The Last Battle

by Chris Bunch

  Hal hesitated for an instant, remembered the old proverb that the "enemy of my enemy is my friend," and grinned to himself.

  He blew a note on the trumpet, and Farren swooped close.

  "Back to the ship," he ordered. "Bring the others. And spare magazines."

  Farren, his reins hanging limply, made a "why are we doing this" gesture, laughed, and dove away.

  Hal pointed down, and blew the single note:

  "Attack."

  And down they went, some on his heels, some hesitating a moment before gigging their dragons downward.

  Hal noticed, and was oddly pleased, that Kimana Balf was one of the first to attack, her long dark hair sweeping back behind her.

  But the disciplinarian in him made a note to chide her about the hair. It might have been beautiful, and most warriorlike to see, but Hal had known three fliers who had worn their hair long, and were somehow strangled by it, in battle.

  He put such nonsense out of his head, loaded his crossbow, and looked for a target.

  There were many of them.

  He found one, aimed at its head, waited until Storm was very close, and killed the beast.

  Storm himself was hissing, snarling angry.

  His tail lashed around, almost spinning him out of the skies, and caught one of the snake things and tore its head off.

  He had another in his talons, tore its chest open as Hal killed his second beast.

  Hal expected the snake things to break off, but they were determined to fight, swirling around the nets, striking up at the dragons.

  The water creatures had a better chance now, as the snake things ignored them for the moment.

  They drove their pathetic spears deep into the monsters' chests and necks, and when the creatures rolled, went for their underbellies.

  Hal took Storm up, around, and back down in a dive, killing two more of the beasts.

  He heard a scream, saw a dragon, caught by a snake thing by a wing, pulled down into the water. Its flier spun off, splashed down, and three snake things tore at him.

  Hal kicked Storm around, killed one of the creatures. Then Cabet was coming in from another direction, killing a second.

  But where the flier had splashed down, there was nothing but a froth of blood.

  Hal brought his forehand grip back, forward, but there was no bolt in the trough.

  He swore, pulled the empty magazine free, dropped it in the canvas bag beside him, clipped another magazine in place, and then Farren Mariah, at the head of six other dragons, dove into the fray, a whirlpool of screaming, killing dragons, and their prey.

  The snake things seemed to realize then that they were being slaughtered, and broke away, swimming at their best for a gap in the reefs.

  Hal's dragons harried them out, and then the monsters vanished into deep water.

  Hal took Storm up and around again, and there, just outside the lagoon, was his fleet.

  He wondered how the ships could have arrived so quickly, then realized the sun was low in the sky. It was almost dusk.

  The barges were in position on the Adventurers, and he signaled for the dragons to land.

  He orbited overhead until everyone had landed, then brought Storm in, staggering with fatigue as he came out of the saddle.

  He looked out, across the lagoon toward the island.

  The water beings had swum to the edge of the reef, and bobbed in the water, only their heads in the air.

  They reminded Hal of curious harbor seals.

  One of the creatures eeled over the rocks into the open sea, and was swimming toward the Galgorm. He reached the landing barge as Storm was led up to the stable deck.

  The being was covered with sleek fur, had a pug nose, and intelligent eyes.

  It stared for a long time at Hal, as if evaluating him.

  Then it lifted both paws—no, hands, with stubby but noticeable fingers—out of the water, palm up.

  A sign of peace?

  Hal didn't know, but he walked slowly forward, holding his own hands up, weaponless.

  23

  "Throw him a fish," someone shouted.

  Hal glowered back in the direction of the voice. This was no time for japing.

  "I'm not jesting," the voice came again, and Hal recognized it as Farren Mariah's. There came a wet-sounding splot on the barge deck.

  The sea being still trod water close to the barge.

  Hal, feeling very much the fool, picked up the fish, and, holding it in both hands, presented it to the creature.

  He swore if he heard one laugh from behind him, that person would be sweeping dragon shit for the rest of the voyage.

  No one laughed.

  The creature lifted out of the water, took the fish, equally ceremoniously, looked up the ramp after the vanished Storm, then dove underwater.

  And the watching sea beings disappeared as well.

  Hal didn't know what to make of it.

  "I's'pose," Farren Mariah said, "we'll now find out if that's a fish that meets their fancy. A fancy fish, as 'twere."

  Hal grunted.

  "We'll anchor out here," he said. "Put four dragons in the air, and a detail, with crossbows, on each ship to watch for those damned snakes. And man the crossbows at the mastheads."

  Two turnings of the glass later, they found out, as sea creatures bobbed up, on the seaward side of the rocks this time, and, not waiting for an invitation, swarmed the ships.

  Hal didn't know whether to sound the alarm, but found it was too late, as a wallow of sea creatures buried him.

  One was on his lap, another was curiously nuzzling his neck, a third was seemingly fascinated by his smooth skin. All of the creatures were chattering incessantly and loudly, as if sure their listeners understood everything.

  "Off me," he growled. "You're too fat to be cute."

  But no one paid any attention, until they heard a sharp bark.

  One creature—perhaps the one Hal had given the fish to—was splashing for attention about a dozen yards in front of the Galgorm. Another one motioned at Hal, chattered away, then pointed with a stubby finger at the creature in the water, who swam into the lagoon, turning and beckoning as he did.

  Hal had an instant to think.

  It would be better inside the lagoon, assuming there weren't any enemies there, than outside, with the snake monsters.

  He ordered all six ships to up anchor, and, with a favoring breeze, to sail into the lagoon.

  At least, he thought forlornly, we're making our own trap.

  As the ships began moving, the creatures dove off them, and swam alongside.

  The six anchored in beautifully clear, almost transparent water, and then the creatures came back aboard.

  This time, they had fish of their own to present, and various kinds of exotic fruit from the island nearby.

  Kailas guessed they'd made friends.

  The sea creatures seemed fascinated by the least thing any man or woman did. They even tried to follow, flopping awkwardly on legs that were as much fins as anything, when someone went into the canvas-screened jakes in the ship's bows.

  "Like dogs," one flier said.

  "No," Quesney said. "Not like dogs at all. Something else. Something I can't put my mind to. But it's unsettling.

  "I think."

  Limingo was ready with his spell.

  He'd taken a bit of fruit peel one of the sea people had cast aside, water from the lagoon, herbs from his chest, and put them into a cotton bag.

  He'd dipped the bag in some noxious substance, and surreptitiously rubbed it against the furry back of one of the sea creatures.

  He'd touched it to his lips, and then to Hal's, while murmuring foreign phrases, then:

  Speak tongue

  Ears listen

  Front them

  To us

  Bring words

  Bring thoughts

  Carry them

  To us To our lips.

  After that came a long chant, again in an unknown language.


  Quite suddenly, the sea creatures' chatter came clear, many voices talking all at once:

  "Big… so big… could use to pull nets… one like us… tall naked tree… sun higher… check nets… nets tight… new twine… fruit good… babe has hunger… foot scraped… watch for wolas… like Hnid… float well…"

  "Great gods," Hal managed.

  "Now we can talk to them," Limingo said.

  "If we want to," he added wryly.

  Naturally, once the sea creatures—who called themselves the Hnid—found out that two of the big ones could understand them, their nattering grew louder and quicker.

  Hal had to listen to most of it, since Limingo was busy administering the spell to all officers, fliers, and anyone else interested.

  "Pour me another brandy," Kailas said.

  Limingo obeyed.

  "I always thought primitive people—if the Hnid are people—had primitive languages.

  "Hah. More fool me. Do you know, they have five different ways to describe how rotten a fish is."

  "I'm not surprised," Limingo said. "And they are people, if not very advanced. Animals aren't that big a pain. Oh, by the way, those snakes are 'wolas,' if you care."

  "I'm not sure I do," Hal said. "Not to mention that I'm starting to doubt whether magic is always that useful."

  "You and me both."

  The dispatch boat the snake monsters had attacked was warped into shallow water near the smaller island, unloaded, then careened.

  There was enough dry, seasoned wood in the holds of the ships to make repairs, and the seams were stuffed with oakum and the hull was tarred.

  The sailors worked hard, no one taking more than a momentary break.

  No one wanted to be stranded on this strange island if anything happened.

  In two days, when the tide rose, the dispatch boat was righted with levers and rope pulleys taken from the ship's lines and yards, then bodily dragged when the tide was out into deeper water in the lagoon.

  Fully afloat, its boats brought its cargo back aboard.

  "Seamanlike, that," Farren approved. "Yo ho diddly ho, and have the cabin boy buggered by all hands as a prize reward."

  So the sea people were on their side.

  Except that "scent" of magic that Limingo had felt still needed explanation.

  He, Bodrugan, and the two acolytes wanted to explore the islands. There was no objection to them landing on the smaller island and exploring it, which took minutes.

  But when it came to the larger, wooded island, the Hnid began whimpering, almost trying physically to stop them.

  Limingo halted his investigation for the moment.

  It was the enormous brewer's wagon that was Babil Gachina who made the discovery.

  The Hnid looked at him with awe, for his size. Chook the cook was similarly regarded.

  Why Gachina swam ashore to the wooded island and began exploring was never explained. He claimed he was gathering fruit. Hal wondered if he was looking for something that might be worth looting, but held his tongue.

  In any event, after a couple of hours, Gachina reappeared on the beach, looking shaken, and swam back to the Galgorm. He sought out Hal.

  "There's… there's a frigging city under that wood!" he managed. "A frigging great city! With carvings everywhere!"

  Hal quizzed a couple of the Hnid, got only the vague explanation of "dry home."

  "old home," and "home before," which gave him nothing.

  But it was enough.

  He collected Limingo, ten men of the expedition with raider experience, plus Gachina, Chook, and Farren Mariah, armed them and went ashore. It might have been impolite, but they were too far from home to worry about proper etiquette.

  There was more wordless complaining from the Hnid, but they made no move to stop Hal and the others.

  "Here," Gachina said. "Here's the way I found to go in."

  It looked like the entrance to a fox's burrow. The brush that had been cleverly arranged to hide an entrance hole had been shoved aside to make room for someone of Gachina's bulk.

  Gachina went first, Hal behind him, holding back the desire to draw his sword.

  He'd expected the burrow to close down, and pushed back his fear of closed spaces, but instead it widened out.

  Hal was able to stand, and found himself in what might have been the hall of a forest king.

  On either side were great squared stones, carefully trimmed to fit together without a gap.

  Here and there were doors and windows, narrow, taller than a man, cut into the stone.

  Overhead were the "woods." Hal puzzled, then realized that trees had been grown into saplings, then bent over and tied so they formed an arc over the stones and the streets between them, hiding the city.

  He wondered why, thought about the red and black dragons, thought that might be an explanation.

  "Here's your magic," Limingo said, almost whispering.

  There was no threat, felt or seen, but Kailas felt as if he were in an eerie temple.

  "I feel no sense of man's hand working these stones," Limingo said. "But the smell of magic is still very strong, if very old."

  There was no point in just gaping.

  The men spread out, as if they were on a combat patrol, and they moved through this deserted monolithic city.

  It was not unoccupied—Hal saw a Hnid duck back into cover, saw a couple of pups on a higher landing.

  But no one came to them, no one spoke to them, and there was none of the Hnid chittering to be heard.

  The streets wound around, came back on themselves.

  The city felt much larger than it was.

  They came to a central square, and saw a ramped passageway leading down, high-ceilinged and wide.

  Hal felt a vast reluctance to go down the ramp.

  "Don't go down there." Limingo echoed his feeling.

  "Why not?"

  "I… I don't know. But it's not wise."

  Hal waited for an explanation, but none came.

  They found an avenue away from the entrance to whatever was underground.

  The stones on either side, polished ebony, were carefully carved.

  They began with beings like the Hnid, swimming in the sea, fishing, fighting battles with fabulous monsters, some of them snake things.

  Then stones were shown being carved from a great, looming mountain, shaped, with no mason shown in the carvings, then somehow lifted out to sea and carefully stacked, and the city was born.

  There were other islands pictured, other cities built.

  Then there were great ships, little more than barges, with twin square sails, sailing away from the cities toward the land beyond.

  After that… nothing.

  There was empty space on the stones to continue the story.

  But no one had.

  No one knew what to make of it, and so they returned to their ships.

  Hal, thinking of that eldritch passage underground, kept men on alert that night.

  And, when he finally was able to sleep, he dreamed.

  24

  All there was, at first, was a soft, diffident voice, amid a roiling sea of gray. The words came haltingly, as though the dream was trying to find a common language with Hal:

  I am Malvestin, of the Hnid.

  I am but a simple recorder.

  But I come from a generation of fisher-leaders, those we call kings, and it is my task to remember from the beginning, when we were but simple animals, living in the shallows, catching our brothers, the fish, with our fangs, as they did, then, later, as our bodies changed, with our fingers.

  Hal was now in that street of carvings, of what was the Hnid's history. He saw the carvings, then they came to life, took on the colors of the real world, and moved past him as the voice continued:

  That gave us power over our brothers, but we held it wisely, never taking from the sea more than we needed.

  But then greed came on us, and we wanted more, and that may be our doom.

/>   Strange creatures came from the depths, and we were their prey.

  There had been stories before, about what could happen to those who ventured close to the depths that went down as canyons from our warm, comfortable shallows.

  There were many kinds, some huge-winged yet still fish; some like the snakes of the sea that we avoided, but these were huge, and had gross bodies like whales; some were monstrous sharks; others jellyfish larger than any seen, with dangling tentacles that meant death to all who touched them.

  We fought back as best we could, with our arms, then with sharpened sticks we found along the shore of the islands we lived near.

  We grew more clever, and found our enemies' lairs, and destroyed their eggs, their sprats, just as they found our hatchlings.

  Somehow, and this is an art that is now long lost, we learned to have thoughts with the tiny beings that make sea-rocks, and taught them to build in giant circles, around the islands that we chose to live near.

  Now we were safer from our enemies, only the snake-headed creatures having sense enough to come in through the small openings in our reefs that we needed for entry and exit, and to work the nets in the outer waters that we had come to use instead of our fingers and spears.

  All was good, all was far quieter, and we grew to love the power we had gained.

  Now we struck back against the monsters, driving them from our shallow seas into the canyon depths.

  Again, our power grew, and some of us learned to work spells, things that could reach for leagues and make changes, or make the fish come to us.

  We grew bolder, and, leaning upon our magic as a weapon, we explored the seas, the islands, and found the great island to the west.

  Emboldened, we left the water not just for hours, but for days, and our bodies changed, grew legs.

  Land and sea were now ours, and we used our sorcery to reach inland.

  We found a mountain, then others, who were as sounding boards to our magic, and whose boulders could be worked and transported by wizardry. We carved huge boulders out, and moved them through the water, and then, later, as our powers grew, through the air to our islands.

  Fitting stone on stone, we built houses out of the water, then larger buildings we used for gathering places.

  Our mother, the sea, was no longer trusted, and we took to the land more and more.