Exodus: The Windwalker Archive: Book 3 (Legends of Agora) (9 page)

Never I see him give up. Never I see him quit. Then I see his heart break when he looks in her fiery eyes. He gives up. Gives himself to oblivion. May the gods save him.

-Gretzen Spiritbone

The wind carried them swiftly north for five days. They took a roundabout route to avoid the fortress island of Fendora, sailing wide into the forbidden eastern seas. The island had been turned into a fortress by Uthen-Arden, to keep the watch for the mysterious dark elves. Talon didn’t know if the legends of the dark elves and their hideous draggard were true or not, but he still found the dark waters foreboding. Even Chief could feel it and often spent endless hours staring off to the east were the elven homeland of Drindellia was said to be located far across the sea.

“What you see out there, boy?” Talon asked, standing beside Chief at the starboard rail.

Chief growled low in his throat and Talon perked up. The wolf wouldn’t growl unless there was a real threat.

“Is it a ship?”

Chief barked once.

“Is there more than one?” Talon asked, trying to see through the darkness of night. There were no moon or stars out due to the low hanging clouds that had creeped in from the east just before nightfall.

Chief barked twice.

“Good boy, you stay here. If you see anything, give a howl.”

Talon walked the short distance to Argath’s chamber and knocked twice.

“Come in,” said Argath.

Talon found him at his desk, pouring over star charts.

“Captain, Chief has sensed a ship off the starboard side.”

“Are you sure?” said Argath, sitting up and grabbing his captain’s hat—one still stained with the blood of McGillus.

“Chief is sure. He’s been weird for hours now.”

“Put out the call to arms,” said Argath, strapping his sword belt on his hip.

Talon left him to prepare and called the crew to arms. They were not seasoned sailors, and few but the former gladiators had any real training in combat, but they sprang to action quickly if somewhat clumsily, swinging down from ropes and hurrying below deck to the armory. Soon everyone was in position, and the cannons were wheeled through the portholes and prepared with dragon’s breath bombs.

Redemption had been alerted as well, and having fewer Skomm on board, sailed to the starboard side of Freedom to protect her hull. Argath and Eaglewind used an old Skomm fire signaling code developed on Volnoss to communicate throughout the village. It consisted of covering and uncovering a candle or lantern in a series of quick flashes. Through this method, Redemption reported to Freedom that the ship had been spotted five hundred yards off the starboard side, bearing north.

“They’re pacing us,” said Argath when the lookout reported the message.

“Could they be elves?” asked Torrence, who stood beside Talon with a big axe clenched between knotted hands.

“Not likely,” said Talon. “Maybe they’re dark elves.”

“Well if that’s the case, we’re feiked.”

“It isn’t dark elves,” said Argath, “and it isn’t Agoran military. I’ve been reading McGillus’s log books and other naval publications; the navies don’t come this far east, and fishermen don’t either.”

“Then who is it?” Talon asked.

“Pirates,” said Argath, squinting eastward through the growing fog.

The wind had nearly died altogether and pushed them along far too slowly for Talon’s liking.

“Why haven’t they attacked?” he asked.

“They’re watching us, pacing us, leading us…Hard starboard!” he suddenly bellowed, startling both Talon and Torrence.

The command was echoed by others, and the wheelman complied, forcing Talon to grab ahold of the rail else stumble across the deck. The signal was sent to Redemption, and soon the two ships were splitting up; Redemption moving northeast, and Freedom veering east to sneak behind the pirate ship.

Talon followed Argath to the port side as the ship leveled out and gained some momentum. Soon their mysterious escort came into view beyond the rivers of fog. To everyone’s surprise and terror, she was coming at them head on. Worse yet, the vessel turned out not to be a pirate ship, but rather, a Vald icebreaker.

“Steer into the bastards!” Argath commanded the wheelman. But he didn’t need to tell the man, for he had been a wheelman of one of the biggest Skomm fishing boats and knew it best to let the other ship glance off the front rather than allow a hit amidships.

They turned toward the attackers, and suddenly thunder erupted from the front of the icebreaker. A cannon hit the bow of Freedom, sending splinters shooting across the deck. Talon was thrown forward with the rest of them and felt a sudden hot piercing sensation in his left shoulder. He began to stand up, but the Vald ship had closed the short distance and now slammed into the port bow, causing anyone not holding on to something to fly across the deck helplessly. Cannons erupted again, from both the icebreaker and Freedom. Talon felt the reverberations through the wooden deck as a few cannons ripped through the hull.

The ships passed one another, letting off their aft cannons and, in the case of the Vald ship, a volley of arrows.

“Volley incoming!” Talon screamed when he saw it, though he couldn’t hear his own voice.

The arrows streaked out of the darkness as he attempted to scramble to his feet against the main mast, but a bundle of glowing fur hit him in the chest and smothered him on the deck. Dozens of arrows hit the boards, and he felt Chief take more than one hit.

When it was over, Chief turned translucent once more, causing the arrows to fall to the deck.

“Thanks boy,” said Talon, pulling himself up and surveying the damage.

“Hard port! Turn with the bastards!” said Argath, who had used a wide barrel to shield himself from the barrage. Many others hadn’t been so lucky. Talon could see one dead man, a skinny Skomm with more than one arrow tacking him to the deck. There were at least a half dozen injured. There was no way to know who might have fallen into the water, or who might have simply been obliterated by one of the blasts.

The first cannon had hit them port bow, where now the rail was left gaping and burning; smoke billowed from the hole, covering the deck in black soot that mingled with the growing fog blowing in from the east.

The wheelman had obeyed the command and circled with the now distant Vald ship. Still, there was no sign of Redemption or Eaglewind.

“Prepare port cannons!” said Argath. “When they’re in range, fire at will!”

A glowing green orb suddenly flared to life on the hull of the icebreaker, which circled with Freedom two hundred yards off the port side. Talon watched helplessly as the orb cleared the distance to Freedom in a matter of seconds. He grabbed ahold of the stair rail leading up to the poop deck and braced himself.

The explosion took out the main sail, snapping it clean in half and leaving it to fall into the ocean like a great oak. The rigging kept it attached to the ship, and its drag in the water began to turn them starboard.

Talon’s ears rang, and he choked on the acrid smoke, trying to get a look at the distant ship.

“They’ve got a magic user on board!” he tried to tell the others, but again, he couldn’t hear his own voice.

I’ve got to take them out of the fight or we’re doomed,
Talon thought, mind racing for a way to get onboard the other ship.

“Chief! Can you get me onto that ship?”

Chief barked once, and grabbed ahold of Talon’s collar. Surprise and terror sent Talon’s throat into his stomach as he and Chief suddenly shot from the deck and sailed through the air over the dark waters.

Talon wanted to scream, and he might have been screaming, he wasn’t sure, but he unsheathed his twin daggers and focused on the power of Kyrr, which was fast growing.

Chief set him down on the deck of the ship, and Talon rolled once before springing up into the face of a surprised sailor. He slashed his throat before the man could cry out.

“Kill them all!” Talon heard himself commanding Chief.

As the blue streaking wolf began wreaking havoc onboard, Talon quickly scoured the deck for the magic user. Two men came at him from different directions, and Talon leapt, aided by the power of Kyrr, and grabbed hold of the beam twenty feet above his head. He quickly hooked a leg and swung up to stand on the beam, which held ropes to the main mast. Talon went to hacking at the ropes, easily severing them with the elven blades.

One of the sails flailed uselessly below, and the Vald turned their crossbows on him. He deflected the oncoming darts with his daggers and leapt to another beam, all the while trying to locate the sorcerer. In his searching he saw as Redemption finally split the mist and hit the ship in the aft, starboard side. He grabbed ahold of the mast as the ships collided. Below he could still make out Chief, streaking across the deck and tearing the throats out of everyone he could sink his teeth into.

There was a sudden flash of light, and Chief was engulfed and frozen in a beam coming from the bow. He looked in that direction and saw the hooded figure extending a clawed hand from which the spell originated.

Redemption’s cannons erupted beside them, but to Talon’s dismay they did no damage to the icebreaker, for when the cannons hit, a webbed spell of light burst to life, one that covered the entire ship.

Talon ran the length of the beam toward the bow. Trusting in Kyrr, he leapt and came down safely before the hooded figure. The sorcerer’s hand was still extended, and the beam continued to render Chief uselessly caught in its magical grip.

All around them, cannons roared as both Freedom and Redemption attempted to break through the magic shield covering the ship.

With a surge of power, Talon leapt the distance to the creature, who lifted its other hand and sent a blast at him as he came down. Talon instinctively brought the daggers across his chest, and was shocked when they deflected the blast, sending it out wide to explode against the portside rail.

Without wasting another second, Talon thrust his dagger toward the sorcerer’s gut, but his enemy spun with the attack, avoiding anything but a glancing blow. Talon had won a small victory, however, for the sorcerer was forced to release Chief. The spirit wolf streaked up onto the poop deck and barreled into the sorcerer as he spun away from Talon’s dagger thrusts. Then, to Talon’s shock, his enemy struck Chief with a glowing knotted staff, sending his translucent form spinning through the air and over the rail into the ocean.

“Chief!” cried Talon, but his voice suddenly caught in his throat as the hood fell back, revealing a shock of tangled red hair.

“Akerri?” he gasped.

She leveled red glowing eyes on him and grinned. Bringing her staff to bear on him, she began to advance.

“Akerri? Why are you doing this?”

She smiled wider, and her eyes rolled back to reveal darkness. “Your Akerri cannot hear you, plagueborn,” came the voice of Fylkin Winterthorn when she spoke.

Talon was appalled. He circled Akerri, trying to wrap his mind around what was happening.

“Now watch,” said Fylkin, “as she lays waste to your precious Skomm!”

Akerri turned from him and shot the staff out in front of her, sending a glowing spell through the glimmering shield and into the side of Freedom. The explosion lit the world fully for a moment, and Talon lunged forward and tried to tackle her to the floor. A swift backhand sent him sailing across the deck, over the rail, to land in a heap on the deck below.

He looked up through his daze at Akerri standing on the rail.

“Kill him,” she said to the Vald crew.

An eight-and-a-half-foot giant of a man was the first to heed the command and came down with a mighty axe, meaning to cleave Talon’s head. He rolled away in the direction of another Vald sailor carrying a three-pronged trident. Talon shifted beneath the weapon at the last moment, causing it to hit a mast above his shoulder. Talon grabbed ahold of the weapon and heaved the man to the side with a quick effort. Kyrr glowed like a full moon on his finger now, and he took his anger and confusion out on his attackers.

Talon leapt onto a Vald carrying a giant war hammer and rode him down to the ground, burying his daggers in the man’s chest a dozen times before they hit the deck. In a flash, he was up and circling around a clumsy blow from another. He slit the man’s throat and moved on to the closest, hamstringing this one and burying his daggers in the Vald’s eye sockets before moving on once more.

He found himself screaming incoherently as he slaughtered the Vald crew. It wasn’t until a dozen men lay dead and bloody at his feet that he looked up at Akerri, who stood looking down on him from the rail.

“Impressive,” came Fylkin’s voice from Akerri’s mouth. “But enough of these games.”

She extended her hand, and a beam of light grabbed ahold of Talon and squeezed so hard he had to fight for breath. Akerri walked down the steps as she simultaneously lifted Talon from the deck with her magic spell. She came to stand before him.

For a moment her eyes turned their familiar green.