Savage Messiah

by Robert Newcomb

  Tyranny pulled the parchment out of her jacket. She scanned the list of incantations and found the one Faegan said they should employ only as a last resort. There were three shorter but equally important inscriptions listed just below the longer one.

  Looking back to the east, she saw that the Black Ships were nearly upon them. This would be their last chance and it had to work. She gave Shailiha a questioning glance, and the princess nodded anxiously.

  “You can do it!” Shailiha shouted. “I know you can! But do it now!”

  Hoping against hope, Tyranny read the longest incantation aloud. The litter began to glow with the craft and rise from the sea.

  But as it ascended it started to twirl violently. Tyranny was thrown hard against one of the warriors, and her sextant and map fell to the floor. Struggling to focus, she read the next passage aloud. To her utter amazement the litter stopped spinning.

  They had risen only to about the height of the Black Ships’ oncoming mainsails. Demonslavers swarmed over the enemy decks, shouting at them and brandishing their swords. They were so close now that Tyranny could see the eerie glow pouring from the captain’s angry eye sockets.

  “Hurry!” Shailiha screamed.

  Tyranny read the second passage aloud as fast as she could. The sextant and the map started to glow. The map unfolded itself and hovered in the air. The sextant took its readings from the sun, then a beam of light shot from it to the map. The beam burned a direct course from their current position back to the Reprise.

  Tyranny was about to recite the last of the incantations when she heard the unmistakable sounds of swordplay. She turned to look, and her breath caught in her lungs.

  Their litter was literally bumping up against the mainmast of one of the Black Ships, and the demonslavers in the rigging were hacking relentlessly at Scars, Shailiha, and the three warriors. More slavers were climbing up, and it would be only seconds now before all was lost.

  Scars reached out and grabbed one of the slaves by the arm. He gave it a short twist and broke it. Wasting no time, he tore the creature away from the rigging and threw him down to the deck. The screaming slaver hit hard, head first.

  The rest of Tyranny’s group was fighting wildly with their swords. But for every slaver that they cut down, two more rose to take his place. The glowing litter swung wildly back and forth, banging uncontrollably into the Black Ship’s mainmast and threatening to send its occupants tumbling out at any moment. Several of the slavers began to swing shiny grappling hooks. Fighting the temptation to draw her sword, Tyranny looked back at the parchment and read the next incantation.

  The litter shot higher into the sky. Finally free of the Black Ship’s mainmast and rigging, it spun around to face northwest. Then it sped off, the amazing force of its momentum throwing all of the occupants crashing backward. Somehow, the sextant and the map stubbornly remained in place near the middle of the litter, guiding it on its way. Fighting the force of the oncoming wind, the exhausted passengers began to claw their way back to their seats.

  Sheathing her sword, Shailiha looked over at Tyranny. Her face and arms were splattered with blood, but she was unhurt. Micah and K’jarr had suffered superficial wounds. Striving to work against the wind, Crevin did what he could to tend to them.

  The two women looked east, back toward the Black Ships. To their relief the ships were already little more than dark bumps on the horizon. The privateer and the princess smiled at each other.

  Tyranny looked down at the demonslaver still lying unconscious on the floor of the litter. Then she turned her gaze northwest again toward where the Reprise circled, awaiting their return. It would be good to feel the ship’s sturdy, shifting decks beneath her boots again.

  Suddenly she thought of the Jin’Sai. We have what you sent us for, she thought. But how will you receive the news of your half brother? Too tired for words, Tyranny closed her eyes and laid her head against the sidewall of the litter. As she did, the sun rose in earnest, bringing with it the promise of a beautiful day.

  CHAPTER LVIII

  _____

  DAX AND THE TWO WARRIORS FLYING ESCORT ON EITHER SIDE of him were glad to see the sunrise. They had flown throughout the cold, cloudless night; the sun would bring welcome warmth to their wings and to the air that filled their lungs. As the morning light improved, Dax looked down to get his bearings.

  He was relieved to see that they were still on course. They were flying south, following the Sippora River, and were about halfway to Tammerland. Dax had left camp far later than he would have liked, as there had been important matters to attend to. Rufio had been well liked, and his fellow warriors had taken his death hard—especially since there had been no body to immolate. Dax’s first order of business had been to oversee an impromptu memorial service in the slain warrior’s honor.

  He then told his troops about the azure wall barring the entrance to the pass and he assigned a group of warriors to watch over it. If it changed in any way, they were to report it at once. He also assigned fresh troops to monitor the orb and issued them identical orders. According to the latest report, the deadly sphere, having created the new pass, had turned south again, still hemorrhaging golden energy. Where it would go from there was anyone’s guess.

  It had been the dead of night by the time Dax had been ready to depart for Tammerland to make a report to the Jin’Sai and his wizards. As the only living warrior who had seen the azure wall, he felt it was his duty to make the report personally.

  The young Minion captain stole a few moments to close his bloodshot eyes against the wind. The respite felt wonderful. He had been awake for nearly thirty-six hours, and he was exhausted. Bowing to the inevitable, he opened his eyes again and looked down to make sure that the Sippora was still below them.

  To make his group a little warmer, he led them to a lower altitude. As his view of the river improved, his eyes narrowed. I must be seeing things, he thought. He blinked, but the scene remained the same. To his utter amazement, the normally mighty Sippora had turned black and looked as thick as tar. Its banks teemed with refugees and loaded-down beasts of burden, all walking south along either side of the river. The crowds seemed to stretch on forever. They weren’t simply fleeing, Dax realized. They were moving permanently, and it seemed that they were all on their way to Tammerland.

  Stunned, Dax quickly signaled to his warriors, and the three of them soared down to take a closer look.

  There were no major cites in this part of Eutracia, but the Sippora’s fertile banks were lined with small farming villages. The water table was notoriously low here, and wells had never been a viable option. But that had never mattered, because for centuries the majestic river and its hundreds of tributaries—supplied by the glacial runoff from the Tolenkas—had easily provided all the water these peaceful farmers could use, both for drinking and for irrigation. It had also granted excellent fishing and trapping, and its fast-moving branches could always be relied upon to turn the waterwheels that milled the farmers’ hard-won grain. But now all that had changed.

  Dax thought for a moment. If he and his escort swooped closer, he knew that they would frighten the people. But it couldn’t be helped. He simply had to know more. Using hand signals, he ordered his warriors down. Buffeting the air with their dark wings, they came to land on the western bank of the river.

  As the Minions set down, citizens screamed, scattering with their burdened animals as fast as they could. Dax had harbored a slight hope that he might speak with some of them. But it was clear that he wouldn’t get the chance.

  Accompanied by his warriors, he walked closer to the river and looked down.

  The once beautiful Sippora had become a terrible sight. The water—if one could still call it that—had turned black. As thick as molasses, it moved at about one-third of its normal speed. At first its soft, pliable surface seemed unbroken. But occasionally it would crack open, hiss noisily,
then send pent-up energy high into the air.

  The Minions could easily feel the damaged river’s intense heat, and see the steam that rose from it. Then the Sippora’s awful stench reached them. It smelled like a cross between rotting fish and human waste. Everything the river touched, it turned black; the ground on either bank was scorched for quite some distance. In places where the banks had been dry, grass fires had ignited. Many still burned.

  The river looked like death itself. Nothing could live in that, Dax thought. But what had caused this horror? Suddenly he understood.

  The energy spraying from the ruptured orb had polluted the river, he realized. During the darkness of their night flight, he and his warriors hadn’t been able to tell the difference. But in the light of day it was clear that the river’s toxic flow was headed straight for Tammerland. When the stinking, superheated mass finally reached the capital, the entire city would go up in flames.

  Dax made up his mind. He looked over at one of his fellow warriors and he pointed to the river.

  “Arius, see if you can take a sample of whatever that is,” he ordered.

  “If possible, I want to take some of it back to the wizards. But be careful.”

  The warrior named Arius clicked his heels. He took up his water flask from one hip. Standard issue for each warrior, the flask was made of metal and had a leather strap. After dumping out its water, Arius walked to the river’s edge.

  The overpowering heat and stink nearly made him faint. He opened the flask and touched it to the top of the black, slowly moving mass. The flask began to hiss and melted away immediately; the strap burst into flames. Jumping back, Arius realized he had been lucky not to lose his hand.

  As Arius walked back, Dax shook his head. Opening his own flask, he took a generous gulp of water, then handed it to Arius to replace the one that the river had just destroyed.

  “I want you to fly back to camp and report this,” Dax ordered him. “Tell the warriors to gather water only from the glaciers. Under no circumstances are they to approach the Sippora. Go now.”

  Arius clicked his heels again. “As you wish,” he answered. He took several running steps and launched himself into the air. Climbing quickly, he turned northwest, back toward the camp. Soon he was merely a speck in the sky. Then he was gone.

  As Dax looked back at the river, the refugees filed grimly past him and his remaining escort; their expressions cautious and hateful, they gave the warriors a wide berth. Many of them were wounded—either by the orb, Dax assumed, or by the strangely mutated waters of the Sippora. Some were hurt so badly that he doubted they would live to see Tammerland.

  He shook his head. Tammerland was about to become a living nightmare. For a brief moment he wondered whether the refugees would blame this new calamity on the Jin’Sai as well.

  There was nothing more the two warriors could do here. Dax nodded to his escort, and they both took to the air. As the Minion captain gained altitude, he cast his gaze southeast, down the length of the steaming, stinking river.

  Even from this height, the refugees lined its banks for as far as the eye could see.

  CHAPTER LIX

  _____

  DEEP INSIDE THE REDOUBT, TRISTAN SAT ONCE AGAIN AT THE inlaid table in the ornate meeting room. His dreggan and his sheath of knives hung over the back of his chair. Around him were the other members of the Conclave, a circle of long, discouraged faces.

  The prince, Wigg, Celeste, and Jessamay had returned to Eutracia the previous day by way of Faegan’s portal, which the wizard had been able to reopen once he had returned from Valrenkium. Tyranny’s enchanted litter had finally reached the Reprise and then the group had eventually found the portal Faegan created for them. The return trip had been even harder on the privateer’s already mangled flagship. Minion carpenters and Tyranny’s crewmen were already hard at work to get her seaworthy again, but it would not be an easy job. The captured demonslaver they had brought back with them sat bound in a chair in another room, guarded by watchful Minions.

  Exhausted and disheartened, Tristan wiped his face with his hands, then grabbed his wine goblet and took a drink. They had all been talking for a long time and it wasn’t over yet. By now they had all told their various stories to one another, but they had come to no conclusions about what to do next.

  Failee’s grimoire of tooled red leather lay on the table before Tristan. He knew that Faegan was eager to plumb its depths, but so far the ever-curious wizard had managed to contain himself.

  Tyranny sat on Tristan’s left. Beside her sat Wigg and Abbey. Faegan—still wearing the Paragon around his neck—was next to Abbey. Adrian, Traax, and Shailiha rounded out the company. Everyone seemed unharmed, save for Traax, whose left arm was in a sling due to the dislocated shoulder he had suffered when some of the falling latticework struck him. Celeste sat quietly on the prince’s right. The toddler Morganna sat nearby on the floor, gurgling and batting at some toys. Jessamay occupied what had been Geldon’s chair, in between Celeste and Shailiha.

  Tristan still couldn’t believe that the hunchbacked dwarf was dead. Geldon had proved a good friend—staunch, loyal, and incredibly brave—and his death had left a hole in all their hearts that would be a long time healing. Tristan hadn’t known Lionel the Little particularly well, but he knew the diminutive herbmaster would be sorely missed, especially by Faegan.

  Faegan had told everyone of the assassin Satine: how she had managed to breach the palace walls, do her dirty work, and then brazenly walk right out again—or so they surmised. The prince was stunned not only by her creativity, but also by her daring and her skill. As he thought of her, his fingers tightened around the wine goblet. It would be pointless to search for her now, just as it would serve no purpose to scour Eutracia for the displaced Valrenkians. Shifting his thoughts back to the present, he looked over at Tyranny and Shailiha.

  “You’re both sure that it was Wulfgar you saw?” he asked.

  Tyranny and Shailiha nodded.

  “He was standing on the shore,” the privateer said. “There was a woman by his side. She looked pregnant, but I couldn’t swear to that. A man stood there, as well. He wore the traditional dark blue robe of a consul. Far more demonslavers guard the Citadel and crew Wulfgar’s Black Ships than we ever knew existed. I’m also sorry to say that a substantial demonslaver fleet still exists, patrolling the waters around the island.”

  Tristan sat back in his chair. For some time now he had suspected that Wulfgar might still be alive. He could even accept Tyranny’s report about the remaining demonslaver fleet. But he was having a very hard time believing what the privateer and his sister had just told them all about the Black Ships. Had anyone else been spinning this tale, he would have thought them mad.

  “You say that these vessels can not only run submerged, but also fly above the waves?” he asked. “And that they are not only crewed by demonslavers, but commanded by skeletons in tattered military uniforms?”

  “That’s right,” Shailiha said. She shook her head, as though she couldn’t believe it herself. “You simply have to believe us, Tristan. We saw what we saw. We were lucky to get away with our lives.”

  For the first time that day, the prince smiled.

  “I believe you,” he answered. Then he turned to Wigg. “First you mention the Black Watch, and now come the Black Ships. I’d say there’s more than just a passing coincidence in the choice of names here, wouldn’t you?”

  “Indeed, First Wizard,” Faegan chimed in. As was usually the case when he knew that he had Wigg in an uncomfortable position, Faegan’s eyes lit up. “I’d say you have some explaining to do.”

  Wigg laced his fingers together. “The Black Ships once sailed in the service of the Directorate,” he said at last. “They were the maritime branch of the Black Watch during the Sorceresses’ War. Jessamay captained one of the vessels for a time. All of the captains were accomplished wi
zards or sorceresses whom we trusted implicitly. Like the Black Watch, the ships were manned by handpicked civilians. Some of those civilians were of endowed blood, although they were not trained in the craft.” Pausing, Wigg looked around the table. When no one spoke, he went on.

  “Failee had begun to form an armada of her own, and we needed to be able to strike back at her on the sea. The war was going poorly, the Coven’s land forces advancing rapidly from the west. Tammerland was quickly becoming a fortress, its walls bursting with refugees. Famine and disease threatened. Worse yet, if the Coven gained control of the coast, they would be able to launch troops from their vessels, and we would suddenly be fighting a war on two fronts. We conjured the Black Ships to hold her off. The Tome had only recently been discovered, and the calculations for the vessels’ conjuring were found within its pages. As the leader of the Directorate I oversaw not only the Black Watch, but also the Black Ships.” He sighed and glanced at Jessamay again.

  Faegan leaned forward in his chair, his eyes alive with curiosity. “I never knew about any of this,” he said. “It must have all happened after the Coven captured me.”

  “Yes,” Wigg said.

  “Where have the Black Ships been all this time?” Abbey asked. “And can they really do everything that Tyranny and Shailiha claim?”

  “Indeed they can,” Wigg answered. “They are an absolute marvel of the craft.” He shook his head, frowning. “Near the end of the war, all seven Black Ships disappeared while on a mission to engage part of the Coven’s fleet. We assumed that they had been overwhelmed by Failee’s armada and sent to the bottom of the sea.”

  Wigg rubbed his chin. “And now, it seems, they and their captains have resurfaced.