Douglas Niles - Goddess Worldweaver

“Look out-to the right!” called the man, as a hundred or more of the haglike attackers dived from the concealment of a neighboring cloud. Still more of the creatures were swarming ahead of them, swirling through tight spirals, waiting for the proper time to attack.

The dragon twisted in the air, and Natac held on with both hands. He felt the heat as another great fireball erupted from the crocodilian jaws. Then the serpent banked away, veering around to leave the harpies behind, pulling for altitude and the clean air beyond the armada.

Their attack would have to wait.

Fritzi Koeppler stood upon the observation deck, a narrow platform raised ten or twelve feet over the deck of his sailboat, the Kaiser. He had admired the Cossack’s attack and noted the effectiveness of the fire weapons against the death ships. Now his responsibilities afforded him no time to grieve for the warrior or his druid as their impetuous rush carried them to doom within the armada.

“Raise the flag for a line formation-we’ll give them a volley!” he shouted down to the deck. His signaler, an elfmaid from Barantha named Faerwind, swiftly ran the appropriate banner, a long, slender pennant of silver and blue, up the post.

As the commander’s flagship, Kaiser was a bit larger than the standard druid boat. For one thing, she bore two batteries, one facing off either quarter of the bow, and in addition to Reza, who so resolutely spun the wind in the cockpit, she was crewed by a dozen elves to aid with communication as well as man the batteries.

Now the druids throughout the First Wing took note of the formation. The ranks of the sailboats changed shape smoothly, the squadrons merging line abreast to cut across the front of the shoreward-bound armada. The Kaiser, as well as a few dozen straggler vessels, sailed behind the line, but more than 250 batteries were arrayed in a row, each sighted upon one of the dark, looming death ships.

“Send up the order for a volley!” cried Fritzi. Faerwind was ready with the prearranged signal, and with a touch of a torch sent a sputtering rocket shooting straight up into the sky. Red smoke spumed from the tail, and throughout the wing the warriors took note of the order.

The sailboats lurched all along the line, recoiling as they launched their steely bolts into the black ships. One of the dark vessels veered as its masts were clipped off, while another turned to evade the shot and collided with its neighbor. Fires started instantly, a few smoldering hulls quickly consumed, more and more of the ships smoking and burning as the incendiary missiles exploded and began to burn within their bowels.

Within half a minute the entire front of the armada was a mass of flaming wreckage. Some of the black ships, borne by momentum and the strong ocean wind, collided with the burning hulls, and hungry flames leapt from deck to hull to sail with crackling eagerness. Here and there a dark prow burst through the line, shaking off the scraps of burning debris, until a dozen death ships forged ahead toward the sailboats arrayed in such a tenuous line. The rest of the armada’s vessels roiled and came about behind the line of fire, resulting in dozens of collisions, hundreds of ghost warriors toppling from their decks, vanishing under the wave-tossed waters.

Overhead, black clouds seethed and churned, thundering loudly, sparking with bright flashes of lightning. Monstrous thunderheads billowed magically, rising into the sky, then erupting. Rain pounded downward, drumming on the decks of many of the burning ships, dousing some of the fires but steaming away from the worst of the blazes.

Like a great charge! Fritzi couldn’t help but make the comparison, even fleetingly wishing he had a bugle. “Go, my warriors!” he shouted. “Take the battle to them!”

Now the druids sighted on individual targets, the ships that had pushed their way through the wrecked vanguard. Several of these advancing vessels burst into flames, one struck by a half dozen of the fire-bolts at once, exploding violently in a cascade of burning timbers, sails, and crewmen.

Fritzi looked along the line, three or four miles long, and took heart from the damage the enemy had suffered. Many ships were sinking, while others burned to the waterline or spumed black smoke from unseen blazes deep within the hulls. Beyond the druid fleet, however, hundreds of dark ships surged around the fires, strong winds bearing them toward shore.

The Prussian looked back, knew that the enemy had much more strength in this armada, thousands of ships that could eventually work around the other side of the firewall to trap his wing against the shore. He remembered his last day on Earth, the great charge on the Meuse-and that was nothing compared to this fight for the future of the cosmos.

The targets were clear before him now, and he didn’t hesitate. He had lived in Nayve for forty-five years, and he understood that the stakes of this war were far higher than any battle waged in Flanders, Europe, or anywhere upon the Seventh Circle.

“Faerwind,” he called down from the tower, his voice calm. “Send up the flag for a general attack.”

Darann awakened from a dream, a dream wherein she was rubbing her nose and her cheeks into the soft bristles of Karkald’s beard. She could hear the hairs rasping around her ears, a scritch… scritch… scritch of pleasant memory-until she found herself alone, again, in her large, cold bed. The apartment that she had shared with Karkald for so long yawned like a tomb around her, lightless and lifeless.

But the scratching sound, she was startled to perceive, was very real. The noise seemed urgent yet strangely gentle at the same time, as if someone wanted to attract the attention of one, and only one, person.

In an instant Darann was out of bed, her bare feet soundless on the cool slate floor. Wrapping a blackfur robe around herself, she made her way through the hallway into the anteroom, listening for a moment at the front door, but all was silent beyond. She waited, and then the sound was repeated, coming from somewhere near her kitchen.

For a moment she considered picking up some kind of weapon-one of Karkald’s hatchets hung near the door-but she immediately discarded the notion. She was unable to imagine this sound as some kind of threat. Quickly passing into the kitchen, she heard the scratching again, louder and closer, and she understood: someone was scratching at the delivery door, the iron hatch that led to the pillar’s central stairwell. The apartments all faced outward, overlooking the city with their high balconies, while the interior of the pillar was hollow, a dark stairwell.

Instantly she crossed to the portal and lifted the latch on the iron barrier. She heard a hiss of indrawn breath as she pulled it open, then recognized the stooped figure crouched in the shadowed alcove beyond.

“Hiyram!” she whispered. “How did you get out of the ghetto? And tell me, what do you want? Here, come in, quickly.”

The goblin scuttled past, ducking into a corner as she pulled the door shut as quietly as possible. “You here alone by yerself?” he asked, his voice rasping urgently.

“Yes,” she said with a nod. “Here, let me get you a cold drink-then tell me what’s the matter.”

Her hands trembled as she pulled the cork from a bottle and filled a mug with creamy ale. She handed the glass to the goblin and then, with sudden fear, took a long drink from the bottle herself. Hiyram noisily drained his mug and then looked at her with his wide, moist eyes shining in the nearly total darkness.