The Sea of Blood

 

The wind raved like curses through the jagged rocks of the Kasara Strait, whipping the waves into white-crested fury and screaming in between the spires.  This narrow neck of sea between the islands of Manu and Salua was dangerous water, and every sailor knew that was truth.  No ordinary captain or king could have gathered so many ships in this deadly place, only the fear of gods could have done it.

Aurich the Beast stood at the prow of the flagship, his great sword point down in the hard wood of the deck, his mailed hands grasping the guard.  The pitch and sway of the ship did not seem to concern him, nor did the wind or the spray that lashed against the sails.  It was high noon, and yet the sky was overcast and gray as hammered iron, heavy with the promise of rain.  Beneath his helm his face was hidden, giving no sign of what lay beneath.

The captain of the ship made his way forward, squinting into the wind.  The gusts backed around the compass, giving no warning.  To sail in such weather in this place was folly, and he would not be here save that this man – this steel-hearted fanatic from the homelands – was the one who truly commanded.  The captain knew that if he balked he would be headless and cast into the sea before he could finish his breath.  He had seen paladins before, but never one as unflinching and hard as this one.

When he was close he leaned against the rail for balance and pitched his voice to carry.  “There is no sign of them, lord.  Still no sign.”

“They will come,” Aurich said.  “Before nightfall they will come.  The information was bought with screams and with blood, it will be truth.”  From within his helm his voice sounded hollow and sepulchral.  “The demon child will come.  She has no choice.”

The captain looked back at his fleet, riding the heavy waves under just enough sail to maintain steerage in the wind and keep from being swept into the teeth.  He did not wish to think of how many wrecked ships laden with bones lay drowned beneath them in the black waters.  The easier passage through to the Silver Sea and toward Sinasekan was north from here, leading through wide open seas.  He was certain they were being deceived, but he dared not speak it.

“You think I am a fool,” Aurich said.  “You think the demon girl will laugh at us as she sails north and takes the city.  But she knows she does not have enough ships to face this fleet in open battle.  Now or later she has to fight, and she cannot win.  So she will make passage here, where she hopes to draw our ships into the rocks and overcome our numbers in the close water of the strait.”  Spray dripped down the blue-black steel of his helm.  “So we will wait for her here, and when she tries to slip through we will trap her in among the rocks and send her ships to the bottom of the sea.”

“You believe she wants us here?” the captain said, very careful of his tone.

“Of course she does,” Aurich said.  “She believes she can overcome us with stratagem and guile.  But no gambit may overcome the power of God.  No will of hers can contravene my will.  It is I who follow a divine plan, while her gods are merely devils cursed to hide in the shadows of this forsaken land.  Who but devils would crawl in the jungles, or slither beneath the sea?  The gods of these savages are beasts, like the fools who worship them.”  He ground his fists on the hilt of his sword.  “I shall slay gods before the night comes this day.  I will teach them of the true faith.”

A shout came from aloft, and the captain looked upward, saw the lookout waving his red flag frantically, and he felt a coldness grip him down inside.  “Ships in the strait,” he said, knowing it was true.  “They are here.”

“Let the great game begin,” Aurich said, nodding his head.  “There can be only one outcome, no matter what occurs.  Let them come.”

o0o

Jaya’s fleet entered the deadly waters of the strait, every ship crammed with all the warriors she could muster.  It had taken her two moons to gather her scattered ships and fighters, to put down rebellions and inspire her people once again into an army that might yet conquer.  She had sixteen ships, three of them the immense warships of the Mordani, and every gunport was ready with cannon loaded with shot and nails.  Every rail thronged with fighters clutching spears and sword and daggers.

The waves were heavy, but long, and so it was not as dangerous as it looked to sail into the windswept chain of islands and sharp rocks.  In the trough of each swell she saw the reaching knives of the submerged shoals beneath, exposed like teeth of a sea-beast.  The greatest danger was to her largest ships, as they were less agile and wallowed more heavily in the waves.  Bastar steered this, the ship she had named the Dragon.  The Reaper had been made into Dhatun’s funeral ship, heaped with those who died with him and set aflame in the shallows when they left Jinan.  The smoke of the pyre followed them out to sea for days.

The wind was shifting, now blowing one way, now another, and her sailors ran back and forth, reefing in the sails and shifting the spars to keep the ships on course.  She did not smell rain, and she felt the sky was about to clear.  They would have the sun for their victory feast.  Peering through the haze, she saw the black blots of painted hulls and the white flashes of sails.  Counting, she smiled.  She had hoped they would meet her for a chosen battle, and they had.  Almost thirty ships opposed her, all crewed by men who knew their trade.

Shouts rose up from her lookouts, and she held up her spear, witchfire blazing from the tip, trailing sparks into the air.  “More sail!” she commanded.  “All speed into battle!”

o0o

The two fleets came together like fronts of storm, sails billowing in the fitful wind, hulls heaving and seething with the waters of the strait.  The clouds began to break, and scattered lances of sun came shearing through, lit the waves and spars with flickers of gold.  The Mordani came on line abreast, spread from one side to the other so that none could slip past them, while Jaya drew her ships into two long lines astern, the heavy warships leading the way, breasting the steel waves with sheer force.  Wind sang through the lines, and she licked her lips, tasting the sea salt like blood.

Bow guns began to fire, seeking the range, and Jaya held her ships silent, not wasting any of her precious powder on such probing.  She watched the puffs of smoke, heard the sounds of the cannons that followed, and saw the splashes in the heaving waves where the balls struck.  In waters like this there was so much motion it was hard to aim a gun straight, and she knew the forward guns were too weak to do real damage to her warships, so she held her peace and waited, hands on her spear, feeling the thrum inside the metal as though it drew power from the sea.

They drew close to the line, the Dragon rearing up on the waves.  A shot from the enemy bow guns whistled over the rail and bounced off the mainmast, leaving a dent as it caromed off to the side.  Jaya saw the enemy ship looming closer, a great shadow on the sea, sun spearing gorgeously through the white sails and streaming pennons.

She gripped her spear close and then sent her will echoing through the glowing metal and down to the sea below.  She felt the encompassing power of the waves, and then she pushed with her mind, and the sea rose up.  The waters dropped away beneath them as a wave crashed against the enemy ship and slewed it around.  The Dragon cut past it at the stern and she howled for her gunners to let loose.

The cannon exploded belowdecks, all firing almost as a single detonation, and smoke came roaring out into the sun.  She saw the heated shot and the double shot punch through the stern of the Mordani ship and rip down the length of the vessel.  A volley of low-aimed chain shot shredded the rudder and the hot shots smashed into the gun decks and set fires blazing.  Waves curled and flung Jaya’s ships forward with sudden speed, and she staggered and almost fell on the deck as it pitched beneath her.  Calling upon that power drained her, sent pain shooting through her skull, but it struck like a hammer at the perfect moment.

The waves carried her ships ahead in a surge, and the enemy line was a twisted, confused mass as ships turned and collided, struck rocks and sheared open.  Jaya clung to her spear and bared her teeth as guns began to fire, and smoke began to fill the air and draw a shroud over the sun.  She tasted the burnt gunpowder and hot iron as her ship fired and then the rest of her ships, blasting forth their volleys without mercy.

The return fire was weak as the enemy crews fought the wind and the waves, struggled to get their ships back into position.  Sails were shredded, hulls breached, decks scourged until blood ran from the scuppers.  Nails and chain and red-hot shot ripped at wood and flesh and bone.

In moments the two fleets had become a smoke-blinded mass of ships carried by the waves and fighting for their places as they fired and fired again.  Jaya heard cannon-shots scream over the deck, felt the impact as balls glanced off the Dragon’s armored hull.  She saw a Mordani ship lifted high by the waves and then come crashing down on sword-edged rocks, the hull shearing in half.  Men screamed as the water rushed in and dragged them out, the ship disintegrating as it drowned.

The Dragon burst from the wall of smoke out into the open sea, and though she looked back, Jaya could not see how many of her ships were following, nor what damage they had inflicted on the enemy.  The wind blew strongly across the bow and her men ran to reef the sails.  More of her ships began to emerge from the cloud of smoke, and she closed her eyes for a moment.  Now they would draw away from the strait and out to sea, gain some room to move, and circle back to deal a crippling blow when the enemy came to pursue them.

There was a shout from aloft, and she looked up, only to see the lookout pointing southward, rather than back into the strait.  Turning, Jaya saw nothing for a moment, and then the white flickers of sails began to appear there from the noontide haze.  She counted six, then eight, then a dozen.  More ships coming, and they were not hers.  The Mordani had reinforcements coming, trying to catch her in a pincer her between two fleets and grind her away.  She hissed and looked back, saw the first of the enemy coming through the smoke.  Blackened and bloodied, smoke trailing from their gunports, they came onward to battle.

o0o

Jaya had lost three ships, so she led twelve in the wake of the Dragon out into the roiling sea.  The Mordani came after her, with twenty-two of their original thirty, all of them scarred and damaged, but all still able to fight.  She had destroyed eight ships, dealing them a terrible blow, but she was still outnumbered, and now another dozen ships closed on her from the south.  The winds were contrary, keeping them tacking and backing to maintain speed, denying them the power to escape the trap as it closed.

But Jaya had advantages no Mordani captain could claim.  This was her land, and her sea, and what dwelled beneath it answered to her call.  The gods were her shadows, walking beside her, going before her and after.  She closed her eyes and set her brow against the green steel of her spear, and she sent forth her will into the deeps like a sounding, a deep toll like doom that called across ages.  And those ages answered.

The enemy ships closed in as her own formed once more into a line, presenting their broadsides to the new foe coming close on the flying winds.  She bellowed for her gunners to get to their weapons.  The smell of powder and iron filled the air, smoke from lit matches that stank of sulphur and the braziers where cannon-shot were heated to a crimson blaze.  Behind her the wounded enemy closed in, heaving in the rolling waves, and then shapes began to erupt from the sea around them.

Long-limbed and scaled with black armor, bearing their daggers and spears, black eyes wide and gleaming, the men of the deep swarmed up the iron sides of the ships like spiders, waves of them clawing their way upward until they sprang over the rails, and then screams filled the air, carried on the breezes.  The children of the sea, the lost kin of the Tau’ta, hurled themselves upon the enemy with weapons and claws and teeth, and they began to kill.

The new fleet was coming in quick, beginning to turn to aim their own broadsides, but they were a little too slow, and Jaya got her ships in position.  She gave the order to fire, and destruction blasted from the gun decks below.  One ship after another fired, the shots like blows she felt on her skin as shot after shot screamed across the waves and struck at the enemy ships.  Wood shattered and men died, she saw masts crack and totter, and flames boiled forth from gunports and hatchways.

The lead Mordani ship began to return fire even as a wake cut through the sea between them.  Something fast and immense that moved just beneath the surface, dagger spines cutting the water, and then the sea dragon reared up like a cobra, fins flared and streaked with red like fire, golden eyes blazing.  Jaya saw cannonballs splinter against its scales, and then it spat forth a stream of venom that glittered for an instant in the air before it exploded into white fire.

The ship was engulfed in a moment, shrouded stem to stern in flames, and then it burst through, carried onward by its momentum even as every sail burned away to tatters.  The decks buckled and men shrieked, and then the powder stores caught and the ship shattered apart from within, the shockwave lashing across the surface of the sea.

Already the dragon turned for the next ship, tore a hole in the hull with shearing teeth, and splintered the masts with a lash of the jagged tail.  The other ships turned and began to scatter, terrorized by an attack they could not face, an enemy they could not kill.  They saw their cannonfire glance from it without leaving a mark, and they saw the mist of venom come forth as it spat again, and again.  The venom burned in the air, it ravened across the decks and beneath them, floated burning on the surface of the sea, and burned below as men plunged into the deep, still wreathed in flames that would not die.

“Ahead with all sail!” Jaya screamed.  “Hunt them down!  Burn them to the waterline!”  Her men looked on the flaming ships and shouted, lifted up by the sight of their ancient totem come to life again, at the sea rising to their side in battle, and now they hungered for blood.

Jaya looked back at the ships that had been pursuing them, saw them swarming with sea monsters, blood pouring down from the scuppers to stain the hulls as though the ships themselves bled.  At the helm of the flagship she saw a familiar flash of blue fire, and she knew it down inside where her heart hungered for blood.  She bared her teeth and gripped her spear, wrenched it from the deck planks and held it aloft.  “Come about!” she howled, pointing.  “Bring me that ship!  Come to grips with it now!  Put on every scrap of cloth!  Feed fire to the cannons!”  She dug her fingers into the rail as the men raced to obey and the ship began to heel over in the heavy waves.  Now she would face down a real foe, and the gods would decide her fate.

o0o

Aurich the Beast stood at bay on the quarterdeck, wreathed in the blue blaze of his spirit armor, his great sword afire in his hands, and he cut down the things from the deep as they came for him.  He rent their flesh with heavy sweeps of his blade, cleaving scaled armor and black bone.  They came on unceasing, unknown to fear, and they fought even when he cut off their arms or their legs or rent them in half.  He learned to strike at their heads, to smash through their elongated skulls or rip them from their spined necks so they would die quick and not claw at him in bits and pieces.

Their spears and forks and dagger points glanced from the shell of protection that surrounded him, and he was deep in the battle trance he had to maintain to keep it alive.  He saw the world in flashes of light, a blue haze suffusing everything, the creatures a deep black that only flared to red when he cut them and spilled their hot blood.

The ship beyond the ring of dead that surrounded him was overrun, scaled abominations swarming over every part of it, dragging down the sailors and fighting men and savaging them with claws and glassine needle teeth.  The deck pitched underfoot, and Aurich had a moment to wonder if the hull was breached, if the ship was going to sink beneath him and leave him walking the waves like a savior out of ancient times.  It did not matter, these creatures would not slay him, and the sea could not swallow him.  Though every ship break and burn away still he would fight on in the name of the god that gave him strength.

He heard the cannons fire again, smoke boiling across the deck, and then another warship loomed against the rail, sails taut with the wind.  He heard shouts and war-screams, and then someone sprang alone across the gap between the ships, swung on a line to drop light to the deck with a spear in hand, and the sea-beasts drew away to make room.  Aurich paused in his slaughter, sword dripping with blackened ichor, and he looked once again on the devil-girl who defied the laws of men and gods.

o0o

Jaya landed on the bloody deck like a burning star, her hair alight with the sun that blazed down and her spear streaming stormfire.  The ship was wreathed in smoke, and the stink of burning bodies and blackened powder was bitter as poison.  She saw the phantom glow of the one called Aurich on the quarterdeck, his sword like a shard of swamplight leading her into darkness.  She climbed the narrow steps and stood there beside the broken wheel, facing her gravest enemy.  All was in her grasp, but first she had to break this man and his unearthly power.

“You send abominations,” he said, his voice deep and certain.  “You send devils and lackeys.  At last you come against me yourself.  Come and let us embrace as God has commanded, that you may be taught your errors and suffer for your sins.”

Smoke coiled around Jaya like serpents, and she saw the light play across the sea, shining on broken wood and flaming wreckage.  Burning ships drifted out of the strait like ghost ships, every beam ablaze, crewed by dead men and blackened skeletons.  The waters all around shimmered in the sun, the white wavecrests sweeping across the deep.

“You have come where you may not tread,” Jaya spoke, words coming to her unbidden.  “This is the land of gods, the sea of the gods, and you are not welcome here.  Take your dead god with you into the next world, for he has no power here.  You will know this when you come to the shores of the last sea, the sea of flowers where all living set sail, and you will break when you meet your ending.”

Aurich came forward, the phantom outline of the beast around him, immense and alight with power, and he lifted up his sword to strike.  Jaya stepped in to meet him, and the edge of his blade met the blade of her spear with a flash of light and a sound of ringing steel that lashed across the waters and made men flinch away when they heard it.

Jaya met Aurich’s gaze across the grinding steel, and she saw the flicker of surprise in his eyes.  The deck heaved under them, as though something immense moved in the waters beneath, and then she struck again, the point of the spear screaming across his ghostly armor.  He shrugged her stroke aside and lashed down with his sword, and then they were in the death-grip, steel to steel to the death.

He hammered at her with heavy blows, and when she evaded them he gouged and rent the deck and the rails.  She struck back furiously and with more speed than he could master, but his power surrounded him and warded off her strokes, though the green-glowing spearpoint howled when it was stopped, and the force of it seemed to stagger him.  They fought across the deck, sword and spear flashing and sparking when they clashed.  She saw his guard was not perfect, and seemed to come to life where he needed it.  Her spearpoint struck at his side, flicked up to meet his sword and then she spun away and stabbed low, her stroke slipping through his defense and piercing the back of his ankle.

Aurich staggered back, blood dark as squid ink staining the deck.  He slashed at her and she danced back, lunged in again and pierced his guard.  The point of her spear cracked his breastplate and sank in to the depth of a finger, came out blooded.

He swept his sword at her and she met it with her spear, the metal ringing like bells in the deep.  The force of his blow drove her arms back so that the edge of his blade cut into her shoulder and brought a gush of red.  She hissed and twisted out of the way, smashed him in the helm with the back of the haft.  The visor of his helm, the bestial mask, snapped free and rang as it skittered across the deck.

Jaya stepped back, planted her feet, and spun the spearpoint so that the edge slashed across his throat.  Red gouted forth, and she had a moment to look on him, uncovered.  His wild blue eyes, his red beard and angry features.  He put a hand to his neck and red poured over it.  He stumbled back, and then he caught the rail with his good leg and tipped backward, off-balance, clawing for purchase on the air.

Something huge erupted from the waves below, and Jaya saw the spray burst upward, a thousand drops of foam glittering like many-colored jewels in the slanting sun.  Aurich fell back, and she saw the terror in his eyes as the vast steel-gray bulk of Arang the Shark-god rose up from the sea, mouth open like a fanged gate.  The paladin fell into his bloody maw, and those teeth snapped closed, crushing armor and flesh and bone.

The immense body of the shark fell back, so slow and with a majesty that silenced all the world around.  He struck the water in a shatter of spray and then was gone, vanishing into the dark waters.  Blood rained down all around, as though falling from the sky, and then with a sound like a hammer Aurich’s armored hand, still gripping his sword, fell to the death-scarred deck.

o0o

Jaya’s fleet swept the sea clear of foes.  The enemy ships were taken, their crews forced into service or slain and cast into the water to feed the sharks that circled like carrion birds.  As night fell the ships turned their paths to the north, catching the wind that flowed out of the drawing dark.  Jaya had twenty-six ships now – more than any other power in the islands could gather.  Now her path turned to the ancient capital of Sinasekan, and the end of the Mordani age.

She lay in her bed aboard the Dragon, her wounds bound, Bastar running a brush through her hair, picking her many small braids.  She looked at him over her shoulder, loving him in her way, and sometimes hating that she did so.  “I will break the viceroy’s forces, kill him and hang his head from the palace gate,” she said.  “I will extinguish the kingdom your people raised here, and never allow it to rise again.”

“I know,” he said.  “I serve you, not my people, not a distant king.  Only you.  Many lords and captains have asked me to die for them.  Only you have been worthy of it.”

“Do you love me?” she said.

“I do.  I do love you,” he said.  “Can you love me in answer?”

“Do the gods love us?” she said.  “Can they?”

“They must,” he said.  “If they did not, they would not test us as they do.  They would not show themselves to us if they did not love us.”

She looked at him.  “Then I can love you.”

“If you slay the viceroy, then someday the king will send another.  He will not allow you to fight this war a single time.”  Bastar touched her back, his rough hands gentle.

“Then we will fight it as many times as we must, until he learns he does not own the world.  He does not own these islands, he does not own my people.”  She touched the wound on her shoulder and looked at the sword of Aurich where it leaned against the wall.  “I will teach him that.”