Exile (Bloodforge Book 1) (35 page)

“
Go down
,” said Barde. “
You’re
too scared to go and fight the demons, so slip down into the darkness. Nobody
will see you. Oh, but you’re not afraid of the dark are you?
”

Loster gritted his teeth
and reached for the ladder.

The enemy came in waves.
It was a disciplined attack, demonstrating a ruthless awareness that filled
Beccorban with a momentary despair. This was not some mindless assault, it was
a calculated attempt to take the ship. As the sea washed back down below the
waterline, he could make out the ugly silhouette of a ramming spike, black
against the deep unyielding green of the sea.
They didn’t use it,
he thought.
They
want prisoners
. He remembered Antler Helm pointing at him back at the
farmhouse but there was no sign of the strange warrior.

The smaller ones came
first. Each was still a head higher than the tallest human sailor but they were
not the thin, armoured knights he had seen on land. Those stayed back, watching
through implacable helms. Waiting.

“A test, greybeard!”
shouted Callistan with joy and Beccorban grimaced.

The smaller enemy wore
coarse robes and held cruel, curved knives and long-handled axes. Their faces
were uncovered and, though Beccorban had seen their bizarre pointed features
before, his stomach fluttered with attempted fear. He ignored it, as he had so
many times before. Instead, he cried, “Lussido!” and leapt to meet the enemy,
stunning even Callistan with his speed.

Two hurled themselves from
the boarding plank but one died in midair as Kreyiss stove in its chest,
casting the body to one side like a broken ragdoll. The other swung a hooked
blade down at him but he brought his arm up, trusting in the small metal plates
sewn under the leather to ward the blow. It rattled down his arm with a
thock
like a woodsman’s axe glancing off
of timber. Beccorban spun around for the riposte but his opponent was already
falling towards the deck, a bright red gash where the nightmare face had been.
Beccorban nodded his thanks at Callistan but the horseman could not see him
— he was in his own world and in that world he was a god.

In his decades of
fighting, Beccorban had seen only a handful of others with Callistan’s
terrifying ability. The horseman carved through the tall robed men like a
scythe through wheat. It seemed as though his falcata was never at rest, each
cut beginning with the end of the last. Yet still the enemy did not run.
These are not men,
Beccorban reminded
himself. The robed warriors fought until they died. As he tore Kreyiss’ killing
end from the mess of its last victim’s skull, Beccorban scanned the deck around
him. There were bodies all around. Nearby lay Grundis on his back with a great
rent in his neck. They had lost fifteen men, their colourful clothing standing
out from the enemy dead like flowers in a dun autumnal field.

There was a moment’s
pause. Beccorban breathed deep and, though the icy air burned his lungs, it
felt good. A sea-mist was rising. Already the beleaguered second enemy ship had
been absorbed into the fog and soon they would not be able to see what came
across the gangplank.

A
thunking
noise brought his attention back to what was in front of
him. Six tall warriors in full plate armour were walking slowly towards them. A
sailor behind him loosed an arrow and, though the shot was true, the arrowhead
shattered on impact with that hard grey metal, the shaft spinning off into the
ever growing murk. A murmur of fear rumbled through the men.

“Stand fast, lads,”
growled Beccorban. “There’s naught but flesh and bone under all that pretty
armour.”

Someone screamed,
keening their hatred and Beccorban spun around to see who had made the noise.

It was Callistan, and he
charged. Alone.

Callistan held his sword
low as he ran, making the tall knights raise their weapons in defence. Yet he
was not about to blunt his blade on that dull grey plate — he had learned
that lesson at the country house. Instead, as he crossed the short span of the
gangplank, he threw himself forward, ramming his shoulder into the thighs of
the largest enemy. The metal giant folded at the waist, slipping and falling
without a sound into the spume below. Callistan swore he could hear the crunch
as the warrior was caught between the two warships.

A sword swept down from
above and Callistan rolled away from the edge on to his feet. The enemy’s blade
bit deeply into the wood and stuck there. Callistan whistled and his opponent
looked up. He could not make out anything behind that helm but he imagined fear
on the knight’s bizarre face and it made him grin. He kicked down savagely with
his heel and felt the bones of the knight’s fingers — still wrapped
around the hilt of the huge sword — snap like firewood. The knight drew
its hand back quickly but Callistan swept up with his falcata and felt the
parting resistance of strange flesh as he cut off the arm at the shoulder.

The knight fell to his
knees and Callistan drew back his sword for the killing blow, but a sailor from
the
Lussido
rushed past him, leaping
high to bury a stiletto in the knight’s visor. It fell backwards, dead. A mob
of men followed, none of them armoured but all of them seething with anger and
fear.

“Come, horseman!” called
Beccorban. “There’s work to do yet!” The big man jumped down on to the enemy
deck, flailing and felling with his hammer.

Callistan joined the
fray and the men of the
Lussido
pushed the enemy back. These foul, eerie creatures had harried and hurt them.
They had chased them from their homeland and sought them on the sea, and though
for many of them Veria and Daegermund itself were borrowed homelands, each
fought like they were dremani.

The sailors quickly
realised that their strength lay in numbers. These tall enemies were formidable
but they could be hacked down to size if attacked from many different angles.
Still, even when there were only a few of the knights left, they fought on,
oblivious to the corpses of their comrades and the stink of death all around.
The last two remaining knights were herded against the thick trunk of the mainmast.
They had finally learned that to be surrounded was to die.

The men of the
Lussido
were exhausted and had lost
almost half of their number. They backed away and stood waiting. Callistan and
Beccorban stepped forward. Callistan had slipped in some blood and his once
white tunic, already singed and burned, was now stained a dark crimson on one
side, giving him the appearance of some demonic harlequin.

“Throw down your
weapons,” said Beccorban, panting.

Callistan spat and
ignored Beccorban’s disapproving frown.

The tall knights did not
answer, so Callistan walked over to a thick tangle of rigging and hacked at it
with his sword. Before the knights could react, they were swamped in the heavy
black folds of the mainsail. The men nearby attacked as one, without orders,
only stopping when fatigue demanded that they must. Pools of watery black blood
ran from the broken things under the canvas.

Each man caught his
breath and then somebody shouted, “Fourfinger!”

Callistan went rigid and
spun on his heel. He tightened his hand around his weapon.

“Fourfinger!” came
another voice and he realised that they were all smiling. At him.

“Fourfinger! Fourfinger!
Four-fin-ger!” The men of the
Lussido
cheered and clapped and waved their weapons, all the while shouting the refrain
that Beccorban had meant as an insult. Callistan looked over at the big man
accusingly but he just shrugged and then broke into a grin.
He smiles like a horse,
Callistan
thought.

“There’s more below!”
somebody stumbled into the circle of men. “Scores of them, below decks!”

The men rushed to the
nearest hatch with Callistan in the lead and Beccorban looming behind with his
hammer’s killing end close enough to kiss. Callistan descended the steep steps
one at a time — in truth he climbed down them. As he reached the bottom
he could just about make out a long, high-ceilinged deck. A low moan sounded
from somewhere off to the left. There were small holes all along the deck at
floor level, though he could not tell if they were regularly placed —
there were silhouettes in the way.

He called for a lantern
and the men behind him gasped as the light chased away the shadows. Before them
sat bench after bench of human prisoners. Each had suffered the amputation of
their legs below the knee and were held on their seats by great iron pins that
pierced their abdomens as well as leather straps that held their bloodied
thighs in place. Across their laps lay great black oars.

“That’s how they caught
us so quickly,” said a Sturmon accent and Callistan noticed the Captain at his
shoulder, bloodied and dishevelled, but still brightly coloured. “I should have
guessed she was a galley. You can usually smell the stench from the rowing
decks. Who would use oars in such waters?”

Callistan held the
lantern high. Sure enough, several slaves closer to the hull lay dead, crushed
by the swing of the oars as the raging sea fought back.

The Captain elbowed his
way through the press and took the lantern from Callistan’s hand. He knelt by
the side of the nearest prisoner. “Your ship, man. Tell me her name.”

The prisoner looked up
and his eyes, rimmed with purple bruises, rolled into the back of his head. His
lips were dry and cracked, so the Captain called for water and asked again.
This time the man managed a reply. “The Fallow…” he said and gulped greedily
from the waterskin.

“The Fallow Deer, I know
her well. She is part of Illis’ flag fleet. She was based at Kressel, no?” The
prisoner nodded. “Tell me of your captain.”

“Dead,” the man croaked.
“They’re all dead.” His eyes grew wide and he swayed in his seat. “They
came…over the sides. Took us without…a fight.”

“And Illis,” Beccorban
stepped forward. “Was the Empron with the fleet?”

The man nodded. “Most of
the fleet got away, but the rest…” he trailed off and began to cry. Several of
the men looked away.

“And the city?”
Beccorban prompted him. “How did they breach the Sea Walls so quickly?”

The prisoner sniffed and
looked at him in confusion. “They breached the Sea Walls?”

“You were there, man.
You tell us,” said Callistan.

The prisoner shook his
head. “No, we got away.”

“You abandoned the
city—” Beccorban began but Callistan spoke over him.

“You said they came over
the sides. If you weren’t in harbour, why had you stopped?”

The man took another
drink. “Sabotage. Rudder cable was cut.”

Callistan felt cold
sweat bead on his neck. “Who cut it?”

“The captain.”

“
You should have brought a lantern,
” mocked Barde. “
He could be anywhere, waiting for you to
shuffle past in the dark.
”

“Go away!” hissed Loster
aloud.

“
You don’t want that, Los. You need me. You always will.
”

Loster shook his head
and carried on. Barde was right, it was pitch dark down here, but Loster was
too afraid of being seen. It meant that he had no idea of where he was going.
If he could only catch a glimpse of the sailor…

There was a great crash
like the world ending and the ship jumped violently sideways. Loster was thrown
into a bulkhead and he fell to the floor with a grunt. Something metal
clattered to the deck nearby and Loster heard a curse and frantic movement. He
froze.
There!
Ahead of him, a dim
orange glow fluttered briefly.
He’s
re-lighting his lantern!
he thought, unsure of whether that revelation
belonged to him or his deceased brother. All the lanterns on a ship were
shielded to prevent the light spilling where it should not. The sailor must
have opened the gate to reignite the flame.

Loster climbed slowly to
his feet. The orange glow had gone now but he heard a metallic
clack
and then the squeal of a hinge. He
walked forward, feeling out with his hands until they touched rough wood. The
corridor he was following went right for a few paces until stretching on again
down the length of the ship. He felt his way to the corner and peered around,
catching the faintest hint of the lantern ahead as the sailor disappeared into more
darkness. He rounded the corner and slid his feet out so that they touched the
wooden bulkheads on either side. It was slower but it kept him upright,
allowing him to ride the swells. If he fell, he would alert his target and then
he would never find him.

“
What are you going to do when you catch him?
” sneered Barde. Loster
tried to ignore him but Barde would not be stilled. “
You haven’t even got a weapon — not that you’d know what to do
with it. Hammer’s son, indeed. Go on, make the priest proud!
”

Loster made his way
along the corridor and stepped through the low doorway where the sailor had
disappeared. He was immediately struck by the smell of horse: grass, dust,
dung. He was in the hold. A snort made him turn his head. Though it was still
dark, his eyes had adjusted just enough to make out the silhouette of a long
face.
Crucio!