David Drake - The Fortress of Glass

"The Green Woman," Ilna said, though the name was only a sound without meaning. Did even Cervoran know what she was?

"Tenoctris, can you do something?" Cashel said. "To fight the plants, I mean."

He gave the staff a trial spin overhead where he wasn't going to hit anybody, then lowered it. They'd all seen the plant attacking the palace. A quarterstaff wouldn't be much good against more creatures of the sort.

Ilna's fingers had been busy with the cords while her mind was on other things, hopeless things. When she looked at what she'd knotted, her lips pursed with surprise. She knew her patterns were useless as weapons against the hellplants, but this was no weapon.

"I'll try," Tenoctris said. She grasped the railing with one hand and lowered herself to the catwalk. "I don't have a great deal of power, though."

Cervoran was extremely powerful. He hadn't been able to destroy the fortress in the depths, but saving theHeron from the creatures attacking was surely a smaller thing.

"Cashel, let me by," Ilna said. "To get to Cervoran."

Cashel stepped aside with the powerful delicacy of an ox lowering itself onto the straw. He didn't ask what she planned to do; he knew she'd tell him whatever she thought he needed to know.

Ilna smiled, though the expression barely reached her lips. Her brother had more common sense than most of the people who thought they were smarter than he was. In fact, thinking Cashel was stupid proved you didn't have common sense.

There was a suckingthwock from forward; theHeron staggered. A swatch of vegetation spurted up from the ram's curve before falling back into the sea.

"Stroke, lads!" Chalcus shouted. "A cable's length and we're through the devils!"

Ilna squatted at Cervoran's head and spread her knotted pattern before his staring eyes. For a moment nothing happened; then a shudder trembled the length of the wizard's body. The design had penetrated to his stunned consciousness and wrenched him back to the present.

Cervoran closed, then opened his eyes again. His irises were muddy and stood in fields of pale gold. The swollen lips moved, but no sound came out.

"Stroke!" Chalcus shouted. As the word rang out, oars on the port side clattered together and the ship slewed toward them.

Ilna glanced to the side, continuing to hold the tracery of fabric in front of the wizard. TheHeron 's hull had cleared the nearest hellplant, but the creature grasped an oarblade as the ship drove past. The tentacle held, dragging the oar back into all those behind it in the bank.

"Overboard with it!" Chalcus bellowed, springing from the deck to the outrigger. "Shove it out, we don't need the bloody oar!"

Chalcus' dagger, curved like a cat's claw, flashed; he bent and cut through the twist of willow withie that bound the oar to the rowlock. The rower pushed his oar through the port, but the hellplant's tentacles had grabbed more blades. TheHeron wallowed: the starboard oars were driving at full stroke, but half those on the other side were tangled. The hellplant's bulk tugged at the ship like a sea anchor.

Cashel stood amidships. He'd picked up the pike Chalcus dropped when he jumped from the deck railing. Some of the shepherds in the borough carried a javelin instead of a staff or bow, but Ilna didn't recall having seen her brother with a spear of any sort in his hand before.

Cashel cocked the pike over his shoulder, then snapped it forward as though it was meant for throwing instead of having a shaft thick enough to be used to fend the ship's fragile hull away from a dock. The pike wasn't balanced: the rusted iron butt-cap wobbled in a wide circle.

The point and half the long shaft squelched into the hellplant, tearing a hole the size of a man's thigh. The barrel-shaped body quivered, but the plant continued to pull itself up the oarshafts toward the ship.

Half a dozen more oars slid through the ports as crewmen jettisoned anything the plant's tentacles had caught. TheHeron was under way again, limping but moving forward. The steersman had his starboard oar twisted broadside on, fighting the ship's urge to turn to port where the hellplant lashed the water in a furious attempt to renew its grip.

"Where is the jewel?" demanded a voice that drove into Ilna's mind like a jet of ice water. "I must have the topaz from the amber sarcophagus."

Ilna looked at Cervoran, whom she'd forgotten for a moment. He'd raised his swollen body onto one elbow. His eyes had returned to the febrile brightness that'd been normal for them at least since she brought him off the pyre.

"I'll get it," Ilna said. She put her knotted pattern in her left sleeve; it'd served its purpose by bringing the wizard out of his coma. Now the question was whether Cervoran would servehis purpose, and they'd know the answer to that before long.

Tenoctris had set down the crown when she started her own spell. Ilna leaned past the three-cornered figure her friend had drawn in charcoal on the pine decking. Grabbing the wire band she drew it to her, trying not to disturb Tenoctris.

The stone was awkwardly heavy; she couldn't imagine wearing such a thing herself. Nobody was asking her to, of course. She gave the crown to Cervoran with a cold expression.

Oars rattled. TheHeron twisted, then shuddered to a stop. Two more hellplants had swum close enough to grab the leading oars on either side, binding the ship to them hopelessly. A third creature, the one that they'd struggled clear of moments before, swam up in theHeron 's wake and would catch the stern in a matter of seconds.

"All right, lads!" Chalcus cried. "Swords out and show these vegetables what it means to play with men!"

Cervoran rose to his feet. The great topaz winked on his forehead as if it was alive too. He picked up the silver-mounted skullcap that lay where he'd dropped it after the earlier spell froze the sea into yellow ice.

A sailor screamed. A flat green tentacle started to lift him from the ship. Chalcus scampered down the outrigger like a squirrel, slashing with his incurved sword. The slender blade slit the tentacle neatly, leaving only the leafy fringe remaining. The sailor twisted with desperate strength and tore that apart also, tumbling back aboard theHeron.

"Master Cashel!" Cervoran piped. "I have need of you!"

Cashel was frowning, not because of the situation but because there didn't seem to be anything for him to do. The quarterstaff was no use on plants, though it felt good in his hands. It reminded him of the days he sat with his back against a holly tree, watching the sheep on the slope below him and listening to Garric play a pipe tune. Cashel couldn't sing or make music himself, but he loved to hear it when others did.

Feeling good wasn't going to beat these plants nor would happy memories. The spear he'd thrown didn't seem to have done much good either. Besides, the plant that'd attacked the palace had looked like a pincushion from the soldiers' spears by the time he and Cervoran came up from the cellars, and it didn't even slow down till the fire got burning good.

Regretfully, Cashel laid his staff on the catwalk. The wicker mat hanging from the rail would keep it there unless the ship sank. Until the ship sank likely enough, but the crew'd fight till then and Cashelsure would be fighting.

A sword'd really be the best thing, but Cashel was hopeless with them. He hadn't seen any call to learn to use one despite not liking them the way he'd done with other things.

A broad-bladed hatchet with a square pein stood in a hole in the mast partner-the piece where the mast would be stepped. Cashel drew it out. He'd rather have a full-sized axe, but the hatchet would do. The haft was short but it'd let him grip with both hands; if he had to get close, well, he'd get close. He'd been in fights before.