Heirs of the Fallen: Book 04 - Wrath of the Fallen (27 page)

“I’ll feast on your stones,” Boval laughed, edging nearer.

Leitos grasped the dagger’s leather-wrapped hilt, just as Boval began reaching for him with curled fingers. Leitos buried his dagger in the man’s throat. Boval floundered back, taking the dagger with him. The hands he had meant for Leitos’s neck struggled to pluck the blade out of his throat. When Boval fell, a pained shriek filled the cabin, but it was not his. Tessa thrashed backward, a dagger jutting between her breasts. She tripped over her fallen mate, and sat down sprawl-legged. Her rolling eyes found Leitos, her lips moved. Blood flowed instead of words, and she died without another sound.

For a moment, the only sound in the shipmaster’s cabin was the heavy breathing of those left alive.

Nola was the first to break free of the spell. She kicked her way through the litter of clothing, and wrenched her dagger from Tessa’s chest.

With a mystified expression, Sumahn fingered the bloody lines on his cheek. “She almost killed me with her bare hands!”

“If you had not been ogling her teats,” Nola snorted, “you might have fared better.”

“I’m a man,” Sumahn said with a self-deprecating shrug. “And Tessa, Peropis take my soul, was a comely wench by any measure, even with those ugly brands.”

“Watch your tongue,” Nola warned, her single green eye bright and hard.

Leitos struggled to his feet and retrieved his dagger from Boval’s throat. He wiped it clean on a pair of breeches, then sheathed it. “We have a signal to send,” he reminded his companions.

They returned to the rowing deck and gathered up their clunking sacks. Sumahn drew a wax-sealed earthenware jar out of his, and gave it a gentle shake. From within, Leitos heard a slosh of water, and the gentle clink of a smaller jar within, this one filled with the Nectar of Judgment, the Blood of Attandaeus. When both jars were broken simultaneously, the water would ignite the volatile substance, and nothing could put out the flames until the deadly material had consumed itself.

“One tossed into the hold should be enough,” Sumahn said, and waved his companions back from the grated hatch cover. He grasped the iron ring handle, heaved open the door, and hurled the jar through the square of darkness. They heard the crunching sound of the jar breaking. An instant later, a throaty roar sounded below, and the horned head of an Alon’mahk’lar thrust into view. The demon-born lunged out of the hatch, its massive shoulders filling the gap.

Leitos drew his dagger, meaning to dig the blade into the demon-born’s eye, but a blast of purple-black flames erupted around the beast. The ship shook as if it had struck land, knocking Leitos and the others to their backs. Howling in agony, the demon-born madly thrashed one arm. The other had been blown off.

Leitos bounced to his feet. “Run!”

The others were already scampering up the ladder to the main deck. At their backs, flames rose higher and hotter, so greedy as to draw the air from Leitos’s chest.

Close on Nola’s heels, Leitos threw himself off the ladder and onto the main deck, as a thunderous gout of flame shot from the hatch. He rolled to his back, gaping at the growing fountain of fire.

Sumahn hauled him up. “Are you burned?”

“My jars!” Nola cried.

Leitos and Sumahn spun, eyes wide, both frantically searching for their own sacks, each loaded with jars of Nectar of Judgment.

“Into the sea—”

A deep, crunching boom drowned Sumahn’s order. The deck heaved beneath them, the planks bulging and spreading. Blinding flashes of indigo fire shot from the cracks. A rending crash filled Leitos’s ears, squeezed his skull, and burst the breath from his lungs.

Then he was flying through the black of night, driven high by an expanding blister of scorching fire and shredded wood. He heard a scream. It might have been his own, or that of the ship dying, or either of his companions.

The blister of fire chased him higher and higher, baking his toes, his legs, scorching his breechclout. Fragmented wood lashed at him like knives. Spinning now, arms and legs stretched out, he saw a roiling ball of fire rising from the ship, both of which lay far below him. He revolved again, and the dark of the night flashed before his eyes, then the burning ship again, farther away than before.

His upward flight ended, and he plummeted, spinning down and down, his stomach rolling. A heartbeat later he slammed into the water, its surface every bit as hard as stone. Silent wet blackness enveloped him. It was cool and calming, that darkness. It soothed his burns, eased the ring in his ears. He let it take him down.

Chapter 33

“This is taking too long,” Adham said, gazing out at the quiet harbor. No lanterns on any of the ships had gone out, but he kept expecting them to.

“Not so long as that,” Ulmek countered.

Adham pressed his lips together against a retort, only because he knew the Brother was right. Not half a turn of the glass had passed since the boarding parties had gone down to the harbor. Suffering the stench of rotting fish and the heaps of night soil that surrounded the shacks and lean-tos they hunkered amidst, did not help speed the wait.

Behind them, Zuladah’s southern wall loomed high and dark. An occasional sentry clumped by on the wall walk. Other than that, the city slept. Farther down the winding road to the harbor, Damoc and his people stood ready for the rush of Alon’mahk’lar that were sure to come, once the ships started burning.

“Are you sure about this Muranna woman?” It was not the first time Adham had asked about her, but the calm before a battle had always made him restless. It was talk, or storm the gates by himself.

“We have no choice but to trust her.”

Adham was about to say something else, when a flash of purple-black light erupted from one of the ships.

“Have you ever seen the Nectar of Judgment do—”

Another burst froze his tongue, and then it seemed as if the ship’s timbers were bulging outward, and through a thousand joints, a roiling ball of indigo fire exploded. The fireball grew massive, sweeping all evidence of the ship away. A booming clap of thunder reached them an instant later, and then a gentle gust of warm air.

“Gods good and wise,” Adham breathed, as the mushrooming fireball climbed up into the night, and slowly perished. Nothing but foam and shredded wood remained where the ship had been. Darkness fell again, and then he could not even see that. It was not until he felt Ulmek’s iron grip on his arm that he realized he was trying to get down to the harbor.

“Wait,” Ulmek ordered. “That was a far better signal than I had hoped for.”

“
Signal?
” Adham snarled, ripping lose. “Some of our people might be dead after that. My
son
might be one of them.”

“I do not believe it,” Ulmek said, resolute. “Look there,” he added, pointing. Two more ships had begun to burn.
But not explode
, Adham thought.

As the first few ragged folk began to creep out of their shacks to see what all the commotion was about, the familiar wail of an Alon’mahk’lar horn sounded from the city. By the time a second horn joined the first, the folk had vanished back into their hovels.

Ulmek moved to the edge of a leaning shack and gazed up the road. “Make ready.”

Adham barely heard him. In his mind, the ship kept exploding, and on its deck he imagined Leitos torn to pieces by the blast.

He was about to abandon Ulmek and go search for his son, when the heavy tread of marching feet began echoing in the cool night air. A company of Alon’mahk’lar came soon after, all stretched out in a single file, brutal swords and iron-headed cudgels swinging from their fists. All at once, the line of demon-born halted. One turned toward them, its silver-glinting eyes searching.

“Why are they spread out like that?” Adham whispered. The intent had been to trap the demon-born on the quays, and use the last of the Nectar of Judgment to burn them alive, all at once. As the beasts were arrayed now, they did not have enough jars to roast even half of them.

Ulmek shook his head.

“How long do we wait?” Adham asked.

Ulmek suddenly cocked his head and gestured toward a sleek shadow ghosting toward them through the shanties.

A hint of perfume signaled the arrival of the woman before she came into sight. Her eyes widened a little at the sight of Adham. “I did not think to find another Izutarian.”

Adham took a measure of her, then went back to watching the Alon’mahk’lar standing on the road.

“Sybeth,” Ulmek said. “I did not expect to see you here.”

“Who better than the future Captain of the Queen’s Guard?”

“Indeed,” Ulmek said, flashing her a smile. “Are your people ready to conquer a city?”

“In a manner of speaking,” she said.

The laughing way she said it caught Adham’s ear. As he was turning, he noticed steel glimmering in her hand. Ulmek dodged back, the startled curse on his lips becoming a hissing gurgle from the base of his throat. As Ulmek’s sword cleared the scabbard, the Alon’mahk’lar bellowed from the road, and Adham threw himself into a sideways roll. He pawed at his sword, but found himself mired in trash.

Sybeth’s dagger flashed against the inside of the Brother’s wrist, his blade fell from spasming fingers, and clattered to the ground. Despite the blood bubbling from the gash in his neck, Ulmek used his good hand to draw his dagger. He rushed the woman, but she was so very quick.

She parried his strike, danced close and slashed his throat again. She leaped away, as he stumbled forward and fell to his knees. With a clean thrust, Sybeth buried the dagger’s long blade in his eye, and a hand span of steel burst from the back of his skull. Ulmek went rigid as a plank, and Sybeth kicked him away.

By now Adham was on his feet. He lifted his sword and roared a battle cry as he charged. The butt of a spear cracked against the back of his knees, and he went down in a sprawl, his sword flying away into the darkness. Reaching for his dagger, he made to stand. All around him, hulking shadows sped out of the gloom. Massive boots smashed him down into the muck. A final boot slammed his head against the ground.

As the black wings of oblivion began to wrap around him, he heard the clangor of swords, furious shouts and curses, and the brutal tongue of demon-born. Somewhere far off, down closer to the harbor, a scream rose above the fray.
Belina!

~ ~ ~

They were coming from every direction.

Alon’mahk’lar poured off the road, while soldiers raced through alleys, or burst from the very hovels Belina and the rest of the company were using to stay hidden.

“In here,” Damoc urged, forcing open a door and ducking into a pocket of darkness that stank of spoiled food.

Sword in hand, Belina followed him in and eased the door closed just before a demon-born thundered past, its great horned head turning, seeking.

Light flared behind them. A scrawny man in a long filthy tunic stood in a corner, an oil lantern in one hand, and a tiny knife in the other. “You cannot be here,” he cried.

“Be still, friend,” Damoc soothed.

“Leave my house!” the man screamed, hurling the lantern.

Belina and Damoc jumped aside. The lantern crashed against the wall and burst alight. Flames leaped up the wall to reach the ceiling.

The sound of breaking wood turned them. The man had thrown himself out of a window without bothering to open the shutters. An escalating tumult of screams and clashing steel pierced the opening, and sporadic flashes of purple-black light told that the Yatoans were using up the last few jars of Nectar of Judgment that Ulmek had doled out. Belina still had hers tucked into the haversack she wore, as did Damoc.

“This way,” Damoc said, ripping open the shutters of another window and clambering through the narrow opening.

Belina was halfway out when a loose nail snagged her haversack. She pulled hard, but the heavy canvas held firm.

“Hurry,” Damoc called from the darkest shadows. In the other direction, indistinct figures were battling on the road leading to the harbor.

Smoke had begun streaming around her, and tremendous heat licked at her legs. Belina held her breath and reached behind her, trying to pull herself loose.

“Leave it!” her father called.

Seeing no other way, Belina started to shrug the straps of the haversack from her shoulders. Then she heard the sound of steel meeting flesh and bone, and the thump of something heavy falling into the dirt.

Before she could turn, a demon-born’s clawed hand caught her hair, and jerked her and the haversack the rest of the way out. The Alon’mahk’lar flung her against the wall of another shanty. Rough-hewn boards splintered under the impact, and she crashed into the midst of a cowering woman and her wailing children.

“Stay away!” the woman shrieked, gathering her brood about her like a protective hen. “Leave us!”

Belina rushed to the shack’s front door, sweeping a guttering candle off a table as she went. Darkness engulfed everything, and with it came the shattering of wood, and an Alon’mahk’lar’s cruel voice. Belina ripped the door open, and a few hurried strides brought her to her father.