Best Laid Plans (33 page)

The aft of the closest reaver came looming into view, and for an instant Shader thought Dekker was going to ram it. At the last minute, the
Aura Placida
swung to port and grazed the side of the mawg vessel. Timbers screeched and the deck shuddered. Mawgs pitched overboard or tumbled on top of each other as volley upon volley of lead shot ripped into them from the
Aura Placida’s
aftcastle. Before the mawgs could muster any sort of attack, the carrack was through and speeding towards the Templum fleet at the centre of the noose.

The reaver they’d struck swung around from the impact and headed straight for its neighbour. The Templum ships had given up running and were manoeuvring into a defensive circle. The reavers saw they had them just where they wanted them and began to turn side on so that they could bring their thunder-weapons to bear.

‘That one!’ Podesta bellowed from the railing of the aftcastle. He was pointing with his cutlass towards the largest of the black galleons. ‘The flagship, Mr Dekker. Ram her!’

The mawg flagship was halfway through its turn and presented them with a broad target. The
Aura Placida’s
bowsprit took on the aspect of a tremendous lance as it swung to the attack and the hunted became the hunter.

‘Brace for impact!’ Podesta shouted, and then there was a sickening crunch as planks splintered and the prow buried itself in the flank of the reaver. The flagship split and started to fold back around the remains of the bowsprit. Mawgs fell by the dozen into the water, but one—larger than the rest—levitated a foot above the deck and wheeled to face Dekker. Its face was pierced with human bones, and a chain of skulls dangled from its neck. The mawg extended two taloned hands and fire spiralled from them. Dekker’s jaw hung slack, but he seemed unable to release the wheel. Shader stepped in front of him with the gladius raised. The blade flared white, drawing the mawg’s fire into itself and quenching it. The mawg snarled something at Shader and then gestured to its fellows. A great mass of fur bundled towards the Aura Placida’s foredeck howling like rabid wolves.

‘Fly!’ Shader screamed at Dekker. ‘Get up top.’

Dekker tore his hands away from the wheel and sprinted for the aft-castle with Osric’s ghostly outline close on his tail. Shader started to back away after him as the mawgs spilled to the quarterdeck and reached the mainmast. Two of them started to climb the mast by burying their claws deep into the wood. Shader looked up at the crow’s nest and groaned. Elpidio was staring down, white-faced, eyes wide in panic.

Shader charged, but before he could reach the mast, the main swell of mawgs swarmed past it and fell upon him. There was a blur of fangs, claws and fur. Talons glanced off his chainmail, shredded his coat. Shader stabbed and slashed with wild abandon, cleaving, cutting, impaling. He ducked and danced, always poised, always balanced. No thoughts, no regrets: raw movements born from hours of practice and years of bloody experience. His hat was torn from his head and a claw raked the skin of his face, but Shader dropped low and gutted his assailant. He never stood still long enough for the mawgs to overwhelm him. His foot lashed out striking a mawg behind the calf and upturning it. Another grabbed him from behind, but Shader reversed his sword and rammed it through hide and flesh. He could see nothing but fur and fangs and blood, but he continued to whirl and slash like a devil. If he had to slay an army by himself he would. There was no way they were getting Elpidio.

As if sharing his resolve, the gladius hummed and shone with white-hot brilliance. The mawgs raged at its blinding light, but still kept coming in an endless avalanche. Shader cut down another and backed against the mast. The two climbing mawgs were almost at the crow’s nest and he could hear Elpidio screaming. Jaws snapped an inch from Shader’s face, causing him to duck round the other side of the mast. He jabbed forwards, spitting an arm, ripped his blade free and hacked down hard on top of a mawg’s head. The beast crumpled into the path of the pack. For a second, Shader had a breathing space and he took hold of the rigging draping from the mast. Before he could climb, the mawgs surged forward and he was forced to back away to the railings. Elpidio screamed again—a ghastly shrill shriek—and blood showered the decks.

‘No!’ Shader roared, charging back into the horde, cutting, stabbing, hacking, his limbs fuelled by rage and pain.

The mawgs closed around him, striking from all sides. A blow to the head turned his vision red and sent him reeling towards a wall of claws. Just before they struck him, there was a series of bangs and four of the mawgs fell forwards with holes in their chests.

Strong arms grabbed Shader and pulled him through the gap.

‘You’re one crazy shogger,’ growled Cleto, dragging Shader towards the aftcastle as three other sailors covered them with the Aeternam weapons.

‘Elpidio,’ Shader protested. ‘Elpidio!’

‘Too late,’ Cleto said. ‘Now get your arse up there and kill some more o’ the cunts.’

Cleto shoved Shader towards the steps where other hands caught him and helped him up to the aftcastle. He turned as Cleto barked an order and the three sailors who’d covered their retreat fired again. Another mawg fell, but the pack continued to swell.

‘Run!’ Cleto yelled as the sailors tried desperately to reload their weapons.

Cleto bounded up the steps three at a time. Two of the others made it, but the third was snatched away into the pack. The sound of his flesh being ripped was unnaturally loud. His screams cut across the deck for longer than they should have, accompanied by rending, crunching, and disgorging. Finally, the big mawg they’d seen shooting fire from its fingers reared up with a hunk of dripping meat in each hand. It was hard to tell what body part it was, due to the gore, but thankfully the screaming had stopped.

Podesta put his hand on Shader’s shoulder and peered down at the mawgs.

‘There’s no end to them,’ he said in a hushed voice. ‘Shoggers must breed like rabbits.’

He led Shader behind the two ranks of sailors armed with Aeternam weapons so that he could view the rest of the battle. Smoke billowed up in a wide circle making it hard to distinguish the Templum ships from the reavers.

‘We must help them,’
Osric said.
‘It is our duty.’

Shader felt it too, the pull of his Elect training, the sense of purpose the Order had instilled in him. For Osric, it must have been even worse: years of loyal service followed by an age of undeath, centuries in which to regret his failings. Shader had taken the easy route; he’d simply walked away from it all, reneged on his responsibilities. But now, faced with a real threat to the Ipsissimus, he wanted nothing more than to be at his side.

One galleon was ablaze, careening precariously. Fire erupted from the thunder-weapons of the reavers at intervals, sending up splashes of water or splintering through planks. The chorus of screams and explosions was muffled and eerily dreamlike. For an instant, the wind cleared the smoke and Shader saw that the cordon of black sails was tightening about the remaining Templum ships. Clearly the mawgs wanted to finish this with tooth and claw. As their weapons thundered again and the smoke screen returned, Shader thought he saw another vessel, much smaller than the rest, escaping the fight. Shader blinked and squinted, but then the little ship was lost to sight. He’d been mistaken: it hadn’t been fleeing the battle, it was heading towards it.

‘Steady.’ Cleto’s voice brought Shader around.

The mawgs were now pressing onto the stairs, loping up cautiously. The entire quarterdeck behind them resembled a seething furry monster.

‘Steady,’ Cleto called again. Shader thought he detected a slight quaver in the man’s voice.

The lead mawgs were only a few steps from the top. The first line of defenders held their Aeterna-tech weapons to their eyes, the barrels wavering either from fear or the wind. The second rank looked like they would have run, if there had been anywhere to go. They clutched their own weapons in white-knuckled hands. Behind them stood the last line of defence: a huddle of grim-faced sailors brandishing cutlasses. Tough men, every one of them, but each betraying the hopelessness of their plight and the fear of what was to come. Sabas stood at the centre, his black skin beaded with sweat, the two cleavers hanging loosely at his sides as if he had all the time in the world to bloody them.

‘Fire!’ Cleto roared.

There was a series of thunder-cracks. Blood sprayed, mawgs fell. One had a fist-sized hole through its chest; another lost half its face, yet still the horde pressed on, clambering over the bodies now clogging the steps. The front row of sailors knelt to reload as the rank behind took aim.

The mawgs howled and surged upwards like frenzied wolves scenting injured prey. The first wave was decimated by another volley from the Aeterna-tech weapons. The front rank of sailors stood and fired again as the men behind reloaded. There was time to get off one more volley before the mawgs reached the aftcastle and the sailors scattered to port and starboard.

Sabas roared and charged the horde’s centre, flanked by a score of men wielding cutlasses. The big man swung his cleavers in brutal arcs that sent up gouts of black blood. Shader went to follow him into the fray, but Podesta held him back.

‘Wait, my friend. You’ve had your turn. Sabas will hold the steps for a while yet.’

A rush of cold air told Shader that Osric had sped into the melee, and within moments blood was flying from the mawgs as if the air itself bore arms against them.

Sabas cut his way deeper into the pack, his arms swirling like the blades of a windmill. He reached the top of the steps where the mawgs could only come at him two at a time and hacked away with ruthless efficiency. The beasts never relented. It was almost as if they enjoyed the challenge, flinging themselves at this unyielding wall of death and trusting in their limitless numbers. Sabas would tire, they must have known that. It was only a matter of time.

It came sooner than Shader had expected. Sabas half hacked the head off of one mawg and then buried his second cleaver in the skull of another. The blade lodged there, but the creature didn’t drop. It barrelled on into Sabas, knocking him flat on his back. The big man let go of his blades and pounded his fists into the mawg’s head as it snarled and snapped on top of him. Sailors pressed in and started to batter and stab the creature, but more mawgs were now surging up the steps and onto the aftcastle.

‘That’s our cue,’ Podesta said, charging in with his cutlass weaving a wicked arc and sending up sprays of black gore.

Shader leapt after him, cutting and stabbing with renewed ferocity. Between them, they drove the mawgs back to the steps and then took up a position either side, thrusting, blocking, and slashing. Osric must have been somewhere in front of them as mawgs were suddenly sliced open by an invisible blade. Panic spread through the closest creatures and they started to tear at each other in their desperation to get away.

Sabas was back up, but one of his arms was horribly mangled and he had deep gashes across his chest and face. He clenched a cutlass in a meaty fist.

‘Let me at them!’ he bellowed, prowling towards the stairs.

‘Stay where you are,’ Podesta called over his shoulder as he gutted another mawg. ‘You’re too badly hurt.’

‘Don’t have time to hurt,’ the black man growled. ‘But I’m gonna give them a whole load of hurt for what they did to my Elpidio.’

He pushed past Shader and Podesta and cannoned into the mawgs. The cutlass swept down and a head flew through the air. Sabas drove into the pack like a one man phalanx, heaving and hacking with the fury of a titan. He cut a swath through the mawgs until he set foot on the quarterdeck. Shader ran down beside him, expecting the big man to stop there, but Sabas pressed on into the mass of mawgs still filling the deck. Within seconds they surrounded him and he went down amidst great spouts of crimson blood.

A passage of gore opened up in the scrum of mawgs who’d smothered Sabas. Limbs flew, oily blood sprayed, and the mawgs scattered from the big man’s body. Osric was clearly visibly now—a translucent death-knight defined by the clinging black blood of his foes. The creatures backed away from him, and for a moment Shader thought the tide had turned. Then, the big mawg with the piercings and skulls stepped through their ranks with dark mist rolling from its claws. Osric gusted towards it, but the creature made a clutching, twisting gesture with its hands and a tiny black aperture appeared in the air before Osric. The wraith caught like a sail in a gale, stretching and fluttering towards the black hole. His sword arm was caught by some unimaginable force and corkscrewed into the opening, dragging the rest of him after it. Osric twisted his head, his crimson eyes flaring right at Shader. He held out his free arm as if Shader could catch hold of him and tug him clear, and then even that was gone. The mawg clapped its hands and the black hole vanished along with Osric.

Shader’s knees weakened and he had to steady himself on the banister. He now stood alone at the foot of the steps. He glanced back up at the aftcastle to see Podesta ordering the survivors to take up crossbows and line the railing.