Darkness Weaves (24 page)

And with the explosion, the remaining three submarine craft dived beneath the surface and disappeared. Either they feared to join their sister ship in death--now that a point of weakness had been found--or they chose to let others continue the battle.

With this deadly obstruction gone, the Imperial fleet surged forward to meet Kane's forces. The soldiers cheered at the destruction of one alien warship and now were in a frenzy to do battle with a tangible, human foe. But Maril was painfully conscious that well over half his fleet had gone to a fiery death beneath the deadly weapons of Efrel's demonic allies.

Only a few hundred yards separated the two fleets. Already the air was filled with missiles and arrows, and the battle cries made a roar like angry surf. Then new terror struck--a weapon fully as dreadful and as unexpected as the attack of the Scylredi warcraft--and war cries shuddered into a tocsin of horror.

A slimy black tentacle--thicker than a man's body--suddenly lashed through the waves and wrapped itself around one of the lead warships. Even as the Imperials froze in disbelief, a flurry of tentacles snaked out of the water to seize the doomed ship. Soldiers screamed in horror as a nightmare from the ocean's pits climbed to the surface behind its tentacle--a bloated mountain of rubbery flesh, two dead-white eyes glaring at the hated sunlight. One of the sea's most fearsome legends had come to life.

The Oraycha tightened its grip on the warship. Timbers cracked and splintered in its crushing embrace. Its monstrous, yellowed beak gaped wide as a castle doorway, then snapped together, smashing through the ship's stout hull. Shrieking, flinging themselves into the churning sea, the helpless soldiers were pulled down to hell with their crumpled ship.

More tentacles were breaking water now. More of these monstrosities of primordial evolution arose from the ocean depths to attack the Imperial fleet. With appalling ease, the gigantic Oraycha crushed ship after ship. An uncanny intelligence seemed to direct the monsters' methodical attack.

Shaking off the numbing grip of terror that the sight of such abominations had aroused, the Imperial forces pressed forward to meet this new threat. Arrows were less than pinpricks to the monsters, and sword blows had no more effect than against a tree trunk. Attempts to ram proved futile, as the Oraycha moved too quickly. Those foolhardy enough to attempt to ram one discovered that the creatures would dive beneath them and seize their warship from below in a fatal grasp.

The soldiers fought valiantly against the sea monsters. One reckless captain hurled a spear deep into the eye of an Oraycha as it rose to attack his ship. Those near the scene felt, rather than heard, a soul-searing hiss of agony as black blood geysered from the wound. A gigantic tentacle spasmed upward, then fell to smash the captain into his deck. With a convulsive movement, the enraged creature crushed the warship into kindling.

Emitting great gouts of black ink, the wounded Oraycha attacked one ship after another, tearing at them in a murderous frenzy. Then, as it wrapped itself around one vessel, a trireme seized the chance to bore in from behind and bury its bronze ram into the creature's head. Mortally wounded, the Oraycha lashed about in one last orgy of destruction--before sinking to the bottom in a coiling, writhing mass.

On another stricken ship, the soldiers cast flaming pitch upon the monster that ensnared them. As the flames burned into its slimy flesh, the Oraycha released the warship and plunged beneath the sea. Leaking badly from sprung timbers, the ship was quickly engulfed in flame. Her men scrambled off into a sea whipped to froth by the monster's agony. They might as well have stayed on the burning decks.

Somehow, through all this turmoil and chaos, the two fleets came together. Shouting their war cries, the Imperial soldiers leaped upon the rebels--carrying them back in the first rush of their charge. Ship smashed against ship, and waves of vicious hand-to-hand combat washed aver the decks as the opposing forces clashed. The battle exploded into maddened carnage--with each warship, each man, fighting for life.

Kane saw with satisfaction that the Oraycha had further depleted the Imperial armada. Now their numbers were nearly even--and if his disreputable-looking navy could just fight together, he could wrest a victory out of this battle yet.

An Imperial trireme bore down on him. With experience of countless battles, Kane swung the Ara-Teving aside and struck do other ship a glancing blow with the bronze ram. With a moan of protesting timbers, the two ships grappled. Throwing down the shield he had held against arrows, Kane drew his two swords and rushed to meet the Imperial marines. Cutlass and broadsword flashed like lethal silver through the air; Leaden impact flowed from steel to muscle, and Kane howled at the first shock of combat. The twin blades swung back again, spraying a line of scarlet behind them. Kane laughed wildly as an avalanche of shining steel and snarling fazes swept to overwhelm him. With powerful left-handed blows, he cut down all who rose to meet his challenge.

The sand-strewn deck lurched beneath his feet, and only Kane's lightning-quick reflexes saved him from falling onto his opponent's thrusting swordpoint. A second Imperial trireme had struck the Ara-Teving, and now her soldiers poured over in an all-out effort to take the rebel flagship.

Shouting orders deliberately, Kane directed his men to meet the near menace. His role of commander was a dangerous incumbrance in this close fighting, he realized--even as a group of marines used the distraction to try to slay the rebel leader. Surrounded by vengeful warriors, Kane found himself hard pressed. Laying about him with deadly precision, Kane chopped off a hand of one assailant, laid open an exposed belly of another. He unerringly struck wherever a target presented itself--taking a dreadful toll of his attackers. Only a man of Kane's fantastic prowess could have parried the vortex of steel that sought for him--and many a rash fool died under his flashing blades.

Not all blows could be wholly parried, and deflected blades struck painfully against his mailed body. His hauberk was snagged and bloody, thin gashes bled down face and forearms, and an unseen archer almost skewered his throat with an arrow. It seemed inescapable that some assailant must soon slip beneath Kane's guard and deal him a major wound. Once crippled, Kane knew he would instantly be dragged down, cut to pieces by the jackals. Heedless of his danger, Kane taunted and jeered at his frantic assailants. Covered with blood that matched his red hair, Kane fought on viciously--exulting each time his sword struck home.

Then the Imperial marines began to fall back, leaving a mound of bodies about Kane. Cutting his way across the blood-soaked sand of the decks was Arbas. For the first time Kane realized that Arbas had grappled his warship into the melee, had thrown his men against the overwhelming Imperial force. His entrance had been well timed, and numbers now swung to more favorable odds for the rebels.

"Hey, assassin!" greeted Kane. "How's business today?" Arbas's appearance gave him respite to waste breath on bravado. Kane rested his aching muscles and grinned at his friend.

"There's death enough that the market's flooded!" complained Arbas. He paused to hurl a fallen dagger through the throat of a soldier on the other side of the deck.

"There's a damn fine throw," the burly assassin applauded. "But finesse is wasted in this melee. Kane, I'm afraid my office as captain will be short-lived. My ship took a ram earlier, and she's leaking badly. In fact, docking her to this mess was the only course left to me, short of swimming."

"Then we'll combine what's left of our crews on the Ara-Teving," Kane declared.

Arbas nodded, then yelled, "Hey, watch that son of a bitch at the bow--up there by the jibsail!"

Kane leaped back as an arrow struck at his feet. Savagely, Kane tore a fallen spear out of the decking and hurled it at the hidden archer. Bow and quiver fell to the deck as the spear ripped through the jibsail. The sniper hung writhing across the bowsprit, like an impaled figurehead.

Kane grunted in satisfaction. "Let's hit them hard, Arbas! Clear our decks, and cut loose."

Arbas glanced at the sea, then cursed. "Damn! This is going to be crowded in a minute! I-Iere comes more company, and those marines are going to be swarming over us like stink on shit!"

Two more Imperial warships, a trireme and a bireme, were converging on the embattled Ara-Teving. Kane looked at the fighting around him, estimated his strength, and realized that his situation would be serious, if not hopeless, when these new warships locked into the melee.

But then the trireme suddenly stopped in her rush. A maze of black tentacles lashed from the depths to ensnare the warship. While her sister ship watched helplessly, the trireme was crushed in the grip of the colossal sea creature. Men spilled into the sea and wallowed about, striving piteously to reach their comrades on board the bireme. Hundred-foot tentacles stirred the sea about the struggling wretches, killing with a zeal that only intelligence could have lusted for.

The Oraycha were hunting beneath the battle-locked fleets now. In response to the ultrasonic impulses of the talismans, they were continuing to single out and destroy the Imperial warships.

Kane had no time to watch further. There was hot, deadly fighting before the reinforcements from the bireme together with the marines from the initial fray could be cleared from the decks. Despite Arbas's men, it was a smaller crew that finally disentangled the Ara-Teving from the floating battlefield and moved on to another foe. Arbas shook his head philosophically as he watched his own abandoned vessel tilt awash with the waves.

Aboard the new Imperial flagship, as all across the battle formation, fighting was similarly hard and without quarter. Twice Lager and Maril had rammed and destroyed rebel warships, and twice they had beaten off attacks against their own ship. Their luck could not continue. They were caught between two rebel warships at once as a glancing blow of one ram tore a great wound below their flagship's waterline.

Lages fought silently beside his uncle on the pitching deck, marveling at Maril's endurance and skill. The choleric emperor had not held his throne through the strength and ability of other men--and he was still the formidable warrior the court poets exalted him to be. But it was evident that their soldiers were slowly falling back before the rebel advance, and Lages realized that soon their ship would be taken. They well knew what capture meant for them, so the two fought recklessly--planning to die with their swords dripping in enemy blood rather than surrender to Efrel's mercy.

Then help came from a most unexpected quarter. One of the rebel warships was suddenly seized in the death-dealing grip of an Oraycha. The creature's inhuman senses had been confused by the proximity of the grappled warships and had attacked the wrong vessel. As the one ship disappeared into broken wreckage, the Imperial marines took new spirit.

"On to the other warship! We're not through with these rebels yet!" Maril shouted, and swung his blade with new zeal. "Kill the gutter-scum! They can't stand against us on even terms!"

With desperate fury, the Imperials jumped from their rapidly settling decks onto the rebel warship. The struggle dragged bloodily on across the other ship, until slowly the rebels were beaten down. There was neither quarter nor mercy--on the decks or in the sea. At last only an exhausted, tattered band of the Imperials stood on the decks of the rebel bireme.

Taking over the ship for his own, Mari1 ordered his crew to pick up survivors from the sea in an effort to rebuild their strength before moving on to another fight. Grimly he reflected that this was his third flagship of the day.

So the battle raged everywhere, and victory hung in the balance as the hours wore on. At first the advantage had been with the Imperial armada. But as the battle formation closed into a chaotic melee, their superior warships could not be used to best advantage. It was not an ordered battle they fought now, but a maelstrom of brawling violence. Strategy had long been lost in the chaos. Through it all, the relentless attacks of the Oraycha were slowly cutting down the advantage the Imperials had enjoyed in numbers.

It was a grisly, merciless struggle to the death. On both sides, fighting was vicious and desperate--for both sides knew the price of defeat. But the Scylredi's devastating attack and the crushing embraces of the Oraycha had taken a hideous toll, and now Kane's generalship began to assert itself. The scales of battle shifted, and gradually Kane's forces gained the upper hand.

Nonetheless, the battle was far from won--as the violence increased inversely with the falling numbers of the combatants. It was a dirty, personal straggle of man against man, ship against ship--with only one fate for the vanquished.

Imel arrived too late to save his close friend, Lord Gall of Tresli, who fell at last an the decks of his warship, surrounded by a moraine of Imperial dead. Thirsting for vengeance, Imel saw to it that no Imperial soldier left the ship alive. The renegade seemed obsessed with the lust to destroy all those who called him traitor. As the day dragged to a gory close, his gleaming battle gear was sodden with the blood of his countrymen--and the foppish youth was a grim and haggard stranger to his men.

Elsewhere, Lord Bremnor of the backwater island of Olan--an indifferent swordsman himself--killed the famed warrior, Gostel of Parwi, by an amazingly lucky thrust. Lord Bremnor had scarce time to enjoy his new renown, for he was slain by a hidden archer while leading his soldiers onto an Imperial warship.

In another quarter of the battle, a victorious rebel crew had but a moment to celebrate their triumph over the Imperial trireme they had just taken when an Oraycha seized the vessel and smashed it into a broken coffin for victor and vanquished alike.

And so the battle went on...

The Ara-Teving pulled near her sister ship, the Kelkin, where Kane saw a reduced force of the Pellinites striving to meet the onslaught of a fresh wave of Imperial marines. Oxfors Alremas was battling desperately, trying to rally his weary men:
Seizing this chance to rid himself of his enemy, Kane unobtrusively picked up a fallen spear. All eyes were fixed on the Kelkin as the Ara-Teving closed to succor the beleaguered trireme. Waiting for a moment when none of his crew watched him, Kane hurled the spear across the water at Alremas's back. Hard pressed, Alremas chose that moment to stumble to his knees beneath an axe b1ow to his notched shield. Kane's spear shot past the vacated space and buried its iron blade in the axe-wielder's chest.