The Swords of Corium (6 page)

The barbarian fleet reacted in a near panic. Seeing the Royal Ark push forward, and worse, seeing ten more ships like it on the horizon, was too much. They could ignore this threat to their flank no longer. The men raced from their formations on the ice back to their vulnerable ships. They could not allow the arks to burn them all and leave them stranded on a skirt of frost, waiting for the summer thaw.

Looking back out to sea every minute or so, Gruum saw the Royal Ark’s sister ships sailing ever closer. They glided closer every time he looked. He doubted he’d ever seen a more heartening sight. He knew in his heart that the Hyborean fleet was as terrifying to the enemy as it was comforting to him. It was a sweet thought to savor.

They were met this time with more than two squadrons of galleys. Instead, a flotilla of ships approached. Most were two or three-masted warships. A third were galleys, the vessels favored by the mercenary cities of the east. Atop several masts flapped the red pennant of Kem.

Therian ordered the ark turned starboard and headed directly for these last. Gruum was unsurprised, as he knew his master still harbored ill-will toward the men of that place, who had helped keep his bride secret from him for a full year.

The galleys scattered, but the sailing ships were slower and harder to bring around. The winds were wrong for quick tacking in any case. The Royal Ark managed to run one down, striking it amidships. The vessel broke in half and capsized immediately. Men screamed in the frozen waters, quickly dying. The second ship was more fortunate. They struck her in the stern and tore a great gash in the hull. The ship wallowed, crippled and rudderless, but did not sink instantly.

The third ship turned about and came to help her dying sister.

“That captain has made a grave error,” Therian said.

Gruum nodded.

The Hyboreans brought their massive ship around and turned every projectile they had upon the last able ship of Kem. It burned until the sailors aboard were left with two grim choices: stay aboard and die in flames, or jump overboard and freeze to death. Most chose the latter.

The maneuvering had taken a good deal of time, however. The time had been used by the enemy to gather their strength and their resolve. They came on in an organized line, firing masses of missiles. Every sail on the Royal Ark was punched through a dozen times, and most were burned. Two masts were knocked down entirely.

Viscount Bryg came near again, his eyes red with the smoke and fearful. “If they take down six of the masts, this ship will be helpless, wind spirits or no, milord.”

Therian looked at him for a long moment. At last he nodded. “Good of you to advise me, Admiral. The enemy plan is clear. They can disable this ship, and eventually fire her through relentless bombardment. We have two courses available to us, we can run, or we can stand-to and fight.”

Viscount Bryg relished the praise, faint though it might have been. Gruum watched as the noble took several steps forward.

“Exactly, sire!” Bryg said. “Let us pull back and join our sister ships. Together, we will sink them all.”

Therian stared at him thoughtfully. He then gazed out at the approaching swarm of enemy vessels. Javelins flew like raindrops from enemy ballistae, punching through sails, deck planks and the bodies of unlucky sailors.

“I’ll not have a single man on the walls of Corium disheartened by the sight of their fleeing King,” Therian said at last. “We will stand-to and fight this ship until relief arrives.”

Viscount Bryg made a sound like the wind itself. He drew a short blade and ran toward Therian with a sudden, unexpected burst of speed.

The blade never reached Therian’s body, however. Gruum’s own heavy saber came whistling down and relieved the noble of his right hand. Viscount Bryg’s charge faltered, then halted altogether. He looked down stupidly at his hand, which lay on the command deck at his feet. The pale fingers still gripped the hilt of his blade. Blood flowed from his severed wrist, splattering the planks.

The Viscount turned to Gruum and stared at him in disbelief. “Such speed,” he said, marveling. “I had barely noticed you standing there.”

Gruum nodded smartly and lowered his weapon a fraction. He kept both eyes and a glaring brow focused upon the Viscount.

“Well done, Gruum,” Therian said in a voice that seemed distracted, almost bored. He still gazed out to sea toward the enemy fleet, as if the Viscount was beneath his interest.

“What shall be done with this dog, sire?” Gruum asked.

While Therian considered the question, sailors came up and gripped the Viscount. They removed his remaining weapons.

Therian’s fingers made a flicking motion toward Bryg, as if he were endeavoring to remove a speck of mud from his tunic. “Lash chains to him. Hang him over the stern rail.”

“Hang him by the neck, sire?”

“No, no,” the King said. “I wish him to witness the rest of the battle which he so feared to fight. Hang him by the feet.”

The King’s will was done. Gruum, for his part, could find no pity in his heart for the traitor.

Before the rest of the Hyborean arks could arrive to support their flagship, the Royal Ark was listing and on fire. As there were no more sails to drive the ark, Therian sent his wind spirits on new missions. Each flew to an enemy vessel and began to blow their witch-winds upon the sails. Some ran the ships into other ships, colliding them together until their renegade ship went down. Others gleefully ran ships into the ice shelf itself, smashing hulls and the bodies of screaming sailors alike. Gruum watched as the desperate crewmen climbed the masts, hoping to lower the sails and thwart the wind-creatures. Bravely coming face-to-face with the elementals, these men were plucked from the rigging and tossed down into the dark, icy sea where they howled and died.

Emboldened by the damaged state of the Royal Ark, a dozen galleys surged forward. They rammed her in unison from every conceivable angle, thrusting their great bronze blades deep into her hull. They reminded Gruum of starved wolves attempting to take down a great bear of the forest. After sinking their heavy rams home, they reversed their oars and rowed madly, trying to back out and let the seawater rush into the hull. Such was the thickness and strength of the ark’s hull, however, the galleys were often locked in place and unable to free themselves.

Therian and Gruum stood upon the stern deck. Shouting men encircled them, casting burning pitch over the side to fire the galleys below. Streams of arrows flew in every direction, and Gruum had to wonder if he should have donned the black battle armor when given the opportunity by Tovus.

“It is time, Gruum,” Therian said.

“Sire?”

“We must leave this vessel. She is doomed. She will go down within minutes.”

“Where shall we go, sire?” Gruum asked. He looked over the side at the black seas. He did not relish swimming there until his arms numbed with cold and he slipped under. He noticed the Viscount as he looked down. He still swayed there below the railing, hanging from his chains and moving feebly.

“We must take a new ship, since ours is finished.”

Gruum looked at him. “You are tired, milord.”

Therian nodded. “I need a fresh soul. But I hesitate to send any of these brave sailors to an undeserved doom. I will simply have to take an enemy down when we fall upon their decks.”

Gruum nodded, but he thought to hear something. Words that were quickly snatched away by the freezing winds. He leaned over the rail, and then knelt, cupping his ear with one hand.

“Send me to Anduin,” said the Viscount.

“Viscount Bryg speaks, sire,” Gruum said. “He begs to strengthen you.”

“Truly?” Therian asked. “Help me to haul the wretch back onto my deck.”

Together, they brought the Viscount Bryg back onto the command deck. Unable to stand, the ex-admiral sprawled upon the wooden planks. His head lolled against the stern rails. He had been pale before, but after long minutes of bleeding and hanging over the side he had turned as white as an unburnt candle. He had caught two arrows at some point, one in his left thigh and the other in the gut.

“I am moved,” Therian told the noble.

Bryg watched them as a helpless man watches a snake that coils upon his lap. “I would make amends,” the Viscount said, coughing.

“You know that a simple death would be infinitely better?” Therian asked. He produced Seeker, and scratched at the edge with his nail.

“I am Hyborean. None know better the meaning of an eternity in the company of the Dragons.”

Therian nodded. “You have thus redeemed your house. The Mark of Traitors shall not be carved into their doors, nor into their skulls.”

The ship shuddered then, and the bow sank and rolled. When the tremor was done, two men had pitched over the rails.

“Thank you, King Therian,” Viscount Brig said, ignoring the death of the ship that was evident all around him. “This is truly more than I had hoped for.”

Therian spoke foul words of Dragon Speech then, and Gruum saw the Viscount’s ashen face grow fuller of terror by the second. Therian thrust once with Seeker, suddenly, even as the man opened his mouth to croak last words.

Gruum stood and Therian stood with him. A feral cast had overtaken the Hyborean. Gruum knew the look well.

“Do you think he might have been about to rescind his generous offer?” Gruum asked.

Therian grinned at him. The light of a fresh soul shone from his eyes. “Of course. What cowardly dog like him could do other than change his mind when he heard the words consigning his soul to pain everlasting?”

The starboard side of the vessel now canted ten feet higher than the port side.

“Now, before we go down!” Therian shouted. “Drop the prongs!”

Heavy ramps were levered out over the sides of the ship. The end of each ramp was hinged to the lower decks of the ark. At the other end was a great, black spike of iron. Lifted by ropes, the ramps were dropped, spike first, into the decks of the galleys clustered below. In all, seven ramps were successfully dropped into place. Doors yawned opened on the ark’s sides, revealing portals full of reavers. Dressed in the black battle-armor of Hyborea, the cadets rushed forward. Eager for the fight, they streamed out to assail the ships that had so determinedly worried at the ark’s sides.

Therian and Gruum rushed down a plank in the midsection. They were met with stiff resistance on a war galley of carven spruce. The cadets, while almost impossible to kill in their armor, could be tossed overboard where they sank like stones. On each galley, the cadets were outnumbered fifty to six. They took a grim toll, but were eventually overwhelmed.

In the case of Therian and Gruum’s ship, however, things went differently. Therian was a feral thing, a wolf among sheep. He leapt from deck to deck, his feet barely touching the planks. He chanted as he sprang and ran, thrusting with Seeker and Succor together. Deadly and efficient, the enemy soon quailed and sought to run, but there was no escape. Every soul was taken, save those that wisely jumped overboard and drowned themselves.

When the first galley was theirs, Therian ordered sailors to come down from the sinking ark and man the oars. He ran to the great, iron spike that connected the galley to the ark. He ripped the foot-deep spike loose from the planks with a great, ear-splitting screech. He tossed it overboard with a single hand then roared for the men to wheel the galley and head to the next vessel, which was less than a hundred feet distant.

The work went too slowly for Therian’s taste. Half-mad with bloodlust, he thrust a blade into a sailor who fouled his oar with his neighbor repeatedly. When the second galley saw him coming, they paddled madly to free themselves from their locked ram, but were unable to do so in time.

Therian jumped twice as far as Gruum had ever seen a man jump before. He sprang from one deck to the next like a man possessed of an ape’s agility. They swept the second galley, and opened the hatches on the first and sent it to the bottom. Then Therian ordered his men to row for the ice shelf in search of fresh game.

Gruum had time then to look up and take note of how the battle at large was going. To his surprise, the other war arks had joined the struggle. How long they had been present, he had no way of counting. The hand-to-hand fights on each ship had taken every ounce of his attention. He had little idea if he had fought for an hour or only ten minutes.

Now, however, he was able to take stock of the battle as a whole. It appeared to him that they were winning. The first ark had done such terrible damage that the arrival of ten more sent many of the barbarian ships fleeing in terror.

Just then, as he began to feel the hope of victory blossom in his heart, a great red flare gushed nearby. Up close, the breath of the Dragon was awesome to behold. It was not a simple tongue of flame, it was more like a conical plume that grew in size and power for a range of a hundred yards or more. It struck the nearest of the Hyborean arks and set it ablaze. The sails blackened like leaves and the hull of the ship was pushed inward, as if struck by the hammer of an invisible god. The ship listed, then rolled over and sank. Hundreds of Hyboreans died as they watched.

“There!” shouted Therian, stepping near. He pointed a shaking finger toward the dying ark. “That is where we must go. Oarsmen, pull hard for that spot. We must find Vosh and pull the teeth from his jawbone.”

“But sire, the flames will devour us!” shouted a sailor.

Therian strode to the man and picked him up by the skin of his neck. The man screeched, but Therian paid him no heed. Such was the power in the King’s fingers that each digit broke the skin and blood ran freely down the sailor’s back.

Therian held the man up to the others and shook him. “Do not fear the Dragon’s Breath! No champion of Yserth or any other Dragon can breathe their fire at will. Each breath represents a fantastic effort, both for the Dragon and the Champion. Three is probably Vosh’s limit. On the other hand, look at your King! I’m the opposite of spent. I’m at the peak of my powers. Serve me and Hyborea with zeal men, and we’ll win this day yet!”

Therian dropped the bleeding wretch back upon the benches. With trembling hands the man retook his oar. Weakly, he worked the timber as best he could. Therian relieved him from the task and set him to keeping the pace upon the manskin drum at the prow. The rest of the crew soon slapped the seawater to the beat of his drumming. The oars stroked unevenly, as the sailors were untrained and improperly supervised. But they were strongly motivated with Therian stalking amongst them, his wild eyes threatening death and damnation with every glance.