Pirate Wars (24 page)

Tyrone’s army had vanished without a trace. Soledad had gooseflesh, and tears scalded her eyes. She wept for the beauty of Aelenium and the deaths of so many people.

“Princess?” A question, then a jubilant exclamation. “Soledad, it’s you!”

She whirled around, saw no one in front of her, but at the same time caught sight of the silhouette yawning over her like a dark crack in the sky. There floated the winged serpent with disheveled wing feathers; broken arrow shafts sticking out of his scaled body like quills.

“Have you seen Buenaventure?” Soledad burst out. “God, you look horrible. Somehow we have to get those arrows out of you—”

“Never mind,” the serpent interrupted her. “They’re scratches. And no, I haven’t seen him.” He lowered his voice. “He was up on the wall when…when it happened, wasn’t he?”

“I have to find him!” Soledad tried to shake off her horror over the destroyed city districts, but she couldn’t forget all the dead. Once again she turned to the ruins of the destroyed houses. “The worst thing is that they’re simply all gone. As if they were still alive somewhere else.”

The serpent blinked at her out of his dark eyes, then he rose a bit higher with a mighty beat of his wings. “I’ll help you look,” he said and rose straight up over the roofs and walls to the east, while Soledad ran west.

Soon she came upon the first wounded who’d been flung by the leading edges of the flood wave through windows and doors, into back courtyards, and against walls. Some had saved themselves in the corners of streets, whirled along like flotsam. Quite possible, she thought, that it had been thus with Buenaventure.

But as doggedly as she looked, she didn’t find him. Sometimes she asked after him, but she got replies only rarely, for many were too shocked to grasp the meaning of her words. Soledad helped some of the wounded and stayed impatiently at their sides until other rescuers appeared. Only then did she run on.

All in vain.

She found no trace of Buenaventure. Exhausted and unhappy, she turned back to the large square where she’d seen him the last time. There she met the serpent again, returning from his search in the east.

“Nothing,” the creature called to her between two flaps of his wings. “What about you?”

Soledad shook her head silently, considering how she was going to give the bad news to Walker. What words should she use to make clear to him that his best friend had been washed away in the sea and drowned? That he’d never see Buenaventure again?

She murmured hoarse thanks to the serpent, then went heavily across the square in the direction of the house where she’d left Walker.

The square was full of people now. Most had laid aside their weapons and were doing their best to help others. There were also a few cannibals being led away by disheveled guardsmen. No one appeared to be in the condition to fight anymore, as if what this battle really had been fought for had suddenly become something unclear, blurred in their minds. It was no different with Soledad. All that seemed long, long ago, although scarcely one or two hours had passed since the last duels.

The scenery had become unreal. This city, the wind, the people—all were different from before the catastrophe. Soledad couldn’t bring herself to look up at the blue sky; she felt as if it were mocking her with its clear, pure beauty.

She reached the door of the house and wondered whether she had in fact left it open. No, she was sure she’d pulled it closed when she went out. Did Walker follow her after all? She went faster as she leaped up the stairs: Was Buenaventure alive, and had he made his way to his wounded friend first of all?

But she had still another thought. More a feeling, a vague
sense of danger. Her hand gripped the hilt of her sword as she approached the door of the bedroom.

Her heart was racing as she turned into the room. “Walker?”

A man stood at the end of the room, broad-shouldered, in black clothing. He held an unsheathed sword in his right hand, a cocked pistol in the left. His coat was encrusted with dirt and blood, but he himself appeared to be unwounded. The long, black ponytail on his bald head was disheveled and looked as if he’d gotten too close to a fire. But the most fearsome was the war paint, which the water had made run on his face; as if his features had melted and been fixed in bizarre new shapes.

Walker lay lifeless before him on the floor. Tyrone had placed his right foot on the captain’s chest, like a general posing for a victory statue.

“I’ve been waiting for you, Princess,” said the cannibal king, baring the points of his filed teeth in a grin.

Griffin sensed that
the ray beneath him was growing tired.

The animal’s wing beats were slower and slower, and it was having trouble maintaining their high altitude as they floated over the ocean.

The cascades of water from the eruption had nearly swept Griffin out of the saddle. The ray had been almost far enough from the center of the Maelstrom, but even the outermost margins of the titanic water explosion had poured down around them in fountains that felt as if they weighed tons.

But now, since the great column of water had collapsed and the tidal waves rolled out in all directions, the sea beneath them gradually smoothed. From up here—six or seven hundred feet above the waves—it almost looked as if nothing had happened. Certainly the waves were stormy, and
that appeared even stranger because there were no clouds in the sky and it wasn’t particularly windy.

Most amazing, though, more astounding than waves without wind, was the fact that the Maelstrom had vanished.

At first Griffin had thought that the flood was a weapon that their enemies had used to devastate Aelenium and the Caribbean islands. But he was gradually coming to the realization that the Maelstrom no longer existed. He was destroyed. Their greatest adversary had simply ceased to be.

Something appeared to have exploded deep in the interior of the whirlpool, causing the brilliant light that had shot up from the heart of the vortex; and then the very power of the Maelstrom had blown up like an empty husk and finally collapsed into itself. The raging walls of the water tunnel had fallen in on each other from a height of thirty thousand feet like the walls of a building of inconceivable size. The force of that had caused the wave.

Where had Jolly been in all this chaos? And what had become of Aelenium and his friends?

The wave had rushed toward the sea star city like a moving mountain. Griffin had been at sea long enough to know how hard water can be. What hit the city must have felt like a wall of diamond, from which you couldn’t escape and against which there was no defense, a thing that, so close to the center of the detonation, released colossal power and must have pulverized everything in its path.

When he looked to the south, the horizon there was blurry and gray. At least the fog ring around Aelenium was
still there. But what lay behind it? He didn’t dare imagine the extent of the destruction.

He felt very alone up here on his ray. What if he were the only survivor of the sea star city? If all the others were crushed or drowned?

His hands clenched the reins, his fingernails cut into his fists. The wounds the kobalin had inflicted on him were now hurting hellishly again. His left side was burning in alternating hot and cold fire.

And then he saw a single dark dot down on the water.

A piece of debris—or a human being?

“Lower!” he cried to the ray.

The animal sank in a wide arc toward the blue-green surface of the water. White crests of foam covered the sea with a fine mist, looking from above like a fisherman’s net.

In the middle of this net, floating on the waves, was a figure.

No, it was
walking
on the waves and having the utmost difficulty keeping on its feet. The surface was rocking so vigorously that every step presented a challenge. During his circling descent, Griffin saw the figure stumble several times and get onto its feet again only after repeated attempts, merely to lose its balance once more after just a few steps on the hills and valleys of the sea.

He called out Jolly’s name, but the headwind tore the cry from his lips. The polliwog down there hadn’t noticed him yet; it was having too much to do to move forward on the boiling ocean.

“Jolly!”
he roared again.

But then he fell silent. That figure down there was not Jolly, even if it was wearing the oiled leather clothing in which the two polliwogs had set out from the sea star city.

It was Munk who raised his head and blinked up at the sky. He must have noticed the gigantic dark outline of the ray and stopped. A wave rose under his feet, but it didn’t throw him down. His lips formed Griffin’s name.

“Munk!” cried Griffin excitedly. A hideous suspicion rose in him. With trembling hands he guided the ray into a circle around the boy in the water. “Where’s Jolly?”

Munk looked at him as if he needed a moment to grasp the meaning of the words. “Jolly?” he asked dazedly.

“Where is she?” Griffin asked again. He was scarcely able to control himself. Instantly he saw all his worst fears confirmed. He’d warned Jolly about Munk, but she wouldn’t listen to him. “What have you done with her?”

“I…nothing. She’s…she’s not here.”

“Then is she still down there?”

“I…don’t know.” Munk had to turn around on the water in order to follow the ray’s flight path. He wavered and almost fell again.

“You don’t
know
?” Griffin could no longer hold back the fury that rose in him. Something inside him boiled over. The desperation of the past hours, all the sorrow and loss, the pain, and now this—it was simply too much. “What have you done, Munk?…Damn it, I knew you’d betray her!”

Munk stared at him, his eyes wide. He looked pale and ill. Perhaps he was just too exhausted to contradict Griffin.

Anger and grief blinded Griffin. His wounds burned even more, and the blood thundered in his ears like a torrent. A single thought ruled him: Munk had returned—and left Jolly down there. She was dead. And Munk was to blame for it.

Griffin pulled on the reins and made the ray shoot over the surface toward his adversary.

Munk threw himself to one side at the last moment, before the animal could ram into him. He fell flat on a wave and groaned in pain.

Griffin uttered an oath, brought the ray to a halt too abruptly, and was almost flung out of the saddle. His wounds broke open again, but he ignored them.

He turned and aimed at Munk again, now lower over the water. He’d get him this time.

Soledad stared at the lifeless form in front of her. Tyrone didn’t move from the spot. From where she stood, she couldn’t tell if Walker was dead. But why would Tyrone have left him alive?

Bellowing with fury, she raised her saber high and plunged forward. For a moment Tyrone appeared surprised by the vehemence of her reaction, then he waved the pistol in her direction. But Soledad didn’t let herself be deflected by that. She wasted no thought on the danger as she swiftly covered the last few steps. Her blade thrust in Tyrone’s direction, but the cannibal king leaped back and parried with his own weapon.

Sparks sprayed when the sabers met. Soledad was now
directly in front of him. Walker’s body lay motionless between her feet and Tyrone’s. Was there fresh blood anywhere? Was he still breathing? The cannibal king gave her no time to find the answers to her questions. Instead he attacked, aiming to knock the saber out of her hand.

Soledad avoided the blow with a leap backward and noticed with relief that Tyrone followed her. With his left hand he shoved the pistol into his belt. Didn’t he intend to kill her? Anyway, Walker remained behind, unheeded, and that had been the foremost goal of her retreat: to lure her opponent away from Walker. Either Tyrone had lost interest in the captain—or Walker was already dead.

With another yell she parried Tyrone’s next saber attack. She was now quite close to the door and moved backward out into the hall.

“I saw the dog man carry your friend Walker into this house,” Tyrone said between blows. “After the water was gone, I came here because I thought that I’d find you here sooner or later, Princess.”

The sabers met with tremendous force, nicking both blades.

“Imagine how disappointed I was to find only this scum. And so wounded that he wasn’t even a suitable opponent.”

Soledad’s next thrust surprised him, but he quickly caught himself and returned the attack. They’d left the room now. Tyrone was driving Soledad toward the stairs, perhaps because he hoped he’d have an easy game with her if she had to move backward on the stairs.

“Is he dead?” she said grimly.

His grin was so cold that even the filed points of his teeth couldn’t make it any more frightening.

She stabbed and wounded him on the shoulder. With a surprised gasp he leaped one step back. She’d had a glimpse of his two black-stained tongue points just then, the result of a ritual of the Orinoco tribes. Soledad sent a fervent prayer to heaven that she’d have a chance to cut them off.

He smiled again. The wound in his shoulder was bleeding, but it appeared not to hinder him. “I’m not going to kill you, Princess. I only need a hostage to get me out of this city. Don’t you think they’ll hand over a ray for me if I threaten to cut up your pretty face?”

She snorted scornfully. “I’d rather die here on the spot.”

He shrugged. “If you leave me no choice.” His hand moved in the direction of his belt—only a threat for the time being. But Soledad’s eyes fell on the pistol again. The hammer was still cocked.

How careless
, she thought, and she took a lunging step, ducked under his sideways blow, and targeted the pistol with the tip of her saber.

The blade scraped against the weapon and touched the trigger.

Tyrone howled when the pistol went off. The black powder exploded in a green flame. At the same time a stream of smoke shot down his left leg. The cannibal king’s knee half buckled, and then there was blood on the floor. The bullet had buried itself deep in his thigh.

“You…witch,” he exclaimed, his voice filled with pain, but with remarkable willpower he stayed on his feet. He leaned his back against the hall wall and successfully parried her next blow.

“Give up, Tyrone,” she demanded between gasping breaths. “You aren’t going anywhere with that wound.”

His smeared face twisted into a demonic mask, only his eyes remaining human in the midst of the devilish face. “I have the power of the shamans,” he said sharply. “I met the Maelstrom in a dream. In
his
dream. No one has ever penetrated there. He chose me. And he is also…even now…my master.” He pressed his left hand to his wound. The smoke had dissipated, and now Soledad saw what the bullet had done on its way down his leg. “He will…stand by me,” he gasped, and his back slid down the wall.

Soledad was about to go to him to disarm him, but he struck so hard with his saber in her direction that he almost hit her lower body. She drew back, but she quickly realized that he was helpless. However, he was blocking the hall between her and the room where Walker lay.

“What did you do to him?” she asked coldly.

Tyrone didn’t answer, only laughed, even louder now.

“What’s the matter with Walker?” she asked again, but as she dared a step in his direction, he struck again with his saber and drove her back.

She lost the remainder of her patience, feigned a new lunge, but leaped over his thrusting blade and landed with her right foot on his injured leg. Tyrone’s scream was so
loud that it must have been audible outside in the square.

Good
, she thought,
perhaps someone will come and take the dirty work from me.

With her left foot she finally kicked the sword out of his hand and poked her sword point at his chest. “One false move,” she warned him.

And Tyrone laughed again.

Laughed and laughed, until it turned to hoarse coughing.

Soledad hauled off—and at the last moment had a different idea. Instead of killing him, she struck the pommel of her weapon on his skull with all her might. The coughing stopped short, his features melted, and his chin fell onto his chest. He collapsed, unconscious.

Soledad stepped over him and weakly dragged herself to the door of the room. Tyrone’s laughter seemed to follow her like a ghostly echo as she entered the room and bent over the lifeless Walker.

Munk yelled something as he threw himself to one side, avoiding the deadly mass of the ray by a hairsbreadth. Griffin didn’t catch his words, just cursed because he’d missed his adversary again.

Munk had Jolly on his conscience, of that Griffin had no doubt. All the helplessness he’d felt in the last days and hours, even the emptiness after his battle with the wyvern, came over him anew. Munk wasn’t to blame for everything—somehow that still did get through to him—but now even that had ceased to matter. What Griffin had
endured during the long battle he’d endured for Jolly, in order to see her smile again someday. By his betrayal Munk had not just destroyed any possibility of seeing her again. It seemed to Griffin as though everything else had become meaningless too.

Whether the wyvern was dead or alive; whether the lord of the kobalins was still there or not; yes, even whether Aelenium still existed or lay on the bottom of the sea—suddenly it had all become unimportant. Griffin was simply unable to think clearly about any of it.

He wanted to pay Munk back for what he’d done. At the moment that seemed to him more important than anything else, and he was surprised that he had such a thirst for vengeance, so much despair.

You’re going crazy
, something whispered inside him.
You’ve lost your mind.

What of it?

He turned the ray for the third time. Munk vanished behind a mountain of a wave, but that wouldn’t save him.

Walker’s eyelids began to flutter when Soledad shook him. She could only hold on to him, staring at him, as if what she was seeing were not possible.

She’d been convinced that Tyrone had killed him.

But he was alive.

Walker was alive!

“My head hurts,” he croaked dazedly.

Her jaw dropped. “Your…your…head hurts?” Then
she pulled him to her so that he groaned with pain, but she didn’t bother about that. She pressed him to her, weeping as she had last done at her father’s death, and somewhere deep inside her she was surprised that you wept the same tears whether a person has just died or has returned to you.

At some point he took her head between both hands, very gently, and kissed her. She thought how strange it was that she felt so much for, of all people, this uncouth, stubble-bearded pirate, but then she gave up trying to figure it out.