21. Chapter 21
Chapter 21
A thelstan wanted this parley no more than his opposite number did.
Nonetheless, he had acknowledged - if through gritted teeth - that the notion was sensible.
He could see its sense in the array of ships that had lined up against them on the lead-colored waves.
He could see its sense in the sight of the heavy clouds that were turning the morning into twilight.
Therefore, he was standing patiently on deck now, waiting while yarl Sigurd passed his heavy sword to one of Athelstan’s men. The young leader looked displeased. He clearly disliked the notion of being disarmed.
Strangely enough, Athelstan could understand him there.
The new yarl Sigurd did not appear to be fazed by the gathering storm. The northmen of the isles of Tenne, people said, are born at sea, and raised with waves under their feet.
Athelstan privately vowed that he would make sure this man at least would also die this way.
“Your Lordship,” he offered Athelstan a mocking half-bow. “I hope you aren’t going to have me go down to your cabin. I am not fool enough to place myself at the disposal of my enemy.”
“I do not kill unarmed opponents who come to negotiate.”
“How very noble and mighty you are. We have simpler ways, back home.”
“You have the notion of a host’s duty as we do”, Athelstan pointed out pedantically. “I know that.”
“We do. And men with bolder souls make use of that.”
“What do your men want?” He gritted his teeth. He knew, deep down, that there was not an answer to be uttered on this deck that would satisfy both. But there were rules to be observed.
“What do men of arms usually want? Silver, land, fame.”
“You took out silver already. It wasn’t enough. Don’t take me for a fool”.
“I didn’t say they want silver alone, did I? Do you know what remains of a man after his body dies, Lord of Greyharbor?”
“That depends on how well he lived his life.”
“On that, we agree. Only, I suspect we have different notions of what a good life means. When one’s soul descends to Scha’oton’s Hall of a Thousand Mysteries, his servants don’t judge how well you’ve bridled your desires in life or how many temples you’ve endowed. They only admit you to the mother-of-pearl chambers if you have been a brave warrior, and never betrayed a friend at arms, and never turned your back in battle.”
“Out of these three sins, you’ve committed at least one. I am not fool enough to call yarl Ivarr your friend, but your Lord of Battle might think otherwise. Oath-breakers are not beloved by any gods”.
“If I have committed it, I would wash it away in blood and songs. For that is what also remains of a man when he descends. The word people carry of him. The glory. That’s what you don’t seem to understand”.
“I am not foreigner to the call of battle. I value bravery as much as any man.”
“But there are things you value more. Your silver. Your soft soil. Your courtly games. If it were your levies, your mercenaries, your gods-alone-know whom you’ve assembled, on that side, and you’ve told them to go home with booty without battle, they would have agreed, won’t they? Your authority would have suffered no blow. Our men are hardier than that. They need the bright fame of singing swords. Which is why, I think, this parley is pointless, Lord of Greyharbor.” Sigurd smiled, a smile of a man who thinks himself a step away from celebrating his victory. “There is nothing that you can offer me that would satisfy my men; and, what they need, they can take only in a tribute of blood.”
It took all of Athelstan’s self-control not to grind his teeth audibly.
What else did he expect from this attempt? Nothing, in truth. But the arrogance of the oath-breaker still grated.
“So, a fight it is,” he said heavily.
“It was always going to be thus,” yarl Sigurd nodded with the look of imparting a secret to a lesser being.
***
“Triad, that’s quite a fleet”, Julia murmured, clearly savvy enough to know not to alarm the others. “Aren’t serpent-ships supposed to be a rare works of craft?”
Athelstan nodded grimly, looking at the enemy ships nearing them inexorably, the water parting before them like silk before a knife. Each prow was ornamented with a figure of Ygnattun the Great Serpent, She of the Green Depths. Each was carved differently, by a different master, but all were made to inspire obscure dread in the hearts of men and women alike.
It did not inspire dread in Athelstan Waite’s heart. Only grim determination.
“The new yarl wants to pour all his strength into this. He staked his power and his glory upon this”.
Then all these thoughts were cut off, his mind crystallizing into one intent.
He knew this feeling. In its most brutal, crimson incarnation, it was the only thing that kept him going at the Redstone Pass.
“You will remain here, and protect The Lady’s Arms with others”, he told Julia, turning to her. “I will be the one leading the boarding party.”
She did not argue, as he had somewhat feared she would. Recognizing the situation, she nodded, and put her hand on the pommel of the sword he had gifted her.
The first enemy ship was close now. Closer.
Close enough.
At his command, the boarding ropes, their ends gleaming with grappling hooks, shot out towards the other vessel.
They found their mark in the rigging.
He joined in the effort of drawing the vessel in, as did Julia. An image shot through his mind, a sunlit day, a net full of writhing silver fish - and the strain in his wife’s face, the surprising strength in her stubborn arms.
He was not as surprised now.
The proximity was enough at last. He led the boarding party without grand speeches - there was little room for them now, and little need. The deck lurched under his feet as he left it.
The storm was starting in earnest.
He plunged into chaos on the other side. It was the chaos whose rules he knew: the chaos of limbs and blades and bodies. Men made wild with combat were lashing out without thought, men with cooler heads calculating their opponents” weaknesses at the speed of lightning.
He killed the first man of this battle a few moments” worth after the boarding, a fighter slashed from ear to waist. There was a premonition then, a sense of danger more than a sound of it, and a he ducked while another enemy’s axe cut the air above his head. The man fell under the sword of one of his warriors from A Lady’s Arms .
Warriors. A fine word. Athelstan Waite had little illusions of men who went into levies, yesterday’s fishermen, yesterday’s farmers. But at least they’ve known the recent civil war. At least they weren’t completely unbloodied.
A push further through the deck. A feeling of blade carving through meat, through human flesh, the feeling that had long since stopped being strange to him, though he had always prayed to the Fate it would never become pleasant.
Athelstan saw, in the corner of his eye, his men falling around him. He saw, too, the men who pushed through, the men who skewered their enemies well.
He remembered their names.
A giant stepped in front of him, a man in a better leather armor than others, his blade worn with bloody use. Didn’t have to be the captain of the vessel. Probably was one, though.
Athelstan didn’t waste time on the contest of brute strength - he knew there was little chance he would win this one. Instead he grabbed the rim of the captain’s round shield and turned ruthlessly in a half-circle.
There was no way the core would be untouched when the rim is so rotated. Athelstan had learned that from a man who died at Redstone Pass.
The giant cried out suddenly, something in his wrist crunching. Using that moment of pain-blindness, Athelstan pushed the shield up and forth, smashing it against the other man’s chin.
Several teeth flying, bloody saliva. Shield falling out of a broken wrist. An attempt at a last killing blow. Athelstan stepped aside, avoiding this last, and decapitated the captain with one swing of his sword.
Carving his way through a ship-full of fierce warriors was a long and bloody work. When it was finished and his men could take control of the vessel, the blade was crimson to the hilt.
His men. He frowned, counting quickly. Too few of them survived even this first assault. By Triad, too few.
He gave the order to steer the vessel towards the core of the northmen’s force. He received some bewildered glances for this. He did not care.
The disparity in numbers and training was just too great; there was little chance of them prevailing as is. To cripple the enemy, he was going to take a drastic step.
Get to the newly-conquering yarl Sigurd’s ship, butcher his way through the man’s sworn guard, and cut the life out of him.
Some might have called it foolhardy. Some might have even insinuated that Athelstan simply wanted to emulate his brother’s song-worthy heroics.
He preferred to call it a sound way to reduce the losses.
***
Remaining back on The Lady’s Arms was no sinecure. Even if Julia by some chance had not known it before, she would have realized it five minutes into the battle.
She knew her greatest aim: protecting the Undying Fire; or, rather, the contraption that would allow them to use it. Clumsily-made though it might have been, it was their only chance to gain an edge over their enemies.
So, on that post Julia remained.
As The Lady’s Arms was boarded, the instincts in her blood screamed for her to throw herself into the thick of the fighting. However, she knew her duty, and remained in place.
It was painful, this lack of movement. But this time, it was for a worthy cause.
In any case, it did not last long. Two northmen got to her soon after, and Julia’s sword left its scabbard.
She was not a swordswoman of great strength, and never would be. She knew that. But she was quick and agile, and that allowed her to evade the blows, to duck and side-step a half-second away from the moment the blade would have connected with flesh.
She noticed that the younger of her opponents started in combat more ferociously than his comrade-in-arms. He was clearly greener, though, his movements too showy, too wide off the mark.
That was good. That meant he was going to get tired quickly.
Julia waited for that moment, and struck the second she noticed his breathing grow fast and shallow. She made as though to stab at his right arm, then, when he moved it away, slashed at the left. Blood spurted from the fresh crimson wound. He let his shield fall, out of shock as much as pain.
Then Julia ended his life with a stab to the chest.
Immediately, she had to step out of the way of the older man’s axe. Stabbing him in the belly while he was raising it was tempting, but it was not her first day holding a sword - she knew she won’t reach her aim in time to prevent his two-handed axe from coming down and cleaving her flesh.
So, instead, Julia stepped away - and brought the sword down on the man’s wrist.
She did not severe it completely, but the wound gaped grievously. She bought herself a second of time.
It was enough for her to finish him with a blow to the neck.
Breathing heavily, Julia lowered her reddened blade.
The Triad and her own skill had granted her a respite.
She knew it won’t be a long one.
***
Yarl Sigurd’s ship, the one that boasted the greatest serpent-carving of them all, was not trying to evade them. A man not trying to prevent his vessel from being boarded was either a breathtakingly brave one, a breathtakingly confident one, or breathtakingly foolhardy one. Athelstan was not sure whether the yarl was one or all three.
Black waves were churning underneath the hull. There was little surprise about the greater number of men at arms on this serpent-ship. Which did not make them any easier to kill.
One northman tried to stab at Athelstan’s leg. He simply moved it away and slashed away the top of the man’s skull.
One of his own men fell, gutted, the blood crimson and copious, and Athelstan had to step away so as not to slip in the heat of the fight. Such things could decide the throw of a dice between life and death as much as the skill at arms could.
He could see his foe now. His helmet was not ornate, the northmen did not believe in such things. But it was well-wrought enough to differentiate him from the rest of his war-band.
A new resolve gripped Athelstan. Now, here, was his chance to decapitate the enemy forces. Now, here, was the chance to…
A year ago, a vision would have flashed in front of his inner sight: his brother commending him for felling an enemy leader in a single combat, telling him he didn’t think he had it in him. Now, there was only one thing he could see.
The great burning hearth in the old hall, and Julia standing in front of it, wreathed in firelight.
He crossed the swords with yarl Sigurd without loud proclamations, without official challenges. None were needed, here and now.
The yarl’s eyes narrowed in the slits of the helmet - he must have recognized him, too.
Sigurd swung his sword, and Athelstan raised his, taking the blow on the back edge. The impact reverberated in his arm.
The din of battle could only be matched by the roar of the sea. The great churning waves rocked the ships as though they were naught but fishing boats. Both men were used to the fury of the sea, but some forces no habit could drain. One particularly strong wave made Athelstan abandon his lunge and almost crouch on his knees so as to avoid being toppled to the deck. Pain blossomed on his shoulder.
The bastard got to him.
They fought, and, around them, men died. Not all of Sigurd’s war-band were hardened warriors of sagas - most, Athelstan knew, were little more than farmers who joined him for the sake of a raid-worth of good loot, going a-hunting, as they called it. But they were still overwhelming his men by sheer number.
He needed to win this duel.
There was little chance of tiring the other man out. So, instead, Athelstan went for a lowline cut across his legs. Sigurd parried quickly, and, immediately, his opponent thrust his sword towards the other man’s throat. The yarl flinched just in time, but the blade caught his shoulder instead, and, unlike his own blade a minute ago, cut deep. The red gash bled greatly, the gore mixing with the rainwater.
The yarl lowered his shield instinctively, the arm in question likely hurting like molten metal had been splashed upon it.
It was an opening lasting no longer that the blink of an eye. But, for Athelstan Waite, it was enough.
He lunged, and buried his sword in his enemy’s chest.
At this moment, another wave raised the ship, and yarl Sigurd fell upon his knees.
Athelstan withdrew his own blood-slick sword, breathing heavily. His pulse was beating in his temples. He had done it. By Triad, he won.
The sense of triumph rising in his chest, however, was cut off by the perception of something strange.
Yarl Sigurd was dying in the pool of his own blood. However, his eyes were unnaturally bright, and a smile lit his lips. As though his great plan was not at an end at all. As though he still had a card up his sleeve.
He mumbled something, and Athelstan strained his ears, not being fool enough to lean closer.
The words were not those of mockery or some last taunt. Indeed, they were not addressed to him at all.
“The Great Serpent,” Sigurd whispered, “I have honored you with many sacrifices. I have penetrated the secrets of your worship. I have called you by your primordial names. Take my last breath, now, and the last drop of my blood, and send one of your children to avenge me.”
A chill that had nothing to do with the cold sea wind ran through Athelstan’s spine.
Then a rush and a roar that had nothing to do with the sea storm had almost split open the sky.
***
Julia’s back was to the railing when she first heard the great noise.
Then a wave whipped onto the deck, washing across her legs to the knees, and the ship leaned dangerously. Julia shouted out orders, her voice breathless, and, the Lady be thanked, the vessel had been prevented from capsizing.
She cut the throat of her assailant, and allowed herself a glance back.
And froze.
It was as though the waters of the Glittering Sea parted to reveal a black abyss, a darkness as the one between the stars; and, out of this abyss, something was rising.
A great head, not unlike that of the octopuses she had once caught in her nets - except greater, a dozen, two dozen, a hundred times greater. Then there were the pale tentacles, hoary with the centuries” worth of seaweed and corpses of deep-water creatures stuck to it.
And, worst of all, the maw - the maw, great as a cave opening and bristling with endless rows of sharp teeth.
Julia’s mouth grew dry, and all of Vittorio’s warnings flashed through her mind like a lightning strike. The yarl Ivarr digging for the secrets of the old faith, hunting for the scrolls of eldritch knowledge. Only, it was not yarl Ivarr after all, was it? What could be easier for a seemingly loyal right-hand man than to write a letter signed by his master’s name.
She knew the creature in front of her. She had heard whispered tales of it, seen countless engravings, even glimpsed it painted crudely on the sign of a tavern she knew.
The kraken.
Their enemies summoned one of the Great Serpent’s oldest children.
***
The monster did not wait for people to break out of their stupor. Two tentacles shot out, grabbing men from the decks of the ships unfortunate enough to be close, and shoving them into the creature’s horrid maw. The kraken roared then, and Julia’s ears grew numb.
She lost no time. She jumped towards the contraption and started working the bellows to get the brazier heating the substance up going.
“I can’t do this alone!” Julia shouted. “Someone, get the pump -”
Her voice was lost in the roar of the elements and the roar of the monster.
Frustrated, she tried to step on the bellows with her feet and turn the pump to force the air into the container with her hands.
“Someone!” Julia called again.
Thank the Triad, this time a crew member heard her - one of the few surviving crew members. A man younger than Julia herself, he rushed to her through the blood-slick deck strewn with the corpses of both enemies and his less fortunate comrades in arms. He pushed her hands off the pump and took over, allowing her to return to fanning the flames.
The kraken crashed a nearby ship in half, the tentacles coming down upon it viciously and splitting the wood as though it were glass.
Julia turned the valve that had been stopping the passage of the fire to the nozzle.
Nothing happened.
The pressure was not enough.
Triad, Triad, Triad.
She shouted at the other man urgently, telling him to work faster, and sped up her own operation of the bellows. Her face grew hotter, her cheeks flaming, as though she were not in the middle of a cold dark sea.
Finally, a searing heat split the air. The flame of impossible white hue shot out of the nozzle, and right towards the creature’s forehead.
It hit. Julia looked at the spectacle with jubilation as the kraken screamed, sank… and resurfaced again, its head smoldering, the water around him burning in a circle of fire.
It can’t be immune to the Undying Fire, can it?
It had been slumbering in the deep since before Greyharbor was thought of. It can.
“Its eyes,” Julia decided. “They must be vulnerable. Try and hit them.”
Again, the backbreaking work. Beads of sweat rolled down her back beneath the shirt and the leather armor. This time, the fire came out of the nozzle without a pause.
And missed.
A chance wave lifted the ship right when Julia fired, and the charge went over the kraken’s head, harmless as a cloud.
“What now?” The young man under her command looked at her, earnest and anxious. There was no skepticism in his eyes now. There was no room left for it.
Father Telmen’s words came to mind. He couldn’t make much. He didn’t have time.
Was there even any of this substance left, in that tin-jointed container? And, if so, how much?
“Now? Now, we are going to pour the flame right down the bastard’s throat,” Julia said.
The young man’s eyes opened wider. She knew what he was thinking.
She was thinking it, too. The creature’s mouth was fully open only when it was feeding.
They had to wait.
Wait for it to engulf more people, more of Mearnt’s sons. More of the flesh-and-blood men who assembled this morning to give the battle and defend their homes.
But there was no other way. Would that there were.
So, she stood, and waited for the slaughter.
It couldn’t have lasted much more than a few heartbeats” worth of time. It was likely not even a full minute. However, an eternity was suppressed in those dozens of seconds, like the liquid fire in its sealed container.
After all, for all that Julia knew, the kraken’s next target might well be herself.
The tentacles swooped over her head. She felt the cold radiating from them, the eons-old cold of the green sea depths.
Swooped, and came down hard on the struggling ship nearby, splitting the deck in two and snatching the men in their grasp.
Her heart beating wildly, Julia worked the bellows like she could have never imagined working them before. Her crewmate’s face was similarly crimson as he pressed on the pump.
The creature opened its maw in all its horrid black glory.
This was their last chance. Julia felt that in her bones, as clearly as if it had been etched in the marrow. There was little of the substance left, and if they miss this time -
It did not bear thinking about. She had little time for conscious thought in any case.
Without a further word, Julia pointed the nozzle at the kraken’s maw, and a pale flame escaped the bronze opening, streaming over the water.
For a second, the world seemed to have gone still. Julia certainly had.
Then the fire hit the target.
The Undying Fire seared through the creature’s throat. It thrashed in agony, sending wild waves around itself, ships of both sides capsizing left and right. It submerged, sucked water in, resurfaced, submerged again.
Nothing seemed to help him. The mad glint in the creature’s eyes had been nothing compared to the furious pain that blazed in them now.
The water around the kraken was burning with ardor that reminded Julia of the hearth in Greyharbor castle’s old hall.
Then, with a last, deafening roar, the creature disappeared under the water for the last time, and this time, it did not come back.
For several moments, no one spoke. Julia’s skin was slick with sweat, her hands reddened from operating the death-dealing contraption. Her eyes were on the water.
“We’ve killed it?” Her crew mate asked in what sounded like more of a question that a jubilant statement.
“I doubt that,” Julia breathed. “Creatures like that - the children of old gods - they don’t die so easily, even from the fire that can burn water. I think it just went to whatever lair at the bottom of the sea it slumbered in, to lick its wounds for another century or two.”
“Sounds good enough to me!” The young man exclaimed with a too-loud, too-bright cheer. The deck around them was strewn with bodies of those he must have known.
But some of the cheer must have been genuine.
The sea in front of them was a dark graveyard. The ships of the northmen looked now as battered as their own. Some have already started steering their sails, likely praying for the fierce wind to carry them away from the site of the carnage.
Julia wondered about yarl Sigurd. Where was he? Was his vessel not even trying to lead him; has it been, perhaps, lost in the maelstrom?
And –
She looked around, trying to catch the sight of the ship her husband boarded with his party what seemed to be an eternity ago. She could not find it anywhere.
Foaming panic started rising out of her soul. She swallowed and stoppered it as much as she could. The unthinkable could not have happened.
Why not? Plenty of good ships were lost. Plenty of good men, too. Athelstan is mortal, just like them , her inner voice whispered. And he had always led fearlessly. You know that. Men like that rarely live to die in their beds.
She pushed the thoughts away, knowing that they would undo her if she lets them.
Knowing she must not allow them to. Not here. Not now.
“After them,” she called out grimly. “This is going to be a long chase, lads.”
***
It was.
The Lady’s Arms abandoned harassing the fleeing enemy only when Julia realized the pursuit had led them too far. By that point, the full moon was already high in the sky, silvering the now-calmer waters.
The last thing she wanted was the lead her men – well, her husband’s men – into a trap.
At her calculations, they should not have been far from the chief port of Cimera. Reaching it would be much more sensible than to subject this battered fleet to another lengthy journey.
Fortunately, Julia had spent years learning to navigate one’s way by night, and moonless ones at that.
Her voice was clear when she gave the order, and so were her instructions.
“I knew I could trust you.”
She spun around at the sudden voice behind her, her sword already bared and, a heartbeat later, pressed against the intruder’s throat.
The intruder in question sounded weary:
“Julia, this ship has sailed when you missed the footsteps behind you.”
“I think I deserved some leniency. I am exhausted as though my bones were all remade in stone.” She put the sword back in the scabbard, and looked into her husband’s eyes.
She was not alone with him. But, she judged, they were also in the darkness, and thus stroked his cheek.
Julia expected grumbling about inappropriate displays, but instead she heard a quiet sigh.
“You could have let me know you were alive hours before,” she said. There was less ire in her voice than she would have hoped for. She really was tired.
“Did you think I was dead?” He sounded genuinely surprised.
“Well, you aren’t immortal, are you? It was a fierce battle.” This was her turn to sigh. “What happened to the yarl?”
“Dead at my hands. He used the fact to call that abomination up.” He paused. “The abomination you’ve defeated.”
“With some help. The Undying Fire is hard to deploy.”
“If not for you, we would not have had the Undying Fire to deploy in the first place.”
“I suppose.” Julia smiled slightly. “I did my best.”
“Your best is very good. I know now is not the time, but…”
“Say it still.”
“In the coming spring, I thought of a small campaign against the pirates who made nests of the western atolls. I want you to accompany me.”
“But what about the rules, my lord?” She teased. “What about the way things are done ?”
“Hang- I mean, not hang the rules, of course. They shouldn’t be hanged. But they can sometimes be told to shuffle away for a while. If the situation demands it.”
“The wildest way I have ever heard you say.”
They stood upon the deck, looking at the horizon, until the dark, solid form of land appeared there, and the faint fires of the port of Cimera. They said very few words in those hours, but Athelstan Waite’s arm remained firmly around his wife’s shoulders, and she could ask for no better support.