Gathelaus struggled with all his might but could not free himself. The monster god dropped him into its gullet. He slid to the belly of the beast, landing in a mess of half rotted fish and broken bones of what must surely be humans.
Crushing wet darkness surrounded in asphyxiating doom. He punched at the flabby darkness but all to no avail.
The pendant around his neck began to glow. It turned orange and grew red hot. Gathelaus tore it away from his skin before it began to smoke and burn. The intense heat was too much, he dropped it into the sludge at his feet. A violent move by Tlaloc jostled him. A horrid scream rang in his ears from above, and the sting of burning flesh and blubber filled his nostrils.
The stomach cavity Gathelaus half crouched in, suddenly tumbled over as spasmatic jerks tore open the monster’s belly. Great clawed hands reached into the open wound and Gathelaus fought to avoid those ruthless talons as they dug at the red hot stone inside itself.
The monster rolled over again, plunging Gathelaus into utter darkness until the burning pendant tumbled down, burning a black streak across the slimy flesh like a comet in the night sky as it rolled and the monster turned over yet again, reaching inside its own open stomach to extricate the venomous sting.
Gathelaus tore his way out of the open wound as the monstrous god, Tlaloc, lay weeping upon the ground. Whatever power the pendant of the fallen star had, it was enough to cause the thing to slay itself.
“Votan!” swore Gathelaus.
Tlaloc twitched then went still. The great bulk of its huge and muscular body melted in upon itself, making it appear in a moment more akin to a jellyfish trapped on the hot strand, than an armored fish god within its own temple.
The pendant which had glowed red hot was now its selfsame, dark copper color. Gathelaus picked it up, put it around his neck, then climbed up a fallen log and ventured up to one of the cracks in the ceiling. With a little effort, he forced his way out of the opening and trotted down the steps of the ruinous pyramid.
The old woman was waiting there. She clapped her hands together. “You did it.”
Gathelaus shook his head. “Your talisman did it.”
“No, son of the north. You did it. I could not have gotten Tlaloc to swallow me and destroy himself, you did that.”
“Not what I would have planned.”
“Of course not, but I couldn’t very well ask you to face such a monster and let it eat you could I?” she said, with a flurry of her wrinkled hands.
“Can you tell me your name now?”
She smiled. “I am one of the old ones who were here before the Nine. The people here know me as Coatlique, the mother goddess. But that does not matter in the now. You must find your supporters and go to the city of Ixmal and destroy Kama-Zotz and then you will be unhindered to return home. The power of the Nine will be broken and the great barrier will be destroyed as well.”
“You know where my supporters are?”
“Of course. Follow that path and you shall find them in moments. Do not forget what you must do.”
“I won’t,” he said, turning to hurry down the path.
“Gathelaus, wait. That is my pendant.”
He stopped and gave her a mischievous smile.
“I am not a love-struck girl to allow you to take my talisman. Give it back and also give Xilitiaxacoco, hers back too, as soon as you can. You will not need it any longer once you defeat Kama-Zotz.”
He strode to her, smiled, and put the pendant back in her hand.
“Thanks for your assistance, Grandmother,” he said.
“It is all for the balance that the world so desperately needs,” she said.
Gathelaus turned to go down the trail but wheeled about to say something and she was already gone.
Breath of Life
Hawkwood’s ship, the Kraken, was a war cutter that moved at a good clip. With two mainmasts and three supporting sails and a good even draft, it could overtake most any other vessel on the sea. So it was with a fair amount of fear that the man in the crow’s nest cried out, “Captain, there is a ship astern approaching at double our speed.”
Hawkwood’s initial reaction was to think the man mad or at least with addled wits, but he drew forth his spyglass and looked and lo there was a strange ship bearing down on them with incredible speed.
It had three sails and was set in such a way that outriggers bore it up. There was no keel at all.
“Is she one of those damned natives you told us about?” asked the first mate, drawing his boarding cutlass.
“She is coming from the north, so I don’t think so,” said Hawkwood still peering through the spyglass. “She is fast all right, but I suspect its her rigging and make rather than anything sorcerous. It’s an ingenious design.”
“One of the pennants looks to be Shang-Henj,” added the first mate looking through his own glass.
“That it does.”
“Will she be trouble for us?”
Hawkwood shook his head. “I doubt it. I count only seven men. But it is curious. Signal her to stop.”
“Aye aye, Captain.”
One of the Kraken’s sailors pulled out the bag of signal pennants and began waving them from high on the back of the ship for the new ship to stop and parley.
“She doesn’t look to be slowing down at all,” cried the signal man.
“All right then,” said Hawkwood. “If they can’t be friendly, I will put a stop to them.”
The first mate took hold of Hawkwood’s shoulder. “Is it worth it? You’ve drained yourself too much for us making this voyage already. All men have a fixed amount of time. Even you. Do not waste it.”
Hawkwood shoved the first mate back and his eyes burned in a fury. “I set out with a job to do and I’ll do it by the gods or I’ll not do it all!” He drew his long Damascus dagger from his belt and, facing the sea, cried out, “Thoem! Heed me and I make the pact yet again. Cast a wave and still the winds to halt that ship!” He slashed his own hand and raining drops of crimson fell into the sea and boiled as it hit the water. The gray hairs upon his head expanded farther, the number and depth of the wrinkles on his face increased, and he looked at least five years older than he had a moment before.
A small patch of boiling sea, almost the size of a man, lifted up a few feet from the surface and then darted toward a collision course with the new ship.
***
“What the devil is that!” gasped Niels from the deck of the skiff.
Tang Shook narrowed his gaze from the pilot’s wheel. “Black magic. Hawkwood thinks to make a demon of the sea bring us to a halt.”
“Can he do that?”
Tang Shook chuckled nervously. “You’re seeing it aren’t you? So, I would say yes.”
“What can we do?”
“I shall try and dodge it. We at least have speed on our side.”
He banked hard to the left and cast a good distance between the skiff and the intended spot where the watery demon had been set to collide. The lifted wave changed course and pursued them with renewed vigor, going at least as fast as the skiff.
***
Hawkwood barked, “Give us all speed, we’ll catch them in a vise.” He took the pilot’s wheel himself and adjusted course toward a set of islands in the distance. He watched the skiff changing course to evade the water demon, but, like a chessboard, he had anticipated moves far in advance and grinned with wicked glee at his trap.
***
“It looks like we are leaving Hawkwood far behind, but that wave is keeping up with us,” cried Niels over the spray of water in his face.
Tang Shook attempted all evasive maneuvers he could with the skiff, and still the water demon kept up. Every time he looked behind, it looked to him like the thing had gained on them by inches, and he postulated that it could catch them within the hour. He had been tortured in the dungeons of the Red Emperor before and had no intention of ever falling victim to such a thing again. He told himself he would rather crash the skiff into the rock
s of the approaching islands and die than be taken alive by another corrupt sorcerer. He cursed himself for agreeing to come on this mission. The thought of the final payout had been great but the risk, why hadn’t he thought of the risk?
“Do you have a plan?” asked Galen.
Tang Shook took another look over his shoulder at the demon wave. “If we can get far enough away from the source-the enchanter who conjured it-it will lose influence and may be disrupted and fail. And go back to the ether.”
“You don’t sound too sure of that,” said Niels. “Isn’t there anything else we can do to fight it? Sink a spear into it?”
“It is an elemental force. You would do no more to halt it from its mission than to bury a spear in the sea. It cannot be harmed until it is made flesh. And it may never be made so.”
“So all we can do is get hit by it or escape?”
Tang Shook glanced at the breakers covered by waves of white and was tempted to ram the skiff then and there. He looked back at the demon wave. It was gaining.
Had he really come so far and been through so many things to suddenly end his life so pointlessly?
“Are you all right?” asked Niels.
“Fear takes hold too strong sometimes,” he said softly.
Niels gripped a spear. “I need to try something, we can’t just wait.”
“I will try something unexpected,” said Tang Shook.
“What?”
“I will aim beside those breakers and see if I can run it aground.”
***
“See that?” asked Hawkwood. “Their pilot is panicking. We’ll get them yet, just around the bend of these islands. We’ll have them caught in a wedge between us, the demon, and those breakers.” He grinned. “Prepare a boarding party. We take them in overwhelming numbers without killing them if we can. I want answers and I want that ship.”
The men roared, “Aye captain!”
***
A long sandbar came off the nearest island, pointing like a finger at the black breakers. The skiff rounded along the island, glazing over the water at top speed. The inconceivable greenish wave rose four feet out of the swell and followed, matching their speed.
Rounding along, Tang Shook suddenly veered into the sandbar and hit the sand with an incredible thud, but the power of the winds and momentum carried the skiff over the sands and back into the sea.
The demon wave followed and slapped against the shore with a resounding thud. The sea water that had formed the thing carried over the bar but dissipated. A bizarre force did hit the men on the skiff.
Niels expected to feel some sort of shockwave, but it was the exact opposite, they felt nothing—no breeze, no motion, no wind. After long days at sea it was incredibly disturbing to feel—nothing.
“That was too close,” said Tang Shook.
“What do you mean? Didn’t that maneuver save us?”
“In part,” said Tang Shook. “Look.” He pointed at the sandbar where the skiff had skipped over the dry surface. The demon wave had followed them but the enchantment had died when it struck dry land, but the additional focus of its power had calmed the breeze and rendered their ship, now just a few yards out onto the sea, dead in the water. The waves along the shore toyed with the skiff, teasing whether to take her back out to sea or throw her back on the shore.
“But the rest of that spell has stolen our wind.”
“And Hawkwood is coming,” said Galen, pointing at the rapidly approaching cutter.
“What can we do to get moving again?” asked Niels.
“We must get beyond the breakers and catch a good breeze or we are doomed.”
“Then let’s paddle for all we are worth and catch that breeze again!” shouted Niels.
Hawkwood’s cutter loomed closer.
***
“Interesting,” said Hawkwood. “They beat the elemental from thrashing them but it still took their wind.”
The first mate glanced at Hawkwood and gasped.
“What?”
“Your bargain took more than you know,” stammered the man.
Hawkwood could not see his own face but he looked at his hands. They were more wrinkled than he recalled. Veins and liver marks had pushed their way across his bronzed skin as well. He appeared at least ten years older than he had just moments before.
“How?” asked the first mate.
Hawkwood grimaced. “The death of the elemental must have drawn out some more of my lifeforce so that it could accomplish the task at least in part. It’s a hard price to pay, but we have them, do we not?”
“It would seem so, Captain, they are struggling between the shore and the breakers. We can cut them off with the life boats and hem them in, no matter how doughty a fighter they have, we have six times their numbers.”
Hawkwood grunted. “Take them alive if we can. Wounded is fine, but alive.”
***
Niels strained with a long pole, pushing for all he was worth against the sandy bottom. Others had paddles and sat on the ends of the outriggers trying to row in unison, but against the oncoming waves they made feeble progress. Tang Shook steered, but was just as rapidly turning the opposite end as the lack of wind destroyed their maneuverability.
“He’s getting closer,” said Galen. “Perhaps we would have better chances, if we just went ashore and found a notch to secure ourselves in. Fighting chance at least?”
Tang Shook stopped steering and broke out his alchemical bag.
“We need you on that wheel!” demanded Niels. He pushed mightily with his pole and lost his helm. It tumbled into the sea before he could grab it. “Astarte’s tits!”
Tang Shook ignored him.
“Tang! You take that wheel!”
“Without wind, we are done for!” snapped Tang Shook, wildly out of his usual calm demeanor.
Niels looked to Galen, who ceased trying to row and took the wheel, though he fared no better at it than had the alchemist.
“Gods of sun and wind, hear my call and give us the breath of life!” shouted Tang Shook as he splashed a handful of dust into the brazier. A wisp of smoke fizzled out but did nothing more. He repeated the maxim and the action and was met with the same results.
“I’m beginning to think Galen has the most logical idea left to us. I can’t see anything but jungle in there, but maybe on dry land we’ll have a better chance than here on a floating coffin,” said Niels.
“Give me time, give me time,” muttered Tang Shook absently.
Hawkwood’s ship was only a quarter mile away.
“I can’t give you any more time,” shouted Niels.
Without looking at anything but his current cantrip, the alchemist snapped, “Not you, the spirits!”
“Guys,” said Galen.
“I know, Hawkwood is getting closer. Tang, we have to give up the ship,” ordered Niels.
“Guys, no. Something else,” said Galen.
“What?” asked Niels.
“Them!” said Galen, pointing at a flotilla of out-rigger canoes just appearing on the opposite side of the sandbar. There were more than a dozen small twelve-man boats and three very large ones that looked to carry fifty men apiece. Aboard them were short squat men with dark brown skin and snaky black hair. They wore simple breech clouts and necklaces of finger bones and a few senior looking warriors wore headdresses of bright feathers. They were armed to the teeth with spears and arrows. The foremost men shouted at the skiff in a language that left little imagination of their intent. Kettle drums on the larger craft beat an ominous throb.
“I don’t think hiding on the island is an option anymore.”
“Time, time,” repeated Tang Shook. “I need more time for the spell.”
Hawkwood’s ship closed in on them, only a few hundred yards off.
“Hear me, oh makers of the dark and night, light my way, take essence of good faith and grant the Breath of Life for our lives!” cried Tang Shook.
A strong gust of wind came up from out of the jungle an
d the skiff lurched forward violently as the sails caught hold. Galen was knocked from his feet to the deck and Niels lost the pole he was holding and narrowly missed getting tossed overboard. The skiff shot past the breakers and out to sea at a fantastic rate of speed.
Hawkwood’s cutter rounded the point and was suddenly met with the outriggers teeming with headhunters.
“By the gods! Have you ever seen so many before?” asked the first mate.
Hawkwood shook his head, put on his winged helmet, and drew his sword. “Let’s give them hell.”
***
By eventide, Niels sighted land and what must have been the mainland. This stretched on in every direction as far as the eye could see. In the distance, black pillars of smoke hinted at volcanoes but along the shore there was naught by bright greenery of palms and mangroves.
“Now what?” asked Niels. “Have you a way to find Gathelaus?”
“There is always a way. If he is still alive,” answered Tang Shook.
Galen spoke up. “I’d hate for us to get all the way down here and not have the king to rescue.”
“Not as bad as he would feel about it,” laughed one of the others.
Tang Shook pointed to the north shore and the vague hint of campfires. “We should go south and find a sheltered lagoon or cove. It won’t do to be too near settled regions until we can ascertain the friendliness of the natives.”
“What about those others that got to Hawkwood?” asked Galen.
“Those were headhunters. I don’t believe they are the same people as the Tultecacans proper.”
“Well, just the same. I hope they don’t get too much indigestion from eating that evil bastard,” said Galen.
“We can only hope,” agreed Tang Shook. “Keep the lights dim and I will search out for our mighty king and where we may land to give him aid.”
They sailed on in a southerly direction along the coastline, hearing sounds of the jungle that were foreign to them. They were also annoyed by the biting sting of insects they had never before encountered. As the moon crept up and over the tree line, they saw a sheltered lagoon, illuminated by silvery light.
FIERCE: A Heroic Fantasy Adventure (BRUTAL TRILOGY Book 2) Page 24