Vulcan's Fury: The Dark Lands

by Michael R. Hicks

  He brought his right hand forth, grimacing as he did so. His arm was impossibly heavy, and it was all he could do to hold onto his blade. He made to push the long knife through the fabric. Instead, he only managed to slide his right hand across the wooden planks, not even bringing the tip of the knife to bear.

  With his lungs nothing more than pits of agony in his chest and his heart thundering more rapidly than it ever had, he gave a cry as he put everything he had left into a final thrust, and was rewarded with a hiss as the razor sharp steel sliced through the fabric. Fighting to keep his grip, he jerked upward, lengthening the cut, then twisted the knife to one side and pulled, cutting a triangular opening in the fabric.

  The wind and rain blasted through, hitting him square in the face. He opened his mouth and greedily sucked in the air. He dimly realized that, if the air outside was still lethal, he would die. But if he did nothing, he would die, anyway.

  After a few breaths he was still alive. After a few more, the gray that had swept the color from his sight began to recede, and his lungs and heart began to calm.

  Getting to his knees, he worked his way closer to the canvas and cut a larger hole, big enough to let plenty of air in, but not so large as to let in too much of the rain. In a drunken stagger, he made his way to the far side of the boat’s aft end and cut another hole, then two more in opposing corners of the cabin, which was quickly flooded with outside air. The air smelled fresh, with the peculiar scent of rain and the salt of the ocean.

  Thunder exploded overhead and the world was lit by a bolt of lightning that was so close that the hair on Karan’s arms prickled.

  “Pelonius!” He made his way aft toward the older man who lay groaning, but alive. He heard sounds and sensed movement from the others, which came as a great relief. Karan helped Pelonius sit up. “The air outside is safe for now, but the storm! What must we do with the boat?”

  Just then a gust of wind and a wave both struck the boat full on the starboard side, nearly capsizing it. The others cried out in surprise and fear, and Hercules let out a terrified mewling sound.

  “The canvas,” Pelonius said, still struggling for breath as he rose to his feet. “It’s catching the wind like a sail. Cut it away, quickly! But be careful not to cut the ropes that control the sails! Then find Haakon and send him to me. He’s the only one strong enough to hold the rudder in these seas.”

  With a quick nod that was lost in the darkness, Karan scampered forward, trying to retain his balance as the boat was tossed to and fro. “Cut away the canvas!” he shouted to the others as he passed, “But mind the ropes to the sails!” When he found Haakon, he said, “Go aft and help Pelonius!”

  After making sure that Haakon understood him above the growing fury of the storm, Karan took out his knife and began to slice away the canvas near where it was bound to the deck. Marcus, Septimus, and Paulus joined him, but their efforts nearly ended in tragedy. They were all cutting along the starboard side, from which the wind was blowing strongest. The wind poured in, but had nowhere to go but through the small holes Karan had cut earlier, and the cabin exploded as another strong gust swept across them. Marcus and Septimus were thrown across the deck by the canvas, slamming into the railing on the far side, while Paulus went sprawling into the hold. The canvas, whipping in the wind, hit Karan and nearly sent him sprawling overboard. He managed to save himself by slamming his knife into the mast as he went sailing by, clinging to the handle for dear life.

  As he wrapped his arms around the mast, a booming crack sounded right above his head. Looking up, he saw the mast pitch over the port side, nearly crushing Septimus, who was still struggling to his feet near the railing.

  Over the howling wind and rain, Karan heard Pelonius screaming, “Cut the ropes! Cut the ropes!”

  The boat began to heel hard over to port, the combined drag of the mast and sail acting like an anchor in the water.

  Lightning flashed again, the thunder so loud that Karan thought his eardrums might burst, and the unearthly cyan light revealed a terrifying vignette. Haakon stood at the stern, his face in a grimace of desperation as he fought with all his great strength to control the rudder. Pelonius was beside him, knotting a rope around Haakon’s chest to keep him from being carried away by the waves that were now crashing over the railing. Septimus was bringing his sword down on one of the ropes trailing over the starboard railing, which had been smashed to splinters where the mast had fallen. Marcus was enmeshed in a coil of ropes as if he were being consumed by serpents, his raised sword gleaming in the lightning with the brightness of the sun. Paulus was caught in mid-leap as he half-walked and half-jumped from the dark maw of the hold toward Valeria. The princess clung to Hercules, and in that moment Karan could see that even the greatest of gods could know the full measure of terror. The great cat had its claws driven into the deck like spikes, holding on for dear life as the boat was tossed by the wind and waves, and his howl rose above that of the wind. Valeria, her arms wrapped as far as she could reach around the hexatiger’s neck, had her eyes fixed on Karan.

  Unsheathing his sword, he set about helping the others cut free the mast. Karan worked with Marcus and Septimus, their weapons rising and falling in a desperate frenzy as yet more waves broke over the boat as it threatened to founder. With one final slash of Karan’s sword, the last rope parted with a snap, and the three men were thrown to the deck as the boat lurched free.

  With Pelonius shouting commands, Haakon managed to impart some small amount of control over the otherwise helpless craft. Karan looked toward the oars, thinking they might be able to row to help keep the boat pointed in the right direction, but that was a forlorn hope: all but one of the oars had either been swept away or snapped off.

  The boat was hit by another wave, and Karan heard a scream.

  “Septimus!” Marcus cried.

  A flash of lightning showed the centurion leaning over the railing, arms outstretched, but Septimus was nowhere to be seen.

  As quickly as he dared, Karan staggered and crawled to Marcus, who himself was in danger of going over the side.

  “Help me!” Marcus shouted.

  Looking over the side, Karan saw that Septimus dangled over the angry sea, Marcus clinging to him with one hand.

  “Let me go, Marcus!” Septimus shouted.

  “Shut up, damn you!” Marcus shouted in reply.

  Karan sheathed his sword, then reached for Septimus. “Take my hand! Hurry!”

  Shouting a string of oaths, Septimus swung himself forward, reaching up with his free hand as he pulled on Marcus’s hand for leverage.

  “I’ve got you!” Karan cried as he caught Septimus with both hands. To Marcus, he shouted, “Pull!”

  The two men grunted and strained, dragging Septimus over the railing.

  Lightning again flashed, and in the edge of his vision Karan saw something he could not immediately credit. A wave at least as tall as the mast had originally stood was nearly on top of them.

  He tried to shout a warning before it hit, but his voice was lost as the wall of water crashed into the boat, breaking his grip on Septimus’s hand. With a chorus of screams from the others and a squeal of fear from Hercules, the boat capsized, and Karan was swept into the dark, roiling sea.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Valeria stared in horror as a wall of black water rushed from the darkness. As if in slow motion, it slammed into Septimus, driving him against the outer hull of the boat just below the rail before consuming him. Marcus, who had one arm hooked in a loop of rope as he struggled to help Septimus up, was flung back to the deck. That side of the ship rose up as if Neptune himself had taken the vessel in his great hand, toying with the terrified mortals aboard. The worst part of the image burned into her brain, however, was of Karan: his grip on Septimus’s hand was broken as the wave took him, and he sailed past her, caught by the wave as it curled above the deck.

  “Hold on!” Paulus screamed in her ear over the horrific din of wind, rain, and the roar of the
impossible wave. The boat creaked and groaned as it was flipped like a child’s toy.

  Of course, she hadn’t needed his warning. She was already holding onto Hercules with all her strength. The big cat quivered beneath her, his brain no doubt unable to grasp what was happening. He roared in fear of what he did not understand, in anger at what he could not control.

  At the stern, Haakon clung to the rudder with one hand and held on to a rope tied about Pelonius’s waist with the other. The big man’s mouth was open in a scream that was lost to the storm.

  Then they were cast into the water as the boat capsized. All was swirling darkness, confusion, and terror.

  Hercules, afraid and confused as he was, reacted instinctively: being in water, even swimming entirely below the surface, was something with which he was well acquainted. Yanking his claws from the wooden deck, he pushed away and began paddling out from under the boat. Valeria continued to cling to him, her hands clenched around fistfuls of his fur. A sudden tightness gripped her around the stomach, and she almost screamed before she remembered that it was Paulus, holding on to her by a rope he had somehow managed to tie around her waist. Luckily, he had not had time to secure the other end of the rope to the ship, or they both would have drowned.

  The hexatiger swam for the surface, and Valeria gasped with relief as her head emerged into the spray-filled air. Releasing one hand, she pulled on the rope which bound her to Paulus, and after a moment his head, too, burst from the water. Taking a gasping breath, he swam the few feet to her and took a grip in Hercules’s fur.

  A dark mound rose and fell nearby: the capsized hull of the boat. Again, instinct drove Hercules forward, and he paddled toward it. It took three attempts before the big cat was able to haul himself up from the water and scrabble onto the curved hull, clinging for dear life with his claws as the boat was tossed amidst the waves.

  “Marcus!” Paulus shouted. “Septimus!”

  “Here!”

  They looked up to see the two older men peering down at them from over the keel. “Princess,” Marcus called. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, Paulus and I are fine.” Marcus made to come over from the far side of the keel, but was nearly washed away by a wave. “No, stay there! Stay wherever you can hold on! We’re fine here with Hercules.”

  Marcus made no objection. “What about the others?” he called. “Have you seen them?”

  “Here!” Haakon’s voice boomed from somewhere aft, and she saw an arm wave from near the rudder.

  “Pelonius?” she shouted.

  “I have him. He’s alive.”

  Valeria’s heart sank, for she heard the unspoken words for now.

  “What about Karan?” Paulus asked her.

  She shook her head, her tears lost to the sea. “He’s gone.”

  He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her. “I’m sorry. I know I was jealous of him, but I truly did like him. Very much.”

  “I know.” Pushing away the memory of Karan’s death, she said, “What do we do now?”

  “What else can we do, but try and wait out the storm?”

  She looked at the dark and angry world that surrounded them, the sky split occasionally by bolts of lightning hurled by Jupiter, the thunder exploding over their heads as the rain poured down in sheets driven by the wind. Closing her eyes, she pressed herself tighter against Hercules, who shivered and whimpered in misery.

  ***

  Valeria must have somehow fallen asleep, dragged into unconsciousness by sheer exhaustion and unending terror as the storm raged. She dreamed of her father and mother, of all the others who had died, burned or put to the sword. Of her proud legion, the legion that had flown a banner in her name and honor, of the men who had served in it. All of them murdered. And Karan. Poor Karan, who had in his quiet way stolen her heart. In her dream she watched him over and over as the giant wave took him and swept him under. She saw his face beneath the water, his mouth open in a silent scream as he was dragged into Neptune’s Deep.

  But it wasn’t Karan’s mouth that was full of water, it was her own. Valeria snapped awake to find herself submerged in the churning sea. Biting back a scream, she kicked in the direction that she prayed was up, following a swirl of bubbles. As she did so, she sensed more than saw something glide by her in the water, something huge, malevolent, and her heart hammered in terror.

  Then it was gone.

  Knowing that she must have just imagined the underwater leviathan, she kicked harder. As her head broke the surface, she coughed out the water she had almost inhaled, then nearly breathed in more as a wave crashed over her. “Paulus!” she cried.

  She thought she heard a voice somewhere to her left and began to swim in that direction, but could see nothing in the darkness.

  A flash of lightning illuminated the scene, and confirmed her worst fears: the boat was gone. She could not long have been in the water or she would simply have drowned. But there was no sign of the others, or of Hercules. She wanted to scream in rage and frustration, and considered just letting the water take her down.

  “No,” she told herself through the driving spray. “They could be out there, I just can’t see them. Please, by all the gods, let them still be alive.” She felt guilty at the thought, but of all her companions, the one for whom she prayed the hardest was Hercules. She could not imagine life without him, or the terror he must feel now, if he was still alive, paddling frantically through the water trying to find her. Drawing in a deep breath, she shouted, “Hercules, to me! Hercules!”

  Nothing.

  Something bumped into her. She latched onto it before it could get away. Anything that could float offered the promise of salvation. After a moment, she realized it was the mast they had cut away earlier in the night, the ropes and fabric of the sail trailing away like the tentacles of some undersea beast.

  She kept calling for Hercules, for the others, but no one answered. Or, if they did, she couldn’t hear their voices above the storm. More than once did she nearly drown when a wave from the darkness drove her under as she was calling for the others, but she kept calling.

  At last, her voice gave out. Completely spent, she laid her head against the shattered mast and wept, adding more tears to the angry waters.

  How long she drifted, clinging to the mast, she did not know, for mere seconds upon the wave-tossed ocean seemed to her like hours. She thrust her hands under one of the ropes that was still wrapped around the mast, binding herself to its fate.

  Later, the mast shuddered as the tip slammed into something. A wave broke it free of whatever it had hit, but then it hit something else. She could feel the vibration through the wood as the far end of the mast was dragged along…

  The bottom! The thought sent an electric current of hope through her body. Peering through the darkness, she thought she saw something darker than the sky looming ahead, framed by a brighter gray that must be the surf.

  Another wave drove her and her makeshift raft forward, and one of her feet hit the sharp edge of something below. She quickly shimmied onto the mast and pulled her legs up. The last thing she needed now was to have her feet or legs torn to shreds by sharp rocks or coral.

  A much larger wave arose from the sea, its peak rolling over into a cap of churning white foam. Caught in its grip, the mast was launched forward with such force that Valeria nearly lost her grip. When the water began to recede, Valeria found that she was no longer floating upon the water, but resting upon the sand of a beach.

  “Praise the gods,” she cried, pulling her hands from beneath the rope that bound her to the mast. Another wave came up the beach, and she was sent tumbling along the sand toward the ocean as the waters withdrew, as if the sea did not want her to get away.

  Getting to her hands and knees, she crawled from the surf as quickly as she could before Neptune had his way and swept her back to his watery lair.

  After resting for a while, she forced herself to her feet. The rain was beginning to taper off and the winds, as well
as the waves, were beginning to ease. While it was still dark, everything now was more of a dark gray than black, which allowed her to make out nearby shapes and shadows.

  Not sure which way to go, she shrugged and began to stagger off to the right, moving along the edge of the surf, following the foam that glowed dimly in the darkness.

  She came across bits and pieces of the boat, including curved planks that had been part of the hull. There was no question now that the poor craft had broken up and sank, that Valeria hadn’t simply slipped free and the boat had just floated off into the night, bearing her companions with it.

  Despondent, she continued her search, staggering along the sand at the best pace her exhausted body could take her. But she saw no sign of her companions.

  The sand of the beach finally ended in a field of slippery rocks. Her one and only attempt to make her way through and continue her search came to an abrupt halt when she lost her footing and nearly broke her ankle.

  “No,” she whimpered as she carefully retraced the few steps back to the safety of the sand, the wind howling in mockery. Reluctantly admitting defeat, she moved away from the pounding surf toward the dark mass of the unknown that awaited her inland. Twisted shadows emerged from the darkness, setting her heart pounding with momentary terror until she realized they were trees. They were unlike any tree she had ever before seen, with long, twisting, spiraling branches and densely packed leaf-covered tendrils that hung like whips. But they were still trees, and would provide some small shelter against what might remain of Neptune’s stormy tantrum.

  Carefully, she pushed through the tendrils and entered the almost pitch dark of the tree’s heart. Happily, the tendrils formed an effective screen against the elements. The ground was still wet, but she was no longer pelted by rain or battered by wind.

  Curling up against the trunk, which was as big around as Haakon’s chest, she finally gave in to exhaustion and fell into a deep sleep.

  ***

  Karan blinked his eyes open just before he retched. Sea water spilled from his mouth as he rolled from his side onto his stomach, then forced himself to his knees upon wet sand. His stomach unleashed its anger once more, forcing up yet more salty water. Once that was finished, Karan coughed on more water that had found its way into his lungs. He went to wipe his mouth with his right hand, and was shocked to find that he still held his sword. How that had happened, he had no idea. His hand must have simply clenched itself around the weapon out of reflex as he fought to keep from drowning. Blinking his eyes clear of the spray whipped by the wind across the beach, he secured the weapon in his belt and propped himself up on his knees. He remembered little of his confrontation with the sea after being taken by the huge wave that swept him from the boat. He knew from experience that there is little enough difference between one terrifying moment in dark, roiling water, and another.