“That, I admit, I would have trouble with.”
However, the dwarf’s magical protection proved to be for naught. One of the elven ships swung about and there was the report of a single cannon. A few heartbeats later, the dwarf and his fantastical vessel were reduced to a shower of gore and splinters.
“That was way too close for comfort,” Katya said, as the rowboat bobbed alarmingly on the swell.
Silus looked around for signs of further dwarven submersibles, but the craft they had seen appeared to have been unique.
“Such a shame,” Kelos said. “I’d have loved to be able to examine that wondrous device.”
Despite having taken such heavy losses from the mage’s assault, the elves battled on, throwing themselves at the dwarves even as their ships burned or fell to bits around them. Silus saw an elf woman climbing the rigging of a ship as the sea slowly claimed it. Gaining the crow’s nest, she turned to face in their direction. When she sang, her voice cut through the roar of the battle, the delicate and complex song finding its own place at the heart of the maelstrom. For a moment, Silus thought that the song was just for him, that the elf had recognised in him a kindred soul, but then a comment from Emuel made him turn.
“Lord of All, there’s a whole fleet of them!”
The ships sailing towards them now far outclassed any of those currently engaged in the conflict. Silus counted at least twenty vessels, with more shimmering into existence beyond them, wreathed in the flames of sorcery. The sails of the ships billowed silently with a wind that had nothing to do with the weather, the sail cloth shining with a rainbow sheen like oil moving on water. The figurehead at the prow of each vessel had been sculpted into the likeness of an elf maiden, and the mouths of these wooden women sang a harmony to complete the song calling to them.
“Song ships,” Emuel said. “The ancestors of the Llothriall.”
Tears were rolling down Emuel’s face as he answered with a song of his own, the tattoos on his body writhing as they responded to the magic.
The fleet began to move past them. The ships were far larger than any they had so far seen, yet left no wake.
The dwarves had spotted the newly-arrived elf fleet and let loose with a barrage of cannon fire. But though their aim was true, their missiles turned to dust the moment they closed on the ships. Silus expected to see decks bristling with soldiers, readying themselves for boarding actions, but on the deck of each song ship stood only a single figure. The elf fleet closed swiftly around the enemy ships, encircling them. The dwarf ships, in a final act of desperation, exhausted their magazines in a deafening salvo that lit up the sea for miles around and obscured both the fleets in a stinking fog. But when the mists cleared, the elf ships were still there, their hulls unmarked and the song unbroken.
Figures began to plunge into the sea, as dwarves threw themselves overboard, clearly deciding that attempting to swim for it was preferable to what the elves had in store. Silus wondered how a magic so beautiful — this sorcery written in song — could be so feared, but then the melody changed and the cadence grew more frantic and he discovered exactly what the dwarves so dreaded.
Emuel had closed his eyes to be better able to focus on the song, opening himself up to its ethereal power. This was beyond anything he had heard before, beyond even the song of the Stone Seers which had once so filled him with awe. It was a song of protection: a nurturing, calming melody that enfolded him like a mother’s arms. Within it, he knew no harm would come to him. But then, something changed. The transition was so subtle that Emuel didn’t realise the true nature of this new song even as he began to mouth the words. There was a sense of mild irritation, an annoyance that spread through him, swiftly turning into rage; he opened his eyes to see the tattoos that covered every inch of his body tearing at each other like savage beasts. A creature moved through the thicket of black ink thorns that now entwined his right arm, and when Emuel saw its baleful gaze, he was certain that the monster would have launched itself at him had it not been imprisoned by his flesh.
While the song had a marked effect on the eunuch, on the dwarves it was more profound.
They had begun fighting — not against the elves, but amongst themselves.
Emuel saw a female dwarf throttling a male. She knocked him cold before hoisting a cannon ball high over his head and letting go. The dwarf’s skull shattered, driven into the deck beneath him by the impact of the heavy iron sphere. Elsewhere, former comrades were pitted against each other — all military training forsaken as they sought the quickest kill, no matter how messy or brutal the means. Decks were soon running with blood, the bodies piling up swiftly on the planks — survivor turning on survivor until the last dwarf standing, seeing that there was none left to fight, turned his weapon on himself and took his own life. Even in death, however, the dwarves found no peace, for from the throats of the corpses came the song that had destroyed them, its dreadful low cadence a funeral dirge that chilled Emuel’s blood.
He looked to his companions to gauge their reactions to what had just taken place, and was appalled to see them turning blank gazes on one another as the song overwhelmed them. Emuel tried to interject, but his protestations did little but earn him a bloodied nose from Dunsany. The song was coming from his companions’ throats as they tore into each other and, listening to its dreadful sound, Emuel realised what he had to do.
Managing to compose himself, even in the midst of the chaos surrounding him, Emuel sang; a sheen of sweat beading his brow as he concentrated on countering the music of the elves. When Ignacio drew his sword and swung back his arm to take a swipe at Katya, Emuel almost faltered, but finally he found the heart of the music.
Ignacio’s weapon dropped from suddenly slack fingers and he looked down at Katya as though unsure as to why she was kneeling before him. She looked up in turn, an expression of confusion written upon her face.
“Ignacio, what are you doing?” she said.
“I don’t know. I can’t remember the last few moments at all. What happened? Why is Emuel singing?”
Emuel’s song came to an end at the same time as the elves’.
Silus looked at the now silent dwarf vessels and immediately shielded Zac’s eyes from the horrendous carnage.
“What did they do?” he said.
“They sang,” Emuel said. “Their song did this.”
“I think that they heard you,” Katya said as one of the song ships broke away from the fleet and headed their way.
There was more than the solitary figure they had seen earlier on the deck, now; a whole host of curious faces looked down at them as the vessel drew alongside the boat. There was urgent, muffled conversation from above, before a rope ladder unrolled down the side of the ship, thudding against the planks.
“An invitation?” Kelos said.
“But what if it’s not safe?” Katya said.
“Really, I don’t think we have many options here. We either stay on this oarless boat, and eventually die of thirst, or we join the elves.”
Illiun looked up. “These people, they are very different from yourselves. Is this place truly your home?”
“Yes,” Kelos said. “Well, no. Look, it’s complicated. We’re a few years out, is all.
“ A few!” Silus said.
“Okay, several thousand.”
“Come on,” Dunsany said. “I for one can’t wait to meet our hosts and examine their magnificent ship.”
“Just don’t try stealing it,” Kelos said.
“As if I would.”
Emuel followed his companions as they made their way up the side of the ship, glancing up once to look at the pale faces that gazed down upon them.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Standing at the prow of the song ship, Silus recognised the familiar curve of the north shore of Allantia, but that was all he recognised. Where he expected to see the south of the island curving gently back down to the sea, instead it continued unbroken — its gentle hills dotted with pasture and woodland — all the way to what must be (or would one day become) Freiport. Allantia was thus connected to the mainland, not an island at all, and Silus wondered what cataclysmic future event would lead to its separation from the peninsula.