Belial - Episode 1 of the Elder Bornshire Chronicles Page 6

  “I bring you news,” Pestilence said. “Your son is well.”

  Daemon tucked that information into his thoughts, pursed his lips and nodded to affirm. “That is good to know, but why tell me now?”

  Pestilence rested his arms on his knees and stared down at the rock upon which he sat. Several minutes passed before he spoke again, “You know that we are not allowed to interfere in worldly events.”

  “I know you have claimed that from the beginning, but you have shown otherwise, and here it seems you are again. So, I believe that you do as you please.”

  Pestilence started to speak and Daemon looked his way. The Horseman’s tongue looked constructed of maggots, twisting, moving, and sliding the words back and forth across his tongue. Daemon felt an almost undeniable urge to walk away.

  “We can never do as we please. True, we have taken certain liberties, but not without a great personal debt.”

  “Debt? You are immortal,” Daemon answered. “What torment could be worse than death hanging over you?” Pestilence’s visage jittered and Daemon realized his entire face was a quagmire of interlaced Harvestmen, a creature in the arachnid family, similar to spiders. Their legs made up his beard, and they twitched as he spoke. Daemon added, “Except looking at your face. Could you clean that up some?”

  Pestilence ignored the remark. “I have brought news of another kind.”

  “Tell me you are not about to rake your calling across Britannia. Our lives here are hard enough without defending ourselves from a plague.”

  “No, no, no danger from me, Bornshire. Still, a dozen ships approach Britannia from the northwest. They intend to make landfall not far from here. About a day’s walk to the north.”

  “I assume that whoever sails towards Britannia is intent on laying waste to the island then?”

  Pestilence shook his head and his eyes spoke their wretchedness for the situation. “There are one hundred soldiers on those twelve ships. They are highly trained and well armed. One of them is a sorcerer, a blight you have dealt with and Arthur has encountered before, but they don’t care for Arthur’s state, nor do they look to pillage or burn villages unless those villages lie in their path.”

  “They do not sound like privateers.”

  “Correct,” Pestilence replied. “They are coming here with a single purpose, and in the end, well—they come to put out your candle, Daemon.”

  “Many have tried,” Daemon answered, waving his hand casually in a circle. “I appreciate your consideration. I assume you will not stand with me against them?”

  “I cannot.”

  Using his staff, Daemon regained his feet and the blood rushed back into his lower extremities. “Tell me where they will land. I will meet them there and set your concerns to rest.”

  Pestilence revealed their location. “They will not have the advantage of surprise, Bornshire, but your only hope is to greatly injure their force and send them back out onto the sea.”

  “I will handle them, Pestilence. I always have.”

  The Horseman rubbed his hand upon his face, sending his arachnid beard flowing, “I will not see you again, but I hope my foresight is wide of its mark. If it is not, when they have taken you, they will turn their sights back to your son.”

  “They might kill me,” Daemon replied, “but believe me when I say that they will never take me.”

  Mrandor’s ships were swift with ten oarsmen to a side, and a main draft sail that could ride the wind. Twelve captains, all experienced privateers, commanded his ships and the thought of murder did not make them heave their thoughts to a different side. They had one side—gold.

  Mrandor stood at the bow of his flagship, his largest ship, but only by a small portion. The craft could hold fourteen oarsmen and ten troops, plus himself and the captain, while maintaining enough hold space for their provisions of dried meat and fresh water to drink for a month. Whenever twenty-five percent of the barrels ran dry, the search began for a location that allowed them to refill unnoticed. Of course he had left room for treasure, and four men plus himself could sleep below at any given time. The ships were rugged Norse designed craft. They gingerly split the waves. They tended to the slim side with true oaken keels and the structured hulls were clinker-built with each flat overlapping others, riveted together. The front raised tall and curled forward like a broken wave. The rear was half a man shorter but of the same design.

  Mrandor had launched them; let them settle for a week. Plenty watertight and with the weather clear, he sailed directly from Fiore around the west side of Britannia. Less villages populated that rugged shore, so there was more water when he needed some without raising word across the countryside that a fleet as large as his must be bound for somewhere. That would put all of Britannia on edge. His plan depended largely upon taking Daemon Bornshire by surprise. They had to get off the ships, find the druid and kill him with as little attraction as possible.

  This mission would set an example. Daemon did not live near the Black Forest, and he had not returned to the continent since leaving, as far as Mrandor could determine. His mission had a simple goal—kill Arthur’s father. Break Arthur’s will by butchering those around him.

  The day carried the breath of profound autumn in its true and steady breeze. Had the observer been anyone but Mrandor, they might have appreciated the beauty of the bright sun and the residual aftertaste of the breeze that hinted of a winter not too far away.

  He reached into his pocket and withdrew a small sphere. The device was fashioned of clear quartz and intimated a faint musical tone when he rolled it in his hand. He held the artifact in his palm and waved a hand over the sphere as it darkened, showing him nothing more than a pointer toward his intention.

  Surprisingly, Daemon was close. Mrandor had figured he would stronghold inland. Though this side of Britannia had a shoreline of boulders, his ships ran high in the water and would have no problem negotiating a landing.

  “This is your last day, Daemon Bornshire. Your very last day.”

  The Horsemen sat far away from the ocean upon a steep hillside that would one day be known as Isca Dumnoniorum. In later centuries, a formidable fort would be built. Towns would spring out of the stone. A populace would flourish for a time and then expire as with all centers of human gathering.

  From their vantage, the Horsemen watched the fleet of ships round the corner to the bay. Between the Horsemen and the bay, a river ran and between that and the bay stood Daemon on a small green rise, his aged body straight as an oak, and his bright azure robes contrasted a gray sea.

  Thanatos sucked in his lips and held them there. His pupils dilated, taking in the panorama. He had seen much loss of life in his tour of this fold of Creation, but seldom did he need to hold an emotional response at bay.

  Pestilence grimaced.

  Mars sat upon his red horse with flames all around them, not that a human eye could see, but mirth seeped off him.

  Famine swung from his saddle and walked to stand beside Thanatos. Where he stepped upon the dirt, everything died, so he kept to the rocks as he could. A century would travel past before anything grew in those desolate paces where his boots trod.

  “You are troubled,” Famine rasped. His voice rattled like dried bones rubbed together.

  Thanatos lifted his hand to his face and wiped his gloved fingers downward and through his coarse beard. He sighed deeply, and admitted, “The logic of this confrontation escapes me. The Creator knows His design. No one ever completely understands that intention, but at least there are moments when I think I sample a foretaste of the long machination. Yet, this makes no sense in what I anticipated to be His plan.”

  “Perhaps all is not lost. Daemon thwarted the enemy before,” Famine clattered, but Thanatos would not be set aside easily.

  “Daemon won that battle with the help of his wife, an entire three legions of Roman soldiers, plus Arthur and ourselves. This time, there is only a single good man.”

  “The enemy believes they will su
rprise him, Thanatos, but they have not,” Pestilence replied. Thanatos cast a glance over his shoulder. Pestilence sculpted a skeletal grin and answered the glance. “Contact was not expressly forbidden.”

  The two held one another’s gaze while Mars steered his beast to the edge of the slope for a better look. “A hundred and a quarter soldiers and a tedious sorcerer against a ready Bornshire? This could still be interesting, Thanatos. Perhaps your assessment of the man understates his ability as much as we have misjudged Arthur’s in past years.”

  Thanatos shook his head. “I think not. Years have captured the archdruid. I already feel the call for me to collect him.”

  Pestilence placed a hand on his saddle and another over that and remarked, “Belial’s attention is to her throne room in the Black Forest and her influence is not here in Britannia. Her powers may match Lucifer’s, but that horrific fiend does not sail these waters, only her pliant emissary. Perhaps the Creator will lend His hand. Only time will tell. ”

  As the threatening fleet rounded into the bay, Daemon inhaled the disgusting odor of a sorcerer’s filthy magic.

  The sapphire sky held not a single cloud. If he so desired, Daemon could call upon the air and water to form a defensive storm, but he would not do that. That type of spell, played in the wrong tune, could strain the fabric or at least stain the thread. If Mrandor were achieving new power, nature might need as little drain on her resources as possible.

  Daemon strolled to the rock-strewn shoreline as though he had not a care in the world and dipped his wrinkled hand in the salty sea.

  “Sela aqua mone,” his whispered to the water and the message spread. Satisfied that he had made what preparations he could, he retreated to higher ground.

  The vessels advanced toward the shoreline while Daemon stayed on his raised hill along the shore and watched the watercraft come. The ships were of a design he had never seen. They were unlike Roman ships, smaller, quicker. A brisk breeze carried them counter to the natural flow.

  Daemon contemplated again striking them down with the wind, but decided against such a brash course of action. In his younger years, he might have. Instead, he casually surveyed the fleet.

  The ships sailed in a diamond formation, one ship leading the way with five others in a straight line behind them, the largest ship the fourth in that chain. On the north and southern side, three ships created the diamond with a lead ship, a trailing ship, then a ship on the tip of the edge. Why that particular formation had been chosen, he discarded for another day. He was not a sailor and had only been on a ship a few times in his life.

  Rubbing his index finger on his beard, he waited, considered his options, and decided on a course of action. When the ships drew to five hundred yards offshore, he struck a spark to ignite his plan.

  “Kasa mon strata,” he murmured and raised his hands up from his waist to his shoulders.

  White foam boiled alongside the last ship and the outermost ships of the diamond. Three churn spots surfaced and then broadened.

  From the sea, a triplet of oversized humpback whales breached the surface of the bay, one to a ship. The great sea kings rose six fathoms and then pushed themselves higher. Their bodies, pectoral fins and knobby heads glistened in the sunlight. They returned from the air and landed on the bows of three ships.

  Boards wailed. Keels snapped. As the whales went, they crushed the majority of each ship’s crew and compelled the ships to surrender to the hungry ocean.

  Those of each crew not herded into oblivion by the whales found themselves plummeting through the morning air and into the frigid foam before they could cry out.

  Forty foot long, black and white orcas churned the drowning crew in a murderous frenzy, sending scarlet into the sea foam. With that singular spell, a third of Daemon’s enemy found a watery grave.

  The crunch of splintered wood echoed across the bay and up the shore to Daemon. Shouts of fear and a hailstorm of orders swarmed the damaged fleet.

  Daemon mustered not a degree of mercy for the dying men, for he felt a canker on the sea. Anyone who let themselves be purchased by such a despicable entity deserved a chance at the Wheel to right their wrongs.

  The ships drew closer, undeterred by the carnage.

  Daemon anchored his determination. He turned to a large lay of limestone as steady oars carried Mrandor’s soldiers Daemon’s direction.

  “Vurk ta aero,” he spoke to the boulder. He tapped the stone with his index finger, then waved it and pointed the digit toward a ship. The slab of stone arched through the sky to land in the middle deck of the first ship, snapping the main mast like a dry twig and welcoming the ocean to drink its fill. The craft sunk, and the soldiers went to the sea floor with it, their weapons weighting them to their deaths. Half a dozen oarsmen remained to tread water, but oncoming ships brushed them aside, uninterested in failed efforts.

  The orca continued their feast.

  Daemon tossed another boulder, but a counterspell from what was now the third ship in the line deflected the rock into the sea. Daemon had expected as much. “Casa aqua sae nonstra.”

  The ships were within two hundred yards as the sea rose up from the shore, curled in a reverse tidal wave. The ships suddenly floundered on the sea floor with the water drawn up into Daemon’s newly created wave. He sent the heavy water smashing down upon them, and the water resumed its rightful home. Only four ships remained. The largest had cloaked itself in a warding spell, holding off Daemon’s smashing blow.

  Before they could react, he flung a third boulder, crushing one more ship as the final three achieved the beach. The orca, not to be denied, snatched half a dozen men off the beach, tossing them haphazardly back into the deep water and then pursuing them. Before the white and black killers retreated to the depths, only two dozen men and a ship full of oarsmen remained.

  All but one ship had sustained significant damage by the time they beached, but to shore they came.

  Mrandor took no chances, levitating himself from his ship to the shore. He yelled for his soldiers to get out of the water before the creatures returned. The men plowed up the rise, blonde haired, blue-eyed barbarians; he certainly had brought a raucous-looking lot. They plowed up the rise. There, they paused. A few traded weapons for those lost in the mayhem.

  The three captains remained on their ships, shouting at the oarsmen to heave away from the rocky beach.

  Once they started to slide back, Daemon let them go. He had hoped for better results, never intending to allow his enemy to come ashore, but this was how the fabric spun. He must make the best of this particular knit.

  He drew his blade. In that brief second, he wished Arthur could have been at his side, but that looked not to be. Feeling an ebb, Daemon sent forth fast magic to find his son.

  Mrandor sent a dozen men up the hill, a wise move, for Daemon braced them. The first man charged in with a sword as if he chased some drunken beggar. His blade came down swiftly. Daemon caught the brunt of the blow, surprised at his sword’s sluggishness. He had not had to use the weapon in battle in quite some time.

  Even so, he deflected the swing and touched his left hand to the man’s throat, releasing a constrictive touch spell. The man staggered backward into two men who traveled closely behind and there he collapsed, his neck snapped.

  His two comrades paused and glanced at their stricken comrade with wide eyes. Daemon stepped quickly forward and touched one on the shoulder, numbing the soldier’s arm. In a stroke of opportunity, he hacked the sword arm off the other with a clean swipe.

  The sword passed through the arm with no resistance, but carried forward and struck the second man in the midsection, slashing him in half.

  Daemon considered cursing. How had he managed to allow his sword-work to fall into disrepair?

  Resolute, he concentrated as four more men ran a circle to the rear and five circled him from the front. He had hoped whoever remained would have tried this, for this particular plot would only work once. Smacking his sword point i
nto the rock, he pushed out a blast spell that radiated as far as the bay. Men catapulted through the air, their bones powdered even before they landed. Another dozen men that had charged up the hill upended, but they staggered to their feet. The third troop started the ascent with Mrandor assuming his command position from the rear.

  Mars beamed with pleasure at the refined carnage below them. Famine stood by quietly, watching events unfold while Pestilence and Thanatos conversed.

  “We cannot allow this to happen, Thanatos,” Pestilence hissed. “We can stop this here and now. He need not stand alone.”

  “We are compelled to allow this to play out. Do not tempt me before the eyes of the Creator,” Thanatos grated, though his voice wavered. Both he and Pestilence held relationships with the Bornshires, and he did not relish telling Arthur that his father had died while the Horsemen stood aloof and watched. “I am in this enough.”

  “He wearies, Thanatos,” Pestilence pressed. “They will hack him to pieces and feed him to the sea. His pyre will be denied.”

  “Nothing is assured,” Thanatos answered. “We have seen many battles where the least overcame the most.”

  “We have seen a majority where the least were slaughtered,” Pestilence replied, but he did not advance. Together, the four riders waited to see what lay beneath the stone that fate overturned.

  Daemon recognized that he had erred. His strength ebbed. Too many decades weighted his bones and too many spells in such a short time drained him. If he were to win this battle, it need be with his sword and the grace of the Mother.

  A brutish soldier charged him with an ill-meant blade. Daemon waited until the man sliced toward him, and then leapt back, gauging the man’s reach. As the attacker’s hand passed its arch, Daemon abandoned his sword, gripped the back of his opponent’s hand with his right, reached quickly under the man’s hand, and grabbed his opponents thumb and knife. He wrenched inward, cracking the man’s wrist. The tactic sent his opponent to the ground. Daemon stabbed him in the back of the neck and the soldier transformed into a corpse.