There was a sound of breaking glass and a shriek from the stern of the ship. From the captain’s cabin.
“Quit bloody screaming!” Megan said as Baradur chopped at another of the hands that were scrabbling at the broken window. The hands were webbed and covered with fine scales for all they had five fingers. Megan dreaded seeing what they were attached to.
The marine guard plunged into the cabin, boarding pike to the fore, just as the first of the attackers made it past the wee-folk guard. The attackers were armored in scales with faces like frogs or fish but eyes alight with malevolent intelligence, they smelled of seaweed and rot. The first one over the broken out window sprang into the room on long, heavily muscled legs and tore the pike from the marine’s hands, turning it upon its wielder and pinning him to the starboard bulkhead.
Baradur turned in a blur and chopped his kukri into the thing’s arm, nearly severing it, and followed it up with a blow to the neck that left the thing decapitated on the deck. But in the time he had taken, two more had made it through the window.
Megan turned to bolt out the door, only to find the corridor packed with struggling sailors and the strange fish-men that had risen from the deep. She closed the door and leaned against it, trying to think what to do. Shanea, thank God, had quit screaming and was now holding onto her skirt. No help there.
Baradur was a blur, striking from side to side in the narrow quarters. The fish-men seemed to have only their long, hooked talons for weapons but they were using them well and the guard had taken many cuts. His foemen were piled at his feet but in a moment he was going to be overwhelmed.
Megan spoke a few syllables and pointed at one of the fish-men, stilling his heart and dropping him to the deck. She turned to another then another but even that minor use of power was draining and she could see her power-bar dropping into amber and then red as more and more of the creatures piled over the lintel. She could hear scrabbling at the door and leaned into it, holding it shut with her weight and her foot as the things pounded upon it. There were guttural screams from beyond and a sound like melons being smashed as the door was struck with the heaviest weight yet. Her foot slid and a hand scrabbled around the door, pulling at her sleeve.
Then Baradur, making a wild slash to the side, slipped in the pool of blood that had built up on the floor and fell, hard, slamming his head into the deck.
There was nothing between the girls and the attackers but slippery deck.
Megan pulled up a protection field and threw it over both of them but, as she did, another of the creatures pulled itself into the cabin. It was larger than the others and bore a jeweled harness. It took a small box from the harness and opened it, glaring at the slight haze that surrounded her. It pulled a pinch of dust from the box and with a guttural laugh tossed it into the field.
Which blinked out of existence.
At the scream Herzer broke into a run, pounding up the companionway and onto the maindeck which was total chaos. Some sort of fish-men were clambering onto the ship from every direction. The startled sailors and marines had barely started to fight back. He paused and then turned as there was a thump on the deck behind him.
“Go for the cabin,” Bast said, drawing her saber. “These are for me.” She laughed and cut backhand, taking the arm off of one of the fish-men and continuing in a circle that left another headless and a third spilling his guts on the deck.
There were more of the fish-men in the corridor to the captain’s cabin, having apparently broken in through one of the cabins to the side. There were several sailors already down in a welter of blood on the deck and one lone marine trying to hold the things back with his pike.
Herzer jerked the pike out of his hand, broke it off short and gave it back to him spread from one side of the corridor to the other.
“Hold it like that,” he said, lifting the startled marine off his feet and charging forward.
The weight of the two drove the fish-men back until they were pinned in a struggling mass against the door of the captain’s cabin. When they were, Herzer braced the marine with one hand and began stabbing over his shoulder, driving his short sword into the fish-men like the sting of a wasp, each blow a killing blow. Throat, mouth, chest, throat. As they choked out their life he pulled back on his ersatz battering ram letting the dead fall and driving forward to pin the living. The marine was raked again and again by the talons of the beasts but he held firm to the pike. Finally there was only one of the beasts who had his back to them, scrabbling through the half-open door. Herzer jerked the marine behind him, drove his sword into the creature’s unprotected back and threw it over his shoulder as if it were no lighter than a cat. Then he slammed his weight into the door.
One of the things reached for her and she let him approach, shrinking away from the reaching arm until he was leaning forward, out of balance. Then one hand flicked up and grabbed his thumb. She wasn’t sure, with the webbing, if a thumb twist would work but it did and the thing shrilled loudly as his thumb disjointed with an audible “pop.” She ducked under the arm, lifting it in full control, grasped the wrist with her other hand and went through a complex twist that left her holding a dislocated arm. At that point she had total control of the target and she interposed the screaming fish-man between herself and its fellows.
Unfortunately, there were just too many of them and they crowded her as the shaman began muttering again. She concentrated and reached towards him with power but she was flat out, not even enough to squeeze a heart. She leaned forward, preparing to use her shield as a battering ram and… felt herself flying forward as an irresistible force smashed the door open. Suddenly Herzer was just there. He picked up the leader fish thing in one hand as he chopped another down and slammed the leader’s head into the bulkhead above. Then he began slashing to either side.
The fish-men, who had thought they had won, rallied quickly and more began scrambling over the side. But there was no resisting the immense Blood Lord. Where Baradur’s kukri had severed arms or heads the short sword of the Blood Lord cut torsos in twain. The deck, already wet with blood, began to fill with body parts. Then another marine came through the door bearing a broken pike and began using the shortened spear to one side. Last Baradur, shaking his head and weaving a bit, began slashing to the other. The three filled the room from side to side and nothing could break through them.
Megan shut the door to the cabin and bolted it, pulling Shanea, who had fainted, into a corner and just watched the slaughter. The things kept coming, it seemed for forever, as if they would never end, but the three had regained the window and held them there. Finally it was over. No more scaled hands scrabbled at the edges and the sounds of battle from the decks above had stopped.
She wiped futilely at the blood that covered her face and smiled as the Blood Lord turned from the window.
“Well, Major Herrick, I’m glad that I could finally get you to my cabin,” she said, walking up to him and touching him on the face. “But you could have just knocked.”
Herzer looked at her, searchingly, and then bent his head, slowly, and kissed her.
Rachel lifted the head injury up and tipped water into his mouth.
“Thank you,” he said, weakly. “Where am I?”