The Dragon-Child (6 page)

“Then as a reward, tell me of your lineage, O Lady of the Deeps.”

The creature paused. She turned her great head so that she might regard the black-garbed figure of Therian with her second eye. “You amuse me. I will thusly reward you. I am Humusi. My sire was a megalodon from an age gone by. My mother was a creature known as Anduin the Black.”

Therian smiled. “I thank you, lost Humusi! I had suspected as much, because you were able to meet me in our dreams.”

“Our dreams?” rumbled the monster. “Did we slumber together? I had thought you were a ghost of past sea captains. In centuries past, I consumed a thousand ships. Some few creatures aboard them spoke with me, as you do now.”

“No, it was no ghost. It was I who shared your dreams.”

A black tongue swept around, flicking itself over hundreds of dagger-point teeth. Ropy strings of saliva dripped from the creatures jaws. The falling strings formed puddles on the beach which quickly transformed into dark patches as the thick liquid soaked into the sands.

“Can you possibly become any more intriguing? My desire to taste your flesh grows by the moment. I see now, up close, that you are not a normal man. You are of a different complexion and demeanor. I would have you name yourself to me, morsel.”

“I am Therian, Sorcerer-King of Hyborea. Now I know you, Humusi, daughter of Anduin. I name you a lost Dragon-Child. You are among those I must seek.”

“For what purpose, doll-king?”

“To return you to your mother, lost one. It is she, Anduin the Black, who has charged me with your retrieval.”

“Charged you? For what purpose?”

“To become her champion upon this world.”

A strange, blasting sound erupted from the creature. Steamy vapor blew from its mouth and nostrils. Foul scents washed up the beach, encompassing the last three living men on the island. Could the creature be laughing? Gruum wondered, uncertain.

“You amuse me greatly!” said the Dragon-Child. “How might you perform this impossible task? Perhaps you will stuff me into your leather pockets? Or shall I loop a rope around my neck and harness myself to your crippled ship?”

Therian gave his own huff of laughter. “Nothing so mundane, Great Lady.”

Another blasting eruption of foulness occurred. Gruum’s hair fluttered back, while Therian’s black locks flew about him as if he rode out a gale. Gruum was certain now, the creature was laughing at them.

“I will watch with great interest as you make your first move, absurd being.”

Therian used both his blades to circle himself, running them twice around, then once more. He had drawn a circle in the sands that completely encompassed him.

“And what’s this? A barrier that I cannot pass? I feel no presence holding me back, mortal. Perhaps your spell has failed you.”

“Just wait a moment more, Humusi. The circle is to protect me—but not from thee.”

“All right, but do hurry, sorcerer. I feel that I must eat you soon, lest this all be a ruse. I can’t let you escape me now. I’m mad to taste your flesh. You smell of rare spices and dried meat.”

Gruum and Bolo had, by mutual silent agreement, retreated another dozen paces up the beach from the sea monster. They continued their vigil, however. There was nowhere else to run. Should Therian fail, neither man imagined he would survive.

“What will your master do?” asked Bolo.

“Something unexpected—and frightening.”

Bolo looked at Gruum with a frank expression. “I can’t think why you follow him. Are you as mad as he is?”

Gruum nodded. “Often, I ask myself that same question.”

Therian bent over his patch of sand. It seemed, at this distance, that he piled up the sand and bits of flotsam at his feet. Gruum watched as the sea monster twisted its head this way and that, the long neck craning to see what the sorcerer was up to. Was this the moment Therian had been waiting for? Gruum expected to see his master spring up, mount the sea monster’s tree-trunk neck and perhaps ride it, slashing.

“Enough,” said Humusi, puffing at Therian. “I’m tired of this game now. You plan to exhaust me on this uncomfortable beach until I’m lulled into a compliant slumber.”

Therian stood. At his feet were a half-dozen figures built of sticks and sand. Black wax held them together at the joints and held the stick-swords to their tiny hands.

“What is that you have built there? You are not a sorcerer, but an artisan. And a poor one at that.”

“Look into the forest you have broken with your body,” said Therian, pointing behind the monster.

Humusi turned her great head, and Therian began to chant in Dragon Speech. His words were so powerful they bit into the minds of all present. Gruum grasped his head with both hands. Bolo did the same. But though they squinched their eyes and gritted their teeth, nothing could keep those terrible words out of their heads.

“That speech!” said the monster, twisting its snake-like head around to look down upon Therian again. “I have not heard such sweet words for an eon! I barely recall their meaning.”

Something
moved then, in the forest where Therian had bade the monster to look. There was a large, shapeless mass that struggled to rise. The summoning lifted itself, dripping earth, as if it had been buried in the sands. With a man-shaped body of wet, dark sand, it had limbs made of driftwood logs. It was large, but not so large as the sea monster.

“Ah! Now I see your tricks, tiny sorcerer. But you made this one much too small.” So saying, the Dragon-Child darted forward her snake-like neck and snapped her jaws. She bit into the sandy golem. The golem in turn reached up and grappled with the mouth that latched onto its shoulder.

The struggle generated a deep grinding noise that terrified Gruum and Bolo. It was as if the walls of a castle had reared up and formed fingers of stone to grip a watchtower—which had itself formed a mouth from its door and now snapped back at the walls. The two men stepped back further, to the very edge of the beach. They would have fled, but where upon this cursed island might they find safety? They knew not, and so they stayed and they watched with growing dismay.

More sand golems arose. Gruum counted seven of them, in all. One for each of the souls Therian had consigned to Anduin. Eldritch sparks ran over their bodies, which were held together by forces unseen. Some had limps, shambling upon peg-legs built of buried logs. Others bore swords in the jagged-shape of sharp coral. One had a mace with a huge, gray boulder of granite at its head. None of them had eyes to see with—nor mouths with which to scream.

Gruum saw one of them then, in detail. It had fat cheeks, if nothing else. And a nose. It was the coxswain’s face, without his eyes or mouth. He felt certain of it. Gruum loosed his own cry of fear then, but in the din of titanic battle, none could hear it.

Humusi thrashed. Her great tail swept the sands behind her, knocking down trees and taking the feet of golems out from under them. But always, they rose again, reassembling themselves from the dripping wet grains. They beat her with their staves, their coral swords and the boulder-headed mace. They grappled with her, clinging to her thrashing limbs.

Therian stood calmly inside his circle. None of the struggling forms entered the space he had formed there.

Eyes black and wide with rage, Humusi snapped at him, but could not reach over the shoulders of the golems that grappled with her. She used her mouth to rip loose the mace with the boulder head from the golem that resembled, so closely, the coxswain. With a whipping, heaving motion, she threw it at Therian.

Gruum winced as the mace, a dozen feet long, twirled toward his master. But Therian stood motionless. The mace came down and struck some kind of barrier, something unseen. The head of it rolled off, a boulder once again. The shaft splintered and blasted the beach with shattered bits of driftwood.

“He stands in the circle to keep the golems out, not the monster,” said Bolo.

“It would appear so,” agreed Gruum.

The struggle went on for several minutes more, but in time, even the fantastic vitality of one so huge and powerful as Humusi gave out. She was winded and heaving about in spurts. Finally, she had had enough.

“Very well, sorcerer,” she huffed. “You have defeated me. I must retreat to the sea.”

So saying, she gave a great lurch and crawled toward the waves. She made it to the first lapping breakers. They furled over her flesh, wetting her claws and splashing up to her squat flippers.

Therian had been watching with idle interest. Rose and called out to his creations. “The tail! All grasp the tail!”

The sand giants tottered to do his bidding. More than a dozen hands, each two feet wide, grasped the great tail and hauled upon it. Unable to lash or gain purchase, exhausted, the sea monster was hauled up completely onto the beach again.

“One on each limb, two on the neck, one at the tail,” ordered Therian. He was cool, no more ruffled than might be a deck commander who called the arrangement of the sails to catch an even-tempered breeze.

Breathing hard, the monster quieted and lay still upon the dry beach. Her big, black eyes studied the sea, no more than a dozen feet from her face. So near, but unreachable.

“I wish to go home,” rumbled the monster.

“We will be glad to oblige,” said Therian. He used his blades to break open the circle he stood within. He stepped forward and walked up to the beast’s neck. He gestured over his shoulder for the two men who watched in safety to come forward.

“I meant the sea,” she said. “That is my home.”

“You will be reunited with your mother soon enough. She will comfort you.”

“I do not like it there. It is too dry, and mother is unpleasant.”

Therian gestured, and one of the sand golems clamped Humusi’s maw shut. Gruum and Bolo eyed one another, then walked forward slowly. It was impossible to approach such a formidable group of monsters, both conjured and hatched, without terror.

“The neck,” said Therian. He coughed, then continued. “I don’t think I have the strength left to saw it through. You must help me.”

The men looked at one another with wide eyes. Neither of them moved.

“What’s wrong with you?” shouted Therian, suddenly displeased. “You gave up seven of your crewmen’s lives, Bolo, to help me slay this foul being. She has sunk a thousand ships, by her own admission. Do you love her so? Or do you lack the courage to slay a helpless monster?”

For Gruum, it was neither of those things that held him back. It was the horror of the task. He’d never been a whaler. He’d never hunted game bigger than a deer or a forest boar. Somehow, sawing at the neck of a massive, ancient creature that was capable of speech disgusted him. But he could see that it must be done. He looked to Bolo and caught the other’s eye.

“It must be,” said Bolo.

It took a long time. Occasionally, the monster lurched and heaved. They bled her until the sands were caked for a dozen yards in every direction, but she did not die. In the end, when they managed to sever the spine by hammering their swords into the top of the neck, she gurgled and stared out toward her beloved sea in death.

Therian stood upon that head, and when the moment came, he did speak his words. Dragon Speech rent the air. Out over ocean, the sun was setting with orange-pink beauty. A line of sea birds flew away from them, leaving the island.

The life of Humusi thus ended, and she was sent home to her mother’s domain from whence she’d come. The Dragon-Child had been returned home.

Therian lowered his arms and stood with head bowed, weary and spent. The seven sand golems instantly froze in place. Driftwood weapons dropped from crumbling hands. Legs cracked and split, spilling into dry, shifting piles. Vague faces melted and tore apart, disintegrating into a million particles of fine grit.

The beach, and the entire island, fell quiet again. Only the wind sighing over the sands and the crash of the waves could be heard. Gruum walked away from the battleground, looking back over his shoulder.

The golems were conical piles of sand with debris trapped inside. The dead Dragon-Child was a wet hillock of dark, rubbery flesh. The sailors had been buried during the titanic struggles. Only one was in evidence, his headscarf fluttering in the sea breezes. By the size of the man’s belly, Gruum figured it was the coxswain.

Gruum stopped and stood wearily for a moment. Then he reversed course. He took the time to bury those that had given their all to defeat the monster. He hoped they would sleep easily with the Dragons, if only for this single night.

But he had little hope for them.

The three men journeyed with little speech back to the
Innsmouth
. The tide had freed her, and she floated at anchor. The wind spirits were gone, but there was enough of mundane wind to allow them to get underway.

Too tired to sail that day, they loaded what supplies they could aboard the ship and settled upon the decks to rest. By unspoken agreement Therian and Gruum slept in the stern, while Bolo slept upon the prow.

It was sometime after midnight that a strange calm descended over the ship. Gruum thought to hear a stealthy scraping, and forced himself awake. He sat up, rubbing his eyes and hair for a time. Nothing came to his ears, however, and he rolled upon his side.

Then it came again. A single, dragging sound, like that of a stick crossing a deck board. Gruum reached for his dagger as a shape loomed over him.

“Bolo? Have you not yet been sated with blood?” demanded Gruum.

The other made no reply. He came forward with an odd, shuffling gait. There was something in his hand. A scrap of cloth that fluttered and danced in the night air. Gruum reached to a lantern that they had left to burn all night. It had been covered, and Gruum slid away that cover, burning his fingers on the hot metal.

He stood up and walked down to meet Bolo on the main decks. This would be the last time they crossed swords.

Gruum halted when he reached the main deck, however. The figure was man-shaped, but it was most definitely not Bolo. He stepped forward, lifting the lantern and squinting in the night.

The figure that stood watching his approach did not move. As Gruum’s view of it improved, he wished he had stayed on the stern deck above. A rickety structure of bone and tattered flesh, the dead man swayed as the ship rolled gently underneath it. The skull had only scraps of hair still attached. One eye slewed about, lidless and feral. The other socket was empty of flesh, being full of twisting sea worms instead.

“Karn,” said Gruum in recognition. He swallowed hard. “So, you finally caught up with us.”

The other lifted the fluttering thing in its hand, as if it were an offering. It placed it on the deck, and then shambled away.

“Cut it down, Gruum,” said Therian’s voice from behind him.

Gruum’s lips squirmed in disgust, but he shook his head. Karn jumped overboard and splashed back into the sea.

When the dead thing had gone, Therian came down to examine the cloth it had left behind. “What’s the significance of this?”

Gruum took a deep breath. “It is part of a green scarf.”

“I can see that. It is burned. What does this mean?”

Gruum looked at his lord squarely. “The cabin boy wore a green scarf, if you care to remember.”

Frowning, Therian nodded. He walked to the prow of the ship. Bolo lay there, apparently still sleeping.

“His throat has been cut in the night,” said Therian.

“I know.”

“Did you do it?”

“No. It was not I.”

Therian walked back and nodded in understanding. “It is your belief, then, that Karn will not follow us further?”

“It is my hope,” said Gruum.

“Mine as well. We have many more ports to sail to before our quest is done. I hope we will not see Karn again on our journeys.”

Gruum sat on the deck after that, listening to the sea and the groaning of the
Innsmouth’s
timbers. He waited for the bright light of morning.

Sleep was unthinkable.

End of Hyborean Dragons, Book #2