Malspire (18 page)

"It's dead. It must be," whispered the doctor, more in hope than anything.

I was not so sure. I had a dread feeling. It was pitch-black all round us and silent. Even the battle was unnaturally muted by this place. I could hear my own breathing and felt my heart hammer in my chest. Looking closer, I noticed a trickle of water coming from the head's mouth. I got even closer.

The eyes opened.

Both myself, and Doctor Eebel fell back on the pebble floor, kicking to get away from the head that now stared at the two of us with a malice and hatred that I could physically feel. It opened its mouth and out gushed foetid seawater and seaweed. The stench was horrendous. It laughed. It was not a pretty sound but a cold and merciless, bubbling cackle, that chilled the bone. "Run away. Go and play with my children!" Its voice was that of an old lady but mixed with the water to come out as bubbling and croaking and mocking.

I got to my feet, and gritted my chattering teeth. I had never known fear like this. It emanated from the hateful creature and infected my very soul. I shivered. The doctor too got up and back away.

"Malspire!" it hissed. How did it know my name? "Lord Malspire Ardalrion, the cripple," it leered at me. "Come to die in a cave, far from home."

"How do you know my name?" I finally found my voice but discovered that I could not move.

"I know many things," it cackled. "You have come to play games with the rebels. You are in here to beg for mercy, to ask me to call off my children. You had thought perhaps you could destroy me if I did not agree but now you are frozen with fear. So sad, so pathetic."

"No. You will die. How can I abide such an abomination?" I said defiantly but still could not find the willpower to make my muscles move.

She smiled. It was nearly a friendly smile, a sympathetic smile, but it was somehow worse than the leer. I could hear the distant, desperate fighting and did not know how long my men could hold the creatures at bay. I knew I was under some kind of spell. The terror was very real, but it came as an infectious wave from the sea hag. She was truly horrifying but the terror was her making, like being trapped in a nightmare. The villagers must have somehow overcome this, but I could not. I tried again and again to move. I wanted to raise my cutlass and bring it down upon her. Simple, yet impossible; a nightmare indeed. I shook and sweated with the effort, a cold sweat, but instead cried out in desperate frustration.

The sea hag laughed again. "You so want to kill me. It thrills me to feel such anger and terror. You are a treat for an old lady, cripple, but sadly it must end soon. My children are hungry and I have promised them more man flesh. They will be here soon and you will be but food for the fish. The Cripple will fall, the Thirteen Emperors will shine, the Ruin will rise and I shall be a witness to the event."

"Release me, damn you!" I said. "Release me and I will spare your life."

"Spare my life? I am five hundred and eighty six years old, cripple. I have been swimming the seas most of that time and I have seen nations come and go. I have seen the great rise and fall and you, young mortal, think you have the right to take my life? I squash men like you like shrimp."

"It was simple fishermen who trapped you," I pointed out to which see looked annoyed and sneered. "Release me. Release us all and I will throw you back to the depths to be with your children."

"Why should I? I have you all where I want you. I hate men and I enjoy seeing you suffer. It pleases me. It feeds me and my children and our hunger has yet to be sated. Once we have finished playing with you, we shall add you to our village larder to mature before sucking out your sweet fluids. The gods are watching, young Malspire. They see the cripple is done for."

"Cursed sea bitch!" I growled. "You're just another one of the maggots that feed on humanity. Servant of the dark gods! Were you not human once? Do you have no sense of the crime you have committed here?"

The sea hag looked serious for a moment then said, "I was human once. I was pretty and gay and young. My name was… Belvire, I think. I loved a man don't you know? I even thought I would be married and live in a fine house by the sea with children and cats and dogs, but things change. Things don't work out as we plan them, cripple. I was thrown into the cold waters and drowned, but before I could leave this world, I was given a choice and I took it. I do not regret it. I had my revenge and found that it was wonderful. Playing with men and feeding on them is what I do. I crave it. It fills me and we all have to eat."

"Dark gods be cursed for your appetite. Damn your life and bugger your needs!"

"Gods? What gods? There are no gods Malspire, only scared children, hiding from the darkness. Ha! I could do this all night long. I love to watch you squirm, but alas our time is running out. All our time is running out," she added. "But yours a lot sooner than mine. Now where are my children? Feasting on your men no doubt. Perhaps I should kill you now?"

The doctor groaned. The muted battle went on. My mind raced for a solution but found none when all of a sudden the doctor gasped with disgust or effort and managed to cast the contents of his hip flask away. I saw the liquid fly past me. Only a drop managed to reach her face but it was enough. Enough to make her scream. The grip on me faltered. I saw the drop of liquid burn and bubble on her cheek. Haltingly, I managed to move my foot. The sea hag looked back at us, but her mind trick was spent as I now reared up above her, my body no longer shackled in fear. A flicker of fear passed her eyes where I saw my grim smile in the reflection, a smile that even shocked me.

"You wouldn't harm an old lady would you, Malspire?" she croaked. "A feeble old woman who was cast aside in life?"

I thought of the dead villagers. She was no woman but a savage monster.

She instantly tried another tack. "All your life, you have been scorned. All your life others have looked down upon you. I can change that. I can make you great and tall in the eyes of your Empire."

"How do you know so much about me?" I was buzzing with the lingering fear mixed with rage. Every time I saw the now pitiful eyes I had to remind myself of the dead outside.

"Oh, I know about you and your brother, poor soul," she leered again.

"Poor me?"

"No. Your brother!"

"What are you talking about? He's perfect. He does no wrong!" My ire was rising again. First the doctor and now a sea hag was telling me that Ajator's future was somehow troubled.

"He is doomed, Malspire. He is doomed, for the cripple is abroad!"

I raised the blade. I would not hear any more lies and treachery from this witch of the oceans. I was briefly tempted by the idea of letting her go, but then remembered again how things had gone for the villagers. She was reading my mind, and it offended me. It was time to force an end to this.

"Call off your creatures, hag! Call them off now or Creators witness I will destroy you!" With a sudden moment of lucidity I realised that I felt pity for such a creature as this. The sea hag was a vile and vicious thing, but she had been trapped and forced here against her will. She was a predator, but so where sharks and yet sharks where seen as a necessary part of nature. I now saw the hag as an unfortunate part of creations work. I no longer felt that I had the right to judge her and so offered the hag this opportunity to live. Suddenly I was the one in power. I held the blade and as captain I was both judge and jury.

She looked angrily at me. "No!" she screamed and with that scream came a fresh wave of terror that simply rebounded or flowed around me like water. Her eyes widened with shock at the impotence of her assault. I saw that she had thought to break this new strength of will of mine with a full blast of her willpower, but it was like throwing pebbles at a castle wall. She had miscalculated and now she saw her end in the dull gleam of a cutlass reflected in her watery eyes.

I brought the blade down with all my strength upon the hag's head. I saw sadness and fear in its eyes just before I struck. Death was obviously not to the hag's liking. However, I did not manage to cleave it. It went deep into her skull and lodged fast. The hag screamed in agony and putrid water gushed from her mouth, nose, ears and eyes. The strike had left it with a dead, glazed eye staring at an odd angle, while the other was fixed on me. I raised the blade again, but the head came with it, still screaming and now spewing stinking water all over me. I flicked the blade hard and the head flew across the room to hit the cave wall with a thud. Still it screamed and, pointing the lantern at it, I could see the gory mass of rotting brain and matted hair where the blade had struck it. Stepping over to the head, I brought my boot down on her skull. Still it gurgled and screamed. I was about to do so again when I stopped.

She cried now. Not loudly, but quietly like a child hiding under covers, afraid of the unseen things in the dark. It instantly spoke to my heart which suddenly ached at the sad sound. In a second I had gone from anger to sympathy and found myself again trapped by some force I could not overcome. The force this time however was not of the Other however, but a more natural source. I told myself again and again to kill the unnatural creature, but could not bring my boot down.

Doctor Eebel heard it too and edged closer to my shoulder. Shivering with mixed emotions, I was near to tears from my exertions. Was this another trick? I did not think so, so put my boot down. All I could see of the hag was a quivering mass of bone, flesh and pallid blood, no face.

The crying died and she whispered something.

"What?" I said, fearing some spoken charm.

"Let me go, Malspire, son of Ajorion. I shall no longer call to my children. I shall leave this place." Her voice was pitiful and cracked. There was no strength nor defiance, but a resignation and sadness.

"Why? You are not natural. You have killed a village."

For a moment she sobbed again, and then said, "They wronged me. I have done wrong in turn. Let me go and I will hide myself away until the Ruin finds me. I want to care for my children, and all I have done is brought them here to die on your blades and shot. Let me go."

The noise of battle flooded back to us. Whatever spell that made the witch’s cavern silent was now broken. Still, I hesitated.

"She's done for, Captain," said Eebel as she began to cry again.

"So be it, hag. Call them off."

"They will go soon. They can no longer hear me."

"If you lie, I will return and no amount of pleading will save you."

"I am broken, Malspire. You have bested me. There is a strength in you that I did not see and you have won," she croaked. "Go now and leave me. Leave us to our fates and we will leave you and your kind alone."

I still hesitated.

"Please, Malspire. Now I beg. I have not begged for my life in a long, long time, but I do so now. Leave me and I will grant you a request."

"A request?"

"I have powers over the seas. Should you require it, you can come to these waters and I will answer your call."

The fight was gone from me now. I could not kill this sad creature. I backed away as far as the entrance with Eebel by my side, and then turned and we both headed back to the exit, shaken by what we had seen and done.

"How did you know to break the spell?" I asked.

"I didn't. I panicked. I found the strength to take a drink before we died, but I forgot that I had filled the flask with water. It was water when I needed spirits, and I threw it in shock. Fresh water. That was all."

"Thank the creators that fresh water is anathema to her dirty soul. We were lucky and I owe you Mister Eebel."

We could only hope that she would keep her word and the creatures would leave. As we reached the rest of the men, Jodlin gave a great battle cry and charged out of the cave into the darkness. The others followed him apart from Willan and Harl. Willan was sitting against the wall nursing an injured arm, and Harl came to me. I was relieved to see that Willan's injury was not serious. The lad grinned sheepishly.

"They broke, Captain! One minute they were about to overwhelm us and the next they just fled."

There was a line of dead Sealorns marking where the defenders had held them off.

"We found the sea hag, Harl. We broke the head from the beast and now they flee! Come on!" I said.

The doctor, pale and shivering from his experience stayed with Willan, while Harl and I charged after the fleeing enemy. The Sealorns were slow and had lost the will to fight. I used both my cutlass and gutting knife to hack and stab as we caught up with them.

"Kill them all!" I was calling. The hag had probably released them but I was taking no chances. It was hard to see where everyone went but I made my way towards the gate, and found the others had done the same.

The killing continued beyond the gate, and only stopped when we reached the waterline. None dared set foot in the water, but there was a cry of joy and relief when it was over. The scarred moon was now high in the sky. Crabs were already feasting on the dead creatures. The Sealorns were gone. The men were alive and as far as I could tell, none of my away party had perished although most had taken wounds. I only hoped the same could be said of the crew on the Lady Ocean.

It was a risky choice to return to the ship. Nobody wanted to get into the launch and be at the mercy of the Sealorns in their own element should they return, but nobody wanted to stay either, so we took the chance and hoped the creatures had gone for good. To our great relief, we made it back to the ship unmolested, and I found Mister Olvan with a cut to his head, but otherwise unhurt together with a grim faced Sudlas.