James West - Shadow and Steel

Without slowing, the Brothers leaped down the slope, the longboat scraping and bumping over the ground. Halfway to the shore, the trail steepened. Rising dust marked their descent, and large rocks bounced ahead. At the bow, Ulmek suddenly cursed and stumbled. He fought to regain his feet, but the way was too steep. Instead of holding the boat back, his weight pulled it faster. The longboat shot forward, dragging the Brothers along. Across from Leitos, Ke’uld screamed and vanished from sight.

At the end of the trail, the longboat gouged into a berm of sand littered with seaweed and driftwood. The Brothers rolled over one another, ending up in a tangled pile.

“Up!” Ulmek called. “Damn the lot of you, up!”

As they hefted the longboat, one man remained half buried in the sand-Ke’uld, his leg horribly twisted. “Go,” he rasped.

Ulmek rushed to the fallen Brother and, avoiding the man’s weak attempts to drive him off, gently lifted Ke’uld into the boat. “Prepare the oars,” Ulmek said, retaking his place at the bow.

With the longboat held between them, the Brothers ran toward the waves. Face ashen, Ke’uld did what he could to obey Ulmek’s command.

The Brothers speared the longboat into a breaking wave, and leaned into the salty rush, straining to gain a few more feet. The wave turned back, helping them put out to sea. More waves crashed over the bow, but the Brothers kept on until they were swimming.

“Climb in,” Ulmek ordered, pulling himself up. He turned, caught Halan’s hand, and dragged him into the longboat. In moments, all had boarded the bobbing craft.

While Leitos joined Halan at the stern, the others caught hold of the oars and struggled to turn the bow into the incoming waves. By inches, the craft came about, and the rowing Brothers made for open water.

In the stern, Leitos knelt beside Halan, both ready with arrows nocked. Behind them, the Kelrens raced down the trail. Jaw set, Leitos took aim at the seething mass. His first arrow followed a blink after Halan’s. Leitos fired steadily. By his sixth shot, the longboat had begun to wallow past cresting waves, and the remaining Kelrens began to return fire.

The first volley flew high when the longboat dropped into a trough. The Kelren archers raised their bows and waited, timing the waves. Leitos and Halan began firing as fast as they could, their haste and the pitching sea ruining their aim.

“Stroke!” Ulmek cried.

Another volley of Kelren arrows flashed out of the sky, flying wide by mere feet.

“Stroke!”

Leitos bent his bow and fired, bent and fired.

“Stroke!”

The Kelren archers drew back their bowstrings, again timing the waves. Around them, their fellows roared, waving their swords overhead.

“Stroke!”

The Kelrens fired, and hope fled Leitos’s heart … but only for a moment. The closest arrow fell into the sea, twenty feet back. Behind him, the Brothers continued to heave at the oars.

“Come about,” Ulmek ordered, after the sea-wolves had become specks.

Dripping sweat, the Brothers dropped their oars and leaned on their knees, looking back the way they had come. Witch’s Mole thrust out of the sea, a green-haired skull bowing under the weight of gathering storm clouds. Cackling gulls wheeled overhead, mistaking the Brothers for fishermen.

After a time, Halan spoke up. “Do you mean to leave our Brothers to the slavers?”

Ulmek glared back in silence.

“You cannot have us abandon our Brothers to those filthy butchers,” Ke’uld gasped. His broken leg wept blood where splintered ends of bone had thrust through the skin. “What of Ba’Sel and the others? Do we leave them for dead, while we seek safety?”

Ulmek looked into each man’s face, before coming back to Halan. “Ba’Sel’s way is to keep to the shadows. Would you turn from his decrees?”

Halan’s craggy brow wrinkled. Ulmek’s questioning gaze roved. Brave and hard men all, none met his stare. Of anger-a tensing of the shoulders, a clenching of fists, and deep scowls-there was no shortage, but the Brothers of the Crimson Shield followed a strict hierarchy. In Ba’Sel’s absence, Ulmek was their leader, and it appeared that he meant to hold to Ba’Sel’s last command.

“Point us toward Giant’s Head,” Ulmek said slowly. “And make sure the Kelrens see us.”

Curious looks met this, and Leitos sat straighter. Ulmek went on.

“It is my intention to cut down ten sea-wolves for each one of us they have stolen from our ranks.” He paused, waiting until each man faced him. “Unless, of course, you think I should lead us scurrying into the shadows?”

“I have had my fill of hiding,” Ke’uld said. As the men murmured agreement, his eyes rolled up to show the whites, and his head clunked against the hull.

“Bind his leg,” Ulmek said.

As Halan and a few others rooted through haversacks to find anything to use for bandages, Leitos looked back toward Witch’s Mole.

Hold fast, Father. He willed that thought to bridge the gap between them, refusing to consider that his father might have perished in the battle.

While the rest of the Brothers sat nibbling strips of salt fish on the hull of the overturned longboat, Leitos paced relentlessly. Seaweed and damp made the footing slick across the reddish shelf of stone, which slanted into the sea from the base of a cliff. He had covered its breadth more times than he could count.

A dozen feet away, whitecaps battered their way through the Bloody Fingers, a forest of sandstone sea stacks jutting off the southernmost point of Witch’s Mole. A steady wind soaked the Brothers and the shelf of stone with foaming spray. Overhead, clouds continued to mass, blotting out the failing light of day.

An hour before, when it seemed possible that the worst of the coming storm might skirt the island, Ulmek had sent Sumahn and Daris up the faint trail to the top of the cliff. “If you cross patrolling enemies, avoid them,” he had warned. “For now, we need only to know where the sea-wolves are holding our brethren. Alerting the Kelrens that we have returned will not help us.”

Sumahn and Daris accepted that order with agreeable nods, but Leitos scowled. “Should I not join them?”

“You are the last person I would send,” Ulmek said firmly. Before Leitos could protest, he took him aside. “If I had need of dead slavers, I would gladly send you.”

“You do not believe I can follow orders?”

Ulmek gave him a sympathetic look. “With your father taken, do you really think you could adhere to my commands?” Leitos made to answer, but Ulmek cut him off. “Kelrens are a cruel race, men and women both. Could you stand by and watch them dig out your father’s eyes, or cut off his tongue, or brand him with hot irons?”

“No,” Leitos admitted.

“And so you will stay here, at my side.” He clapped a hand over Leitos’s shoulder. “Trust that I know how you feel, and believe me when I say, I long for the moment when I can unleash you upon these bastards.” His eyes flashed darkly. “I long for that moment myself….”

Now Leitos pivoted on his heel, and stalked back the way he had come, glancing at the trail zigzagging up the cliff, almost invisible with the approach of night. Brush and trees on the rim whipped in protest against the wind’s fury, but he saw nothing of Sumahn and Daris. Lightning flashed, thunder rolled, and a brief, drumming patter of rain stung his cheeks.

A different sort of thunder turned him about, and he recoiled at the sight of a gigantic mountain of dark water crashing through the crooked stacks.

“Hold!” Ulmek shouted, and rushed to help Halan protect an unconscious Ke’uld.

With a shuddering boom, the wave tumbled over the men. Leitos scrambled for the longboat, but the turbulent waters swept him off his feet, dragging him toward the sea. Before the angry waters could take him, Ulmek caught his wrist and pulled him back.