Chapter Twenty-Seven Elvine
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Elvine
“Get off me!” Elvine punctuated her command by driving her elbow into Varnyr’s ribs.
The Nihlvarian, however, budged not an inch as the arrows continued to thud into the Ohlnir’s timbers.
Elvine heard yells of pain as the shafts found targets among the crew, followed by the splash of a body tumbling into the fjord.
She flinched when a steel-barbed arrow impaled itself in the boards a hand’s width from Varnyr’s shoulder, then felt him shudder above her, caging a shout behind clenched teeth.
The arrow storm ended abruptly as the Ohlnir’s deck tipped to a sharp angle, sending Elvine and Varnyr tumbling in an untidy tangle of limbs.
Their progress was halted by the larger of the ship’s two masts, Varnyr huffing a grunt as his back connected with the solid oaken pole.
Elvine finally managed to free herself from his embrace when the deck settled, staggering clear to see the tall hull of the Nihlvarian warship passing in front of the prow.
Her sweeping oars clattered against the figurehead before the two ships wallowed side by side.
Glancing back at the stern, she saw Kahlvik had taken charge of the helm.
Few other seafarers could have successfully steered them clear of the oncoming foe with such skill and alacrity.
Elation at their escape proved short-lived, for a chorus of shouts from the Nihlvarian ship heralded a volley of thrown grappling ropes.
A dozen iron hooks bit into the port rail, the line instantly drawn tight to haul the Ohlnir into unwilling union with the larger ship.
“Shields up!” Kahlvik cried out, sending his crew scrambling for their weapons.
Their enemy were unwilling to allow them the leisure of preparing a defence, a score of warriors vaulting across the gap to land on the Ohlnir’s deck.
Watching them cut down three crewmen, Elvine hefted the spear, feeling the familiar sensation of time beginning to slow as she girded herself for battle.
Yet, before she could enter the fray, she found herself pushed forcefully aside.
Varnyr loomed over her, features set in the hard focus of one habituated to killing.
The sight stirred a deep, sickening lurch of self-reproach in Elvine’s breast. What a fool I was to trust him…
Then he was gone, whirling away and drawing the twin swords from his back.
He met the enemy boarding party head on, blades flashing to leave two foemen lying dead on the deck.
Elvine saw dire recognition on the faces of the others as Varnyr continued his assault.
They were a mix of red-tattooed Nihlvarians and warriors from Ilvar’s menda.
She thought it significant that the Nihlvarians backed away while the Ascarlians, unwisely, did not.
She saw an arrow jutting from the rear of Varnyr’s right thigh.
It didn’t appear to impede him much at all in the ensuing slaughter of his former comrades.
The Ascarlians he hacked down in a blur of well-placed slashes, the Nihlvarians faring little better.
Elvine saw only one parry a blow, and then use the fractional respite to cast his sword aside and leap into the water.
For an instant, Varnyr stood alone on the foredeck, twin blades dripping gore onto the boards.
Then another chorus of shouts went up from the Nihlvarian ship and twenty or more hurled themselves across the divide.
Varnyr’s blades flashed again, raising a welter of blood, but there were too many, Elvine quickly losing sight of him in the chaotic melee.
Feeling a strange calm overtake her, she gripped the spear and charged.
The weapon’s arcane power blossomed in full before she reached the first Nihlvarian, reducing his movements to a ponderous, clumsy dance.
Ducking his flailing axe, she lanced the spear’s point through his belly and moved on.
Three more barred her path but she evaded them all with laughable ease.
Even in the midst of the worst fighting on the Olversahl docks the spear’s effect had never been so strong.
As she dodged and killed, she realised that this altered state of time was not uniform, it stretched and contracted according to her need.
One instant she sidestepped the thrust of a Nihlvarian swordsman, the next she opened his throat with a blindingly fast lateral slash of the spear.
When four warriors came at her from different sides, it seemed time had stopped altogether, so incremental was their charge, while her counter strikes were both precise and lethally swift.
Reaching Varnyr’s side, she found him surrounded, frozen in the act of fending off simultaneous thrusts while a lithe woman hung in mid-leap, her extended dagger a few inches from his throat.
Elvine killed the dagger wielder first, sliding on her knees to open her belly from below, before stabbing the spear through the forehead of the man on Varnyr’s right.
Time resumed its normal flow then, allowing Varnyr the honour of dispatching the third assailant himself, swatting his sword aside to hack one of his blades into the man’s shoulder.
Turning from the collapsing foe, Varnyr looked upon Elvine with much the same awe as he had when waking on the shore.
This time, however, she detected more in his gaze, a glimmer of something that resembled hunger.
It was gone quickly, the warrior blinking and shaking his head as the thunder of many boots sounded to their rear.
The crew of the Ohlnir together with Elvine’s guards, Kahlvik and Colvyn at their head, flung themselves at the enemy with enraged abandon.
Varnyr’s charge and the havoc wrought by Elvine appeared to have sapped the courage from their foes.
Some continued to stare at the Spear Maiden as they received the killing stroke, others tried to clamber back aboard their ship, only to be cut down as they reached for the ropes. Yet, still it wasn’t done.
While most of the grappling ropes had been severed, a few remained latched close to the Ohlnir’s prow, meaning they were unable to draw away when the hulking Nihlvarian vessel resumed the sweep of her oars.
The bigger ship’s bows crunched into the Ohlnir’s side, tilting the deck once again and causing water to gush over the starboard rail.
Elvine heard the crack of multiple whips from within the enemy’s hull, the sound of unfortunate slaves being driven to greater efforts.
“They’re trying to drive us onto the rocks!
” Kahlvik shouted. Wading through the water now washing over the Ohlnir’s deck, he marshalled his crew to unship their oars.
But even Elvine’s inexperienced eye could see that they would be crushed against the rocky shore long before any such effort could bear fruit.
A loud metallic clatter accompanied by the snap of a heavy bowstring drew her gaze to port in time to see the Chainbreaker sweeping past at fast stroke.
On her foredeck, Captain Veltta harangued a group of sailors to reload the bolt-throwing contraption.
Looking to the Nihlvarian ship, Elvine saw that their first attempt had scored a hit.
The yard long iron spike jutted from her hull planking just above the waterline.
Moving with well-drilled swiftness, the Chainbreaker’s crew loosed again when the gap between the two ships had diminished to little more than thirty paces.
This time the bolt struck below the waterline, birthing a tall splash amid which Elvine made out the dark shards of shattered timber.
Not content with piercing her hull, the Chainbreaker increased speed and rammed the Nihlvarian in the stern.
Oars flailing, the great ship lost momentum, her bows drawing back from the Ohlnir’s prow.
She took on an increasingly acute list to starboard, water frothing as it invaded her lower decks.
“Cut those lines!” Kahlvik cried, he and several crewmen rushing to hack away the grappling ropes still tethering the Ohlnir to the stricken foe.
Watching her sink, Elvine shuddered at the screams of the slaves trapped inside.
Within moments, the huge vessel keeled over amid an expanse of flotsam and flailing sailors.
As she slipped from view, archers on the Chainbreaker practised their skills on the survivors struggling in the water until none were left.
This time, Elvine felt no urge to interrupt their amusements.
“Trai—” The choking guttural gasp drew Elvine’s gaze to the sight of the dagger wielder she had maimed.
She lay half-submerged in crimson water, rope-like entrails leaking from her opened guts.
Her eyes, filled with pain and fury, were fixed upon Varnyr.
“Traitor!” she spat. “You shame… Vahlak’s… memory!”
Elvine saw a spasm of sorrow pass across Varnyr’s face before he moved to crouch at the dying woman’s side. “I told you once I thought we might be on the wrong path, Sobella,” he said, cradling her head in his large hands. “I was right.”
A short muffled crack as he twisted her head and the venomous judgement faded from the woman’s eyes, along with all signs of life. Gently, Varnyr gathered up her corpse and took her to the rail, letting her limp form slip into the fjord.