Andrew Offutt: The Tower of Death

“It’s no lovelies these be, lads,” he called. “See what ’tis I’m after slaying! Come aboard-be ye fighting men or children to stand agape and tremblous?”

And the other women rose up then, to come for Cormac mac Art, and a Sueve from the coaster leaped across to stand at Cormac’s left. And others came. At their leader’s feet lay, twitching, a scaled thing of nightmare. Finned and gilled it was; web-footed and web-fingered it was, razor-toothed and claw-fingered… as the other “lovely women” now became!

As they commenced a hissing, croaking advance, out of the night came bellowing a mighty stentorian voice that might have been Father Odin, save for the words it shouted.

“Look to yourself, ye son of a Gaelic pig-farmer, and drag your hide off that accursed floating boneyard!”

Every man saw the appearance of Raven , drawn by the witchfire on the barge of horror and death. Plowing through the darkness came the ship, as Cormac and Wulfhere had planned-and told no one at all lest the Power behind the false beacon and these “sirens” learn of it. Impelled by all oars good speedy Raven came hurtling, and a great furl of foam billowed back on either side of the pirate vessel’s bow. She plunged through the water toward the barge like an attacking shark, and it starving.

“Back! Back on our scapha, and chop free the grapnel ropes!” Cormac yelled, while Raven bore down on the barge he now knew was builded of human bones and the cement of sea-snails.

He pounced backward from attackers and made of his sword a silvery blur before him, and he saw his men off the bone-barge. One of the nightmarish sea-get pounced. Cormac managed to catch its claws in his buckler even as he chopped into the thing’s neck. Then he had to lop off the arm of that dying obscenity, to free his shield-arm of its hampering weight. So deeply were steely claws imbedded in the painted, steel-braced yew wood. Another dived in low at him. Cormac struck like a madman, missing his own toes by the breadth of but a finger or two. That monster croak-screamed, its paws gone amid gouting blood… and wallowing handless, it strove to get at his booted leg with its teeth. The while, on the scapha, axes fell on walrus-hide ropes.

Cormac wheeled, ran three strides, and leaped out over the widening gap betwixt barge and scapha.

He came down flat-footed on the coaster’s deck, squatting to absorb the fall until his hinderparts nigh touched the planking.

For an instant his balance was in question on the blood-slick deck. Then he was up like a catapult and spinning to hack through the rope holding the last grapnel. The vessel of men and that of monsters were no longer linked.

Hideous baying croaking fouled the air as the servants of the human-hating god saw Raven bearing down on them with the swiftness of a falling meteor.

Raven’s copper-sheathed prow slammed highspeed into the barge of horror.

“UP OARS AND HOLD ’EM HIGH! Brace yoursel-”

The booming shout of Wulfhere Skull-splitter was broken off by impact. With a great snapping splintering of bone cemented by sea-snail, amid stricken croaking, the hell-sent barge was smashed to white splinters. The coaster so nearby was rocked violently and it fell out that a Sueve saved a Dane from going overboard. A flying chunk of splintered white bone, three forearms neatly joined lengthwise, came end-over-ending through the air so that Cormac ducked to save his head. Catapulted, one of the sea-creatures flopped squashily athwart the skiff’s gunwale. Another shard of flying bone brought a yelp from a seasoned pirate of Danemark. Slowed but not halted by the tremendous impact, Raven crunched on, cutting the bone-barge into halves and more. Two flopping helpless sea-spawn tumbled to her decks, and with great joy Wulfhere and Gudfred Hrut’s son chopped them to pieces.

In fragments, the barge sank as though those bones of murdered men were filled with lead.

Dark waters rose over the deck-fire that had lured so many men to their doom. Once again the hair of Sueves and Danes and aye, one Gael among them, stood on end; for the fire remained eerily ablaze for many fathoms as it sank, until the darkness of the nighted water blotted it from ken.

One of the awful amphibians clung to Raven’s dragonhead. A savagely laughing Wulfhere clove it in twain with an incredible sweep of his ax that splashed blood over ten men-who promptly cursed their captain, that now they must clean their armour.

The scapha was wallowing the way that those aboard must brace their legs and set them well apart. Nevertheless Cormac was glaring at the last of the monsters when it turned in the sea to utter a hissing, croaking malediction. With disgust on him rather than fear, Cormac mac Art snatched up a spear and hurled it. So had the men of Eirrin long fought, and the long steel-tipped stave rushed straight to its mark. Cthulhu’s creature and spear vanished together; no man could be certain whether Cormac had struck it well. As for the Gael, he could only hope with fervor that Crom of Eirrin had guided his powerful throw.

The scapha tilted now, and men fell. The craft had suffered some little damage of the creatures, and more of the ramming that had slammed a large section of the barge into its squared stern. Too, a great chunk of bone splintered from the other craft stood forth from the skiff’s hull, just at the waterline. Cormac’s Sword of Lir was dying under his feet, and he wished he’d named it else.

Silent, grim-faced men on Raven aided silent, blood-splashed men from the coaster in transferring to the ship. Her bow plated for ramming, the Dane-built pirate craft was unharmed. Swung upward in instant response to her master’s command, not one of her oars was damaged.

Pirates and Suevic Galicians, almost in silence, swung the ship out and rowed toward the harbour. Behind, the ungainly scapha floundered amid lapping wavelets, a floating marker to the graves of three men, and the monsters of Treachery Bay.

Irnic waited on the dock at Brigantium Harbour, with Zarabdas. The two stood at sea’s edge with cloaks blowing in the salt breeze. They watched while Raven came in. Well behind the king’s cousin and his mage-adviser stood two others, companions or bodyguards of Irnic Break-ax. They held torches whose yellow flames leaned far and danced in the breeze.

The men of Raven came ashore, and none could hurry too much to get to ale and wine. Irnic said naught, but his eyes questioned.

“Done,” Cormac mac Art said. “And your mission?”

“Done,” Irnic said, and they betook themselves in silence from the harbour.

The triumphant seamen, Danes and Suevi as one, entered the encampment set up for Raven’s crew. Waiting women there were, and wine and ale both to quaff, and a story to talk on for hours.

Cormac and Wulfhere, with Irnic and Zarabdas, must confer. Ugly or no, dangerous or no, there were matters of which they still did not wish to apprise Veremund. Therefore they must conceal this conference. This Irnic and the Palmyran had already discussed. They guided their piratical allies to Zarabdas’s spacious and cozy home, which Veremund the King had caused to be raised close by his own keep.

Cormac was surprised to see no old servant tenanting this tapestried, carpeted home of the eastborn mage. No; the servants of the dark and bald man who was so serious of mind and purpose and who advised a king were… most attractive, and far from old. Perhaps five-and-twenty was the sleek-hipped woman whose hair was almost black and whose eyes were kohled, and the blond, milk-skinned lass with the swollen hips and bust must be no older than in her middle teens. Both were passing well-favoured of face and figure, and quiet. They looked adoringly on their black-bearded lord.