Stephen Hunt - From the Deep of the Dark

‘Back, clansmen!’ Vane threw punches at the clawing warriors, holding the line against the panicked mass. ‘Do you have a plan, surface dweller?’

Charlotte rubbed the Eye of Fate against each first rotor-spear, a green light radiating from the amulet briefly rendering the weapon’s mechanism transparent. ‘You know how it is, Vane, a bit of that old-time prophecy juice.’

I hope this is good.

Elizica’s voice slipped through her mind. ‘I’m burning out the rotor-spears’ detonation triggers so there will be nothing for the darkships’ perimeter sonics to detonate early when they pass through their shields.’

I’m no engineer, but if you do that, just how in the Circle’s name are they going to explode when they hit?

‘Contact force,’ said Elizica. ‘They’ll need to be thrown from no further than twenty feet for them to have enough velocity to detonate.’

That sounds like suicide.

‘Let’s compromise and call it the act of a champion, girl-child. When I was your age I’d already jumped a bull and strangled a lion unconscious in an arena’s sands.’

You reached my age? Charlotte finished with the last of the cluster of rotor-spears, looping the Eye of Fate around her chest again. Picking up the nearest rotor-spear, she passed it to Vane. ‘These will do the job now, if there are seanore here courageous enough to swim close enough to the enemy to stand in a darkship’s shadow.’

Vane examined the rotor-spear, running a finger along its warhead as if he expected it to tingle now. ‘I fear shadows less than I fear your enchantments. I hope your witchery will be enough.’

Charlotte located the two darkships, their black mass hovering above the wrecked Jackelian u-boat. Weapon horns had formed along their bows, smaller this time, focused cutting beams slicing out and opening up the broken vessel’s hull. Someone was swimming towards the submarine from the camp — a solitary figure. Maeva? What did the old woman think she was doing over there? The third member of the Clan Raldama’s council hadn’t been spotted yet. The two interlopers were still too busy carving up their prize in their search for King Jude’s Sceptre. My sceptre, you bastards.

‘It’ll be enough.’ The nomads were hanging back uncertainly, Vane and his warriors, Korda too, the rival nomad chief’s skull covered by a silver war mask he had yet to push forward to cover his face. ‘You might need to find your balls first.’ Charlotte tugged one of the rotor-spears out of the seabed and pushed off for the wreck of the submarine.

Just tell me that the commodore is still alive inside there?

‘He may be.’ Elizica’s words slid through her head.

I’m not doing this for you or your dammed prophecy. I owe Jared my life and that sceptre is mine. I stole it… I get to sell it.

‘Yes, you get to sell it.’

Seanore were overtaking her now, the nomads shamed into action, their powerful webbed feet powering them ahead of her. Soon enough Charlotte was only swimming alongside wetbacks like her, the clans’ human members weighed down with rebreathers and diving suits. There were more warriors by her side than the numbers of rotor-spears she had altered — many were rushing towards their deaths with weapons that would prove useless against the intruders. Some of the nomads were already releasing rotor-spears, engine bulges propelling the spears forward in a flurry of bubbles, seanore war cries echoing inside Charlotte’s helmet as disembodied as Elizica’s voice. ‘Too far away.’

I don’t think that discipline is their strong point.

A flurry of warheads detonated before they had even reached the darkships’ ebony surface, others bouncing uselessly off the hulls, their velocity too spent to explode on impact.

I hope they don’t notice the duds bouncing off their ships.

‘They will release their demon’s breath again when they have recharged their tanks. This is our only chance, girl-child. Close with them, ATTACK!’

Charlotte had covered half the distance to the Purity Queen ’s wreckage, the seanores nearer still, close enough for the initial acceleration of their rotor-spears to detonate on impact now. The nearest of the darkships above the dead Jackelian submarine juddered with a wave of flowering explosions, the wash of shockwaves rattling Charlotte’s helmet and throwing her back in the water. Damage had been taken along the closest darkship, although it was nothing like the destruction the two craft had visited on the Purity Queen. Black folds fluttered along the invader’s ebony surface as though in torment, oily globules vomiting out of the rips. Its hull flexed and writhed close to the impact strikes.

Charlotte had difficulty concentrating this close to the darkships, the throb of pain in her head intensifying with every foot she swam nearer. Not just the pain, their proximity was setting her nerves on edge, an almost superstitious dread tunnelling into her deepest, darkest fears. Every iota of Charlotte’s being screamed at her to flee, to swim away from these underwater terrors and keep on going. She was breathing hard, the visor of her diving helmet misting up on the inside. Her bones vibrated with panic, shaking in terror.

‘The darkships sing their own song,’ Elizica’s voice warned. ‘They seek out the frequency of fear within your heart.’

Both darkships had returned to their pear-like configuration and pulled up from the Purity Queen ’s belly, the craft further away lifting and using the hull of the damaged darkship as a shield. From one of the rents near the Purity Queen ’s amidships a figure emerged pulling another, both in diving suits. One of them was Maeva. The prone form; the commodore’s. But was he alive? No sign of King Jude’s sceptre; that must still be inside the wreck.

These cursed things; these were part of the conspiracy that had set Charlotte up to steal the sceptre, before coldly attempting to slaughter her as they had murdered poor old Damson Robinson. They had hounded her from her home and were hunting her still, hungry for retribution. With a yell Charlotte cast the rotor-spear, the rush of water activating the gas charge inside the staff, its small motor accelerating the projectile towards the damaged darkship. It struck exactly where she’d aimed, the top of the craft’s bulbous bow, the intuition — supplied by the ancient spirit haunting her mind — that this was where the pilot was succoured by the foul black substance. Her shaft’s explosion was one of many. The seanore didn’t need to follow Charlotte’s example to press home their advantage against an obviously wounded party. The damaged darkship reversed erratically, its surface breaking up and threading away as if it were a lump of lard melting in the pan. Tilting forward, the surviving craft had learnt the danger of ignoring these attackers, its bow reforming into a lance. With a flash of strangely dark light, the cutting force of the craft was unleashed against the attacking seanores. To Charlotte’s right, one of the human nomads was cleaved from head to groin in a broiling second, his two halves split and simultaneously cauterized into a bloodless death, drifting apart in a frozen rictus agony. There seemed no limit of range to the weapon; when it fired, the sea boiled and everything in its path was carved into slices.

Charlotte yelled in alarm as the beam punched past her, the sound echoing in the confines of her helmet, flinging her down towards the seabed. Close enough to sear the skin beneath her diving suit. A handful of seanore were swimming in above the kelp forest, using their rotor-spears set low to carry them in before launching the weapons — literally riding the projectiles down onto their foe. The undamaged darkship pivoted, the cutting beam moving with it, ploughing through the forest — ground erupting like the fault line of an earthquake with its violence — before bursting through the raiding party.