Shadow Raiders tdb-1

by Margaret Weis

  Raising a speaking trumpet, Stephano bellowed through it. “Demons!” He jabbed his finger in the direction of the approaching swarm.

  Rodrigo heard and understood. He looked over his shoulder and even from this distance Stephano could see his friend’s horrified expression. This apparently convinced Henry Wallace, for he turned to see the demons closing in. The bats were no longer a homogenous mass. They were individuals, their mouths wide, fangs gleaming. Their riders with their hideous faces twisted in fury, orange eyes glowing, were raising the green-fire, handheld cannons.

  Stephano could not see Wallace’s face, but he could tell by the fact that he took an involuntary step backward and had to steady himself by grabbing onto a mast that he was astonished and alarmed.

  The naval ships had heard Stephano’s warning cannon shot and seen his flag. Most captains would summarily dismiss a small Trundler boat signaling danger. A few astute captains might take the signal seriously. Every lookout in the crows’ nests above and every officer on deck below would have their spyglasses sweeping the skies, searching for the threat.

  They did not have far to look.

  The heavy mists of the Breath below the ships shredded. More bats and their demon riders rose from below. The demonic forces were already causing havoc in the harbor, firing their green blasts at the helpless merchant vessels, which were essentially sitting ducks. Already flames were starting to rise from burning hulls and masts. Naval gunboats were racing to their aid, but the navy was now coming under attack, as well.

  A flurry of signals sailed up mastheads, captains asking the flagship what was going on. Beating drums on board all the ships sent the gun crews to their stations. The shore batteries were already prepared to enforce the blockade, their gun crews were at their posts, gunports open, guns ready to fire.

  “And we’re in their sights!” Stephano realized.

  Henry Wallace had reached exactly the same alarming thought.

  “Miri, take her up!” Stephano shouted frantically.

  “Gain altitude!” Wallace yelled.

  The ship’s balloons billowed with magical energy, giving them full lift capacity. A flag with a blue cross on a white background soared up the mast on board Wallace’s ship. The flag meant: “Break off your intentions and communicate with me.” Stephano wondered what the hell Wallace was up to. Now was hardly the time to try to open negotiations with the Royal Navy! Probably a mistake, he thought. Some panicked sailor sent up the wrong signal. He was proved right in that the next moment, that flag came down and they sent up a distress signal.

  Stephano shouted. “Stay on Wallace’s tail! I don’t want to lose Rigo.”

  Miri tossed her red hair. “I’m supposed to sail through an army sent by the Devil himself, keep this boat from going down in flames, and all the while try to fly this boat fast enough to catch a ship that has three times her sail?”

  “I have every confidence in you,” said Stephano. He grinned as he ran past her.

  “You’re enjoying this!” she said accusingly.

  Stephano considered her statement as he crouched behind the swivel gun and looked down the sights. “Enjoy” wasn’t the right word. He didn’t enjoy the idea that their boat might come under attack or that innocent people were dying or that he and his people might be blown up at any moment. But he knew what Miri meant.

  This was danger he understood. Danger he could fight. No more hiding in the darkness, skulking about alleys or crawling over rooftops. No more getting slammed on the head from behind or sneaking out through wardrobes. No more of his mother’s sneaking, underhanded, lying way of doing business. This was war, plain and simple. Stephano knew what to do in war and he knew how to do it and he was damn good at it.

  Dag had loaded both the swivel guns. While in Westfirth, he’d found time to buy more canisters of ammunition, for they were stacked neatly on the deck. Dag had said nothing about it, of course. All part of his job.

  Stephano looked at Dag: steady, cool, calm, undaunted in the face of danger. He looked at Miri, her lips pressed together in grim determination, her hands flying over the brass helm, paying no heed to the demons or the bursts of green fire or the flashes of fire from the guns of the shore battery. He looked out across the widening expanse between their ship and the Silver Raven and saw Rodrigo, seated at his ease in a deck chair while chaos erupted around him. Stephano looked at Gythe, who was now crouched on the deck at the bottom of the mast, terrified nearly out of her wits, but refusing to hide, singing softly to maintain the magic that would protect the Cloud Hopper.

  Stephano’s eyes dimmed with tears, his throat and nose clogged. These were his friends, and he loved them. For a moment, he couldn’t see to aim his weapon. He gave himself a mental slap and wiped his eyes in time to witness an astonishing sight.

  The Breath boiled and out of it rose a ship. The vessel with its wide beam and a squared bow looked cumbersome and unwieldy. The short forecastle was overshadowed by a high sterncastle that extended out beyond the hull. The Estarans had built ships like this during the Bishops’ War, but that was more than one hundred years ago. He’d never actually seen one in person, only in books. Three masts rose from the deck, but none of them supported any balloons. Black sails flapped in the air. In the center of each sail, a human corpse dangled from a rope.

  Stephano grabbed a spyglass to get a better look. The ship’s hull was covered in leather marked with strange sigils. Glowing green lines ran from sigil to sigil, connecting them all in a grotesque construct. Green energy crackled along the black sails as the ship leveled off.

  Miri’s eyes widened at the sight. Her hands trembled and the Cloud Hopper’s forward speed slowed.

  “Miri, whatever that is, it’s not after us!” Stephano shouted, hoping he was right. “Keep up with Raven.”

  Miri nodded and turned back to her task. By this time, the Cloud Hopper and the Silver Raven had gained altitude and were floating above the Old Fort, looking down on the battlements with their shore batteries. The hapless merchant vessels in the harbor and the navy gunboats and warships were all under assault. Smoke and flames rose from the docks.

  Stephano wondered how the Trundlers were faring. Probably not well. Unlike the Cloud Hopper, few Trundler ships were armed and would be illprepared to fend off the demon attacks. Miri was worried about her uncle and family; he could see her cast agonized glances over her shoulder in a vain attempt to see what was happening far away at the Trundler village.

  A few demons had been flying toward the Silver Raven. The merchant vessel carried a score of large swivel guns to fend off pirates. They had manned their swivel guns and were ready to fire when, surprisingly, the demons broke off the attack and flew, instead, toward the Cloud Hopper, which was closing rapidly on the Raven.

  Sir Henry Wallace was on the deck of the Silver Raven with the captain (Wallace was no coward, Stephano had to give him credit for that) watching the demons; a puzzled expression on his face, as though wondering himself why they had not attacked the ship. He actually walked over and said something to Rodrigo, who shrugged his shoulders.

  Wallace gazed at the demons flying toward the Cloud Hopper another long moment, then he spoke to the captain. He may not have known why the demons had not attacked his ship, but he was quick to take advantage of the fact. The sailors were running to set more sail, increase Raven’s speed.

  Having fought the demons before, Stephano and his crew were better prepared to deal with them than the sailors on board the naval vessels; many of whom, Stephano guessed, must be in a state of mind-numbing panic. As it was, he and Dag had practice aiming and firing at the giant bats and their demonic riders.

  Green fire flared, racing toward the Cloud Hopper. Gythe’s magical defenses arced blue and the first shots did no damage-except to Gythe. She gave a whimpering cry and put her hands over her ears.

  “Gythe! Go below!” Stephano shouted.

  Gythe either didn’t hear him, or she was pretending she couldn’t hear him. H
e had asked her before what the demons were saying to her, but she had replied that while their words made sense at the time, they didn’t make sense when she thought about it. Like voices in a dream.

  Stephano watched an approaching bat, waiting for it to fly into his sights, a trick he’d learned in the last battle. Below the Hopper, the shore batteries had opened fire on the ungainly black-sailed ship, which was flying straight toward them. The ship was still out of range, and the batteries were trying to find their target. The demonic ship was armed with only a single gun mounted on the high sterncastle. The gun wasn’t very big, and Stephano wondered what sort of damage the fiends thought they could do with that.

  He fired the swivel gun at a demon and saw it veer rapidly off. He had no idea whether he’d hit it or not. Dag’s gun fired almost simultaneously. Dag struck his target; the giant bat shrieked horribly, flipped over, and bat and rider went spiraling down into the Breath. Before Dag could reload, a bat flew up from underneath the hull and dove at Miri. Dag grabbed his musket and fired, just as the demon shot green fire at her. Miri ducked behind the helm. The Cloud Hopper’s magic flamed blue. The demon flew off; one arm dangling useless at his side.

  Gythe slumped down onto the deck and moaned.

  “Dag! Take Gythe below!” Stephano yelled.

  Dag tried to persuade her to leave. She shook her head obstinately. Stephano reloaded his swivel gun and Miri left her helm long enough to race over to reload Dag’s. Stephano waited tensely for another attack, but none came. Bats that had been flying toward them suddenly veered and flew off. Dag, shaking his head, went back to the gun. Gythe, shivering in fear, remained defiantly on deck.

  Miri dashed back to the helm. The fight with the bats had cost them precious time. The Silver Raven, now with all sails set and its propellers whirling, was drawing away from the Cloud Hopper. Stephano had lost sight of Rodrigo.

  “Stay with them!” Stephano yelled.

  “I’m trying!” Miri yelled back impatiently. “Something is fouling the main yard control lines. I can’t set the mainsail! Port side.”

  Stephano ran to the port blocks. A quick examination revealed several large splinters of wood lodged in three of the main pulley lines. Stephano used the butt end of his pistol to knock the obstructions free.

  The port mainsail filled with air. The Cloud Hopper surged forward.

  Stephano and Dag remained at the swivel guns, watching the bats and the demonic ship, which was crawling nearer and nearer the shore batteries. Its single gun looked like a child’s toy. The shore batteries were firing, attempting to hit the strange ship, but they were having difficulty targeting the vessel.

  Stephano and Dag both aimed their swivel guns at the demonic ship, though there was small chance of hitting it. Still, a lucky shot might do some damage. As Stephano stared down the sights, the ship flickered and blurred in his vision, shifting left, then right. The sight made him dizzy and he had to look away. He blinked and tried to aim again, but the same thing happened.

  “I can’t see to shoot at it!” Dag called.

  “Some sort of weird magic,” Stephano muttered.

  The Cloud Hopper was directly above the battlements, flying over them at about twenty feet. A man in a black cassock ran along the top of the wall, followed by a man in armor that shone in the sunlight. Stephano recognized Father Jacob and Sir Ander. Some distance behind the two, he could see their companion, the monk. Movement and the flash of sunlight on scales caught his eye and he looked up at the Bastion and his heart skipped a beat.

  A dragon stood poised on the top of the cliff, his wings spread, ready to soar down and join in the fighting. Stephano recognized his old friend, Sergeant Hroalfrig. Stephano waved to try to attract the dragon’s attention. Miri had caught sight of Father Jacob and was exclaiming in worry over him.

  A green beam shot out from the single gun mounted on the strange ship and struck the concrete bunker housing the guns of the shore battery. The beam was powerful, blinding as though one had looked directly into the sun. All Stephano could see for a moment was the afterimage, yellow tinged with red. The beam blazed for maybe a minute. Green light washed over the concrete and stone and magic walls of the bunker and then the beam went out.

  Nothing happened.

  No fire, no explosion.

  The guns of the shore battery had not ceased shooting. Stephano could hear the booms and see the flashes from the muzzles and the cannonballs flying through the air. He was halfway inclined to laugh at the demonic ship and its little gun, and then he heard a rumbling sound, deep and terrible; the sound of breaking, cracking, smashing.

  The side of the bunker crumbled. The stone and concrete walls collapsed, crushing the gun crews. The enormous cannons lurched forward and fell into the Breach, along with a huge portion of the side of the cliff. The walls of the old Fort cracked. The guard towers shook and started to topple.

  Stephano tried frantically to see what had happened to Father Jacob and Sir Ander who had been on top of the battlements. Smoke and dust rose up in choking clouds and he lost sight of them. He looked for Hroalfrig and saw the dragon diving straight into the midst of the chaos and then Stephano lost sight of him, as well.

  On board the Cloud Hopper, everyone was dazed, struck dumb. Sailing above the disaster, they looked down on utter ruin. Even from here, they could hear the screams of the wounded, the dying.

  Then Miri gulped and said in a strangled voice, “How did… how did that happen!”

  “I saw something like this back on the redoubt,” said Dag, shaken. He glanced at Stephano. “The fire from your dragons broke down the magical sigils. My crafter had to work to restore them. But this.. .” He shook his head, words failing him.

  “This attack didn’t break down the sigils,” said Stephano grimly. “This obliterated them.”

  Gythe gave an eerie animal cry and pulled herself up. She ran to the railing and was leaning over, staring into the ravaged fortress. Walls were still collapsing. One of the towers-located directly over the battery-had gone down in a heap of stone and rubble. Gythe pointed frantically at the fort.

  “She wants to help,” said Miri. She didn’t say it, but they all knew Gythe was thinking of Brother Barnaby.

  “There’s nothing we could do,” said Stephano. “We’re not out of this yet ourselves. And we can’t abandon Rigo.”

  Gythe looked at him, her face tearstained and unhappy. She gave a bleak nod of understanding.

  The Silver Raven was sailing past the last guard tower, leaving the Old Fort behind, heading out into the open Breath. Stephano looked back, fearing pursuit, but the demons were concentrating their attacks on the naval ships. Smoke and flame shot up from the dockyards and the harbor area. The demonic ship with the green beam was coming about. Another shot would finish the Old Fort, but now the demons were facing a new threat-the flagship, the Royal Lion, was bearing down on them.

  “Ha, ha!” Miri cried triumphantly, pointing to the Raven. “I knew it!”

  Stephano wrenched his gaze away from the battle and looked at the merchant ship, which had been steadily drawing away from them. He had been wondering dismally how they were ever going to catch Raven when he saw the ship had slowed considerably. Sailors were rushing about the deck, where Wallace stood, red-faced and furious, gesturing wildly.

  “What happened?” Stephano asked.

  “I knew it!” Miri repeated, exultant. “They were carrying too much sail in this wind and snapped a yard on the main topsail. They’ll have to slow down or risk losing the balloon.”

  The Silver Raven was still sailing, but the Cloud Hopper was definitely catching up to her. Stephano turned to look back at the battle. The Royal Lion, King Alaric’s pride and joy, fired a broadside at the demon ship.

  The demon ship took no damage that Stephano could see. The magical sigils on its hull protected the ship much as Gythe’s sigils protected theirs. The single gun mounted on the prow fired. The green beam swept over the flagship.

 
The Royal Lion seemed to shudder. Stephano heard a series of cracks and groans. Several small explosions tore through the lower gunports, and then the entire hull on the port side exploded outward. A moment later explosions rocked the starboard side. Flames flared from the quarterdeck and main hatches.

  The flames breached the main magazine and ignited the ship’s store of powder. The entire bottom half of the ship disappeared in a blinding flash. The flaming remains of the Royal Lion fell into the Breath and were gone.

  “Dear God in Heaven!” Stephano breathed softly. “Not even for you, Hastind, would I have wished such a fate. God have mercy on you all.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  And on God’s palette are the colors of the world, and one of those colors is black. So I will not fear the darkness, for it is of God’s making as death is another part of his grand design. My soul will walk in the darkness and shadows and marvel at the night sky. Death is but a journey back to the canvas of my God.

  - Requiem

  WHEN HE FIRST SAW THE SWARM OF DEMONS flying to the attack, Sir Ander had regretted the fact that his magically reinforced heavy steel breastplate was back in his guest room on the armor stand. Scrambling down the face of the cliff and running along the battlements in the heat of midday, trying to keep up with Father Jacob, Sir Ander no longer regretted the breastplate. He was now starting to regret wearing clothes.

  Father Jacob was running across the battlements, shouting at the top of his lungs, “To arms! To arms!”

  Guards grabbed their weapons and looked about for the enemy. If the warning had come from anyone except a priest of the Arcanum, the guards might well have shaken their heads and gone back to watching the navy ships harassing merchant vessels.

  An officer cried out, “Father, where is the foe?”

  Father Jacob did not stop running, but he did slow down. He pointed to the sky above the Bastion.

  Sir Ander, who was closing in on the priest, saw the startled look on an officer’s face, saw the man’s jaw drop, his eyes widen. He could imagine what was going through the man’s mind. The officer was about to rush off when Father Jacob grabbed him.