
Flax narrowed his eyes. “You,” he said, “were not one any of us wanted to preserve.”
“I’d say that was your loss.”
Argoth swung. Flax stepped back and shook his head. “Did you know, Grandfather, that when the men of the Hand watched the ranks of your Kish die, that was on my order. It was on my order that your house was raided and burned. You prayed for your sons and wife. Unfortunately, they didn’t make it far. We harvested their souls even as you petitioned your ancestors to protect them. There’s a market for sleth souls; did you know that? Some of the Glorious Ones enjoy the peculiar taste. We would have had yours, but I let you live at the time because you were useful. But you’ve long since stopped being that, old man.”
The anger in Eresh’s face turned cold, calculating, hard as steel. “Today,” he said, “I will feed you to your own dogs.” He strode forward.
“You’re a fool,” said Flax.
“You’re a greasy flatulence,” Eresh replied. “At least I don’t offend the ladies.” He raised his sword.
Flax flew at Eresh in one blinding leap, bringing his sword down to cleave Eresh from collar bone to navel.
Eresh side-stepped the blow, and struck with his own sword. But Flax was too quick. He twisted around and struck Eresh hard in the chest with his elbow.
Eresh staggered back.
“Com
e on, old man,” Flax said, “you can do better than that.”
Argoth was still dizzy. He glanced down and saw the wound on his leg was deeper than he first thought. Blood was streaming out of it. The eye on the side of his face where Flax had struck him was swelling closed. He didn’t have much time before his strength and ability would begin to seriously diminish.
Argoth charged.
Eresh rushed Flax from a different angle.
Enjoyment lit up Flax’s face. And he lunged at Argoth first.
Argoth dodged, swung his axe, let Flax slap it away with his sword, then stepped in and slammed Flax in the face with his fist. Flax’s head whipped to the side. Argoth stepped forward, struck him again, a solid powerful blow, and Flax staggered back.
Argoth whipped his axe around, two-handed, to strike Flax in the side of the head, but Flax caught the axe and smashed Argoth in the face again. The blow felt like an anvil. It broke Argoth’s jaw, twisted him sideways, sent the whole world reeling.
Argoth crashed into the wall, then to the dirt and stones littering the wall walk.
Eresh roared and lunged. Flax held his own sword and Argoth’s axe. He blocked Eresh’s blow, but was forced to give ground. Eresh struck again. Then again. He was a blur. Flax was forced back another step. He feinted a thrust with his sword.
Eresh blocked the false blow.
It was all Flax needed. He struck Eresh’s sword hand with the axe, and the weapon flew out of his hand to clang onto the wall walk between Flax and Argoth.
“And now it ends,” Flax said. “I think you’ll find the world of souls enlightening.” He lunged with his sword. Eresh tried to dodge it, but the sword plunged into his side.
Eresh grunted in pain. His face curled in anger.
Flax pulled the sword back, snake quick, and raised it to server Eresh’s head from his body in one swinging blow.
Eresh lunged, growling, and stabbed two fingers deep into Flax’s eye.
Flax punched Eresh in the face with his fist, knocking him backward to trip over a dead Shimsman.
Flax put his hand to his ruined eye, and then his face turned feral, and he drew back his sword to finish Eresh. “I have plans for you,” Flax snarled.
“Somebody kill that whoreson!” Eresh thundered.
The world was still unstable, but Argoth’s Fire roared through him. He still had much strength. Argoth grasped the hilt of Eresh’s sword.
A Shimsman charged Flax with a spear, but Flax cut the man down. A couple of archers shot at him, but Flax picked up the spearman’s shield, and the arrows sank into the wood. Then he turned to face Eresh again.
“Now it ends,” Flax said and stepped forward to subdue Eresh.
Argoth rose and lunged from behind with all the multiplied might and speed he could muster and drove Eresh’s sword into Flax’s lower back.
The sword point bit in, punctured the mail and the padded tunic underneath, penetrated skin.
Argoth shoved harder, felt the sword slide through Flax, then meet resistance as it punctured the coat and mail on the front and came out the front of Flax’s belly just under his rib cage.
Flax roared and backhanded Argoth, but a good portion of his core muscles had been cut, and the former power wasn’t in the blow. Flax staggered a step. A soldier by Eresh rushed forward with an axe and swung at Flax’s head.
Flax turned to avoid the blow and was struck high on the back of the shoulder. The axe didn’t break through his armor, but did send him crashing to the wall walk where he gasped with pain. He struggled to roll over onto his hands and knees.
“Give me a sword!” Eresh cried. “This one won’t die until his head is severed.”
Flax tore the sword from his back, then rose, impossibly, onto his feet.
The Shimsman behind Eresh placed a sword in his hand. “Filth!” Eresh roared and charged.
But Flax did not meet Eresh’s attack. Instead he cast himself over the wall.
“Get him,” Eresh said.
But a clamor rose from a number of Shimsmen on the wall. “The blackness!” a soldier yelled.
Out on the river, a number of Bone Face ships bore down on the Mokaddian vessels. Down at the mouth of the river were dozens of other Bone Face ships. Gathering above them, spreading out like a thunderhead, was a roiling blackness. The same blackness that had been at Fishing.
Argoth looked over the wall, but couldn’t see Flax.
“The river!” another man called.
“Gods,” Eresh said. “Argoth.”
Argoth looked up and peered across the field. Something huge broke the surface of the river and swam toward the shore by the Skir Master. The leviathan beached itself, opened its mouth and disgorged something onto the rocky bank, then retreated back into the water.
The thing it spewed upon the shore moved. Then it unfolded itself and stood.
“A Kragow?” Eresh asked.
But it was too tall to be a man, too oddly proportioned.
“Filth and rot,” Argoth said, his jaw paining him.
At that moment two more leviathans approached. They rose from the river onto the bank. They too gaped their mouths wide and deposited two similar creatures on the land.
“What in the Six are those?” Eresh asked.
Argoth had seen all three before. Even at this distance, he recognized them. There had been eight others down in the cavern when the battle was over. They were all different, but all clearly fashioned by the same hand. They’d been lying in the dust, waiting to be awakened. After examining them, Argoth had insisted they be sunk into the sea. But here they were, fresh from the deep.
And there would be no stopping them.
“That thing we killed down in the Devourer’s cavern,” Argoth said. “It appears its brothers have a new master.”
Eresh shook his head. “Are we to fight Regret himself next?”
Mokad’s war horns sounded, ordering its troops to turn, but Argoth knew that would do them no good.
“We need to get out of this place,” he said. “Is the path opened?”
“The path is ready,” Eresh said.
“Get the men organized!”
“After I finish our fine friend,” Eresh said. He turned and looked over the wall.
But Flax was gone.
* * *
Sugar jabbed at a howler in front of her, then had to take a step back as another howler lunged for her.
The fire along the bones of her flesh burned, and she gritted her teeth against it.
“Sugar,” Charge called. “Where now?”
“We’ve got to get across the river!” she shouted back, but the howlers had cut them off from that escape. At one time the river had run very close to the fort, but the river bed had shifted a bit farther up the canyon, and so she and the other souls were being backed up over old river stones into a corner of the cliff face and the wall of the fort.
A soul struck out at a howler, missed, and another howler flew at him, pulling him down. There were now only nine souls with weapons guarding the hundreds behind. If a few more fell, they would be overwhelmed.
A howler appeared on top of the fortress wall, and the souls behind her moved to avoid it.
If they allowed themselves to be cornered, they would be vulnerable to the horn. They had to make a run for it.
Charge stabbed at a howler and danced back.
“We need to get the souls across the river,” she said. “We need to push the howlers back.”
“We’ll lose some,” Charge said.
“We’ll lose them all if we don’t,” she said. Another wave of pain coursed through her, and she stumbled.
A howler lunged at her, but Charge slashed down with his soul spear, and cut the beast. It cried out and pulled back.
“We’ve got to do it now,” she said.
Another howler ran along the top of the fortress wall, slavering. More appeared behind the Walkers.
A number of souls rushed at the howlers, trying to get to the river. The howlers bit. Other souls ran past, but then the Walkers rushed down to the river bed and cut off the escape, spearing a number of souls, until the men fell back.
“I think our opportunity to run just sailed out of port,” Charge said.
Another howler appeared on the wall.
“They’re going to jump,” Charge said.
“We’ll fight them to the last,” she said, knowing this was the end. The utter end. She would not see her parents in brightness. She would not see Legs. She would not be gathered with those that had gone before.
“For mankind,” she said.
“For mankind,” Charge agreed.
The howlers growled and moved forward. Sugar prepared to fight, but another wave of pain washed through her and stole her strength.
“Kill them!” a Walker cried.
The Walkers lowered their spears. The howlers moved forward.
Then a horn sounded.
But it was not the horn that had been blown before. Nor was it the roar of an urgom. It was high and sweet.
She and the other souls looked around.
The horn sounded again, reverberating off the rock walls. It was coming from the other side of the river, farther up the canyon.
A number of howlers turned. The horn sounded again, and a commotion rose in the woods on the other side of the river. Something was coming.
The Walkers stopped their advance, looked questioningly at each other.
Then a number of souls clad in whites and grays poured out of the trees. They were wearing skennings. They were holding blackspine and other weapons.
The horn sounded again now, loud and clear. And the skenning-clad souls rushed down to the water.
The Walkers began to back away from the river. The howlers barked, but moved back with them.
“The ancestors,” a soul said in wonder.
“The ancestors!” another cried.
Raveler: The Dark God Book 3 Page 33