“Here it is.” Dank gestured. “Our way in.”
Garrett peered into the fissure. It was dreadfully dark, a slender cave with walls only ten hands apart. A curtain of wet vines hung like teeth a few steps within, concealing whatever lay beyond.
“I’ll not go in there,” said Marlos.
“Yes you will.” Dank plucked Saul’s staff away and used it to part the vine curtain. “In fact, I think you should go first. Put your hands on either wall, watch your head, and walk slowly. When you see light, you’ll know you’ve reached the other side.”
Marlos narrowed his gaze, but did as he was told. He went first, then Dank, then Garrett and the rest. Garrett took to the darkness as though he were a shadow, sliding like an assassin between the fissure walls. The gap was wide enough for one man abreast and the walls felt like they might close in and crush him, but he did not complain. Like a mouse in Morg’s belly, he imagined. One gulp, and the cliff will eat us.
He moved carefully through the dark, seeking the promised glimmer of light on the other side. He heard Marlos shuffling ahead, and more than once bumped into Dank. After a time, the sounds of the sea returned. He saw stars winking through an aperture in the darkness, and he glimpsed the black sheen of the sea. Shouldering ahead, he emerged from the wall, only to find he had climbed a considerable height. He and the others were nearly atop the massive cliff, while the Furyon camp was far below.
“Look. There,” Dank said quietly.
He teetered on the edge. Just a few steps away, the cliff dropped off, falling sheer as a sword blade to the beach far below. There they are. The Furies.
He glimpsed fires, tents, wagons, and burned-out pits stacked deep with bodies. The signs of the enemy were everywhere. He strained his eyes to take it all in. He saw one of the three towers Saul had spotted earlier in the day, a black stone spire rising like a knife alongside a second cliff on the far side of the encampment. He saw the great harbor, its moonlit waters cordoned from the open sea by a circle of rocks jutting up like broken vertebrae. Lastly, he saw the ships. There were scores, some moored at the end of docks, others floating in the harbor like ropey-limbed skeletons. Lanterns swayed on the decks of some, but on others darkness reigned. Floating coffins. Marlos was right.
We know nothing of the sea.
Saul and Endross emerged from the tunnel, and Garrett turned his gaze away from the ships and back to the beach. If ever there had been order in the Furyon camp, it was long gone. Torchlights on poles were stabbed everywhere in the sand, the fires revealing hundreds of tents, crates, bundles, and other accessories to the invasion. Clustered near the far cliff were innumerable cages, some forged of iron and others of wood. He knew what the cages were for. Some small part of him hoped to see a green-eyed girl gazing back at him across the night, but all of the cages were empty.
“How do we get down?” Marlos broke his concentration. “And what do we do when the fiends catch wind of us?”
“Shhhhh…” Dank clutched Saul’s battlestaff and knelt close to the edge.
There was space on the shore for tens of thousands of men, but Garrett had difficulty spotting actual Furyons. Far and wide he looked, but counted only some forty soldiers, most of them scattered and drowsing near their tents. They look listless, awake but asleep, he observed. Their backs are to us. Their eyes are set on the sea. Other than a few shouts from the ships and the sounds of the sea rolling in, the harbor was silent.
“It’s too dark. They don’t see us,” remarked Saul.
Dank grinned. “Nor will they.” The warlock returned Saul’s staff and slithered ahead of him on the wall. Garrett saw the intended way down. Cut close to the cliff, a shelf of rock half a man wide protruded from the otherwise sheer face. Like a stair, it worked its way down toward the shore, treacherously steep in many places.
Fearless, Dank put his back against the rock and began to shuffle down. Garrett knew it would be easiest for the warlock, considering his size.
“You can’t be serious.” Marlos took one look at the shelf and glared.
“Follow or jump.” Dank shrugged. “My way will hurt less, I promise.”
“But how?”
“Keep your back to the wall. Walk sideways. Never look down. Be glad I marched you so hard in getting here, Marlos. Your old belly might’ve killed you here.”
Saul was first to follow, then Garrett. One misstep meant death, and one cry would surely awake the Furyons from their half-slumber. Garrett worried none for himself. He flattened his body against the rock and slid gracefully sideways, gradually working his way down. If he had any worry, it was for Endross, whose armor he knew would make for a disadvantage. But look at him. He spared several glances upward. Like a part of the cliff himself. The knight will not fall.
An eternity the descent seemed, and too foolish for a warlock’s plan, but soon enough all five men stood in a copse of rotting trees at the base of the cliff. Garrett’s breaths were slow and steady, but the others were all sweat and ragged gasps.
“One glance this way, and the Furies will be on us.” Marlos knelt in the shadows to catch his breath.
“No,” said Dank. “Stay near. They’ll think us shadows.”
“Damned sorcery.”
“You’re right to mistrust it,” said Dank. “But foolish to mistrust me. Remember, I die too if the Furyons find us.”
“Well enough,” Marlos conceded. “Which ship are we stealing?”
Garrett followed Dank’s gaze. He spied a galley at the end of a long dock, by far the nearest ship of all those in the harbor. It looked only a few moments’ sprint away… and far enough from the Furies they might not catch us. A single torch lighted the galley’s deck, smoking profusely as it neared its demise.
“That one.” Dank pointing the ship out for Marlos’s sake.
“That one? The five of us could never oar it,” Marlos hissed. “I know foolish when I see it. It’d take at least ten men to make that thing move.”
“A shame your eyes are so weak,” said Dank. “Look closer.”
Garrett had seen it, and now the others did as well. Though there were no Furyons aboard, there were men of another breed. He counted nearly twenty of them, several on each side of the craft, drowsing like dogs on the deck. Some lay atop long benches made for oaring, and others on the raised planks on the galley’s aft. Garrett thought he saw chains around some of their ankles and wrists, but the torchlight fluttering over their heads did not reveal enough to say for sure. What mattered most was that their hair seemed the color of wheat, not the raven of the Furyon soldiers. Slaves, he realized. Men we might free.
“You see?” Dank implored Marlos to look closer. “Those are probably Grae men. No others are so pale.”
Marlos squinted. “Pale or not, what if they’re loyal to the Furies? They could cry out. We’d be dead men.”
“They won’t,” Dank promised.
“How do you know?”
“Because no men are so loyal to the Furyons that they wouldn’t leap at the chance to escape. The only reason those poor sods sleep on the galley instead of in those cages is that they’re strong enough to row. Any weakness, and they’d have been shipped off to Malog months ago. They’ll be plenty happy to see us. If not, a few of your swords against a few of their throats will convince them otherwise.”
The sands between Garrett and the dock were not so wide. A handful of unoccupied Furyon tents and a few piles of crates littered the beach, but he saw no guards. Now is the time to lead. I must go first.
Before Dank could give the order, he sucked in a deep breath, darted out of the dead trees, and ran from the cliff wall. The sand felt hard beneath his boots. A charnel smell lingered in the air, telling of those who had died before him. The others hissed at him to come back, but he paid them no mind. He shot from tent to tent, using the broad expanses of black cloth to shield him from wandering eyes. Move like water, he told himself. Glide like wind. A hundred breaths later, he hunkered behind a pile of crates not
twenty paces from the dock. He looked back and saw the others retracing his footsteps, Dank and Saul in the lead. They moved terribly slow, plodding through the sand as though it were mud, but at least no Furyon cries cut the air. The Furies do not suspect, he knew.
No men are so foolish as we.
They soon joined him beside the crates, huddling close like sheep in a forest full of wolves. Dank wore a dry grin, but the others were nervous and sweating, all of them expecting the Furyons to spring upon them. “The ship,” Garrett told them. “Follow me. Do as I do, and maybe we will live.”
He saw their doubts crackling in their eyes, but sprinted away before they could speak. The tip of Lorsmir’s sword made lines in the sand where he pelted, his boots throwing clumps of sand in the air. Like a hunting cat, he sped straight to the dock, vaulted up the creaking stairs, and darted across the planks to the galley’s side. The lonely torch he had seen from afar burned atop a pole on the deck not ten steps away. Beneath it he saw the drowsing men, who slept even with him so near.
Hair like wheat. Beards thick as bushes. He glanced across their faces. Grae and Mormist oarsmen. Friends more likely than enemies.
A few breaths later, the others joined him. He saw Marlos’s face white with terror, Saul’s wide with wonder, and Endross’s dark as Furyon stone.
“Get aboard,” Dank whispered. “Quick as quick.”
“Try not to wake these beauties,” Marlos remarked of the sleeping men. “If one of them cries out, we’re finished.”
Garrett crept up the gangplank and dropped down onto the deck. The three-tiered galley was black-planked and close-quartered, and the shadows favorable for him to skulk in. He glided soundlessly between the oarsmen’s benches, and observed the chains bolted to the deck and manacled to every man’s ankles. One by one, the others climbed aboard behind him. No Furyons came running, no horns blasted, and no storms erupted in the sky. The galley bobbed almost peacefully in the water, rocked gently by waves darker even than the sky.
“Crows’ tongues, we’re lucky.” Marlos crouched beneath the torch-pole.
“Be thankful for Dank’s magic,” said Saul.
Garrett looked to Dank, whose eyes glittered with brighter than the stars. “Unless I am deceived, there was no magic.” he said. “The warlock did nothing.”
“No magic?” Marlos cursed. “You mean—?”
“…you made it here on courage alone,” Dank said smugly.
Marlos’s face turned red as flame. “I swear it, if you lie to us again, I’ll—”
“Shhhh…” Dank raised a finger. “Our hosts are waking.”
Garrett looked over the oarsmen, several of whom were stirring to life. They were a tanned and lean lot, their muscles taut as gut strings, their gazes sallow and distrusting. He could hardly distinguish one from another, but was able to tell none were of Furyon build. When the first of them fully woke beneath the main mast, he crept along the deck and knelt beside him. “We mean you no harm, friend.” He showed the fellow his hands.
The waking man sat suddenly up, the chain between his wrists ringing like a chime as he rubbed his eyes. “Who are you?” he asked.
“Garrett Croft.”
“Croft, you say? That be a mountain name.”
“From Trebidal, south of Orye.” He nodded. “I am the enemy of your captors. I need your help.”
By now, the other oarsmen were sitting up and staring. Marlos and Saul did their best to calm them, while Garrett remained kneeling beside the first.
“Degan.” The man lifted his manacled palms. “Of Minec. They took me from the quarries, same as the rest. We should’ve fought them harder. We’d be dead, but free.”
His conversation with Degan attracted the attention of four other oarsmen. They gathered close, wary and curious.
“I see no Furies,” Garrett remarked. “Strikes me as odd.”
“Aye, they rarely bother anymore,” said Degan. “The last lot who tried to escape, they strung up by their guts. No one disobeys anymore. And besides, they’ve better things to do.”
“…like stare at the sky all night,” muttered another oarsman.
“…and stalk around like dead men looking for their graves,” agreed a third.
Garrett looked past the men, where only the sea and the stars were visible. He lowered his head, and when next he spoke, his voice was somber, as though he had glimpsed his doom across the horizon. “To Furyon,” he said gravely. “We need to go to Furyon.”
“The enemy will chase us.” Degan’s voice crackled with fear. “We’ll be caught. Why not sail a while north and make land? We’ve a better chance landing there and fleeing on foot than on the open sea.”
He shook his head, and all who saw the darkness in his eyes fell silent. “We are not fleeing. We are going to Furyon. That you fear to go there tells me you have already been. You will take us there. We would rather you do it willingly, but you will do it either way.”
“Why?” Degan asked the question every man wanted to.
“Ask my companions, and they will tell you for vengeance. But ask me, and I will say this; the world as we know it will cease to be if we do not go.”
“There are only five of you.”
“We go all the same.”
Degan eyed him with deep suspicion. The oarsmen all around went silent, their chains going still. “Well…” Degan rolled his shoulders. “We’re dead men anyhow. None of us believes the black-haired curs will ever let us free. This is fastest galley in the Emperor’s fleet, or so we like to believe, and we’re the fastest rowers. If anyone can outrun the Fury seadogs, it’s us.”
“Good,” said Garrett. “Let’s get you out of these manacles.”
He stood, and the oarsmen stood with him. He had hardly noticed it, but his companions and the rest of the enslaved men had been listening the entire time. He gazed across them, feeling almost proud, but it was then Saul cried out. “Furyons!”
He shouldered his way to the railing and gazed down the dock. The others gasped, but he merely stared. Four Furyon knights, armored in tined mail and swathed in ebon robes, marched across the sands toward the dock. He held fast for a moment, hoping they would climb one of the docks leading to a different boat, but then he saw their blades. Freed of their scabbards and gleaming like spokes of midnight, the Dageni steel swayed loosely in the Furyons’ grasps. Now is the time, warlock. He glared at Dank. You see them. Do something.
Dank joined him at the railing, smirking too much for his liking. Behind them, Endross was swift to act. The knight loosed his axe and with a single stroke hewed the rope tethering the galley to the dock. Saul and Marlos and a half-dozen oarsmen pushed off the dock with long-poles, with Saul knocking the gangplank into the water with his battlestaff for good measure. The galley lurched and groaned, jerking into the sea, tossing some of the men like pebbles down to the deck. Garrett recovered swiftly from the jolt. He fastened his grasp upon the rail, glaring at the Furyons storming down the dock.
“You have something planned, I trust,” he said to Dank.
Dank nodded. “Always.”
Angry cries arose. From his perch, he saw the Furyons halt halfway down the dock. One sheathed his wicked blade and grunted. The other three tore off the way they had come, barking like hounds as they ran.
“There’ll be more.” Saul clung to the railing beside him.
“Get the oarsmen in position,” he commanded.
The deck became a blur of motion and tangled chains as the oarsmen scrambled to take their places. The galley floated into deeper waters, but then jerked to a violent stop. Marlos and a dozen oarsmen lost their footing and tumbled to the deck.
“We’re anchored!” cried Degan.
“Where’s Dank?” bellowed Marlos.
Garrett knifed his way through the mass of chained men, finding Dank on his knees on the far side of the deck. The warlock gritted his teeth and hissed, every fiber of his tiny body straining to turn the iron anchor winch. From the winch, a chain as
thick as a warhorse’s haunch extended over the side of the galley and into the water, by far too great a weight for Dank to move himself. “The anchor…” Dank’s face was scarlet. “Help me. Bloody bastards. Never thought they’d drop it in the shallows.”
Garrett and Saul grabbed hold of the winch. They turned and turned, grinding the heavy chains against the deck. After what seemed an eternity, the winched seized, and the ship’s anchor, dripping with sand and seaweed, lifted out of the water and clanged to a stop against side of the galley.
“Well done! The ocean’s ours!” Dank bounced back to his feet.
The galley was free. With the anchor’s rise, the harbor tides took hold, ripping the craft out into deeper waters. As it spun away from the shore, the oarsmen took their positions. Chains rattled and manacles bit into flesh. Degan and his brothers knew what they were about. In moments they had the galley steadied, its prow aimed for the harbor mouth.
“Row, damn you! Row!” Marlos grabbed an oar and began churning clumsily. “We’ve no time!”
Garrett reckoned the Gryphon captain was right. Even as he watched the shore dwindle, he saw some two-dozen Furyons form a line at the water’s edge. A black-maned Furyon beast arose in their midst and a bellowed a command. The rest of the Furyons, all crossbowmen, raised their lethal tools into the air. Garrett grabbed Saul’s shoulders and pulled him down.
“Crossbows! Stay down!” Marlos shouted.
The Furyon darts came screaming. Garrett heard them from far off, snaking through the air faster than any quarrels had rights to fly. The oarsmen ceased rowing and huddled beneath their benches, but when no whine of steel fell upon them and no splintering of wood split their ears, they looked up in utter surprise. He was no different. He expected to hear a storm of bolts tearing into the boat, but instead witnessed Dank laughing as hard as he had ever seen. The little warlock’s palms were in the air, the shadows swirling like black clouds around his wrists. The Furyon bolts were caught in the wind, smashing against an invisible wall of air before drifting down like feathers into the water.
Down the Dark Path (Tyrants of the Dead Book 1) Page 66