The Red Wolf Conspiracy (64 page)

“Do as he says, f'Rin's sake!” howled Fiffengurt, diving into the gory task. A few men followed his lead. But the Volpeks' remains were everywhere—snagged in the rigging, dangling from block and chain and cleat, kicked under tarps and equipment.

Sea-rotted flesh is ugly, but what came next was loathsome beyond words. The heads and limbs and digits began to grow, and melt, and squirm with life. Men dropped what they held, screaming. Body parts flopped about the deck like fish. Then all at once they were men. Not normal men, but full-sized Volpek corpses, bloodless and pale.

“Fleshancs!” cried Lady Oggosk. “He's turned his own dead warriors into fleshancs!
Ay Midrala
, we're doomed!”

The first monster to gain its feet rose just in front of Mr. Swellows. The bosun did not even try to run. He looked truly petrified with fear, and the fleshanc reached out rather slowly and crushed his throat with one hand. In ghastly silence, white shapes tumbled one after another from Swellows' open shirt, to bounce like walnuts on the deck: ixchel skulls, slipping from his broken necklace.

When Swellows' lifeless body followed with a
thump
, four hundred sailors fled for their lives. How many fleshancs there were none could say—perhaps thirty, perhaps twice that number—but the fear they produced was overwhelming. Sailors leaped for hatches; one threw himself into the waves. Even Drellarek's warriors looked terrified.

“Stand and fight!” bellowed Rose, hefting a boarding axe. But most of his officers had already fled, and more fleshancs had sprung to life in the rigging and were climbing down. Uskins ran to the back of the quarterdeck and crouched behind the flag locker, as if he hoped no one would notice him there. Fiffengurt stood his ground, but one swing of a Volpek fist sent him sprawling.

Then Hercól and Drellarek charged. The battle was joined in earnest, and the two warriors fought side by side, thrusting and hacking with all their might. A number of Drellarek's men rallied at his call, and some of the fiercest sailors with them. But the fleshancs were incredibly strong. A blow from their hand was like the cuff of a bear, and their grip could shatter bone and iron.

Far below in the lifeboat, Arunis stood perfectly still.

Pazel and Admiral Isiq were hauling desperately at the lifeline; the men assigned to it had let Neeps and Druffle plunge back into the sea. Chadfallow drew off the fleshancs nearest them, laying at the creatures with a heavy chain. Ramachni seemed to be everywhere at once. With mink speed he leaped from rail to rigging to monster's face, tearing out their eyes with his little claws. And when other fleshancs closed for the kill on a fallen man, Ramachni gave an earsplitting cry and gestured with one paw, and the monster flew across the deck as if struck by a cannonball. But after each such spell Ramachni looked weaker, and soon he was gasping for breath.

A few feet from Pazel, Thasha was fighting as never before. Soldiers were down, sailors down: even as she looked another was stomped lifeless beneath a fleshanc's heel. It was clear the monsters felt no pain whatsoever, and they did not bleed. You could stab them and accomplish nothing. You could even (as she managed with one particularly lucky swing) cut off an arm, and still the fleshanc would not stop. It merely seized its severed limb and used it like a club.

Her dogs fared better than she. Old they were, but battle had restored the berserk vigor of their youth. Slavering, they leaped and battered and ripped at the fleshancs, dismembering any hand that sought them. But Thasha knew their strength could not last.

The victims mounted. Those still fighting stumbled over the corpses of their friends. She saw Ramachni falter in a leap, his forepaws slippery with blood.

On her right a man gave a hideous scream: a fleshanc was crushing him against the sharp edge of a provisions crate. Leaving her own foe, Thasha hurled herself against the creature. The sailor lurched away, but Thasha fell, and the fleshanc landed atop her.

She was pinned, unable to strike. The monster put a hand on her jaw, and the reek of death was overpowering. With unspeakable disgust she recognized the face of the last Volpek she had seen on the barge, slain by Hercól before her eyes. It was about to have its revenge.

But at that instant the fleshanc fell limp. Its torpor lasted no more than two seconds, but Thasha did not hesitate: she threw the creature off and was safely away before it climbed to its feet.

Her eyes swept the deck: several other fleshancs had paused or stumbled; for a brief moment the humans had the advantage. What had happened? She looked wildly about, but no clue met her eyes. At last she ran to the rail and gazed down on Arunis.

The sorcerer was motionless, as before. But now he was sprawled on hands and knees, and glaring vaguely at his dog, as if only half aware of what he was looking at. The little creature was leaping about in excitement. It had knocked him over.

Then hope swelled in Thasha's chest, and she ran to the quarterdeck ladder. Captain Rose stood atop it, swinging his axe constantly, keeping the monsters single-handedly from gaining the deck.

“Captain! I think I know how to beat them!”

He gave her a livid glance. “Get below, you little fool!”

“Arunis is controlling their every move!”

“Rubbish! He can't even see them!”

“He doesn't need to—he sees them in his mind!”

Rose was barely listening. Thasha cursed, then turned and struggled up the mizzen ratline. When she was high enough she leaped down onto the quarterdeck and rushed to the captain's side.

“I'll hold them off! Just have a look at his face, will you?”

With that she pushed in front of the captain and slashed the nearest fleshanc almost in two. Rose lumbered toward the starboard rail.

Thirty seconds later he was back at her side. With a bellow he kicked two fleshancs backward onto the main deck. Then he gave the ladder three swift cuts with his axe and severed it from the ship. He lifted it one-handed and tossed it behind him. Then he seized Thasha by the arm.

“Can ye climb?”

“Of course!”

The next thing she knew he was lifting her bodily and hurling her back at the mizzenmast rigging. Thasha cried out, caught hold of a shroud and turned to ask what he thought he was doing. But she held her tongue. The huge old man was making the same leap himself, axe in hand. With a grunt of pain he landed in the ratlines beside her.

“Up! Follow!” he snarled, and together they climbed.

The mast was deserted. “I could give the order,” he said, “but there's no more blary time! He'll have my boat in minutes, the flamin' bastard! Climb!”

Sweating and swearing, he led her to the mizzen-top, some forty feet above the deck. But they did not stop there. Through the bolt-hole they squeezed and up again. Up and up, straight at the sun, until at eighty feet they reached the mizzen topgallant yard, the massive timber to which the rearmost mainsail of the
Chathrand
was joined.

“Don't you dare look down until I say so, girl!”

Out along the footropes the captain struggled, his face so red and angry she thought it would burst. She followed, hands shaking, groping along the yard like a worm. They were headed for its outermost tip.

Or what would have been the tip, without the studdingsails. Trying to catch the last breath of wind, Rose had ordered the rigging-out of a second yard, another twenty feet of timber to which a sail could be bent. It had all been in vain, but the yard and sail were still there. Rose hefted his axe.

“The chaps first, cut 'em loose! The yard has to fall free!”

She didn't understand; she didn't know what to cut, or how to do so without plummeting to her death. She was dizzy. Rose bellowed at her. But when he pointed at specific ropes she managed to saw at them, while he chopped farther out. At last the sail slid away.

Then Rose tossed his axe into the sea. He pointed at a pair of steel clamps. “Eye bolts, top and bottom!” he shouted. “Get 'em loose!”

This was easier. She had her clamp loose faster than he managed his. And then she looked down, and knew in an instant what Rose was thinking.

The studdingsail yard jutted past the
Chathrand's
rail. It reached, in fact, to within ten feet of the lifeboat.

“She's ready,” said Rose. “But we have to help her, lass. Put that arm over the topgallant, so. Now crouch down and catch your own hand beneath.” He demonstrated, and when Thasha obeyed he stripped away the second clamp.

The twenty-foot beam was loose now, resting atop the permanent spar with nothing keeping it from falling but its own great weight and the force of their arms.

“On three we slide her. Straight, straight! Like my harpoon, girl. You follow?”

She nodded. “I follow. Let's get him.”

Rose counted. The spars were smooth-sanded. The tar coating them almost bubbled in the heat. When he said
“Three!”
she pushed with all her might, and Rose did the same. The spar shot forward off the end of the topgallant.

Down it pinwheeled, end over end. On deck the men fighting for their lives never saw its approach. Nor did Arunis. Only the little dog caught sight of the wooden missile. It gave a frightened
Yip!
and dashed to the boat's far end.

The yard nearly missed its mark. Half of it vanished into the sea. But the other half broke across the lifeboat's bow, standing the little craft on its nose and hurling Arunis bodily into the water.

“Now look at the deck,” said Rose. “By the Gods' guts, you're a smart one.”

The fleshancs had collapsed.

Ragged cheers went up from seaman and soldier alike. But their relief was short-lived.

Ramachni, running squirrel-like up the mainmast, looked down at the water and cried out: “He is coming! Throw them over the side! Obey me now or welcome death!”

This time not a man hesitated. They dragged, heaved and hurled the Volpek bodies over the opposite side, where they sank like bags of sand.

Rose and Thasha groped their way down the rigging, exhausted. Thasha looked for Arunis. He had righted the lifeboat already, and pushed his dog aboard. But the bow of the craft was ruined, and unnaturally low in the water.

The water-weird gave a last, snake-like twist and melted into the sea.

The captain and Thasha were cheered anew when they reached the deck. But Rose waved sharply for silence and pushed to the rail.

Arunis lay in the bottom of his boat, which was clearly taking on water. His breath was labored and his face downcast. Suddenly he looked quite old.

“He is drained,” whispered Ramachni. “To stir the dead requires immense power. He cannot have much left.”

“Will you desist?” cried Rose.

The mage raised his head. “Oh no. You will drop a ladder, and I shall board, and then we shall bring out the Red Wolf. That is what will happen next.”

“You're a madman,” snarled Rose.

Arunis sat up at once. “Have you written to your parents lately, Rose? I should love to have a talk with you about those extraordinary letters, sent every week to people you know to be dead.”

Rose took a halting step backward. His mouth went slack and one hand groped behind him, as if searching for some wall to lean against. When he spoke, his voice was so thin it might have belonged to another man.

“They talk to me at night,” he said.

“And you call me mad!” Arunis laughed, getting to his feet. “They are dead! Your mother's deathsmoke habit killed her twenty years ago. Once, true, she nearly gave up the drug, through the simple use of golden swamp tears—”

“No!” screamed Rose at the top of lungs.

“—but you couldn't be bothered to find her a regular supply, and she went back to deathsmoke.”

“KILL HIM!”

“Your father, of course, never forgave you. Without a wife—or a son he could call by that name—he had nothing to live for. He drowned himself. It's all written down in the
Annals of the Quezan Islands
. But what will be written about you, I wonder, Rose?
The once-great skipper who finished his days in a madhouse, chattering with ghosts
—”

“Leave him alone, you gloating pig!” Thasha shouted. The thought of anyone, even Rose, tormented with memories of the dead was more than she could stand.

Arunis was delighted to turn his attention to Thasha. “For your sake, Lady, I will do so. After all, I owe you so much. Your marriage will give the Shaggat's worshippers the sign they are waiting for. And you are also, right now, going to make it possible for me to come aboard.”

Before Thasha could reply something terrible occurred: her mother's silver necklace came to life and began to strangle her. Those nearest saw the metal move like a snake, gather itself tight around her neck and squeeze. Pazel and Neeps caught her as she fell. They clawed at the necklace but found it strong as steel.

Thasha kicked and thrashed: she could not even scream.

“He's killing her!” Pazel cried.

Isiq waved madly at Drellarek's archers. “Shoot him! Shoot him dead! I command you!”

The archers looked at Drellarek, who nodded. They rushed forward, arrows to strings.

But Ramachni cried, “No!”

“Hear the rat-mage!” said Arunis. “If I die the necklace will go on choking her, to her death and a day beyond. All my enemies die thus, as your Emperor once condemned me to perish in a noose. And if Thasha or anyone else tries to remove the necklace, she will die. As she will now, old man, if you do not see that a ladder is dropped at once.”

Thasha's face had turned a hideous purple. Her eyes were glazed. Pazel saw Neeps looking at him beseechingly, almost in tears. Was this the moment? What Master-Word would save her? He looked up at Ramachni, perched again on Hercól's shoulder.
You will have but one chance
.

A sudden splash: all eyes turned forward. There stood Chadfallow, his face twisted in fury or despair. He had just rolled the boarding ladder down the
Chathrand's
flank.

Instantly Arunis turned his craft toward the ladder. At the same time, Thasha made a ghastly sound. She was breathing! Pazel tugged at the necklace: still savagely tight. It had loosened just enough to keep her alive.