They lapsed into silence with their meager meal. Lorace arranged the galleys in a close line, bow to stern, with their vessel in the lead driving a wedge through the snowfall.
“I think this snow is Vorallon’s doing,” Tornin said as he tried to peer through the whiteout. “He hides us.”
“Tornin,” Iris shook her head at the tall knight. “Who else do you know who could round up a herd of storm clouds for us? This is Lorace’s doing if it is anyone’s.”
Lorace nodded to her and took a drink of water from a clay jar before answering. “I saw them forming up over the ruins of Zed last night, and I have been doing just as you say, bringing them to us.”
“While you slept?” she asked, accepting the jar of water.
“I set everything in motion before I went to sleep,” Lorace replied. “All of the air I use to lift these galleys draws weather toward us. The tornado that rose up over the battle with the demons formed the same way. It was the wind and weather reacting to what I was doing. I shifted my sight around a lot last night to try to understand why. Finally I discovered the reason and utilized that before I took my sleep to ensure that these clouds would make their way to us.”
Iris ate her portion of biscuit and figs and waited patiently to hear his explanation. Tornin’s attention found more to interest him in the passing clouds as he resumed his stoic watch over them. Sir Rindal likewise lost interest and strode off across the deck to take up his duty as captain.
“When I compress air to lift us with my gift,” Lorace explained. “I am using the surrounding air to do so, which means more of it has to flow into its place to even out the air’s thickness. The air flows around us like water; if you put your hand in a pool of water and then remove it quickly, you can see the water flow immediately into the space your hand made. Air does the same thing. When I compress a large enough volume to create the force that lifts and moves these ships, the air must come flowing in from far and wide. Before I went to sleep, I took a few moments to shove a great deal of air straight up into the sky. While I slept, that air came back down and more air from afar has flowed into the thin void I had made, bringing and forming this storm as it did so.”
“Very clever my love,” Iris said in genuine admiration before narrowing her eyes. “Now tell me why—what eyes do you hide us from?”
chapter 11
ANATHEMA TO LIFE
Last Day of the Moon of the Thief
-upon the Vestral Sea
Lorace met the eyes of his wife, then wrapped his arms and spirit around her. “I hide us from whatever it is that guides the blight. Possibly, it is the Devourer, but I am not sure. It is behaving intelligently, withdrawing from our light and staying clear. I spent time last night watching and studying its movements, and I saw something else that I thought it best to obscure us from.”
Iris frowned. “What is it?”
“Birds,” Lorace answered. “Thousands and thousands of birds warped and twisted into flying horrors by the blight. It rounds them up into an enormous black flock and I believe it means to set them upon us.”
“The blight controls them?” Iris’s eyes grew huge. “It does not just kill what it touches?”
“Yes and no,” Lorace answered, sharing his tranquility until her alarm soothed away. Be calm, my love. “I do not think the birds still live. They move and fly now, animated by the blight as the dead were. Their eyes glow with a baleful intelligence and their feathers have become scaled and hooked. I am certain that a similar change has overcome every living creature the blight has descended upon. It is building an army of everything that once lived on Ousenar.”
Iris rose to her feet. “I think we should share what you have seen.”
They joined their comrades at the bow where he described the flock of monstrous birds again.
“It still appears to be holding its position over Ousenar,” Lorace concluded.
Oen frowned. “I cannot believe that is all it does. There is malevolence to its darkness. Share your sight of it with Lehan that we may benefit from his gift.”
Lorace nodded and reached out to Lehan’s deep violet spirit. He opened up his sight to an encompassing view of the blight’s entirety from high above. Lehan cringed at the black mass of vile spirit. The priest’s eyes narrowed as he focused his truth seeking gift, but he immediately shuddered and fell back.
The bite of pain flashed back through Lorace’s link, bringing gasps and jolted cries all around before he could pull away. He ducked in apology as they shook the residual crawling sting from their limbs. “That is what happened to me when I tried to push on the blight. Just looking at it seems to be safe, but we have to be wary of any other contact.”
Oen clasped his brother’s hand. “Could you tell anything at all?”
Lehan’s eyes rolled wide and he lurched toward the bow to bend over the rail. “The blight watches us,” he said. “It knows exactly where we are.”
Iris groaned as she too looked over the rail, “Whatever you do, do not land us in that.”
The sea below them was a boiling mass of black fish-like shapes swiftly keeping pace with them just below the surface of the dull gray sea.
Lorace shared his sight again and lowered his awareness down into the sickly teaming depths. Fish, serpents, and large tentacled creatures from the depths swarmed beyond counting. Blight blackened and warped their flesh; fins spiked and twisted, tentacles ended in serrated claws. Many were only half-fleshed, partially eaten before the blight had consumed and transformed them.
His gift inflicted their rotting stench on everyone before he could block out all but the visual aspect. Iris doubled over and wretched.
“We must destroy these,” Lorace urged, “while they focus on us. They must not be allowed to spread through the living seas.”
Iris recovered with Falraan’s aid and a delivery of fresh air. “Is the blight among them? I cannot tell, even with your sight shifted, the water is too dense with black bodies.”
“It is not present,” Lehan said. “These creatures are only the blight’s agents now.”
Oen shouted out to the priests aboard the other galleys, drawing their attention to this new threat. The glyphs ignited into blue-white beams that stabbed into the sea, burning many of the fish-horrors near the surface. Countless more rose from the depths to take their place.
Lorace turned to Falraan, “We need your gift for this. You must cast your fire into the waters. Carefully though, if you feel any hint of pain, withdraw immediately.”
At her nod, he singled out a creature, a large turtle abomination with a long toothy snout and clawed flippers. “This one will do for a test.”
Falraan’s sphere of red spirit enveloped the blighted creature and squeezed down, boiling the water and the turtle within in an explosion of steam. She shows no pain! He sighed in relief.
“Next time I need a hot bath, my dear, I am calling you!” Iris exclaimed.
“Very well, Falraan,” Lorace said with a grin, “start burning all those creatures you can see, but if you feel anything, even a tickle, pull back. This is the horror the blight would inflict upon all of Vorallon, let none survive.”
He turned to Rindal and Tornin while Oen guided the beam of their glyph to stab down into the sea. “Strengthen Falraan. Aid her in burning those that lie below the reach of the glyphs.”
Explosive geysers of steam rose almost to the hulls of the flying galleys. He lifted them higher, away from the scalding heat and the stench of rotten, cooked fish. He drew the ships side by side to look across the thwarts at the other leaders and share his confidence and tranquility. Their anxious gazes soon calmed as they turned to watch the rising bursts of white vapor that spread into a thick fog in their wake.
“Iris, can you coerce them to group up into a tighter mass?” Lorace asked. “We cannot let any escape to invade the living sea.”
Iris shook her head. “They are mindless, Lorace, whatever drives them is unaffected by my gift.”
From a neighboring galley, Hethal yelled, “Lorace! The flock attacks!”
It uses the fish as a distraction! Lorace chastised himself.
The intelligence behind the blight chose this moment for the warped flock to strike. It drove them in a huge mass, a single mindless pawn of its desire. This is what the God of Undeath would make of us.
In a voice carried to every soul in the fleet Lorace shouted, “Warriors look to the skies! Ward the priests!”
He turned to Tornin and flung his knight unceremoniously up into the sky. “Wherever you place your feet I will hold you up! Draw your blade and defend us!”
Tornin shot upward. Only through his spirit link could he keep up with the young man’s speed, shaping and releasing steps of air beneath his blurred feet in huge swaths. He struck the first of the plummeting bird-shapes as a trail of brilliant light. The streaking afterglow of his sword lingered in the dim sky. Then the full warped flock burst below the clouds and the grey, snowy-filled sky went black. Tornin became a weaving, curling line of sunlight high above the masts.
The bird-horrors descended in a black cloud of rotted flesh and barbed feathers. Heads enlarged to accommodate massive, toothy beaks, and legs distended to wield oversized, sickle-shaped talons, their shapes were grossly out of proportion from the birds they once were.
The feathered shafts of Adwa-Ki’s archers met scores of those that swarmed past Tornin. Arrows struck in a continuous barrage, but did nothing to halt them, not even when several arrows had penetrated the same bird.
“Save your arrows!” Adwa-Ki called to her warriors as she drew her elegant blade. “They must be cut apart.”
“Helms and shields, give them nothing!” Prince Wralka bellowed. There was a clash of sound as two hundred dwarves slammed their visors down and raised up their wall of shields around a tight knot of sailors.
Tornin cut great swaths of blighted birds from the sky while Lorace maintained his footing. Only his link to Tornin’s spirit allowed him to guess where the young man would next direct his feet with some degree of accuracy. Clouds of blackened feathers fluttered in their wake and decaying flesh rained down in noxious gobs.
Raptors, sea birds, and small songbirds, their bodies twisted and horrible, crashed into sailors, priests, dwarves, elves, and guardsmen. Mindless of cleaving weapons, they flew for exposed faces and limbs, tearing and rending in terrible fury. They struck without cries or caws, only the hissing flutter of their wings mixed with the shouts of men.
Four beams of light from the raised glyphs incinerated the warped birds in the path of the fleet, while their speed left thick swarms of slower birds chasing in their wake.
Falraan continued her efforts to burn the creatures in the sea below, attacking anything that showed near the surface.
Iris loosed spells of exploding fire, directing her attacks to regions of the sky far from Tornin’s streaking glow. She cried out the words of her spells in an endless stream while her delicate fingers wove intricate designs. The results were large spheres of fire blooming over head and receding in their wake. Those priests who were not guiding the glyphs likewise channeled the living spirit of Vorallon to cast the simple fire spells they had been taught.
Sir Rindal flicked his godstone sword, Brakke Zahn, in a dull silvery web. It danced over and among them with the lightness of a child’s toy to defend everyone at the bow.
With the birds swooping among them, Lorace dropped Tornin back to the deck where his streaking blade would be of more use.
Much of the rigging and several of the masts of the fleet were in flames from the spells of fire. Freed of the task of keeping his young knight aloft, Lorace lifted away the smoke and drove back as much of the flock as he could with the air under his control. Despite their constant movement, the air was thinning while the birds he blew back just kept coming. He could not hold all the birds back without depleting the air they needed to breathe. He sought a better use for his gift, something that would destroy the warped birds.
“Sir Rindal, cut free the masts,” Lorace shouted. “Tornin has our defense.”
The paladin charged down the deck, cleaving every blighted bird from his path as he ran to the remains of their foremast to part its massive timber from the deck in a single quick stroke. Lorace caught the mast and flung it clear, smashing a swath of birds from the air. He repeated the same attack with the main mast, snapping heavy lines free like thread. Sir Rindal leapt to Prince Wralka’s galley next. In this way, they cleared the burning dangers of the masts and freed the air above them of all obstacles to their spells of fire and beams of light.
Iris and the priests took immediate advantage to cover more of the sky with their attacks, though they were slowing and breathing heavy from the strain.
Men screamed as talons, jagged beaks and razor sharp scale-feathers slashed among them. Vastly diminished, the flock yet swarmed thick among the crew and soldiers.
A piercing shriek rose above the other cries and din. At the bow of Moyan’s galley, several large raptors struck the priestess wielding their glyph, knocking her over the rail. Lorace acted an instant later, shaping a bowl large enough to catch her and the glyph. He lifted the priestess back to the deck while flinging away the dozens of warped birds that swept in on her.
Once she was safe, he returned to overlooking the battle, flinging and crushing more birds by the hundreds. There is no end to them!
In his intensity, nothing escaped his notice—Falraan raising her hand to the godstone ring upon her necklace—Iris nodding to her with a resolute expression. What is this?
“Vorallon,” Falraan’s lips shaped the word carefully. Immediately she stiffened and the godstone ring, now about her finger, came free of the chain, passing through its closed links as though they had become insubstantial.
The sky filled with fire, and the ocean below erupted in scalding vapor. Lorace flinched away from the heat flashing on his cheeks and forehead. When he looked back, all that remained in the air was a char of black ash that fell with the flurrying snow.
Only those birds in close fighting remained. Tornin was on the dwarves’ vessel where the hand to hand fighting was fiercest, leaving a trail of light from bow to stern as he sliced down bird after bird. Elsewhere among the warriors and crew, the diminishing birds attacked with beak and talon until they had been dismembered or crushed.
Falraan removed the godstone ring from her finger and passed it through the links of the necklace at her throat. When she released the circle, it once more dangled from the chain.
The fighting was soon over, but the moans and cries of the injured remained. A thorough scan revealed that the sea, for leagues around, was free of all misshapen fish, and the sky was clear of everything but ash, snow, and the thickening cover of clouds.
Not once during the battle had the ships slowed, and without their masts, Lorace drove them faster still.
“You saved us all, Falraan.” Iris hugged the stunned captain of the Halversome guard.
Lorace gestured to the ring on her necklace. “What did you do?”
“Vorallon did it,” Falraan said in quiet awe. “I gave him permission to use my gift and he destroyed them all at once, the fish-things too. I could see it. It was like watching you do one of your impossible feats, but it was all flowing through me. I could feel him working to avoid burning anyone except the birds and fish. He even acted to keep the fire clear from Tornin, though he was moving too fast for me to see.”
At her mention of Tornin, she bit her lip and looked around for him. Before she her concern could mount, Iris pointed her husband out upon Prince Wralka’s ship.
Iris then took Lorace’s hand. “I will explain what Vorallon has made of these gifts you made us later, for now, we must do what we can for the injured.”
Lorace nodded then hastened off to aid Oen, Lehan, and the priests with the wounded. Iris, Falraan, and Sir Rindal directed the able-bodied to clear the decks of the fetid bird carcasses.
He called on Jorune’s he
aling light to wash men clean of their painful, already festering wounds.
Oen and Lehan covered three dead priests as best they could with what remained of their torn and bloody robes. Many were dead among all of the ships. The elves and dwarves had fared the best, but among the lightly armored humans, fatalities were high, even from relatively minor wounds. He faced the aftermath in grim silence. We have lost one in ten men!
When they consigned the bodies to the sea, Lorace sought out Falraan. “I am sorry to ask this of you. We cannot allow the blight to have those who have fallen.”
With his sight, he directed her toward each drifting body so that she could cremate them. Though Sakke Vrang had cleansed all of their fear and hatred, they wept for those who had fallen, in respect if not devastating sorrow. The sorrow just remains to me. How many more will never return home?
Iris came to the bow and told Lorace of the necklaces she and Falraan now wore, her effort to distract him from his deepening sadness.
“I saw the spirit of Vorallon rise up into Falraan when she placed the ring on her finger,” Lorace nodded. “That is a very brave woman.”
“I was a very scared woman,” Falraan said from behind them. She walked to the bow arm-in-arm with Tornin. “Well, perhaps not scared, but I had to act, men were dying.”
“What did you experience with the ring on your finger?” Iris asked.
“It was a lot like when Lorace links our spirits together,” Falraan explained. “I could feel Vorallon’s presence all around me, for a moment the sky and sea became rich and thick with living energy. I felt his regret when he struck down the horrors of creatures that he once cherished. His intention and purpose was powerful and loving, but savage and vengeful as well. When he was done, he passed back through me and shared his appreciation. He knew me. His focus, for just that moment, was all on me and it was wonderful.”
“He wants our trust, all of our trust,” Lorace surmised. “I believe we can trust him, even to wield our two most devastating gifts.”
Gifts of Vorallon: 03 - Lord of Vengeance Page 11