The King ordered that the Hyborean flag be raised over their captured ship. A ragged pennant depicting two conjoined diamonds of red and black flapped from the mast. Seeing who approached, two brigs broke off from the group clustering around Vosh’s flagship and sailed out to meet the captured galley.
Therian rammed the first of the approaching brigs. The second rammed his galley in turn, driving its wooden prow amidships. Seawater gushed in and sailors were crushed and drowned. The survivors followed Therian and Gruum up onto the decks and clambered onto the enemy vessels.
Therian was a whirlwind of blades. Gruum ran after the King, but could scarcely keep up. Enemy fell as wheat before a scythe. Soon all three decks were swept of living men, save for Therian, Gruum and the two dozen cadets and sailors who still stood. Every man’s weapon glistened with blood. The decks at their feet sloshed with pink seawater.
Two of the three ships were hopelessly entangled and damaged. They opened their hatches and sent them down, then sailed away upon the third.
The grins of victory were short-lived. Another tongue of fire leapt out from Vosh’s ship and engulfed yet another of the great arks. This time, the spectacle was very close indeed. The brilliance of the flame made them squint their eyes. The heat of it could be felt upon their upturned faces.
Ships came at them one at time after that, but the Hyborean vessel with Therian aboard was unbeatable. Near to madness, the light of a hundred souls shone in the King’s eyes and drove his limbs. Gruum followed, his sole purpose being survival while his lord killed all who opposed them. They took all three ships, and kept sailing toward their goal.
When they finally caught up to Vosh’s carrack and engaged, Therian ordered the ships brought side-to-side. “We must hug up to her,” shouted the King, his voice alien in volume and timbre. “We must grapple and grip her so close they will not dare use the Dragon’s Breath without destroying both ships.”
As they hove close to the carrack, Gruum thought to see eldritch lights playing upon the enemy decks. He wondered why the enemy did not flee, nor fire missiles in their direction. As they came up and grappled, tightly binding the two ships together, Gruum saw the mysterious behavior of their foe explained.
None stood living upon the decks of the carrack. Every last sailor had perished, flopping down onto the decks or to float on the surface of the frozen sea like a deflated bladder. Vosh had drunk the contents of every man on his ship, and there were none left to sail her.
Vosh himself stood tall—taller even than he had when they had last faced him in the mountains of Kem. His bloated bones held a heavy sword in each fist. His jawbones were planted with square, grinning teeth of yellow ivory.
“Far too late you are, tiny King!” shouted Vosh.
The Hyboreans who had followed their terrible King throughout this terrible day and quailed at nothing, wavered now. They did not rush to battle with the lich, who was half the height of the masts themselves. They hung back, and Gruum could not fault them.
Therian, however, knew no hesitation. He vaulted the distance between the heaving decks, passing over several yards of frosty sea between them. He walked up to Vosh, his two dirty blades glinting in his hands.
“The day is mine, lich. I demand your surrender.”
Vosh laughed at him, the sound a ghost might make in a midnight storm. He threw his bone arms wide, invitingly. “Come and cut at my ankles, if you must.”
Therian did not do as the other had suggested. Instead, he sheathed his two swords. With great strides, he moved to the prow of the carrack and grabbed up the anchor chain. He swung it overhead with great speed, making it rattle and hum.
Vosh strode to engage him and slashed down with first one sword, then the other. Each blade snapped with a shower of orange sparks. The chains Therian swung now moved with such velocity and force they could not be stopped by a normal weapon.
Therian strode closer, still swinging the chain. Vosh reached out to grab it, and a great cracking sound split the day when he did. Three finger bones flew into the black seas, but he managed to grasp the chain and stop its arc. Therian might have been stronger, so full was he of souls, but the lich had the weight of a dozen skeletons. He was able to drag the smaller man over the decks, hauling him close.
“An ant is powerful for its size, O King,” laughed Vosh. “But in the end, it is naught but an ant!”
Gruum set his teeth and made the leap then, and it was almost the end of him. He caught the railing of the carrack and climbed aboard with aching fingers. So close was the deadly sea of ice below he didn’t think he would make it for a moment, but he did.
Therian, in the meantime, performed another unexpected act. He ran around the lich, who’s broken, grasping hands could not catch him. He ran around him once, dragging the chain behind. When the lich’s legs were entangled, he attempted to trip him and bring the bony monster down to the deck.
But the plan failed. Vosh reached down and plucked the King from the deck with his remaining fingers. He picked him up like a doll and hugged him close.
“Ah!” shouted Vosh, the sound of his voice injuring the minds of the thousand nearest men. “I taste your soul at last, and all those you have supped upon as well, absurd manling! You are like a porridge of twisting souls, a blend such as I’ve never had the pleasure!”
Gruum watched in horror as Vosh fed upon Therian. The King slashed with his swords. His impossibly strong hands snapped loose ribs and pried away finger tips, but all to no avail. Gruum could see he was weakening with each passing moment, while the lich grew ever stronger.
Gruum ran across the deck past the two in their death’s embrace. He ran to the prow of the ship, where the anchor chain was wound upon a winch. Knowing not what else to do, he hacked away the rope that held the winch fast and dropped the anchor into the icy seas.
The chain rattled and dragged across the planks with wild speed. Gruum hopped away, lest he be snared by the looping chains at his feet. The lich, however, caught up in the ecstasy of a hundred fresh souls, did not notice his peril.
The chain soon snapped taut, and one loop snagged on the spurs of the giant ankle of bone. The lich, still hugging to the struggling King, was dragged off his feet and pulled toward the rails. They caught there, upon the railing. Vosh, lying on his spine, worked his jaws with laughter and seeming drunkenness. Every soul that passed its power from Therian to Vosh seemed to unhinge the lich’s mind further.
Therian saw the way of things. He was caught against the railing, and the lich would not let him go. He reached out with Succor and hacked at the wooden rails. The wood splintered and white interior showed beneath the darkly-weathered surface.
Such was the strength of the blade that it did not snap. Such was the strength of the sorcerer that the wood was hacked through. A moment later, both Vosh and Therian were sucked over the side to fall into the sea, following the loose anchor to the bottom.
Gruum rushed to the side of the ship and looked down, expecting to see only a few bubbles and the last links of black chain. Instead, he saw the lich’s skull leering up at him. The lich clung to the hull with his last fingers.
“What a tricksy little man you are,” Vosh said to him.
“Give me back my master, and I’ll haul you back upon the deck,” Gruum said.
“In this case, there is no need for either of us to strike a bargain, barbarian. Your King heads to the bottom wrapped in your chains, and I have no need of regaining this deck. I am strong enough now for what must be done.”
The lich released his hold upon the carrack’s hull and let himself slide down into the sea. The gigantic skull was the last thing Gruum saw as Vosh vanished into the depths.
Gruum turned to meet the staring eyes of the surviving Hyboreans. They were gaunt, haunted of mind, and disbelieving of their fate.
“I suppose I’m in command now,” Gruum said, running his eyes over what was now his crew. “Let’s cut the brig free and take this carrack back to battle.”
“The battle is over, bodyguard,” said a cadet. He stood in battered armor of black and red. A great dent creased the breastplate, but had not brought him down. He was the last cadet among them.
Gruum turned and gazed out at the ships around. Half the arks were missing; a sixth was listing badly and on fire. But the enemy ships were in a worse state. Most had vanished, sunken or fled. A few floated here and there, rolled over with their keels up in the sun or burning brightly. Men howled upon the waters, dying in the cold.
“There are still enemy troops on the ice in front of your gates, even if their fleet is broken,” Gruum said. “Make ready to sail the carrack, we will tow the brig back to Corium.”
The crewmen worked to disentangle the two ships and cast a line to secure the brig as Gruum had commanded. Gruum walked to the edge of the carrack’s deck, where the railing was split and gone. He looked down into the sea, peering as deeply as he was able. He frowned into the dark water. Should he leave well enough alone? He had thought, from time to time, of slaying the sorcerer himself. Was the world not a better place with Vosh and Therian both removed from it?
Gruum thought about a time when he had sunk into the sea. It had been Therian’s hand, he recalled, that had come down to rescue him. He took in a deep breath and shouted for the last surviving cadet.
“Bring me a sounding cord and a weight,” he told the man.
The other stared at him. “The seas here are a hundred yards deep at least, sir. We cannot run aground.”
“I don’t care about geography, bring me the cord!”
Glaring, the cadet did as he was instructed. Gruum reeled it out, deeper and deeper into the roiling waters. He tied the cord to the rail and waited.
The men soon came and told him the ship was ready to sail. Gruum licked his lips, then gazed at the cord that hung over the side. At last, he nodded. “We’ll set sail—ten minutes from now.”
“Why the delay?” asked the cadet, exasperated. “We need to get to the ice shelf before the sun sets, or we’ll be stuck at sea until morning.”
Gruum nodded. “Ten minutes more.”
They sat there drifting over the seas for ten minutes, then twenty, and finally thirty. At last, Gruum stood up and sighed. He called for the cadet in the dented armor.
“All right. Let’s set sail.”
“Upon whose order?” asked a voice.
Gruum and the cadet rushed to the side. There, clinging to the hull like a tidal crab hugging a boulder, Therian gazed up at them. Ten white fingers gripped the hull like widespread claws. The tip of each finger sank in the wood itself, as if it were clay. Seawater and slush ran from Therian’s face, hair and clothes. His black hair was frosted with ice and salt. His eyes were as red as the blood that oozed from a dozen wounds.
#
“You were the one who dropped the cord?” Therian asked Gruum. He stood upon the deck of the carrack, sipping hot wine from a leather mug. The frost in his hair had melted away now, but the color had yet to return to his face.
“It was I, sire,” said Gruum.
“The cord was too thin to bear my weight, you know.”
“I had hoped it might at least guide you.”
Therian nodded. “It did that.” The King paused the conversation to swill more wine. “I was lost, you know,” he said, a minute or so later.
“The sea is deep and dark.”
“The ship was yours for the taking, but you did not sail her?” Therian questioned, staring toward the silver towers of Corium.
It was Gruum’s turn to hesitate. “I was your bodyguard. I did not wish to fail in my duties.”
“Admirable,” Therian said. He swilled more wine and sighed. The light of the many souls he’d consumed this day no longer glowed in his eyes. Surviving the cold depths of the frozen ocean had taken its toll. He seemed like a normal man, albeit tired and spent.
The crewmen cut down the red flag of Kem and raised the black and red of Hyborea to flutter from the mast. The carrack sailed toward the ice shelf. One of the arks was there, working to ram through the thin crust of ice that had already formed in the channel which Therian’s summonings had created the night before. With luck, the surviving arks and the captured ships would be safely harbored inside the naval caverns tonight.
“What of the enemy troops that were left behind at our walls?” Gruum asked.
Therian shrugged disinterestedly. “There is no urgency in dealing with them. They can’t break the gates alone. Some will flee into the mountains to be hunted down or die in the snow. Others will surrender. The wisest will fall upon their swords forthwith.”
“Vosh said something, sire. Something that disturbed me, before he sank into the sea.”
“What was that?”
“He said he had the strength now to do what must be done.”
Therian looked at Gruum for several seconds. Then he turned away again, and nodded slowly. He sniffed and let out a heavy sigh. “As I suspected.”
“What did the lich mean, sire?” Gruum said.
“Just what he said.”
“Then he will return in time?”
“I’m not sure. But whatever he does, it will be unpleasant.”
The crew as a whole became celebratory as the carrack followed one of the arks into the naval caverns. They were nearly home, and had survived. Best of all, the day was theirs. They were returning heroes, a thought that finally penetrated the terrors and horrors of the battle they’d witnessed. Gruum asked if they could be allowed to break into a barrel of fine rum they located in the hold. A single nod gave assent.
Gruum soon joined the sailors on the forward deck, locked arm-in-arm. The drunken group swayed to and fro as they sang a strange song with lyrics full of dragons, ice and blood. Gruum sang with them, his voice cracking in the cold air as the ship slid into the black mouth of the port.
Only Therian stood apart from the celebration. He stood on the aft deck with one hand on the tiller and both eyes gazing somberly out over the ocean. The sun was setting in the west, turning the skies pink, the ice blue and the sea an inky black.