Hunting Gods, page 38
part #2 of Fate and the Wheel Series
Around her, Sheehan could just make out the faces of Myckiel’s little assault squad. All looked far more composed than she was. From what was going on in her chest, vomiting up her own heart felt like a possibility.
She tried to remember their names. Nearest to her, beaming encouragement whenever she gave him half a chance, was a youngish man from one of the largest islands of Uurt, called Fami. Though physically rounded, he exuded a quiet proficiency. Beside him, thin for his people and almost as cheerful, was Reen, who seemed somewhere between Fami’s friend and an adopted brother. In contrast, Jon-jon, much the largest and palest of the invading party, was very reserved. He had cultivated curious wisps of moustache hair which drooped down either side of his chin, wagging like wet tails in the wind as he gazed at the half-seen cliffs. The fourth was an enigmatic, leather-skinned, inexplicably dangerous-looking little man who had introduced himself as Mister Diggs.
From the easy way the four had talked and joked with Myckiel since their mid-crossing transfer to King Bobotan’s boat, she gathered they had all been real friends for some time. Jon-jon and Reen were armed with wooden-shafted spears, and each also wore holsters for a pair of kinked, long-handled knives she was told were called metei. She had been perplexed to discover that all Fami and Mister Diggs seemed to be carrying, apart from short knives, were back-slung baskets in which flexible strips of a plant similar to bamboo were coiled. When Myckiel had translated her enquiry about their purpose, they had just laughed.
‘You will see,’ said Fami.
Sheehan chewed what remained of the skin around her fingernails.
‘What happens now?’
‘We wait,’ Myckiel told her, over the rush of rain and seawater against wood.
And so, they waited. Despite recently chasing down and eating a couple of fish beneath the boats, Sheehan was growing cold. Myckiel had provided a plain women’s outfit of shin-length skirts and a blouse for her to wear, pointing out that she would need to cover herself to avoid suspicion. The soaked cloth clung to her skin. She’d had a hat as well, but had quickly lost it to the wind.
She clenched her fists.
What was the delay for? Surely the only thing to be accomplished by floating around like this was losing the element of surprise?
A shout went up. What looked like tiny sparks were drifting down the side of the castle. At first there were half a dozen. Then what looked like hundreds.
‘Flares,’ said Myckiel, propping a foot nonchalantly on the tossing gunwale of one of the boat’s hulls. ‘They know something’s up.’
She swallowed. ‘We’ve lost our advantage, then?’
‘Watch.’
By the light of the flares, she could see dark, tentacular shapes had already slithered up the cliffs to more than half their height. The lower cliff seemed black with them: a coiling mass wider than the castle.
Then, on all sides, the sea began to light up.
She leant hesitantly over the gunwale. Beneath the boat, everywhere, she could see gigantic forms, their sleek outlines perfectly picked out by the multicoloured patterns of lights racing and flashing over them.
‘Sweet goddesses,’ she breathed in awe. ‘… It’s beautiful.’
‘It’s the signal,’ he warned, crouching down. ‘Hold tightly to something.’
Where the cliffs were, there was the half-seen impression of slow, majestic motion. Seconds later, an immense splitting sound tore the air, followed by a titanic rumble, much like thunder. Sheehan squinted. The cliff seemed to be coming apart. Entire swathes of rock were accelerating towards the sea. Columns of it were tottering into space, anchored to the enormous suckers of the devil-fish.
Slabs and columns deluged into the sea in a chaos of churning water. Foam shone in the cerise light of the descending flares. The foam was quickly hidden by a mountainous hump in the ocean’s surface, which grew as it surged towards the waiting boats. At the same time, burning orange tongues, illuminating the overhead clouds like a forge, began extending towards the ocean from a dozen narrow grooves in the top of the ramparts.
‘Oh fuck,’ said Sheehan.
‘This is it. Hold on …!’
A BOOMING CONCUSSION shook the palace. Dust which had accumulated quietly for centuries was jolted from countless inaccessible ledges and other surfaces, drifting into the holy chamber like fine snow. It came down thickly enough to make everyone present start to cough. The great golden ball began swaying slightly, sprinkling further dust over the voseínte, as though God was seasoning him with a celestial spice mill.
‘What,’ croaked the voseínte, face slackening, ‘was that?’
No one could summon an answer.
‘Find out, then. And quickly!’
Ennién, meanwhile, had gone as rigid as a statue. Two and two were clearly being put together behind his pink slab of a face.
‘Voseínte,’ the general said abruptly. ‘I believe the castle is under attack. From the sea. Be assured: the garrisons are prepared, and will handle it.’
There was a distant roar. It sounded a little like a wave breaking over shingles, but far deeper and more prolonged. Droolias could feel a vibration through the soles of his boots.
‘The sea?’ For a period of relative silence, Oliént just stood perfectly still. Then an arrhythmic beating noise began, as though something was attempting to batter its way out of the bowels of the earth. The floor shook, enough to make them all stagger. Oliént took one look up at the – now considerably swaying – golden ball above his head, and hobbled with surprising alacrity to the safety of the worship area.
‘Find out what’s going on!’ he cried at Ennién, his speech tripping over itself as fragments of jawbone got in each other’s way. ‘We have not anticipated a full-scale assault from the sea. If this is some kind of attack, General, do whatever you must to stop it. That is your charge now.’
Ennién might have run off, but at that moment there was a mighty impact, and within the space of two breaths a crack wide enough to swallow a leg had unzipped itself from the sea-facing wall clean across the temple floor.
Then events unfolded rapidly.
Ennién was shouting for everyone to run for the main door. No one needed prompting: to a man, they were already all moving as fast as their legs could carry them. There was another impact, throwing everyone including Droolias to the hard stone of the floor. The impact was followed by an incomprehensibly loud smash and a rushing noise as a wet gale of dust-thick cold air spilled over them.
When Droolias looked back, trying to blink his eyes free of the grit that now seemed to be everywhere, the entire sea-end of the temple, including the eons-old wall, stained glass windows, pulpit, throne, golden ball and everything else, had simply gone. Where they had been he found himself staring at the horizon between a rain-lashed sea and orange-tinged clouds, before the view was obscured entirely by something sinuous, dark and vast.
IN THE LULL behind the first wave thrown up by the collapse of the cliff, Sheehan saw that several boats had capsized. Freed of their tow-lines, other boats were paddling towards the figures splashing beside the upturned hulls, throwing lines overboard. She wanted to dive in to help, but Myckiel, drenched from their dousing as the wave rolled over the boat, told her: ‘No – they know what they’re doing. We need to stay here.’
When the flaming oil, or whatever it was, had been poured on to the devil-fish, Sheehan had expected them to back away.
Instead, they went berserk.
With patterns of incandescent yellows and reds boiling over their bodies, they surged up out of the sea en masse, tentacles thrashing, splintering the rock of the cliff apart as though it was so much paperwood in their rush to reach the source of the torment. Glowing oil exploded off them in cascades of sparks. Burning arrows had also begun to rain on to them from all along the castle ramparts. There were so many arrows that they looked like a drizzle of gold dust.
Tentacles uncoiled up the castle wall.
Smashing and ripping huge holes in the masonry as they climbed, they reached over the top of the ramparts. Working in unison, they simply peeled off the entire rim of the castle wall – archers and other defenders, oil-chutes, everything. The wall plunged with weird lethargy towards the shore, its disintegrating remains deflected out to sea by the tentacles and bodies waiting below as though they were insubstantial. The reservoirs holding the oil caught fire and began burning brightly right across the ravaged top of the castle, cascading into the holes the creatures had created.
‘That’s not good,’ Sheehan said as the fires spread, watching the beasts systematically tearing at the cliff below the wall until they were squirming over a pile of smashed columns.
Then the entire sea wall of the castle began to move. As the creaking rumble of its failure reached the boat it folded majestically sideways, seeming to drift towards the sea like a curtain, finally crashing into the top of the debris pile. Defying the wind and the rain, a cloud of rock dust billowed in all directions until the cliff below the castle was obscured, leaving only devil-fish tentacles and a cross-section of the castle’s illuminated interior visible above it.
‘Our turn now,’ said Myckiel, his teeth showing in the flickering light of the burning castle. ‘Hold very tightly to something. And don’t look down.’
Something moved firmly upwards underneath the boat. There was a lurch, and the motion of the sea changed to something more purposeful. Risking a glance over the side, Sheehan gave out a gasp.
A glistening shadow extended for mytors either side of the boat. And below that – already a long way below – she could see the bright crests of waves. Above and all around, other boats were being similarly lifted into the air on flattened tentacle-tips, and borne like toys towards the flames.
Pressing herself into as low a crouch as possible, hands clamped around the gunwale, she closed her eyes and concentrated on breathing.
‘THIS WAY, VOSEÍNTE.’
Droolias grabbed his master’s body and bundled him along the hall. Behind, he could hear Ennién, Dareíl and the surviving officer of the guard pounding after them. Ahead, a team of Holy Guards were checking for obstacles or signs of trouble. Dust and smoke hazed the air. Screams, yells and running feet could be heard from every corridor junction.
While the only intruder they had seen was the monstrous apparition in the temple, it was abundantly clear that Ennién was right. The castle was being stormed.
Why, or by whom, no one seemed to have any idea.
‘We must take you to safety, Voseínte,’ Ennién was yelling. ‘Until we know what we face. Our enemy is clearly well prepared.’ And remarkably potent, thought Droolias, driving Oliént forward using a fistful of the man’s robes. ‘We do not know yet what we are dealing with!’
‘No.’
Oliént screamed the word through his gums as he stamped after the guards. His agony was obvious. Droolias could not understand what was even keeping the man upright, the way his legs were bending. It was like watching a badly animated puppet, hanging from invisible strings.
‘I must see what is happening! Get me to the box overlooking the square.’ There was a hesitation. ‘And while you’re about it, find someone trusted to go to the dungeon and bring me that old fool Dagbols and the used-up crone he calls a wife. And the chief inquisitor. I asked once already. Do not make me ask again.’
Droolias ground his molars. Ennién was a long time in replying. ‘Yes, Voseínte!’
The general called ahead to the two most senior Holy Guards, who had encountered a large group of Palace Guard and were recruiting them to their aid.
‘You!’ he barked at the Sergeant, who was almost as tall as he was. ‘Clear us a way to the Royal Terrace. Make certain it’s secure before we get there. And you –’
He snapped his fingers at the shorter Corporal.
‘Take ten men. Go back towards the temple and find the inquisitor and the party escorting the man known as Manshur Uilleir Dagbols and his wife. Bring them all to the Terrace.
‘Do not fail.’
‘BE READY TO RUN.’
Sheehan heard Myckiel shout something to the others. She opened her eyes. All around, arrows were zipping past. The sky was thick with them. She gave a start as one splintered the gunwale near her hands. There were twanging thuds as more hit the deck behind her. Further along the boat, someone screamed. Then someone else. She didn’t look back.
One of the severed rooms of the castle opened up before the boat, like the dark mouth of a cave.
Then, landing as gently as a feather, they were down.
‘Out!’ bellowed Myckiel, springing over the side. She slid down in his wake, her bare feet connecting with a surface which was disturbingly wet and elastic. ‘Watch the suckers. They’re sharp as glass.’
Pulling up her sodden skirts, she scurried between two suckers the size of cartwheels. Extruding and contracting restlessly inside rings of jagged chitin, their soft internal discs were dimly visible in light spilling through the chamber’s remaining door. She leapt after him towards the floor. It was dark and the drop from the tentacle’s edge was further than she had thought. Myckiel’s arm caught her as she awkwardly hit the sodden carpet.
‘Wait here.’
Around two dozen islanders had survived the storm of arrows. Myckiel summoned them with economic motions of a hand, and ran to the far door as King Bobo and his men gathered behind her.
The floor was shaking now. Every few seconds a fresh slab of plaster crashed down from the ceiling. They were in a room not unlike the one from which she had made her desperate cliff-top plunge to freedom not so long ago. Its chandelier lay smashed, flames guttering in pools of rain and seawater that the tentacle had brought in. She cursed herself for not paying attention to what level of the palace the devil-fish had brought them to.
Having poked his head around the door – interestingly, at knee-height – Myckiel waved everyone over. Looking back as she ran, Sheehan saw the tentacle flatten and rip itself backwards into the night, leaving the boat to crash noisily to the floor. It was a trick she had watched Chet perform, in a happier life, with a cloth and some of Fat Chance’s crockery.
The islanders bustled quietly into the corridor, the king, Sheehan and Myckiel bringing up the rear. Something acrid in the air caught in her throat. The corridor was still oil-lit. They moved down it at an orderly run, the first dozen pushing ahead and waiting, poised, by the wall, as the next dozen pushed through between them. There was a shout ahead, and a flurry of metallic noises. Then a whistle.
Sheehan jogged up to find the islanders waiting at a crossroads. They were looking at her expectantly. ‘Any ideas?’ hissed Myckiel, turning over one of two bodies with his toe. One of the islanders was wiping his knives.
Sheehan gaped at the bloodstained corpses. ‘I’m sorry – I, I don’t know exactly where we are. I know only that the cells were lower down. We need Uilleir – he knows too much for us to lose him. And he may be the only person who can translate the transcripts. But we also need the chart he produced. And the original transcript, if possible.’
Myckiel blew air out of his cheeks. ‘These are three separate things, Sheehan.’
He pursed his lips and looked thoughtful.
‘Very well. Knowing the voseínte, the only one who will know where these things are is him. Which means we must find the voseínte, and we must find the old man.’
The king grabbed his arm. ‘Voseínte.’ He tapped his chest. ‘We will find. We question!’ He looked Sheehan deep in the eyes.
‘You find your friend.’
‘Be careful,’ Sheehan pleaded as he and nineteen of his men set off at a run, leaving her with Myckiel, Fami, Jon-jon, Reen and Mister Diggs. ‘Be mindful of Droolias,’ she called after them. ‘The voseínte’s bodyguard. Beware of his knives!’
‘Leave him be. They can take care of themselves.’
‘I hope you’re right.’
‘Did you get a chance to see this Droolias in action?’ Myckiel gestured for six of them to continue down the corridor. ‘Anything might be useful. Let’s talk while we move.’
‘He threw knives,’ she puffed, jogging to keep up. ‘He has … a little sleeveless coat full of them. At least two are on cords, which he uses to retrieve them. I think they’re on springs hidden in his clothes. He cut in half an animal that was in the cell with …’ She had been about to say her sister’s name. Found that she couldn’t. Her hands went to her earlobes. ‘He was about ten strides away. Then he cut me very accurately on both my ears from the same distance. If he throws a knife, Myckiel, I doubt that he will miss.’
Myckiel whistled. ‘Probably has some of them dipped in poison too,’ he murmured. ‘I would have.’
A spiral stone staircase appeared. Up it poured a troupe of suddenly very surprised-looking Teleísian guards.
Without hesitation, Myckiel hurled himself feet-first at the leading guard. Hitting the man’s chest with a thump, he sent all of them bowling down the stairs in a clatter of armour. He disappeared after them. Fami and Mister Diggs picked Sheehan up by the armpits and pulled her close to the wall as Jon-jon and Reen leapt down the stairs after Myckiel. A knot of panicked-looking women ran past, all dressed in similar silk gowns.
One of the faces turned to her.
‘Sheehan?’
Neptiina’s tits. She didn’t want this right now. ‘Goént! Why are you standing there? Keep running! Hide – all of you.’
‘Oh, Sheehan …’ Goént flinched away, arms spread around the other women like a shield as she registered the presence of Fami and Mister Diggs. ‘We were told you killed yourself. Jumped from a window. And then all those rumours about the voseínte … We haven’t seen him for days!’
‘Find somewhere safe, away from the sea-wall,’ she hissed at the woman, wriggling free of the islanders. ‘I’m serious! The end is coming. You will all be free soon, with any luck, but you must …’
