David Drake - Out of the waters

She raised her hand and caressed Corylus' face instead. It felt like a butterfly walking on his cheek.

"I feel sorry for the ship, though," she said, looking up at the mast. "The magicians took the souls away from all the pieces when they made it, but the ship was starting to talk to me. It's broken now, and that lot-"

She glared at the Atlantean vessel turning toward them.

"-won't fix it. Well, they'll probably burn us all, won't they?"

"Yes, I suppose that's likely enough," Corylus said. He had shut down emotionally. The logical part of his mind had addressed the question which the sprite had asked and agreed with her analysis.

For the first time Corylus realized that they weren't climbing as quickly since the most recent attack as they had before. In fact they were scarcely climbing at all, and the sails beat with an irregular rhythm.

"The mast is breaking, I think," Pandareus said, looking upward. He spoke with the interest he showed in everything new. "I was holding onto it when we hit the other ship, and it shook very hard."

He touched his cheek with a rueful smile. It was swollen, and there was a pressure cut over the bone. The bruise would close his eye by tomorrow.

Corylus looked up. The collision didn't appear to have damaged their hull, but the mast had whipped violently at the impact. It must have struck Pandareus a short, massive blow where his face was pressed against it.

The yards grew from the central pole like branches from a tree. When they flexed with the weight of the sails added, the starboard one had started to split away at the crotch just as a fir bough might break in a heavy snow. It labored now, and as it did so the crack spread further down the mast. At any moment the yard and sail would tear away completely. The ship would overturn and drop like the one it had rammed.

Unless, as the sprite had suggested, they burned instead. Corylus let his visor drop and trotted back to the bow.

They weren't going to be able to circle around their opponent this time. They were only slightly higher than the Atlantean ship, and it was moving faster than they could. Two more ships were coming through the portal. It was unlikely that they would be required to deal with the only defender of Carce.

The Ancient swung toward the prow of their opponent: there was no choice. The Servitor lifted the spout of his fire projector, and several archers began shooting. One arrow thunked hard into the hull and another zipped not far overhead.

"Watch out, Master!" Corylus said. His orichalc armor had shrugged off an arrow, but the teacher wore only a tunic. Not that it would make much difference. An arrow might even be merciful.

When Corylus turned his head slightly to shout the warning, he noticed movement on the obelisk. The ape had reached the top and was wrenching at the metal ball that Novius Facundus, the astronomer who erected the sundial, had placed there to diffuse light around the top of the granite shaft. The portal throbbed and pulsed just above the creature's head.

But that wasn't a present concern.

The Ancient lifted their bow an instant before the Servitor spurted fire toward them. Coupled with their existing slight advantage in height, the jet washed across the timbers of the forward bow and the lower hull instead of bathing Corylus and the deck beyond him. He wasn't sure that flames would affect Coryla and the Ancient so long as the amulet remained intact, but he knew from watching the victims of his own weapon what would happen to Pandareus and-despite the armor-himself.

The ships crashed together, not a glancing blow like the previous ramming attempt but a bow-to-bow collision between vessels which were each proceeding at faster than a walking pace. Timbers broke, scattering burning fragments. The flame projector and the Servitor crewing it had been crushed by the impact, but the hull of Corylus' ship was already alight.

The ships were locked together, rotating widdershins around their common axis. Their anchor flukes had become tangled; the sterns were swinging together. Both pairs of sails continued to beat, but the ships were sinking swiftly.

The crash had thrown many of the Atlanteans overboard, but the Minos in the stern gave a roar of fury and stumped forward. He used armored elbows and even his sword on his own retainers in his haste. Blood streaked his bright armor.

Corylus paused. The Minos was as big as a German warrior, and he held his sword with the ease of familiarity. Corylus had practiced with a sword also, but his real skill had been in throwing javelins.

He had never used a sword without a shield on his left arm. He wasn't afraid of the Minos or of any other barbarian, but if he were advising a friend how to bet on the match- A thought struck him. He unbuckled his chinstrap, then pulled off his helmet. With the chinstrap in his left fist, he presented the helmet like a buckler. Given his training, being without a helmet wasn't nearly as great a handicap as being without a shield would have been.

"Ears for Nerthus!" he shouted. He leaped across to the other ship's deck to meet the rush of its commander.

The Minos was poised for another stride, thinking that his enemy would wait for his charge, but without hesitation he slashed overhand at the base of Corylus' neck. Corylus met the edge with his makeshift buckler. The shock numbed his left hand to the wrist and dented the orichalc, but the helmet's curve deflected the blade to the side.

Corylus thrust. His blade was slightly curved and longer than the cut-and-thrust sword was used to, but principles were the same. The point slipped in beneath the Minos' chin. When the point pierced the back of his skull, the tip lifted off his helmet with a clang.

The ships hit the ground together, throwing Corylus up in an unexpected backflip. He lost both sword and helmet, but his knees had been flexed for the thrust and the hull timbers breaking had absorbed the worst of the shock.

Corylus hit the deck again on all fours, then bounded to his feet. I couldn't have done that once in a thousand tries if I'd been training, he thought.

The whole world seemed to be shouting. Some of the Atlanteans may have been alive, but they were no danger to Carce now.

The two ships coming through the portal and the scores behind them, though. They would be enough.

Corylus looked up. As he did so, the ape wrenched the metal ball from its socket on top of the obelisk. The portal wavered, and an Atlantean screamed in terror.

The ape gripped the obelisk with both legs and smashed the ball down on the wedge-shaped granite point with the strength of his arms and upper body. The metal deformed with a hollow boom.

The portal shrank. The storm rushed from all sides as the bubble of clear heaven reduced. Lightning and thunder overwhelmed the sound of the crowd.

The ape swung again, ripping the ball open. The portal vanished like mist in the sun. The bows of the ships on the way into this world tumbled downward, their hulls sheared more neatly than a saw could have done.

The ape stood on the peak of the obelisk, shrieking a challenge to the sky. The thunderbolt that struck him was blinding in its intensity.

The ape froze where it was for a moment, its fur blazing. Then it tumbled, and rain from the breaking storm hissed on the flames.

David Drake

Out of the Waters-ARC

Hedia watched Lann fall as stiffly as a burning statue. The lightning must have frozen his muscles. She had seen antelope shot through the head in the arena stiffen that way. There is no chance he can be alive.

Then, He saved me.

She felt nothing for a moment. She was floating in a prickly white fog.

Her vision cleared. "You, Lenatus!" she said; her voice clear, her enunciation perfect. "You and your men clear my way to the sundial!"