Philip Palmer - Hell Ship

“Indeed, that tallies with all I know and have been advised,” said Sharrock, his mood strangely buoyant.

“So what is it?” I asked. “Why are you speaking to me now?”

“Oh, there is news,” Sharrock said. And there was a smug look in his eyes; I feared the worst.

“What is it?”

“Cuzco,” he told me, “has issued a challenge to Djamrock.”

The news shocked me. “What cause?”

“No cause. They fight at dawn.”

And Sharrock’s features were lit with elation; for he knew already that my calm and ordered equilibrium was about to be destroyed.

Two giant sentients were at war with each other, with no valid cause.

Thus, bloody and pointless anarchy had returned to our world.

We were in our cabin, the night before the combat. Fray was sombre; Lirilla was distressed; Doro was a pool of turbulent water; Quipu was appalled at what was occurring, just as I was. And Cuzco himself was in arrogant and bombastic mood.

“On my planet, before we became gods to the other sentient species, we were hunted,” said Cuzco, with a pride that repelled me. “The biped Mahonosi feared us and slew us. The four-legged Karal feared us, and slew us. We were born in blood, we fought each living day. And we survived. And we evolved. And we grew mightier and mightier.”

“Evolved? From idiot, into total fucking idiot?” snapped Quipu One.

“Good point,” said Quipu Two.

“Where is it decreed,” said Cuzco, “that we should not fight?”

“This creature is so arrogant!” said Quipu Three.

“Such duels are foolish, and dangerous,” I told Cuzco, “They serve no purpose, and damage us all!”

“Those words are true,” said Quipu Four, and his fifth and first heads nodded in agreement.

Cuzco snorted his contempt at me, and at the bobbing-headed agreeing-with-himselves Quipus.

“I need,” roared Cuzco, “to taste blood and feel fear. Without that, I do not-”

“YOU CANNOT DO THIS!” I screamed at Cuzco, and they all stared at me, for I do not usually scream.

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” Cuzco said, in tones of utter scorn.

“Why? Because I’m not a blood-crazed warrior?”

“War is in my soul. It defines me.”

“War is a form of madness,” I told him. “Do not give in to it.”

“Oh let him do what he likes,” said Quipu One, and his other heads hissed.

“It’shisfuneral,” Doro taunted.

Lirilla howled; not a song, a howl. I had never heard such a noise from her before; it sent a shudder down my central spine.

Fray brooded, silent, conflicted; she knew the joy of war too, but this was all too much for her.

“Please,” I implored Cuzco.

“It will be a glorious combat,” Cuzco said, and steam emerged from his neck and skull; and I knew we had lost him.

It was Day the Fourth. But no poems were to be recited this day.

We gathered at the foot of the White Mountains. Cuzco’s scales were orange and scarlet and shone in the bright sunlight. Djamrock descended out of the clouds, his four wings flapping loudly. Djamrock had three heads, each of them fearsomely fanged and armoured. He was twice the size of Cuzco, and Cuzco was a giant even amongst the giant sentients.

No one had ever before dared to challenge Djamrock. But, from time to time, he had savaged unwary predators and herbivores and ripped them limb from limb. Eventually they healed; but the shock of Djamrock’s violence always left a lasting damage in the souls of those he attacked.

We accept the evil of the Ka’un; but when our own kind turn on us, it more profoundly hurts.

We formed a circle around the fighters. Sharrock caught my eye; and the ghastly smile on his face repelled me. His naked torso was glistening with sweat; his red skin was darker in hue, a sure sign that he was agitated and surging with adrenalin.

And I could feel terror descend upon me. Violence is a character aberration that perturbs and disgusts my soul, and so I truly did not want to be here. For I am the child of a pacific species. We never fought, we never went to war, and, until the Ka’un, no other creatures had ever warred against us-not since we became sentient, many aeons ago.

And yet, even so, I could not resist the mood of the day. The energy! The sheer exhilaration of being in the presence of the blood-lust of all my fellow sentients!

The combat began.

The two beasts leaped and flapped wings savagely, and hovered in the air above us.

I cannot bear to describe the scene, and yet I must; for the images are seared upon my mind and the pain of that day lives as a reproach in my soul.

At first, for the first twenty or more minutes, I did not directly observe the two beasts in their bloody combat; I merely watched the watchers. It shocked me deeply. The screaming, the drooling, the roaring of rage, the obscenities uttered, the lust for the dealing of death that consumed all those who beheld!

A thousand and more different species all united in hate and loathing! Polypods and bipeds on the land, gathered in a vast crowd around the combatants; and sea-dwellers peering up from the lake, and swamp-dwellers staring up from their boggy homes at the aerial part of the battle. Only the sessiles were unable to witness the duel, for understandable reasons. Even the sentient plants were savouring what they saw of the spectacle-jeering and shedding leaves and spitting spores as they savoured the carnage.

As she watched, Fray snorted and scratched the ground with her powerful hooves; clearly a large part of her wished she could be part of this legendary fight.

As for Quipu, he was in a frenzy; his heads whipping from side to side, a crazed look to him that I had never seen before. He was the dearest friend of Cuzco and, despite the cruel words that often passed between them, they felt a huge affection for each other. And yet, as Cuzco bled, he roared, all five of his heads roared, in brutal exultation.

And when I dragged my eleven eyes from the spectators, I saw blood raining from the sky as the two beasts gripped teeth into flesh and rocked back and forth in the air. Whenever he could, Cuzco breathed fire from his skull-holes and neck-holes upon his adversary, but the flames did not even sear the ebon hide of Djamrock. And Djamrock’s three heads relentlessly pecked and tore at Cuzco’s flesh.

One of Djamrock’s wings was severed by a bite from Cuzco and went tumbling to the ground. The black beast flapped free and spikes from its belly impaled Cuzco and Cuzco blazed fire again and the sky rocked with the horror of two monsters locked in an aerial death-embrace.

Then Cuzco lost a wing too and tumbled to the ground and crashed and Djamrock moved downwards with talons extended to sever his adversary’s remaining limbs, and thus secure victory.

Cuzco was dazed, and did not move. Djamrock was descending in a fast plunge. We all waited for the inevitable.

But Djamrock halted his dive. He hovered in mid-air above his near-unconscious foe, his great wings beating. And slowly Cuzco stirred. Then looked up. And saw his enemy poised above him, waiting.

A long and powerful funnel of flame from Cuzco’s skull enveloped Djamrock’s body, but Djamrock did not flee. He remained hovering, his wings beating out billows of flame, and after a time his black hide grew darker and the flesh below began to burn.

Djamrock screamed and screamed. For his body was aflame beneath the near-impregnable coating of his night-dark armour. His heads writhed from side to side. And Cuzco pulled himself on to his two legs and pounced, and his teeth caught Djamrock’s belly and ripped it. Then Cuzco took to the air again and flew above his opponent, stopped in a frozen hover, then plunged. And with a single powerful movement he landed on his prey and ripped Djamrock’s head off his body. And then he ate it. A silence descended, as we watched, stunned. Cuzco fed the head into his mouth and ate the skull, and ate the brains too. The slow steady crunching appalled us. Even the rejuvenating powers of the water of the well of life could not heal that; so now, one of Djamrock’s heads was completely dead.