by Travis Bughi
Again, she commanded. Again. Do not stop.
The colossus heard and obeyed, and ship after ship was obliterated. The sea thickened with timber, sails, metal, and men, and still the waves rolled and the shadows crept along. Spanning the entire breadth of the bay’s opening, there were far too many vessels for the colossus to reach. It tried, though, and Emily willed it to try harder. Every ship she drowned meant fewer invaders would reach the shores.
Emily tried to count the ships that went by, but there were too many. She’d reached thirty by the time she realized she’d forgotten which ones she’d already counted. Meanwhile, the light continued to fade, and the shadows grew darker all around.
I can’t see them anymore, she realized. Up! Go up to the shore!
The colossus stopped its murderous rampage and turned toward Lucifan. With powerful steps, it plowed through the water up the gradual slope that led towards the city. Then, impatient, Emily commanded it to run, and it dug stone feet into the ground and pushed with all its might. When it broke the surface, a small tidal wave formed and rolled towards the city, slamming those ships that were already ahead of the colossus against the shore. Some hit the docks, splintering wood on wood until their momentum faded and they came to a halt, while others plowed into dirt as far as the waves would carry them, beached. In the fading light, Emily saw and heard hundreds of cutthroats leaping free of the ships to rush towards the city.
Emily gave them a fleeting glance, remembering that Mark had prepared the defenders to meet those foes. Then she turned back to the approaching fleet and gasped.
Emily had never seen so many ships in her life, not even when Xuan Nguyen had brought siege works by sea to destroy Ichiro Katsu. There were hundreds of them. The bay, its opening, and the ocean beyond were thick with wooden vessels. The sea was nothing but a speckle of blue hidden beneath an ocean of wooden brown. The sails on every ship, normally white, glowed red in the setting sun, giving the procession a regal look. Now outside the muffling influence of the water, Emily heard through stone ears thousands of invaders aboard so many ships that the cries of men, the creaking of wood, and the flapping of sails roared in unison across the waves. Emily gaped at them, wide-eyed, feeling suddenly alone and vulnerable and so much like one little girl with one little bow.
Then she remembered the colossus, and she pitied the countless mercenaries who had joined Jabbar’s vision of death and destruction.
Destroy every ship you can, she commanded.
The giant statue barreled into the oncoming waves and the ships that rode them. Massive currents flowed out from its charge, slamming into ships so hard they were temporarily halted or even cast back. Some ships were thrust into others, and the thuds and cracks of wood resounded across the bay. As for those ships the colossus charged, they were not so lucky.
The colossus rammed its entire body into the first ship it reached. The fragile, wooden vessel burst into splinters, and the cries of men and women could be heard just before the remains were sucked under the waves that followed the colossus. The next ship, to the right of the first one, was obliterated as two stone hands came thundering down through its center. The strike fell so hard that the water beneath burst into the air like a geyser. By the time the colossus was swinging for the next ship, Emily could see the tiny humans aboard it leaping from the vessel before it was cut in two.
Again, she commanded. Again! Do not stop.
Emily imagined the colossus roaring in rage. She imagined it beating its chest before throwing arms open wide to howl into the encroaching night. She pictured it acting like a werewolf, or a minotaur, or an ogre, drunk with bloodlust and craving the thrill of battle. Here it was, fulfilling its long-awaited purpose. It should be reveling in the passionate embrace of its destiny.
Yet the colossus did none of that. It had no face beneath its stone helmet, no mouth behind its lips, nor even pupils in its eyes. It had no mind to think about the implications or morality of the deaths it caused. It had no heart inside its cold, stone chest. It knew only obedience.
Two more ships within reach of the colossus perished instantly, their hulls shattered into dust and twigs. Red blood stained the planks and boards only to be washed away when they entered the watery grave below. Then a sudden thunder boomed and echoed in the sky, and a small, black ball hurtled through the air and by the colossus, narrowly missing. Emily blinked, recognizing what she’d just seen, but failing to react before a chorus of similar booms split the world in two.
Cannons belched flames and black smoke from every ship that carried such weapons. Hundreds of black balls, no bigger than the colossus’ fingernails, rained upon the statue from all sides. Over half the shots hit, slamming into solid stone so hard they partially flattened. Stone cracked. One cannonball hit the tip of the colossus’ helmet and snapped off a chunk, while another crashed into its core and wedged into the hole it had created between the abs. A few grazing shots hacked tiny gouges into the stone, spraying grey dust into the air. The colossus reeled from the force of so much flying metal, stumbling back in the water before staggering to its feet. To Emily’s satisfaction, some of the cannonballs that missed went on to hit other ships, being as the bay held more deck than water. The tiny balls sunk nothing, though, so Emily commanded the colossus to return fire.
You can’t stop moving now, she said. Never stop.
The colossus heard and charged across the bay.
Another chorus of booms split Emily’s ears. She braced for the incoming cannonballs, but saw none. Then she smelled sulfur.
“Damn it!” Emily heard in Adelpha’s voice. “They’re here already?”
BOOM BOOM!
Abe’s pistols belched smoke, fire, and death, and Emily opened her own eyes in time to see two men outside The Kraken’s Eye fly back as bullets entered their chests. They landed on a pile of four other bodies, and the empty cases of expended bullets clanked lightly onto the floor.
“There’s more coming,” Abe yelled from the doorway. “A lot more!”
“Margret,” Adelpha said sympathetically, “I’m sorry, but we need to break your windows.”
Margret nodded. “Do it.”
Panes of frosted glass in the front of the tavern were shattered, and a dozen arrows notched to treantwood bows were nuzzled into the openings. Emily heard Adelpha order other amazons upstairs to do the same, and Jarl Valgrith inhaled the black smoke from Abe’s pistols on a stool nearby, axe in one hand and grinding stone in the other.
“That brother of yours is going to ruin what’s left of my hearing,” Valgrith said to Emily, seeing her eyes open. “I won’t reach Valhalla in here. How about me and mine charge out there and meet this group head on?”
“I have a feeling you’ll get your chance,” Takeo replied.
Emily turned to see the samurai right behind her, his katana sheathed and placed upon the table. He met her gaze and leaned towards her.
“Here they come!” Abe yelled. “They’re coming straight for us! By Ephron, straight for us! It’s as if they know! How can they possibly know?”
A chorus of bowstrings being pulled tight made Emily’s heart skip, and the subtle and yet violent click of Abe’s pistols caused her to breathe in sharply. Takeo reached out a hand to touch her cheek.
“Shhh, it’s alright,” he whispered. “Go back to sleep now. We’ll protect you.”
His fingers ran over her eyes, closing them, and she faded into a world filled with ships.
To Emily’s relief, the colossus had continued to carry out her orders while she was away. It was charging across the bay, barreling into ships and slamming them into oblivion. A wake of destruction followed the statue while black cannonballs sailed through the air, hardly a one hitting the colossus now that it was in perpetual motion. The bay was clogged with debris. Everything from half-sunken ships to tiny floating planks rolled amongst the ceaseless waves. Among the ruins, tiny bodies could be seen. Those that could swim paddled from one plank of wood to the next, trying despe
rately to reach the shore in the rapidly fading light. Those that could not, sputtered and gasped their last breaths of air before the sea enfolded them.
Darkness was falling fast. The sun’s coattails were slipping off the horizon, leaving the world to be lit by the moon alone. Somewhere out there, Emily pictured, Sir Mark was slipping on an armored suit and mounting a pegasus. He would search the streets for an orange- and black-striped creature of immense power that was doing everything it could to find a young girl lying comatose in a tavern surrounded by friends and family.
Meanwhile, the ships relentlessly poured into the bay.
The colossus could not stop them all. There were too many spread out across too large an area, and the colossus was only one defender doing the job of three. As the statue smashed and destroyed everything within reach, other ships slipped by on the outer ends to ram full speed onto the shores of Lucifan. So many were breaching the colossus’ defenses that the ships began to barrel into one another, crashing one beached ship upon another and unleashing a tide of merciless invaders. The ring of metal and cries of men and women began to echo so loudly amongst the stone buildings that Emily could hear it in the bay.
Do not stop, she commanded. Destroy them all. And then she smelled smoke.
It wasn’t the sulfurous smell of gun smoke, though. It was the dark, musty, choking smell of burning wood. Emily gasped and looked about the bay, but no ships were burning. Then she glanced quickly to the city and saw several lights flickering orange amongst the city’s grey walls. Emily frowned at that. She shouldn’t have been able to smell those fires from here. She shouldn’t have been able to smell them at all, actually.
Then she felt heat, and her eyes flew open to see the tavern around her burning to the ground.
Chapter 30
Orange flames flew up everywhere, eating apart the wooden tables and chairs like a thunderbird feasting on a behemoth corpse. Emily coughed as she inhaled thick, black smoke, and then flinched as hands grabbed her by the waist.
“You have her?” Adelpha yelled from the window, fighting back smoke as she released an arrow into the night that was quickly followed by a dying scream.
“Let’s go!” Takeo yelled as he hoisted Emily up and flung her over his shoulder.
“I’m here!” Emily said, fighting to be put down. “I’m here!”
Takeo held her steady, refusing to release her. Valgrith’s men had already left, and the rest of the amazons were following Margret out the tavern’s back door. Abe and Adelpha were last at the front door, firing bullets and arrows into the crowd of angry faces lit by the orange light of the tavern’s fire.
“Is the way clear?” Adelpha coughed through the smoke.
“Clear enough!” came Nicholas’ voice from the back door. “Valgrith’s men have cleared a way. Let’s move!”
“Put me down!” Emily shouted to Takeo. “I’m here!”
“Are there ships left?” he asked calmly.
“Yes,” she coughed out as he carried her towards the burning tavern’s exit.
“Then you should be there!” he replied sternly.
Emily belched out more smoke, making a cough her only reply. It was a relief when Takeo carried her out into the night, and Emily gasped a breath of fresh air. But she only got in one good gasp before the horror of battle all around stole her breath.
Side-by-side, Valgrith’s men fought against a horde on Lucifan’s narrowed streets. Vikings with hammers and axes swung wide to keep back a tide of dirty men and women clad in desert garb and armed with scimitars and spears. Behind the vikings, rows of amazons drew and released arrows into the oncoming enemy, striking out eyes and piercing throats with legendary accuracy. A moment later, Abe and Adelpha cleared the building, and a chorus of gunfire split the night as the gunslinger emptied the last of his rounds, belching black smoke into the darkness. He opened the gun and sprinkled hot casings to the ground while Adelpha stepped alongside her sisters to draw another arrow.
“We have her!” the queen yelled. “Fall back!”
“Fall back! Leave Gelik!” Jarl Valgrith commanded. “He’s at the valkyries’ mercy now!”
Takeo switched Emily to his left shoulder and drew his katana with his right. Emily’s legs were beginning to hurt, and she slapped Takeo once more and shouted at him to release her. When he turned his head to look at her, his dark eyes were full of rage.
“We need you out there,” he said. “Go!”
Emily bit her lip in defiance, but Takeo held his gaze, and a moment later she relented. Her eyes closed, and she collapsed into Takeo’s strong grip.
Then her vision was filled with ships, these ones dark in the moon’s low light. White sails shined bright all around with the kind of beauty Emily had begun to associate with war. Occasionally, those sails would flash orange as cannons fired shells into the night. Their ammunition was instantly lost to the darkness, but Emily heard their answering rumbles in the distance and was startled at the change in their target.
They aren’t aiming for the colossus anymore, she realized. They’re aiming for the city!
Lucifan was hidden in the dark, except for those parts that glowed orange from torches or arson. Amongst the flames, black balls flew to smash into walls and streets, sending bricks and dust, thunder and screams into the air. Emily turned back and watched as a litany of fury, preached in exploding cannons, rained hellfire on the city. Rage burned bright in her heart. The colossus could not roar, so she yelled silently in its stead and commanded it to slaughter every burst of light it saw.
The next ship that belched flames and smoke did so for only a moment until the colossus rammed into it. The men aboard the vessel cried out as they were hurled into the sea, but Emily did not hear them for she was already charging another explosion. Two unfortunate ships were caught in her path, and the colossus obliterated them. The exploding cannons became her beacons on this dark night, and the source of every shot of flame was squelched a heartbeat later.
Something hard jostled Emily, but the colossus did not move. She reeled for a moment, staggering within the stony mind and wondering what had happened. It dawned on her a second later, and she closed her eyes.
When she opened them, the first thing she saw was Takeo’s katana slinging blood like a painter. The blade whistled through the air, and someone cried out, the victim of an artist whose medium was war. Emily was jostled again, and her head whipped about behind Takeo’s body. She pushed off his backside to look up at where they were.
They had pushed up the narrow streets away from The Kraken’s Eye, which was burning brightly in the distance. The inferno created by the burning of wood and alcohol produced enough light to reach Emily and even cast black shadows that danced across the cobbled steps and walls. With amazons filling Valgrith’s dwindled ranks, his men still held the line. While behind them, Abe carefully placed bullets where they were needed most, breaking through the sounds of flames, swords, arrows, and distant cannon fire with the occasional thunder of a nearby six-shooter. Each shot released a mist of smoke that escaped up into the air to join the swirling cloud of black that was forming above the city. That cloud was fed by the firestorms raging all over Lucifan, and its size was only apparent because it blocked out both stars and moon. Their light, which Emily could see when she was out in the bay, was hidden in the city, leaving only the flickering orange of fires to battle the darkness.
“Let me down!” she yelled and kicked.
This time, Takeo released her. More specifically, he dropped her and grabbed his katana in two hands to hack down another scimitar-wielding fighter who had broken through the ranks to charge them. Emily scrambled on the ground and stood up. She patted herself down, searching for her bow, but could not find it.
“My bow!” she shouted. “Where’s my bow?”
“Here!” Adelpha appeared out of the shadows and handed her a treantwood bow.
“This isn’t mine.”
“It is now. Here! Arrows!”
Adelpha shoved a handful of arrows into Emily’s hand and turned to shoot into the oncoming horde.
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!
Abe’s guns made Emily jump and drop her arrows. She bent and scooped them up, holding them in the same hand that held her bow. She wouldn’t be able to fire two arrows this way, but she’d lost her quiver somewhere, too.
“Emily!” Abe shouted, taking aim and firing again. “Emily! How is it out there? How many ships?”
“Too many,” Emily replied. “I lost sight of them in the dark. The colossus is still fighting.”
“Too many? How many is too many?”
“Hundreds.”
Takeo turned to look at her, and they both paused for a heartbeat to share a look of understanding. Then Takeo stepped forward to join Valgrith’s line, while Emily drew her first arrow.
Ahead, the burning tavern wreaked havoc on her vision. Its burning light made the oncoming horde of troops look like nothing but shadows wielding shadowy blades. Their voices and shouts came from lipless, silhouetted faces. Emily took aim at the first silhouette and released an arrow into it. Spurts of black liquid flew into the air to turn red in the light, and the shadow dropped. Emily notched another arrow.
Between her and the horde, Valgrith and his crew stood shoulder-to-shoulder to block the narrow street. Although outnumbered, they were more than enough to block the street and diminish the effect such opposing numbers would have. Still, they fell back, preventing the invaders from using side streets to flank them. Emily heard voices in the enemy crowd, one strongest amongst them, yelling for some to go around, to use the alleys and get behind them. All the while, Emily and her group retreated, leaving bodies in their wake.
Emily heard a roar as a viking near Valgrith struck out at the invaders with a huge, two-handed hammer. He roared, screamed, and swung, crushing anyone foolish enough to dive for him. Then a flicker of orange light shined just right, and Emily recognized her brother. Nicholas was fighting like a man possessed, reckless and unbridled with nothing to lose. Emily instantly feared for his life and shouted to her brother, but he heard nothing. She looked for Fritjof next, but couldn’t pick him out among the defenders.