“All right, Ghow,” said Roth. “I reckon we’re about due a parley. Noctilus has made himself scarce and we need a plan of action before he shows up again. Some way to corner him so he can’t escape, that’s what we need.”
Ghow’s reply was cut off by the sound of distant cannon fire. Roth span round, racing to the gunwale. A needle of flame burst into life in the mists ahead.
The captain cast his gaze around, but all of his allies were close by.
“Everyone’s here,” said Roth. “So who’s firing?”
“Couldn’t say,” said Ghow, shrugging as he rubbed the gull’s foot pushed through his earlobe. “Hope whoever it is gives them a bloody nose before they’re scuppered.”
Another thin stab of fire lit up the mists in the distance. Shadows shifted in the fog and the boom of a far-off broadside echoed dully.
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” said Roth, his jaw set firm. “Forget the parley, this is too good a chance to pass up. Let’s help our new comrade send these dogs to the bottom of the sea.”
“Sally bells!” shouted Roth, waving to the men up on the Templus before turning back to his first mate. Ghow’s scowl spoke volumes.
“With every hour that passes in this place, Ghow, Noctilus gets stronger and we get weaker. Any chance I’ve got to send the Reaver to the bottom of the ocean is a chance I intend to seize. You can understand that, surely?”
“Right you are, sir,” said Ghow, though his tone of voice suggested that he thought rather differently.
Sails full, the Heldenhammer carved through the waves between the Thunder and the Swordfysh, its bells ringing out across the water. Roth could just about make out Aranessa making obscene gestures and shouting curses in his direction.
Far off to port, the Flaming Scimitar had begun to fall in behind the Heldenhammer. Roth was certain that Aranessa would follow, despite her protestations. There was safety in numbers, after all.
Only a madman would brave the Galleon’s Graveyard on his own.
The mists thinned as Roth and his allies pushed on towards the sounds of battle. Sure enough, there was a foreign vessel in the distance, its elegant lateen sails a vivid blue against the deep crimson of the water around the volcanic isles. The graceful curve of the warship’s ivory prow and the spindle towers that graced its aftquarters were unmistakeable to a veteran mariner such as Roth.
He turned to his first mate, eyes gleaming.
“Ghow, look. An elf warship. A flagship of the Ulthuan navy, no less,” said Roth, leaning over the edge of the forecastle. “I haven’t seen one of them in fifteen years.”
The chalk-white vessel had taken refuge in one of the large calderas that dotted this stretch of waters, the warships of the Dreadfleet circling it. To Roth’s eye, it looked as if the elf ship’s captain was using the caldera as an improvised castle wall against the enemy, but it was still vulnerable to accurate fire.
As Roth watched, one of the elven vessel’s topmasts was blown apart by a volley from the Reaver, taking one of its nine triangular sails with it. Behind the Ulthuan vessel, the skaven leviathan from the rat-coves crackled with baleful energy, ready to discharge a storm of black lightning as soon as it had a clear shot.
Just as the leviathan moved into position, an ivory-scaled dragon the size of a brigantine swooped out of the mists, a burning lance of flame shooting from its maw. Even as the dragon glided past, it twisted in the air so that its flaming breath was concentrated upon one of the brass spheres bulging out from the whale-ship’s flank.
An explosion echoed across the waters as the sphere detonated, ripping a great wound in the undead monster’s flank. Roth clutched the gunwale tight as a dragon the colour of an autumn sunset dived down from the bruised clouds above the caldera. Breathing a great gout of fire, it drove back the Nehekharan galley attempting to force its way through the gaps in the atoll wall.
“The elf has some help of his own, looks like,” laughed Roth. “I’ll wager he won’t be fending Noctilus off for long, though, even with the help of his pets. We need to make our presence felt, maybe draw some of the Dreadfleet toward us if we can.”
“Hard-a-port,” ordered Roth, striding over to the stairs. “Hard-a-port and prepare starboard guns.”
Slowly at first but with gathering speed, the Heldenhammer slewed around in the crimson water, presenting her flank to the Dreadfleet as the sails were artfully trimmed to take maximum advantage of the strong winds.
“Burke, fire at will,” snarled Roth, a fierce satisfaction in his voice.
The temple-ship shook as scores of great cannons spat plumes of flame from its flank. On either side of the Heldenhammer, the Swordfysh and the Flaming Scimitar followed Roth’s example, adding their firepower to the long-range fusillade.
The broad spread of shot smashed into the Bloody Reaver’s craggy central mass, sending algae-stained rock tumbling into the sea and laying open a honeycomb of sepulchres and crypts. The Swordfysh’s volley crashed home into the Nehekharan galley, buckling the curved golden blade that jutted from its prow and tearing the arm from the scorpion-clawed figurehead that rose above it.
As Roth took stock of the situation through his spyglass, the Dreadfleet reacted to their presence, peeling off from their persecution of the wounded elf vessel in order to avoid being outmanoeuvred by the oncoming foe. The Black Kraken abandoned its attempts to grapple the elf warship and sank bubbling under the crimson waters, whilst the skaven leviathan-ship and the Nehekharan war galley ranged out wide.
The elf vessel made use of the reprieve, all eight of its remaining lateen sails turning in perfect unison to capture the wind. It carved through a gap in the sunken caldera that Roth could never have hoped to negotiate, not even in the Nightwatch. By Roth’s reckoning the space between the warship’s alabaster hull and the jagged rocks on either side was barely wider than a man’s torso.
“Those elves know how to handle a warship all right,” said Roth. “I doubt even the Stiletto could have pulled that little manoeuvre off, eh Ghow?”
The first mate nodded his tattooed head. “Aye, very clever, sir. Must be a regular Red Henri to get himself surrounded like that.”
Leaning out, the captain shouted over the balustrade at the gunners hurrying on the decks below.
“Mortars, suppressing fire. Buy our new friends some time.”
From his vantage point on the forecastle, Roth could see the waters boil within the craters that dotted the landscape. Something was causing the underwater volcanoes that punctuated this stretch of water to erupt. Geysers of blood-red fluid shot high into the air, some of them perilously close to the allied warships.
“Make it quick, lads!” shouted Roth, an edge of threat in his voice.
Up ahead, the Flaming Scimitar’s sails filled near to breaking point as a tempest djinn billowed out of the larger minaret and propelled the pleasure barge away from the boiling waters with its hurricane breath.
The warship’s surge of speed came to a sudden halt as thick mechanical tentacles burst out of the waters and lashed into its stern in a spray of ruddy water. The metal limbs thrashed across the deck of the Scimitar, killing dozens of silk-clad warriors in the space of a heartbeat. The tempest djinn above them exploded into vapour as the Kraken slashed out at it with a barbed tentacle. Two more mechanical limbs curled around the minarets as the kraken-ship hauled itself out of the water, almost capsizing the pleasure barge with its sheer weight.
The oily tentacles tightened their hold upon the Magus’ treasure houses. Painted timbers splintered and groaned as the minarets began to give way. Roth cried out, helpless to do anything but watch as his only hope of breaking Noctilus’ curse was crushed by the foul contraption.
As the Kraken’s grip constricted, several of the urns strapped to the minaret walls shattered, releasing a burst of glittering water. Roth could just make out the rotund form of the Golden Magus lurching along the tilted topdeck towards the magical waves. The thin curve of the sorcerer’s burn
ing sword left strange sigils hanging in the air behind him.
Abruptly, the waters pouring across the deck of the Scimitar reversed their flow, cascading upwards and crystallising into the form of a gigantic sea-devil that towered over the minarets. No lissom nymph this time, but a ruggedly-built warrior maiden of rock-hard ice. The looming water-spirit grasped the clanking tentacles in her heavy hands and, with the patient strength of a glacier, slowly pulled them away from the minarets. Thrashing its limbs, the Kraken began to slide backward into the sea, forced away from the Scimitar’s deck by the sea-spirit’s frozen bulk.
A flicker of hope flared in Roth’s chest as the Kraken changed tack, whipping its remaining tentacles free from the Scimitar and wrapping them around the glacial maiden. Landslides of shattered ice cascaded from the warrior-woman’s broad shoulders and arms, but still she fought on. With a sudden jerk of her iceberg fist, she wrenched one of the tentacles clean out of the Kraken’s foresection, holding the wriggling thing high in the air as if it were a trophy.
A thin, unnatural shriek echoed across the waters, piercing the turmoil of battle. Roth cried out in encouragement, thrusting his father’s blade aloft.
The Flaming Scimitar, no longer held in place by the Kraken’s metallic bulk, shot forward like a crossbow bolt. The Black Kraken crashed into the water in its wake, still wrestling with the Magus’ warrior spirit. Immersed in the boiling spume, the glacial maiden stood little chance against the submersible’s full might. She dissolved with a low moan, crushed into shards and then melted away into nothingness by the boiling waters.
As the Flaming Scimitar escaped from the submersible craft, the elf warship made all speed away from the rest of the Dreadfleet. The broadsides from the allied warships had broken the stranglehold upon the slender Ulthuan vessel, but it was still in serious trouble.
Cutting in from starboard, the Nehekharan war galley was carving back around on an intercept course, oars rising and falling with a speed and precision that no human galley could hope to match. Eight-foot bolts of sharpened bone shot out from the triangular portholes arrayed at its sides, volley after murderous volley slashing across the deck of the escaping warship. Massive bone catapults lined along the pyramid-ship’s top deck sent flaming projectiles arcing through the air to rain down upon the Ulthuan warship, punching holes in the sails and obliterating entire ranks of elven crew in storms of enchanted fire. Roth hissed as the tip of the galley’s stern began to glow painfully bright, the great jewel that formed its sting crackling white with raw magical energy.
The elven warship slewed round in the water once, twice, three times in quick succession, tacking in an evasive manoeuvre that left Roth blinking with admiration. A thick beam of destructive energy lanced from the pyramid-ship’s stern towards where the vessel should have been, but it did nothing more than gouge a hissing furrow into the bubbling waters.
The Nehekharan galley was ploughing through the waves towards the Heldenhammer. The Reaver was peeling off in its wake, preparing to fire a full broadside at the oncoming allies.
“Fire hard to starboard, lads,” shouted Roth. “The Nehekharan’s back for his gold. Give that miserly old jackal everything you’ve got!”
Galvanised by the thought of losing their hard-won bounty, the Heldenhammer’s gunners leapt into action, pivoting their cannons towards the enemy warship. Barely a hundred yards from them, Grimnir’s Thunder changed tack so that its gun batteries were pointed straight at the oncoming war galley.
The allied warships fired in unison, catching the Nehekharan galley in a devastating crossfire that smashed two of the giant statues rising from its flanks into powder. Several of the catapults upon its deck burst into so much splintered bone as the Thunder’s self-loading cannon pounded volley after volley onto the deck.
Red Brokk was not done yet. The turret mounted atop the ironclad swivelled around, its thick-barrelled flame cannon hurling out a blinding plume of flame. A sustained inferno swept the Nehekharan galley’s deck, reducing the skeletal warriors clustered there to blackened clouds of ash. Too late, the galley came about, foul black smoke pouring from its decks.
The elf warship carved through the boiling waters at incredible speed, waves of reddish spume rising in its wake. Behind it, the dragons took turns to harry the gun crews of the skaven leviathan and the Bloody Reaver. As fearless as they were graceful, the great drakes swooped over and around the enemy warships, spitting fire from their jaws.
The ivory-hued dragon drew in close to the Reaver and as it passed, a tornado of crimson whirled out from the vampire ship’s battlements. Roth watched in horror as thousands of winged eater-fish swathed the majestic beast in a whirling cloud. They were devouring it alive, latching on to it and ripping off chunks of scaled flesh with frenzied speed.
The dragon screeched, bones exposed to the humid air. It tumbled through the skies uncontrollably, dashing itself upon the rocks of the distant caldera in a halo of dark blood.
The sleek white warship carved past the Heldenhammer in a graceful arc, interposing the temple-ship’s bulk between itself and the Bloody Reaver. To its stern, the vampire ship’s cannons roared, but only a single cannonball punched through the solid oak of the Heldenhammer’s hull.
“Is that the best you can do?” crowed Roth, jabbing two fingers upward in the sign of the twin-tailed comet.
It would take the Reaver a while to reload, and in the meantime the allies had the burning Zandrian galley at their mercy. Roth rushed over to the portside gunwale. The Thunder was in hot pursuit of the limping Nehekharan warship, its flame cannon gouting.
“After it,” shouted Roth. “Kill it. Come about to starboard and full sail. I want it put that one down once and for all.”
Aranessa evidently had the same idea. The Swordfysh had altered its course to cut off the Zandrian vessel’s escape. The pirate galleon’s cannons boomed as she came about. A good half of the oblique broadside smashed into the distant Skaven leviathan, sending an entire gun deck of crackling energy-cannons tumbling into the sea and forcing the revolting thing back behind the caldera. Bereft of support, the Nehekharan galley had no choice but to limp further into the island chain.
Roth chuckled evilly. “Full speed please, Ghow. It looks like Aranessa’s on the hunt as well. The spear of Manann—Aranessa as the port blade and us as the starboard. We’ll soon run the bastard down.”
“Aye, sir, I think we might at that,” said Ghow, nodding over to port. “Looks like your pointy-eared mate’s decided to join us too, now the battle’s all but won.”
Roth was in too good a mood to rise to Ghow’s bait. The wind was with them—perhaps because of some artifice of the Golden Magus, perhaps purely through good fortune. Roth cared little either way. They finally had one of the Dreadfleet cut off from its fellows, and with Noctilus and his cronies caught in irons they could deal a decisive blow to the Reaver’s fleet.
The Swordfysh swung out wide to port, accompanied by the Flaming Scimitar, while Roth came in from starboard. They were gaining on the burning war galley as it limped into a loose scattering of islands.
Roth extended his spyglass and turned it upon the smoke-wreathed deck of the Nehekharan warship. Through the lenses, Roth could see a tall, regal figure standing at the side of the burning vessel, its skeletal crewmen stalking to and fro behind it.
The figure was clad in the raiment of an ancient king, though its features were those of a corpse. Its jaw was working in a mockery of speech as it gestured towards the skies with one hand, the other tipping a pile of glittering sand over the side of the warship. The fine powder left a trail of light as it dusted the waves below.
Roth’s brow furrowed.
“I don’t like the look of that,” he said, under his breath. “We might have some magic to deal with, Ghow,” he said, his tone leaden.
There was a thin cry from above. “Port! Hard-a-port, captain, now, or we run aground.”
“Port, tiller. Full turn,” shouted Roth, glancing at the s
entinel houses above as the Heldenhammer altered its course.
“This had better be good,” he called up through cupped hands.
“There’s rocks rising everywhere,” came the reply.
“What?” shouted Roth, shoving his way past his men to the prow of the warship. “What in Sigmar’s name are you talking about?”
Sure enough, the islets scattered throughout this stretch of water had become peaks, their sides glistening with red-hued slime. Several more jags of rock broke the surface of the water as Roth watched in alarm. The keel of the Heldenhammer juddered and the captain was forced to grab on to the balustrade lest he pitch over into the ruddy waters below.
It came to him with a jolt. The peaks were not rising at all, but instead the waters were receding, draining away at an alarming rate to expose deadly teeth of rock beneath.
“Trim the sails. Brace and pull her in,” shouted Roth, his face white with alarm and frustration.
“But sir, the pursuit?” called Ghow. “If we slow now he’ll lead us a right merry dance. We’re so close to sinking one.”
“Just do it, Ghow!” bellowed Roth. “I’ll not run us aground again. He’s led us into a trap, damn it all, he wants, us to pursue.”
Leaning awkwardly to one side, then the other, the Heldenhammer came to a halt, its hull scraping hard upon the peaks of rock beneath. Away to port, the Swordfysh fired a broadside after the retreating war galley, but most of the cannonballs smashed into the promontories jutting high into the air all around.
What had been largely open water was now a mountainous network of peaks and troughs with barely enough seawater running between them to keep the allied warships afloat. It would have meant certain disaster for such a deep-keeled galleon as the Heldenhammer to pursue under these conditions.
Roth swore a blue streak, slamming his fist into the balustrade.
[Warhammer] - Dreadfleet Page 12