Forged In Flame (In Her Name: The First Empress, Book 2) (27 page)

Before Dara-Kol could respond, another volley of cannon fire raked the ship, some of the balls this time smashing their way through the hull itself. There were more screams and shouts, but there was something different this time. There were not only cries of pain, but of astonished terror.

Looking back toward the pursuing ships, Keel-Tath’s heart was seized by fear at what she saw emerging from the dark waters of the Great Deep.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The Great Deep

Keel-Tath had read many things in the Books of Time during her studies at the Desh-Ka temple. Some of them were tales of wonder and horror that she could barely credit. She had thought they were little more than exaggerated stories, legends and fables that were used by the keepers to instruct and guide, or truths that had been distorted over the long ages.

Now, staring wide-eyed at the sea, she knew the ancient tales were not exaggerations at all. Her mind had simply been unable to grasp the infinite depth and breadth that was reality.

The blood-red water for as much as a league around them had become a maelstrom of carnage. Driven by the scent of land-blood and the telltale vibrations of wounded fish, ever larger creatures rose from the depths to feed. Things leaped from the water to evade a pursuing predator, only to be snatched from the air by another. 

Then the larger creatures began to attack one another, biting with jaws so big they could easily swallow a warrior whole, and filled with curved, razor sharp teeth as long as one’s arm. Those beasts that were wounded were instantly attacked by the cloud of fish and smaller predators that tore them to shreds in seconds.

The queen’s ships had ceased their cannon fire, but continued to close the distance, their bows plowing through the bloody slaughter.

“They plan to board us,” Wan-Kuta’i said. From the tone of her voice, it was clear that she no longer had any doubt it would happen.

Keel-Tath felt a heavy thump through her feet, then heard a deep grinding sound from deep in the hull. More bumps and thumps followed, until the hull echoed with hundreds of hammer blows.

“The scent of the trees from which the hull is made is no longer strong enough to overcome the scent of blood. They will think us prey, now.” 

“But the ship is not a living thing, and it is huge compared to them!” Keel-Tath’s protest was punctuated with a blow to the hull that was powerful enough to knock her off balance. 

“Anything in the water is prey, child!”

As the queen’s ships drew nearer, perhaps half a league away now, several of Wan-Kuta’i’s crew began to point toward the center of the swirling chaos.

A dome had formed in the water, a titanic upward bulge that expanded to at least half a league in diameter as the water rose upward, higher and higher. The beasts caught in the rising water stopped feeding and turned to flee, swimming as hard and fast as they could. 

Near the center of the rising water, the ship rose as if it were taking wing. The queen’s ships charged up the swell, steaming full ahead toward their crippled foe.

Every warrior on the decks of the four ships cried out in terror as an enormous maw erupted from the water right in front of the ship leading the queen’s squadron. Keel-Tath and the others stared at the emerging head as their minds grappled with the impossibility of its existence. The thing was covered in heavy dark green scales, each of which was as large as one of the ship’s boats. Some had been torn away, exposing black hide that bore deep scars. The glittering white teeth that protruded from the pink gums were like curved spikes as long as a mainmast was tall.

The enemy ship tried to turn, but there was no hope of escape. The jaws caught the hapless vessel and lifted it from the water as the gigantic beast continued to rise. With a turn of its head, an enormous eye came into view, bright yellow with a slit black pupil, that seemed to stare right through Keel-Tath’s soul as the head, poised at the end of a long neck that was larger around than the girth of Wan-Kuta’i’s ship, fully emerged from the water.

The enemy ship was now high in the air, only the stern half protruding from the creature’s mouth. Keel-Tath could feel the terror of the crew in her blood even as her ears could hear their muted screams. The enemy they might be, but she would not have wished such a fate upon them.

As the great head reached the peak of its emergence, the jaws closed, and the enemy ship, smoke still spewing into the air through the monster’s teeth, its paddle wheels turning, was crushed with a series of ear-splitting cracks. The remains of the stern, covered with the tiny figures of the hapless crew, plunged into the sea. The surface frothed as the crew was feverishly attacked by the smaller creatures that had moments before been fleeing from the titanic beast.

The other two ships of the queen’s squadron, one on either side of the creature, fired broadsides with their cannons at the head and neck. Long tongues of flame and clouds of smoke reached out, and the air was filled with the thunder of cannon fire. The cannon balls, which Keel-Tath was sure were larger than the bow chasers the ships had been firing earlier, glanced off the monster’s armor and ricocheted into the air.

If the creature noticed the attack, it gave no sign. Its jaws ground together, then snapped open and shut as it gulped down the ship, the masts snapping like twigs and the sails catching on some of its teeth. The head lowered into the water, sending out a huge swell that grew even higher as the bulk of its body rose to the surface. The dark outline of the thing’s body was clearly visible now in the water as it came up.

Right under Wan-Kuta’i’s ship.

Turning to her transfixed crew, Wan-Kuta’i screamed. “Turn hard to port! And cut that mast away!”

With those words, Keel-Tath realized that their ship was still wallowing, the fallen mast and sail preventing them from sailing away from this nightmare. She realized that Wan-Kuta’i was turning in the direction of the mast, hoping it would help them turn faster and sail clear of the surfacing monster.

Snapped out of their horrified stupefaction, the crew set to cutting the shroud lines holding the fallen mast to the ship. Keel-Tath ran to help them, unsheathing her sword and slashing at the thick rigging. 

She glanced up to see the waves caused by the head returning to the water overtake the two remaining queen’s ships, which were still speeding toward them. Even more smoke was belching from their smoke stacks, and their paddle wheels were turning so fast that water sprayed out behind them while the gun crews continued blasting away at the beast. 

A wave hit one of the ships, rolling it perilously far to one side. It would have recovered had not an enormous fin slashed out of the water and smashed it into kindling. The vessel was there one moment and gone the next, nothing left of it but crushed debris in the water and a few crewmen whose screams were quickly cut short by the smaller predators.

Just as the last rope holding the fallen mast to the ship parted, she heard a thunderous boom from below and the ship heeled over on its side. A huge spine, not unlike one of the creature’s teeth, speared the ship and burst through the deck right next to her as the creature’s immense back rose from the sea.

“Keel-Tath!” She looked up at Dara-Kol’s panicked shout. “Look out!”

Out of the corner of her eye, Keel-Tath saw the end of the fallen boom sliding toward her as it fell away, trailing after the mast. She tried to dodge out of its way, but was too late. The thick wood, hard as iron, slammed into her chest and sent her flying over the side.

Keel-Tath bit down a scream as she fell. Instead of slamming into the creature’s back, she found herself bouncing and sliding down the wet sail of the fallen mast, which had been raised out of the water along with the ship. That saved her life, for she never would have survived the fall onto the rock-hard scales. 

Catching her breath, Keel-Tath struggled to her knees and was about to get to her feet when the sail slipped from beneath her feet. Whipping her head around, she saw yet another variety of large, toothy beast clawing at it, trying to gain enough purchase to either haul itself from the water to get her, or to drag the sail — and her — into the deadly water. Other things, smaller or less inclined to venture into the air, circled and snapped in the water around the larger predator now intent on having her for a meal.

She ran, trying to keep her footing on the slick sail that was draped over the monster’s armored scales, but the thing that was trying to get at her kept yanking the sail farther into the water. More than once she went tumbling, until with a final leap she cleared the sail to land on the monster’s back.

The predator, which had front fins that doubled as legs and a blunt-snouted head sporting a mouth with rows of serrated teeth, clacked its jaws together and proceeded to waddle its way up the sea monster’s back toward her. She still held her sword, but knew that it would be of little use: the thing was nearly as large as a
genoth
, and was coated in glittering armored scales. With careful steps to avoid falling on the uneven scales beneath her, she backed away. But she could not go far: the slick wet hull of the ship was right behind her.

The beast was nearly upon her when a silent shadow fell upon it from above. It hissed in agony, swinging its head back to snap at Tara-Khan as he drove a harpoon with a wide spear point through the beast’s armored hide at the base of its neck. He leaped away just as the jaws snapped shut and another shadow fell: Ka’i-Lohr, bearing an axe. He cried out as he swung the weapon, catching the beast just behind the skull. The blade of living metal cut through hide, flesh, and bone, and the head flopped forward, free of the spine. With easy grace, Ka’i-Lohr rolled onto the back of the great monster on which they all rode as the body of the predator they had just killed began to writhe and twitch, rolling back toward the water. As the body reached the sea, smaller beasts and fish exploded from the waves to feast.

Ka’i-Lohr and Tara-Khan came to stand beside her. “Thank you, warriors.”

“It was nothing, mistress,” Ka’i-Lohr said, smiling. 

Tara-Khan gave her a sour look. “Next time, step out of the way when something is about to fall on you.” 

Before Keel-Tath could offer a retort, she heard Dara-Kol’s voice from above. “Are you all right?”

Keel-Tath raised her hand to shield her eyes from the sun as she looked up. It was a surreal sight, the ship completely out of water, the deck many arm-lengths above. “Yes, I am well! But we will need a line to climb back aboard!”

“There is no need. Stay there.”

As Dara-Kol spoke, coils of heavy rope were tossed over the side to dangle down to the monster’s back. She quickly grasped the nearest one and slid down to join Keel-Tath.

Keel-Tath looked at Dara-Kol as if she had lost her mind. “What are you doing?”

“The ship’s hull is breached.” Dara-Kol pointed to the base of the spine that had come up through the deck near Keel-Tath before she’d gone over the side. It went right through the hull, just next to the keel. “The only builder among the crew was killed. We cannot repair it.”

Keel-Tath bit her lip, and Dara-Kol’s eyes said she was thinking the same thing. “I know I have the powers of the other castes within me, but I have no idea how to summon that of the builders.”

“Nor do we have time,” Dara-Kol said. The monster on which they rode made an ear-splitting roar as it snapped at something in the water, sending a huge plume of spray. “The beast will not stay on the surface for long, and other creatures will come for us soon, just as that one did.” She nodded to the huge blood stain left by the beast slain by Ka’i-Lohr and Tara-Khan.

“Then what are we to do? Without a ship, how can we survive?”

“I did not say we did not have a ship,” Dara-Kol said with a fierce grin. “Only that we cannot use this one.” She pointed.

Keel-Tath looked and saw that the last of the queen’s ships lay only a few hundred arm-lengths distant, aground on the sea monster’s back but otherwise undamaged.

***

As the surviving crew abandoned ship, Keel-Tath watched the warriors of the enemy vessel begin slithering down ropes, just as they themselves had. She glanced up at Dara-Kol. “They outnumber us.”

“Yes, by at least three to one.”

“No matter.” Drakh-Nur rumbled from behind them, Han-Ukha’i by his side. “I will kill them all by myself if you would promise that I would never have to ride in a ship again.”

Keel-Tath and the others, even Tara-Khan, laughed. “Then how would I get you to Ural-Murir?”

“Become a priestess and whisk me away with your magic!”

The others chuckled, but the humor died away as the enemy warriors formed into a line abreast, three warriors deep, and began to run toward them, led by what Keel-Tath assumed was the ship’s mistress or master.

“Form a line!” The warriors instantly obeyed Wan-Kuta’i’s shouted order as they prepared for battle. 

“Han-Ukha’i,” Keel-Tath said, “stand to the side, out of harm’s way. But beware the sea beasts! Some have no fear of climbing upon our host’s back in search of prey.” This would be a battle of honor between warriors, and none would harm a healer, at least assuming that none of the approaching warriors had been turned by Syr-Nagath’s dark magic as had Lihan-Hagir.

The healer knelt and saluted. “May Thy Way be long and glorious, mistress.” She smiled as she spoke the words, then turned and made her way past the end of the terribly short battle line.

“I was hoping you would allow me to stay,” Drakh-Nur said from where he stood beside Keel-Tath. “I greatly enjoy Han-Ukha’i’s company, but in battle my place is by your side.”

“And I am glad for it. I will not let you come to harm, warrior.”

Drakh-Nur roared at her humor, and the laugh became a war cry that was echoed and amplified by the others, along with Keel-Tath herself.

The sound gave pause to the approaching warriors, for they suddenly slowed, then stopped, just beyond shrekka range. One of them continued to approach, moving at a brisk walk across the great scales.