Andrew Offutt: The Tower of Death

Behind mac Art men waited, concealed by the new additions to Sword of Lir’s simple construction. Hardly normal soldiers these, in their byrnies of steel or metal-studded leather; with their heavy round shields of good linden rimmed with iron; their vicious, newly-sharpened axes and long swords slung from baldric or waistbelt. Each man’s sponge-lined steel pot or iron-covered leathern cap lay close at hand.

They waited, looking up at their foreign leader’s back and at the dark, unconcerned sky. Only four men were visible along with mac Art; unhelmeted men. They knew their duties. Insofar as words could tell, they knew what to expect. They too watched, and waited. The breeze drifted gently, riffling their hair and only stirring the sail. The Gael’s black mop stirred and he jerked his head when a lock tickled his cheek.

A light appeared. A light flashed, a spot of citrine in the night.

“Cormac!”

“I see it. It’s the beacon, lads-the false one, low to the water. Stand ye by for the fearful, and see ye’re not affected as they expect. Ivarr-we’re being seduced. Gudfred, Hermanric-they wish to lure us from the shore. Let us be succumbing.”

They succumbed. The flat-bottomed boat was lured willingly away by the rocking yellow glow. The scapha, nigh immune to rocks no matter how close they rose to the surface of the water, closed as if naively on that beacon of treachery. Adam’s apples bobbed as men swallowed. Darkness ensorcelled the world in a night haunted by the unknown. They knew death lurked in strange form, awaiting them.

The coaster slid over the gently tossing bracken sea toward whatever inexorable end the Fates held in store for her and her crew. Mac Art stared ahead, a dark-visaged statue wrapped in sombre anticipation. The spot of yellow grew, and now he could see that it was a dancing yellow flame.

“Closer,” he reported. Behind him there were rustles and clinks as grim-faced men removed baldrics and belts and held steel naked in their hands. An they went into the sea, they’d be encumbered at least by no leathern straps.

“Ah, gods of my fathers, Wulfhere spoke true,” their commander reported. “A barge, lads, broad and flat as this save with no hold or shelter-but a deck just above the water. Aye, ’tis plain now-constructed all of dead white bone yon craft is!”

“And-women?”

Cormac stared. “Something disports itself in the water about the barge. Many of them. Large, methinks-Crom’s beard, those heads-their faces are men and fishes all at once, lads! It’s some creatures called up from some damned kingdom ’neath the sea we’ll be facing, and do ye remember who has weapons and who-or what-has none!”

The Gael continued to stare ahead while his unlikely craft closed on the unnatural one. Aye, he saw them now… women, or something like, of womanly form. The hair at the back of his neck stirred as though someone stood close and puffed air on it. Eerily phosphorescent were those beasties sporting about the bone-ship, and huge and round and without colour their eyes, save for the spots of black that were their pupils.

The unnatural fire did indeed burn on that dead white deck, and around it, close as though they were freezing or it a flame of cold fire, lounged… crew? Passengers? Mac Art did not know. Strange unearthly women these were, with large eyes that glowed like twinned lamps in every face… and those colourless eyes were blank, inhuman, fishlike, noctiluminescent glims staring and expressionless as death itself. Robed all in greenish-bluish-greyish sea mist these feminine creatures were, all slim and sylphlike and gleaming. Peradventure that raiment, mac Art thought, protected the unworldly creatures from the heat and dancing flames of their deck-burning beacon. If flames those were.

Lounging, they stared unblinking at the approaching scapha.

Slim, and lifeless and unblinking… like…

Like my lady Queen Venhilda , Cormac thought, staring back. From time to time he lifted his voice in command to his four men on deck. He saw arms draped impossibly in sea mist lift, stretch toward him all aglisten; saw the loveliness of parting lips in piquant, point-chinned faces; saw the misted outline and swell of tiny, dainty girlish breasts that called to a man and sought to kindle his rut with visions of nubile youth.

He spoke low. “Now lads, remember. These… women expect the bemazement of their very appearance to draw us in… the horror of those eyes to ensorcel and panic us so that we may be capsized and drowned with ease. Such must be their way and their experience. Only Lir’s son is after knowing how many they’ve thus murdered. Be ye prepared. Flinch not, but remember that it’s deadly enemy they be-and that things be not always as they seem. Surprise is with us , this time. For we expected them… and it’s hardly the ordinary sailors they expect we are!” And he added, “Trim sail. Rudder aport.”

And his men obeyed.

And steadily, whilst fish-things cavorted in the water and made strange croaking sounds that rode the night air with ugglesome eeriness to prickle a man’s nape, the ungainly craft yclept Sword of Lir slid toward the barge of bones.

The cold dead colourless eyes of those… sirens seemed to brighten with anticipation. The sea-creatures about their barge slowed their activities, staring. Waiting for the scapha’s approach.

Then Cormac seemed to go mad.

He shouted, and his voice lofted high. “Five more on deck! Run about as if moon-struck, lads! AH, GODS AND BLOOD OF THE GODS! Aegir and Mamannan aid us! Wulfhere -all sail, all sail! Hard by steerboard!”

But Wulfhere was not aboard, and at the steering-oar Ivarr knew better than to obey: the calling of the absent captain’s name was the signal they’d agreed upon hours agone. And Ivarr seemed too to go mad, even while five men sprang up from below. Unhelmeted they came, and bearing no shields. Given the order to swing hard aright, Ivarr ruddered leftward as if in panicky confusion.

With men running screaming and arm-waving about her deck, the scapha rolled in toward the unearthly craft.

Ever closer they manoeuvered, and each time Cormac called out Wulfhere’s name before his command, that order was carried out in reverse. And the women aboard the bone-ship smiled, smiled and seemed to yearn toward Sword of Lir …

“Close enow!” Cormac bawled. “Grapple fast and haul us in to her, lads! Helmets and shields and fistful of steel! And by the blood of all the very gods, remember how many good men these creatures have done to death!”

Grapnels flew like steel claws from the hands of men whose sanity had been regained on the instant. Inexperienced Hermanric, unsteady on his feet on the bobbing craft, overthrew. A hideous shriek rent the air as one clawing fluke of his grapnel tore down the arm of one of the women on the bone-barge, and another sank to its back-hook in her shining white thigh.

Blood’s red enough , Cormac thought, and gave no thought to his own callousness.

Now the two craft were made fast, and up from the sea came horror.

Surely horror was the very name of these sea-spawned monsters of glistening, dripping, greyish-green. Scales plated their backs and shoulders like the hides of fishes. As fish-like were the enormous unblinking eyes that bulged from ugly piscine heads. Gills moved restlessly on either side their necks, sucking and palpitating.

When they rose up from the night-dark water to invade the scapha, their bellies were the dead pasty white of fish.

Hideous scaly beasts they were, with the thick-lipped, wide mouths of fish and yet a simultaneous resemblance to frogs. At the same time, their bodies were anthopomorphic, with the two-armed, two-legged bodies and chests of humankind. Rows of gleaming pointed teeth lined open mouths. All was as though man and shark had come somehow together in obscene mating and these monstrosities were their get.