Oracle (Book 5) (6 page)

The two of them worked for a few long seconds, huffing and straining at the heavy beam together.

It inched off Marley’s trapped foot.

He yanked his leg out, cursing and rubbing his ankle.

Kendril let the broken yardarm fall with a crash to the deck below. He glanced down at Marley’s leg. “It’s not broken?”

“No, Mr. Kendril, it ain’t, Eru be praised—”

From above in the darkness came the terrifying wail of the monstrous creature.

More shouts and screams came from the waterfront side of the town.

Marley’s face turned white as a sheet. “Save us! It’s coming back around…”

Kendril grunted, wiping sweat and soot from his face. “I’m counting on it. Quick, Marley, where’s the ship’s arms locker?”

Marley stared at him like a man in a fog. “The…what?””

“Guns, Marley, I need
guns
!” Kendril slapped his empty pistol holster for emphasis. “Now lead the way, quick. The whole cursed ship is on fire.” He grabbed the frightened man and dragged him to his feet.

The howling cry echoed from the black sky above once again.

Marley shrank back, whimpering in terror. “You can’t be thinking…thinking to
fight
it?”

“No,” said Kendril curtly. “I’m going to
kill
it.” He shoved Marley roughly down the steps.

Below decks the smoke swirled and choked the narrow passageway. The fire, spreading with alarming rapidity, licked and crackled at the end of the corridor.

Marley’s eyes grew wide. “When that reaches the powder—” He turned to head back up the stairs.

Kendril snatched him roughly by the shoulder and pushed him back into the corridor. “Then we’d better
hurry
, right Marley?” His voice was a low growl.

Marley nodded, his eyes still on the fire. “Right.” He glanced to the left, a door leading into a cabin. “In here.”

The two blundered through the dark and smoke into the room.

From outside came the roar of a cannon. Several shouts echoed across the water.

“Eru save us,” Marley breathed. “That thing will kill everyone in New Marlin.”

“Not if I can help it, it won’t.” Kendril snatched the wooden doors on a large locker set into one wall. His face twisted into a snarl. “
Locked
.” He swung back around to Marley. “Quick, the keys.”

Marley stared in fear at the smoke pouring in through the cabin door. “Uh, there. The desk.”

Kendril slammed the drawer open, fished around for a moment, then came out with a key. He turned and started to fiddle with the locker doors.

Several more gunshots echoed outside, sounding clear across the open waters of the bay.

“You can’t stop this thing,” Marley said.

“Shut up,” Kendril warned. He threw open the doors to the arms locker. Immediately his face burst into a wolfish grin. “Didn’t think I’d see these again.” He grabbed out his two flintlock dueling pistols, and shoved them back into his belt.

Marley edged to the door. “The fire’s spreading….”

Kendril ignored him. He removed two short swords, and buckled them on. “Here, catch.” He tossed a musket to Marley.

Surprised, Marley barely caught the musket in time. “I…can’t shoot one of these.”

“Time to learn,” Kendril said briskly. He scowled into the open arms locker, snatching cartridge packets. “What I really wish I had is my long rifle. It’s not going to help much to—” He stopped mid-sentence, his eyes widening. “Hello, beautiful. Where have you been all my life?”

Despite his growing trepidation, Marley glanced back at the Ghostwalker.

Kendril removed a massive, cannon-like musket. It was made entirely of metal, even the stock.

Marley coughed, the thickening smoke agitating his throat. “That? It’s just a whale gun.”

Kendril’s eyes gleamed. “I saw it first.” He grabbed a couple long steel darts from the arms locker.

Marley glanced out into the corridor nervously. The flames were breaking through into the main passage with a vengeance. “You’re going to shoot down that flying abomination with…with a
whale gun
?” He looked back at Kendril. “It’ll never shoot that far.”

Kendril gave a lop-sided grin and headed towards the cabin door. “Then we’ll have to draw it in real close. Come on, Marley.” He pushed the startled sailor back out into the smoke-choked passageway and towards the stairs.

Up on deck, the fire had already consumed half the ship in a blazing inferno. Smoke poured up into the night sky. The heat was intense, like a furnace. From somewhere above came the keening cry of the hideous beast.

Kendril scanned the sky. He saw a flash of wings in the moonlight through the broiling smoke.

“We have to get off!” Marley yelled. He started towards the starboard side.

Kendril grabbed the man’s arm with his free hand. “Not that way. The breakwater. Let’s go.”

Marley was too surprised to protest.

Kendril dragged the man to the port side of the ship.

Behind them part of the rigging collapsed onto the main deck in a fiery explosion. Sparks and embers swirled into the air like fireflies.

Marley looked down at the jagged rocks of the breakwater, slimy and covered with barnacles. It was enough of a drop from the side of the ship to make him pull back. “Are you daft?” he yelled back at Kendril. “I’ll break my legs.”

“Better hope not,” Kendril said. He gave Marley a determined shove.

With a startled cry the sailor tumbled off the side of the ship.

The forlorn screech of the creature sounded again, cutting through the cold air of the bay.

Kendril glanced back over his shoulder.

The harbor was in an uproar of confusion. Muskets flared off at random, people were shouting, screams sounded from the docks. Some of the ships were making desperately for the open sea. As Kendril watched two vessels collided with one another in a booming
crack
of splintering wood.

Kendril threw himself off the burning ship.

He hit the rocks below hard, slipping on the wet surface. A sharp angle of stone jammed into his leg side. He felt his knee twist painfully, and tried to catch himself with his free hand. Barnacles shredded the palm of his hand. His chest slammed into a rearing boulder.

Kendril lay for a moment on the rocks, wracked with shooting pains. It was cold and wet underneath him. His left foot was entirely submerged in a deep puddle of seawater between two rocks. The overpowering smell of salt filled his nostrils, mixed with the stench of smoke from the ship behind him.

Marley wailed a few feet to Kendril’s side. “Oy, my legs,” he cried. “I’ve broken both my legs.”

“Shut up,” Kendril snarled. He pulled himself up, stifling a groan. His body felt like someone had run him over with a cart. Filled with logs. With three kids playing on top.

Kendril’s knee stabbed in agonizing pain as he tried to stand.

Three
fat
kids.

He snatched Marley by the back of the sailor’s filthy tunic and dragged the man to his feet.

“I can’t walk!” Marley wept. He rubbed his legs vociferously.

“Stop your whimpering and die like a man!” Kendril was surprised by his own fury. He took the whale gun in his hands, then reached for the powder horn he had taken from the arms locker.

A scream echoed from the far side of the harbor. There were more scattered gunshots. Bells were clanging all over the city.

Kendril jammed one of the metal darts down into the barrel of the whale gun. The weapon wasn’t rifled, and the iron dart would probably have little better accuracy than a basic musket ball. That meant he needed the creature within fifty yards to even have a chance of hitting it. For an actual killing blow, and considering the darkness and speed with which the thing would undoubtedly be coming at him, that range should probably be reduced to ten or fifteen yards.

Ten yards
. The monster would be practically on top of him. Assuming he could even get that close to it.

Kendril limped down the line of the breakwater, moving clear of the burning ship. He tripped repeatedly in the darkness, cursing like a sailor himself as he stubbed and bashed his toes, feet, and shins against the uneven rocks.

A ship sailed past the end of the breakwater, its sails glowing in the moonlight. The crew bustled and scurried about in the rigging.

Kendril gave them a contemptuous glare as they floated by. He snapped back the lock on the whale gun, testing with his fingers in the dark to make sure that the flint was still in place.

“We’re going to die,” Marley babbled. He crawled after Kendril, like a moth drawn against its will towards an open flame. He looked fearfully across the harbor. “It will kill us all, it will. Did you see its eyes,
its eyes
….”

“Tuldor’s beard,” Kendril snapped, “of course I saw the eyes. Now
shut up
.” He took a pinch of gunpowder and between his fingers and primed the pan. At least, he hoped he had primed it. Even in the pale moonlight it was hard to see what he was doing.

“There!” Marley screamed. He pointed wildly over the water.

Kendril whipped his head around.

It was there, across the water. Like a nightmare brought to life. Some obscene cross between a lizard, bat, and…
dragon
.

It was unholy. Evil. Kendril felt as if he could smell its stench even from where he stood.

As he watched it swooped down upon the docks. A fire had somehow begun in a quayside warehouse, and the flames glowed orange on the monster’s wings.

It took longer than Kendril expected to get past the blazing wreck of the ship. He lugged the heavy whale gun, dragging his injured leg behind him. His knee burned with pain that occasionally exploded into a sharp stab.

“You’ll never get it close enough!” Marley shouted. His voice was trembling, shaking. “We should hide, Mr. Kendril, get out of sight.”

“Probably,” Kendril acknowledged under his breath. He turned, his feet planted securely on the rocks.

Across the bay he could see the monstrous winged creature as it ravaged the docks. Small figures lit by moon and fire were fleeing in every direction.

Kendril was tired. So tired. He had fought his way across half of Rothland, searching for a woman who had once again barely escaped from his grasp. Now here he was, standing on the breakwater next to a burning ship and staring death in the face once again. Like always.

He was through trying. Done fighting. He just didn’t care anymore.

“Please,” Marley begged. He waved urgently to Kendril. “Over here with me, sir.”

Kendril stared with hollow eyes at the monster. Perhaps this time, for once, death would finally find him. He had meted it out to so many others over the years. Maybe today it was finally his turn.

Kendril took a deep breath. “Hey!” he roared, his voice hoarse and strained. “I’m over here, frog-wings!” He lifted the whale gun in his hands. It felt reassuringly heavy, like a miniature cannon. Kendril didn’t even try to bring it to his shoulder, but just kept it at hip-level. “Come and get me!”

Marley stared at him as if he had lost his mind.

Truth be told, at this point he probably
had
.

“Come on!” Kendril kept yelling, ignoring the pain that gripped every part of his body. “You want me? Then come over here and get some!”

There was no way the creature would hear him. Not at this distance, not over the screaming and shooting happening all over the bay. And even if it did, there was no way it would actually leave all the chaos it was causing to come after one single solitary man.

And yet, Kendril felt a desperate, burning desperation to draw the thing towards him. A sudden moment of inspiration hit him.

“I’m the Demonbane of Vorten!” he shouted on the top of his lungs.

The thing was a dumb beast. A hideous, awful beast, but a beast none-the-less. Certainly not a demon of the Void, despite what that crazed cultist priest seemed to believe.

And yet, it turned.

It swung its head around, shrieked a howling cry that sounded like the tormented wail of a lost soul, then flapped off the docks and across the water of the bay.

Straight at Kendril.

“Eru!” Marley gasped. He dove for the scant shelter of some nearby boulders.

Kendril lifted the barrel of the gun and snapped back the firelock into the ready position. “Come on,” he whispered. “Come and finish it. Take me.”

The monster swooped low over the water, growing closer to Kendril by the second. Its mouth was open, sharp teeth glistening. Talons flexed and glinted in the moonlight. Kendril could actually hear the whistle of the wind over its wings as it came nearer.

Kendril put a finger on the trigger of the whale gun. He lined the barrel up with the red glowing eyes of the beast.

At the rate it was coming at him, Kendril figured the creature would cover fifty yards in less than a second.

It was an impossible shot. One in a thousand. Maybe a million. And even if he only wounded it, the enraged beast would doubtless kill him where he stood.

Kendril breathed a prayer to Eru. A plea for a death that had eluded him for far too long. Finally, an end.

Finally,
redemption
.

The burning red eyes of the monster came straight at Kendril. They became his entire world. His ears were filled with the sound of the unholy creature’s howling shriek.

Marley screamed.

Kendril smiled.

He pulled the trigger.

Chapter 4

Maklavir put the teacup gingerly back on the small porcelain plate, careful not to spill any of the steaming liquid. He looked up at the three men across the table from him. “Do any of you gentlemen want sugar?”

One of the men, a finely-dressed nobleman with the hooked nose and severe bearing of the Merewithian ruling class, pushed his tea away with a snort. “This is a complete waste of our time.”

Maklavir gave his tea a small dose of sugar from the bowl in the center of the table. “If tea isn’t to your liking, Duke Mainz, I can have the maid fetch you something else. Coffee, perhaps, or something more robust?” He gave the steaming beverage a good stir. “For what it’s worth, however, I believe this to be quite excellent. Imported from the Spice Lands, you know.”