Angelslayer: The Winnowing War (45 page)

“I feel you. I can sense you. Who are you, warrior?”

“I am Daath, a Shadow Walker, Lothian. Take faith—your pain will soon end.”

One hand of the corpse gripped the arm of the throne; fingers gripping, stretched out and gripping again, over and over. The empty eyes tried to follow Loch as he stepped back and to the side, studying Lothian carefully. Loch finally stepped directly in front of the pirate and with a flick of the sunblade, sliced opened the chest cavity. Lothian cried out as his chest spilt and gaped wide, the shrunken muscles and skin pulling open the ribs. It was dead, all of it but the nerves, which continued to feed the poor Tarshian pain. Near the edges of the ribs, his skin curled back like rolled papyrus. The lungs were withered, the bowels dried as a rope, knotted along its edges. The organs were black and shrunken. There was no blood; everything was so dry it looked ready to crumble like ash—except for the heart. The heart was being kept red and blue and alive; beating strong, as it had in life. Curled about it was a small, green serpent. Seeing Loch, it reared its head, flicking a bright red tongue with a hiss.

There was a whispering chuckle that swiftly circled them like wind, coming from different directions at once—the angel mocking Darke. The captain tried not to let it affect him, but it did, his lip curled in a snarl.

Without hesitation, Loch lopped off the serpent's head with a slice of the Angelslayer's tip. As the tiny serpent fell away, Lothian moaned and instantly his corpse collapsed. It sagged to one side, dropped to the platform, finally lifeless, the rags of clothing fluttering in the wind.

“Sorry for your loss,” said Loch, stepping back, “but his soul ascends; he returns home.”

“Wait,” said Hyacinth. She crept closer to where Lothian lay on his side. The body was still, but the jaw was working. The ribs were spreading outward, the organs swelling. The brain matter was growing so quickly it was squeezing through the orbitals of the eyes.

“Something spawns,” the priestess warned.

Loch took her shoulder and pulled her away, shoving her behind him.

“Going to be a circus soon,” said Storan, “courtesy of this Star Walker prick.”

Darke threw his head back. “Satariel!” he cried, furious. “Face us! Where are you, coward? You are an angel! We are mortal; dare you not show yourself? Face me, you bastard!”

There was a growing sound of humming, like insects. Hyacinth backed away, close to Darke's leg. Loch watched the dried organs swell, growing, wriggling. He stepped carefully.

“Take up shields,” he warned, angling the one given him toward the corpse. It was a large oval shield, thankfully in this situation more than a buckler.

Taran lifted his large oval shield and pulled Hyacinth to his side, covering them both.

“You know what this is, Daath?” asked Darke. “I do not, but it will be like hail coming at us. Guard exposed flesh.” Loch stepped near Danwyar, who still searched with the tip of his bow. “That will do you little good,” said Loch.

Danwyar glanced at him, irritated, but with the bow still strung, he angled it to the side with one hand and pulled his buckler from his back.

“Guess is it good we brought you along,” he commented.

“Much better to have never come,” Loch answered. “He has little interest in you. It is doubtful he would even have hunted you. He is obsessed only with his own fate.”

“Does anyone think it best we leave this pavilion?” asked Danwyar, “or maybe we wait for lunch and some wine?”

“Back step slowly,” said Darke, “shields at the ready.”

Lothian's spleen was the first to split open. What looked to be blood became thirty to sixty small winged creatures, fat as bumblebees, red as pomegranate seeds. They closed on Loch first, since he was foremost. He brought his shield up, crouched behind it. The pirates continued to back away. Loch looked to be turning back fire. As they struck his shield they splattered with bloody explosions.

Those that spilled past Loch streamed for the others. The Tarshians were quick, their shields blocking the fliers, but occasionally one of them caught flesh. One hit Marsyas's shoulder and bore in, whirling, drilling. He snatched it with his fingers and ripped it out, throwing it aside.

But they seemed little interested in the pirates, or in Loch. They continued streaming, and it was Danwyar who first noticed their objective.

“The mounds!” he cried. “They are going for the Etlantian dead—they are not even interested in us.”

“Quicken your pace,” Darke commanded. “Loch! Get out of there. Keep with us.”

Loch did; keeping his shield over his shoulder, he ran to catch them. All of Lothian's organs had swollen to bursting now. The air was filled with the swarms of fat fliers. They soared over and around the Tarshians, still colliding with shields and taking any flesh they could find. Gryn swore as one hit the back of his hand, then bore through and kept going, leaving a bloodied hole.

One hit Darke's thigh, and Hyacinth was close enough to pick it out with the tip of her dagger. Once they caught the smell of the buried Etlantians, they seemed to be of one mind. They avoided the pirates and began going for the buried mounds, each choosing a different mound, hitting the dirt with splats and puffs of earth, and whirling as they bore downward.

“They have no further interest in us, Captain!” Danwyar screamed.

“For the ship!” shouted Darke. “Keep together, circle, guard all sides, but double-time for the shore!”

In a pack, keeping together, shields surrounding them, they were quickly moving through the rows of planted corpses.

“Break and run?” Danwyar queried.

“No,” countered Darke. “It is what he expects. Keep together.”

They moved in a group, all but Fire Rat; he chose distance. He had no shield, no weapons except for a long-bladed dagger and the rope that served as his belt, and so he ran, sprinting, his bags bouncing off his back. To use his weapons effectively, he needed distance.

Suddenly he paused. His path was blocked. A pustule shot up out of the ground, then blossomed quickly, shooting skyward in mere seconds, first a short bush of thorny branches, then stretching limbs for the sun, arching upward like a man standing from a squat. The Fire Rat was taken, mesmerized—he had to see what happened.

They were sprouting everywhere; the hundreds of Euryathides crew were all blooming into thorny bushes that tore through the earth and soared skyward as if someone had sped up the growth of trees or plants. Green leaves, bark, vines wrapping around the stems at they rose up. Darke and the others were moving through the middle of them.

“Get as far past these as we can!” Darke shouted. “But keep together.”

“Those in front, those between us and the ship, they will surround us if they break open!” Danwyar cried.

“I know, but we keep together. If we break and run, we will be shredded.”

“Your captain speaks best,” Loch cut in, “they would prefer us piecemeal.”

“And who do you speak for, Daath?” interrupted Storan, irritated.

“He speaks for us all,” answered Hyacinth. “Listen to him, he reads time, he senses spirit, do not mock his words, Storan.”

“These are known as pod growers,” Loch said,” but they are spellbound to develop twenty times their rate. They will shortly bear fruit.”

“Rat,” Darke shouted, spotting him. “Get out of there!”

Fire Rat was ahead of them, but he could only stare, amazed as the pod soared to the height of a giant, the size of an Etlantian. He never had been right in the head and presently, his curiosity had overcome all reason.

The wooden bushes were reaching seven, eight, ten feet now. The same heights of Euryathides's crew.

“They are about to bloom,” Loch warned. “Be ready.”

“Rat,” cried Darke once more, “get away from there!”

“You have seen these?” Danwyar said as he sidestepped quickly. Danwyar was keeping his shield up, his other hand pinning an arrow to the bow, angled downward.

“Only matured. I do not know what will come from these pods, but I sense they are almost complete.”

Fire Rat screeched, finally leaping away, colliding with Marsyas as the group reached him. The pod before him had split open and inside was a quivering, jellylike creature whose organs, eyes, and brain were all contained in a viscous fluid that seemed to be hardening even as Rat watched. Rat broke and ran on his own to clear distance for his naphtha bags.

They had made it through the center, and though pods all around them were splitting open, there were far more of them behind than in front. It seemed a short distance to the beach and the ashore boat, but it was not going to be easily reached; there were scores of pods breaking open between here and there.

Rat had cleared the mounds and turned to run backward, readying his bags, watching as the thorn pustules broke open. He saw one of the first giants emerge. The beast was a shivering globule of pale flesh somehow held together in the shape of an Etlantian—naked, pink, with muscle wrapped in thin cords and webworks of veins. On the outside something was quickly forming, a yellowish outer cover of ill-shaped bone, almost wobbly bone, though it seemed to be quickly hardening into separate plates: chest plates, back plates, arm and leg plates. All the outermost flesh was becoming a kind of rubbery armor.

Once free of the pod, the giant moved with amazing speed. Rat was down the beach, far ahead of the others, reading his bags, and it was Gryn the creature first spotted and leapt for. It was able to leap into near flight. Gryn screamed as a torn claw came down on him, and had he not stepped back quickly it would have torn open his chest; even still it left gaping slashes. Though the muscles and rubbery plates were almost gelatinous, the fingers were all heavy, dark claws of thorns, the size of a dagger, curved and razor sharp. Gryn was cut open, but he had mettle; he was no coward quick to panic, and he brought his heavy broadsword over his head and literally halved the creature down the center from the top of its head. It split apart, and the two sides fell outward then hit the ground in a splash of mucus and blood-meshed sacs.

There were hundreds popping open with cracks and snaps as the thorn plants split in their centers to release their wobbly, gelatinous spawn. The giants stepped free of their wooden wombs to search for food, needing blood and flesh badly. Like newborn calves, their legs and arms were at first unsteady and they moved in lurching strides, aided by wings sprouting from their ankles. Amazingly, the wings helped them leap so they were airborne for seconds, though when they landed, their legs were so unsteady in the beginning that many went down, spastically.

From all sides they were starting to swarm. Luckily, the pirates had gotten through most of the open graves, close enough to the beach to offer hope. But there were thorn pods still in front of them bursting open.

“Keep tight; head for the beach,” commanded Darke. “Storan, Marsyas, carve out our path should they block it!”

Storan switched with Danwyar, taking position on Darke's left.

The crackling sound of the thorn plants opening was loud, like logs snapping and splitting everywhere. The angel had made a comedy of his trap. Once matured, pod creatures were invincible warriors, but newly born, they walked in unsteady staggers, arms reeling. They came heaving their way toward the pirates, making sounds, moaning as though they were talking with one another, but all of it high-pitched wails and gibberish.

“Mother of us all,” Storan swore at the sight of them.

They were Euryathides's full crew, with oarsmen, and they would have numbered nearly two hundred. Luckily, the pirates had made it far enough down the beach that the majority were to the rear, but the plan seemed to have been to surround them. Many of them did not have pure blood in their veins. Consequently, some could not control the newly formed muscle and bone, and they emerged from their pods only to rupture in sprays of jellylike globs.

“Back to back!” Darke screamed as the creatures finally were able to move in with focus, leaping and lurching in quivering steps. Their bodies were like jelly, but their hands and teeth were hardwood thorns, and as rubbery as they were, they were incredibly strong. When the first one reached Loch, he slammed the buckler into its face, expecting it to be thrown back, but it proved surprising resilient, its hand swiping for his face so Loch brought the sword low, shearing through both legs. The creature dropped with a maniacal howl and a splash of viscous fluid and blood.

They were at first coming two or three at a time, and the pirates were taking them out with heavy weapons. All bore axes, double-edged irons, heavy bucklers and shields, and as they came two and three at a time, they were shorn open or smashed by Marsyas's hammer.

Danwyar used arrows through the eyes. The silver missiles splashed into the eyeballs and out the back of the heads with a splat and the creatures would scream and spin, wildly waving their arms. They were halted in their tracks, but never did they die quickly.

The wails, cries, and childlike bawls were unnerving as the creatures were smashed, shorn open, and sliced in pieces.

But they were also developing quickly. Hardening. The plates of what would become hardened thorn wood armor were yellow and spongy, but with each moment, each second, they were darkening and taking on coppicelike hardness more difficult to cut.

“This is simple, mindless madness,” Storan shouted, shearing through glob after glob.

“Shield to shield—press for the shore!” Darke commanded. “And do not underestimate them—if they reach you, they will tear you apart!”

Darke slammed his shield sideways through the face of a creature. All the Tarshian shields were steel-edged. He sliced through just above the eyes, but even brainless, the beast kept coming, still swiping at him, snarling with a gurgle. Darke used his sword, in and out of the chest, until it finally screeched and spun, slipping to the ground where it writhed with sounds as though it were a terrified child.