“So much for the Trolls,” grunted Brekk.
But still, there were two hundred Spawn to deal with.
Desault, his satchel in hand, reached Aravan. “Are you hurt, Captain? Wounded?”
“Nay, Desault. But James is wounded, and as soon as we can, we must return to his side.”
“He yet lives?”
“Aye, he does. And if the Spaunen think he does not, then there is a chance he will survive this battle.”
Even as Aravan spoke, black-shafted arrows and heavy slingstones flew at the Eroean , to be answered by arrows and crossbow quarrels in return.
Sling bullets, too, hammered into the Foul Folk, as again and again Pipper rose up from behind the railing and let fly. “Got one!” he shouted. “That makes six in all.”
“Pish!” sneered Binkton in return, loosing another arrow. “Seven for me.”
As Pipper squatted behind cover to load another sling bullet, he scanned the deck. “Scout!” he blurted.
Binkton, also squatting to nock another arrow, growled.
“What I mean, Bink, is, Where’s Lissa?”
Now Binkton looked about. “Didn’t she and Vex come running up the gangplank?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, she’s got to be here somewhere,” said Binkton, though the bleak look in his eyes claimed otherwise. He rose up and loosed another arrow. It flew wide of its intended target.
But grume-coated Ruchen arrows hissed among the crew, and some fell pierced, crying out in shock and pain. Others fell with bones broken by heavy slingstones. Desault and his aide rushed thither and yon, and Aravan and Aylis joined the chirurgeon, and they stanched the flow and cleansed away grume and administered sops of ease for those in dire need.
Arrows and sling bullets flew from ship to shore, to be answered in kind in reverse. The ballistas sang, and fire fell among the Grg, though for the most part the flaming missiles were dodged.
But then a great howl of elation rose up from the Spawn.
“Kapitan! Kapitan!” shouted Nikolai. “Look!”
Aravan gazed toward where Nikolai pointed.
Out among the tall foliage, a burning Troll wrenched upright. Aflame and fully skewered by a ballista-flung lance, the Troll jerked to its feet.
“Wot th’. .?” Long Tom gaped at the fiery apparition.
Aylis muttered an arcane word, and with her ‹sight› she peered at the jerking, wrenching Ogru just as it took up a large slab of stone and juddered about to come toward the ship.
“Aravan, it is not alive,” she called. “There must be a Necromancer near.”
“Where away?” called Aravan.
“I cannot ‹see› him. I ween he is shielding himself from my ‹sight›.”
Bearing the heavy stone, the Troll afire-its flesh sizzling and popping, greasy gray smoke swirling upward from the blaze-lumbered toward the pier.
“Oh, Gralon, but Oi do think he’s thinkin’ o’ throwin’ that monstrous rock at us, Oi do,” cried Long Tom. “He be aimin’ t’ hole th’ hull.”
Swiftly cranking, the Chakka recocked the ballistas. “Lade stone!” cried Dokan.
“Stone?” asked a nearby Chak, even as he reached for one of the granite balls.
“Neither fire nor spear has slowed him,” growled Dokan. “Mayhap we can break him apart.”
Again, the Foul Folk erupted in jubilation, and aboard the ship Pipper said, “Adon, Adon, look,” as the second burning Ogru wrenched itself up out from the tall foliage growing along the shore.
Arrows and sling bullets flew, all to no effect against the first of these hideous creatures.
Thunn! sang the ballista, and the rocky missile hurtled through the air to strike the burning, spear-pierced, slab-bearing Troll along the left side of its abdomen, punching through, leaving a gaping wound behind. As the monster staggered sidewise a step, viscera slid out from the hole to hiss and sputter in the fire. Yet in spite of his entrails spilling forth to burn, the creature recovered and lumbered on.
“If ye can, take off its head,” commanded Aravan.
Chakka adjusted the aim.
Thunn!
“Kruk! Missed!”
As the Spawn jeered and flew arrows at the crew, onto the pier thudded the Troll, the second Troll afire following yards behind, a small boulder in its grasp.
“Kapitan, cut hawser?”
“Nay, Nikolai. They will throw ere we move away.”
T-thunn! Two more ballistas loosed, one to miss, the other to slam into the first dead thing’s right shoulder. It dropped the slab to the pier, and jerkily stooped to pick it up. And still the second Troll came on.
The monster on the pier lifted the slab and jerked upright and raised the hunk overhead to throw.
“Oh, lor! Oh, lor!” cried Binkton, even as he loosed another ineffective arrow at the Ogru. “It’s going to sink us.”
Among the dense riverside foliage, Lissa looked at her last arrow, the small missile with its dark barb deadly and nigh instantly lethal. She had slain eighteen Foul Folk with her shafts-all of them bow-bearing Rucha and sling-bearing Loka, for with the ship out in the stream, these were the long-range foe.
She had disobeyed Aravan’s last command, though were she to be questioned about it, she could claim that he had told her only to hie back to the ship. And certainly she had nearly done so. Still, she knew that she would be more valuable ashore than to be stranded afloat, where her bow-cast missiles would be somewhat outside decent range. And so, riding Vex she had slipped among the growth and had slain eighteen Rupt in all. And as she had done so, several times Loka or Rucha had spotted her, and she and Vex had fled through the growth, veering this way or swerving that, dodging black-shafted missiles, or escaping wide cuts of hard-swung tulwars or the smashes of hammering cudgels, and each time she and the fox had avoided the death-dealing strikes and had managed to lose the pursuit, for none of the Rupt was as swift as the vixen.
And now Pysk and fox lurked in the weeds, and Lissa was down to a single arrow; surely she needed it for protection.
But then she heard the Spaunen cheering and jeering, and she risked standing on Vex’s back, the better to see.
A burning Troll? But it’s dead. How can such a thing -? Of a sudden she knew why, and who her last target had to be. She slipped back astride Vex and gave the fox her orders.
Through the tall growth slipped the vixen, her nose questing, and another cheer rose up from the Rupt. Still the fox searched. Finally, she leaned forward as if on a point. “Go,” whispered Lissa, and ahead the vixen skulked.
They slipped up behind one who must be a Mage and, Mage or no, Lissa with her single remaining arrow had to try. For had not Aylis said, “Magekind is just as vulnerable to slings and arrows and blades as are others; it is simply a matter of getting close enough to take him unaware”?
Even as the being gestured toward the two Trolls afire, and as the one lifted the slab overhead to hurl, Lissa nocked the tiny arrow and drew aim and loosed.
Malik was dead between one breath and the next, and certainly before he hit the ground.
On the pier the Troll collapsed, the slab crashing down upon it. The other Troll crumpled as well.
The dead were dead again.
The jeering Rupt fell silent, and a Hlok near their newly slain leader howled in dismay.
Without any Spawn shouting a command, of a sudden the entire force of Foul Folk fled away, most running upriver, a few running downstream, none running toward the City of Jade, for they dreaded what lay within.
47
