The Burning Mountain

 

 

The day was dark as night, without moon or stars, only the glow of the mountain where it lay ripped open and bleeding fire.  Jaya stood on the bow and looked at it, smelling the burning smoke, seeing the thick layer of ash drifting on the sluggish waves.  She had heard tales of the mountains of fire, but she had never seen one, and had never dreamed she would see one this close.  The pillar of smoke rose up and up until it blotted out the sky, and violet lightning lanced from the cloud to the mountainside and the sea where it churned below.

Bastar steered them north, keeping them on the edges of the burning darkness, following the current to where he said it met another that flowed from the west.  The winds were slow, but uneasy, and Jaya scented a storm.  If the winds turned on them, they would be buried under a cloud of death, choked like the dead birds that floated on the oily waves, their eyes blind and blank.

They drew nearer to the black shore, and steam boiled up from the sea where it touched the land.  Jaya saw trails of dark fire flowing over the rock, the edges of the rivers glowing bright as a steel-forge, the surface blackened and rippling, smoking as they ran down.  Where the rivers touched the water, steam roared upward, making pillars of haze as dark as the smoke.  It made a bitter, blood scent on the air, and the Ekwa and the slave girls coughed and choked on it, washing the ash from their skins and sweeping it from the deck.

They rounded a point of rock and Jaya saw the low, dark form of a ship drawn upon the shore, and she went back to the afterdeck and pointed it out to Bastar.  “There,” she said.  “Is that the War Eagle?”

“Too small,” he said, adjusting the cloth over his face.  “That must be the wreck Logor said was here, the one Lozonarre came to plunder.”  He pulled out a glass and squinted through it.  “Looks like a merchantman from Achen.  Not gold then, but things like powder and shot, silks or sailcloth.  Provisions for another slave raid.”

“Bring us closer,” Jaya said.  “We should see if he was here or not.”

He looked at her sidelong, and she knew he was thinking of the cloud of death looming over them.  If the mountain blew apart they would all be wiped away.  She waited to see if he would argue with her, but he did not.  He grunted and spun the wheel.  There was not much wind, and what there was backed and gusted uneasily.  Jaya heard thunder, but did not know if it was the voice of the mountain.  She looked at the dead sea and closed her eyes for a moment, calling on Arang.  Show me the path to my vengeance.

Closer, she saw the beached ship was larger than the Hunter, with higher fore and aft decks.  It was heeled over in the shallows, and every timber and beam was black from smoke and sear.  The sails were just tatters of cloth, and smoke still rose up from the wreck.  Jaya looked but could see no sign of life, nor any sign it had been boarded.

“Sea bed rose up,” Bastar said.  “Happens sometimes in the shallows when a volcano wakes.  The bottom just rises up, and it can catch you.  See the keel is broken?  It was fast.”  He turned the wheel.  “We should keep our distance.”

She looked at the wreck and then ground her teeth and choked down the urge to pound her fist on the rail.  Half of her had expected to find the ship she sought anchored here, shallowed and vulnerable.  She had been certain of it, and now that seemed foolish and it made her feel foolish.  She had not considered what she would do if there was no sign of the War Eagle, no sign of her enemy.

Bastar touched her arm.  “Likely he steered away when the mountain went.  A killer, yes, but Lozonarre is no fool.  He likely made for kinder waters.”

She shrugged him off.  “Do not touch me.”  She took two long breaths.  “Where would he go from here?”

He sighed.  “North from here there’s a clean current coming in, and then it goes northeast, toward Tarakan.  Many reefs, dangerous waters, but there are anchorages for those who know the way.”

“You don’t know,” she said.

“I don’t know,” he said.  “There are too many paths, too many ports.”

Jaya looked up at the mountain and wind gusted across the ship, feeling cold.  She brushed her hair back.  “Take us north.  A storm is coming – we should get away from the land.”

“Aye,” he said and turned them, the Ekwa hurrying to shift the sails.  She saw the former slave girls amidships, two of them sewing a patch on a sail, others tying knots.  They did not know how to handle the rigging of the ship.  They were not fighters, and she wondered if she had done right to bring them.  She shook away the thought.  She could not have left them in that place, as they were.  She remembered the ones who had chosen to stay behind and did not understand them.

The wind began to rise as they turned northward, and the waves began to heave more strongly against the hull of the ship.  She looked back and saw the fire of the mountain vanish into the dark behind them, the last gleam like an eye closing slow in the night.  Soon the only light that remained was from the flashes of lightning that arced high above them.  The Hunter began to pitch up and down, riding the fronts of the waves as they swelled.

The world around was all dark, hemmed in by ash and smoke and the spray of the sea.  Jaya leaned on the rail and looked ahead into the dark, and there she saw flashes of light, two, then three, then four.  They came short and sharp, and she frowned, and then she heard the booming reports and something sang past her and shattered a piece from the rail behind.

Blows hammered into the body of the ship, and she felt the impacts through her feet.  Something clipped the main mast and sheared off half the thickness of it, spraying splinters across the deck.  Men cried out, and then Jaya saw two of the Ekwa simply torn apart as they reached for a loose rope, blood gouting across the sail and over the deck as they were ripped away, leaving only pieces.

“Cannons!” Bastar shouted, spinning the wheel.  The seas were growing heavy, and they wallowed as they turned.  “We are attacked!”  He braced himself as the wind pulled at them and the sails flapped.  “Get those lines reefed in, you bastards, or we’re all dead!”

Jaya grabbed for the rail as the deck heaved under her.  Looking, seeing in flickers as lightning lanced across the sky, she saw a towering ship emerge from the lashing waves, and at the prow gleamed the golden eagle with backswept wings, stormfire green in its eyes like doom.

She screamed her fury as the cannons roared again, spewing out smoke and flame.  She heard the shots as they hummed through the air, close enough she could all but taste the hot iron.  In the churning seas most of them missed and plunged like burning spearheads into the black water.  One struck the ship aft and she saw smoke erupt as the deck was gouged open, and then another shot shattered the mast and it fell hard to the side, sails bellowing as they plunged overboard and into the waves.

“Gods damn it!  Cut it away!”  Bastar shouted, red-faced, ducking low behind the wheel.  Jaya knew he was right, for the waterlogged sails and the heavy mast would drag in the water and cripple them.  They were already almost abeam in the rising seas, and they could be easily capsized if a big wave came for them.

Jaya leaped to the main deck as rain began to slash down like a hail of knives, driven almost sidelong by the gusts of wind.  The Ekwa were already hacking at the ropes that still held the mast to them, and she saw one of the former slaves join them, chopping with a wide-bladed axe.  Jaya’s sword flashed out and she cut as well, slashing through the lines until the heavy mast slid overboard and dropped into the water.  A last rope snagged one of her men, and she cried out as she saw him snared and yanked overboard.  Gone.

Thunder roared, and she looked up to see the other ship closing on them, the golden eagle flashing in the lightning flickers.  The metal tips of spars and masts all blazed with green fire, showering sparks into the night.  She saw men at the rail, spears in a hedge of iron, and she knew they were to be boarded.  Who but a madman would board in this kind of sea?  She screamed defiance to the looming vessel, knowing they could not win.  Dismasted, they could not outrun her; smaller and without enough crew, they could not win a pitched battle.

Bastar spun the wheel and shifted them out of the path of the prow, and the War Eagle slid in beside them.  There were shouts and a hail of iron grapnels trailing ropes flew out of the dark, points biting into the decks, snagging on the remaining sails.  There were a few flashes as fire weapons were loosed, and Jaya saw a long splinter jump from the deck between her feet.  But she knew the powder would not light in this rain, and so the battle would be decided as of old – with muscle, steel, and blood.

The hulls crashed together with an impact that almost took her off her feet, and then the rail boiled with giants screaming for blood.  They leaped down, armored in their iron shells, brandishing their short, barbed spears or their long, keen swords.  Jaya drew her dagger in her left hand and howled her own war-cry, and then she leaped to meet them before they could form a line against her.

She knew their armor and their strength, but she also knew they were slow of foot and not well-trained for battle.  She dashed the spearpoints aside and cut quickly at their arms and necks.  They screamed and bled, and then her Ekwa were beside her, fighting savagely with their spears and long knives.  The giant’s armor turned blows that would have slain them, but not all.  The Ekwa were tall and fierce and feared nothing, and they fought as their ancestors had done, leaving bodies in their wake, brandishing the heads they ripped from the fallen.

The deck became slick with blood and spilled entrails, and the press became so close it was hard to move.  Jaya found her small size and quickness allies in such a battle, for she could move and cut and move again, even when the men were all but on top of her.  She learned to cut upward, inside the thigh, and let out a torrent of blood.  In the driving rain, everything was wet through and she was almost blinded.  Spear-hafts buffeted her, and she was scored by a dozen small wounds that stung like wasps.

She climbed over rain-slicked bodies and found herself at the rail, looking up at the side of the War Eagle, squinting through the rain and the blinding blaze of lightning.  The sea was heaving so powerfully that she was lifted up until the ships were almost even, and then she saw him there in among his fellows – Lozonarre the killer.

It was him, his likeness etched in her mind, even as he seemed little different from his fellows.  He was no taller than the other giants, and his hair was black rather than yellow.  Only his eyes were different, blazing in the stormfire like shards of blue ice.  He was as drenched by the rain as she, and it made his features seem to run and melt in the flickering light.

Jaya leaped to the rail, braced her feet, and when the deck heaved up again, she caught the side of the War Eagle and threw herself over onto the other deck, landed with her bloody hand braced on the wood, rain pouring over her face.  She bared her teeth and howled her fury at him, unable to forge words from her rage.

Giants rushed at her and she was up and among them, feeling the breath in her chest like fire, her arms alight with the pain of exertion, and yet she did not let it slow her.  Let her body burn away into pieces, so long as she had her vengeance.  She cut one man down, almost severing his leg at the knee, parried a stroke from a sword and then kicked another man in the groin, rolled over him as he fell and slashed his throat.  A dagger fell from his hand, long and keen, and she caught it up, stood in spreading blood as the sky lit up with white flame.

There was no one between her and her prey, and she pointed her sword at him, sighted down the flashing edge, and she saw in his face that he knew her then, and an expression of unbelief spread across his features.  He threw his head back and laughed, and she saw the mad glint in his pale eyes.  “A world of rats and snakes and crawling things, and you come to follow me?  Speak, stunted devil!  Do your work, for I am a greater devil than you!”  He beckoned her with steel, and she saw the light in his eyes that made men fear.

She pounced on him as his sword flashed into his hand.  Steel rang and she beat a rhythm with sword and dagger, trying to strike his blade aside and make an opening, her blades flicking like serpent tongues for his wrist, his fingers.  He was quick, and the twisted, curved guard of his blade protected him from her strokes, but only barely.  He fell back, drawing a wide-bladed knife from behind his belt, fending her off.

Jaya sensed the attack before it came and rolled aside as a man lunged at her with a heavy pike in his grip.  The point gouged the deck and then she braced her foot on it to hold him in place and chopped off his fingers.  He screamed and reeled back, the spearpoint lifting high, and then lightning blazed down and touched it and the metal glowed white-hot and the haft exploded.  The stroke ripped the man’s arm off and sent him over the side in a smoking ruin.

Lozonarre lunged in from the side, his sword arrow-quick, and she barely tuned it with her dagger, felt the edge trace fire along her arm and ribs, and her sword flickered for his face, missing him by a breath.  He fell back and flicked his blade at her legs, made her jump for space, and now more men were closing on her and she screamed in frustration.  There were too many of them.  They would kill her before she could finish him.

He moved back, a smirk on his face, and she flipped the dagger in her hand and threw it at him, saw it gash his face and bring blood.  The deck pitched beneath them and men staggered, and she saw Lozonarre’s left leg – the leg she had wounded before – fold under him and almost bring him down.  She hissed and spat into the storm like hot iron, and the heave of the ship drove her back against the rail.  Her blood screamed to kill him, and she cried out in her own tongue.  “Let there be blood in the seas!  Let the feast of Arang bring death to those who have contested with me!”  She slashed her own arm with her sword and flung blood in the faces of her enemies.  “Let my blood be poison!  Let it choke you and kill your spirits, so that you wander in burning thirst and never find the sea of flowers!”

There was a deafening sound that roared through the dark and ripped the clouds apart, and she saw the fire of the mountain, far away but aflame and gouting red doom into the sky.  The air shook, and lightning laced across the sky again and again, red and violet and shattering with thunder.  The mountain bled fire into the dark, howling with a rage of its own.

Then another explosion came from belowdecks, almost beneath her, and she felt nails jump from the wood under her feet as smoke poured out and fire erupted from the hatch to her left.  Giants reeled back, screaming, and then the ship lurched under her and she fell against the rail, lost her balance, and fell overboard.

She struck hard on the deck of the Hunter and found herself amidst washing sea and the spilled entrails of the slain.  The Ekwa chopped frantically at the ropes that bound the ships together, and she saw Bastar crawl up from belowdecks, his face blackened by smoke.  He caught her under the arms and bore her up easily, carried her to the afterdeck and pushed her against the wheel.  “Help me hold it!”

A waved crashed over them and she barely held on.  Desperate, she chopped her sword into the rail close to hand and then set both hands on the wheel even as Bastar did.  It bucked in their hands like a live thing as they swung free from the War Eagle and the full force of the waves crashed against the keel.  Bastar helped hold her in place with his bulk, pressing against her as they fought together to steer the ship in the face of the storm.

She had a last sight of the War Eagle, fire blazing from her deck as she fell away into the storm, and she hurled a curse against it, and then there was nothing to do but fight the wheel as they turned and ran before the waves, the wind screaming as it pursued them.

o0o

The night seemed to last an eternity, through the long dark of slashing wind and waves like giants that fell across the deck and ripped men away, screaming into the abyss.  Lightning was their only fire, and by it she and Bastar fought the wheel until they trembled in every limb, could barely grip the wooden handles or keep their feet as water rushed about them.

Jaya did not see the rocks coming, only at the last moment as they both tried to turn away, but there was not enough time.  She felt the impact beneath her feet as jagged rocks ripped through the hull.  She felt the heavy lurch as the waves dragged them over, and then the Hunter began to die.

The ship pounded against the shallows, and Jaya saw the deck split apart.  For a last moment the Hunter held together, but then the aft swung aside and broke loose from the forward half.  The seas rushed in, gushing from between the boards like blood.  The wheel wrenched and hurled them back, and then the water was washing over them.

Bastar hooked his arm around her body, and she held on to him as they went over and into the waves.  Thunder was an unending roar above them when they broke the surface, and Jaya fought for breath, almost too exhausted to swim.  The current caught them and pulled them down, and then it dragged them across rocky sands, and Jaya was alone, clawing for the shore as waves pushed her down and dragged her back, and again, and then she crawled above the waterline and collapsed among the weeds and drifted wood.  She gasped for breath, at the end of her strength, and then exhaustion rose up and dragged her down, and she knew no more.