Lieutenant Stavos shook off his shock. “Aye, sir.”
Ashe’s head dropped as the orders were called up the ropes and aft of the deck, then signaled by flag to the ships around him.
He gripped the rail as the sails were raised again.
As the fleet set out, following the wave.
* * *
Just as when he had walked the sea, Ashe at the helm of the armada of ships of the Second Fleet had become little more than the element of water from which his sword was comprised. The sailors aboard his vessel had come to address him as little as possible as he stood, day into night into day again, at the prow of the Valiant, staring east, only taking nourishment on occasion and refusing all sleep.
Being the Kirsdarkenvar on the deck of a ship had much the same effect as a waterspout on the sea.
Across the shipping lanes, past cadres of pirate ships, the Second Fleet fought its way, acting in many ways like its own tidal wave.
Until finally, two hundred leagues south of Gaematria, they came upon a vast flotilla awaiting them.
There, in the First-light of the eastern morning, spread against the sky at the horizon, was a flotilla of ships, great vessels shaped to slide through the wind, two towering masts amid each, the fore bearing the crest of a dragon, the aft shaped and colored in the image of a tall tower of White Ivory.
Their sails spilling wind, white of background, on which the symbol of the Cymrian Alliance was emblazoned in glorious color.
“The Sea Mages! Lord Gwydion, look! It’s Edwyn! He has answered your summons!”
Ashe blinked in astonishment.
The Sea Mages had skirted the wave, having known of its coming and timing their launch to coincide with its passing.
On the deck of the lead ship stood Edwyn Griffyth, resplendent in his sailing robes.
“Can we ride with you, then?” he called through a speaking horn to Ashe, who was standing amidships on the Valiant. “I understand you may have some need of eviction services for rats and mice along the western coast of the continent. We have a good number of special tools to help you. What do you say?”
For the first time in as long as Ashe could remember, he grinned.
“I say come along, if you can behave yourself.”
Edwyn’s initial reply was a laugh, but it choked off rapidly. He stared behind Ashe’s shoulder.
Over which something was rising from the sea.
47
From the deepest part of the sea the tremor began, raising currents from the depths until they crested the surface, tossing ships around like corks on the waves.
After drawing the water from the shallows into itself, leaving exposed and dry the sand beds several thousand feet from the shore, it towered in the air off the coastlands, a giant wall of water, frothing at the top like a madman’s mouth.
At first the captains of the ships were too busy shouting orders to notice the form the wave was taking.
But Ashe recognized it immediately.
“Great-Grandmother!” he shouted.
In the center of the rally of ships, a great sparkling form appeared from the depths. It was wyrm-shaped and towered, gleaming in translucent hues of copper and blue.
“Elynsynos?” Edwyn asked reverently.
“Well, hello, my grandson,” the wyrm’s voice replied, sending ripples across every wave, causing the ships of the Second Fleet and those of the Sea Mages to dance precariously in the waves. “It is lovely to finally meet you, since you have never undertaken to make my acquaintance.” She chuckled, a thunderous sound, as Edwyn’s face turned scarlet. “I understand you are headed to spare the continent from those who are slaughtering the Cymrian Alliance.”
“Yes!” Ashe shouted. “Will you help us, Great-Grandmother?”
“Yes, I believe I will,” said the wyrm.
“Forgive me for asking, but what made you change your mind?”
The enormous ethereal beast smiled, revealing gleaming teeth as big as swords.
“Well, for all these centuries, Singers and bards and Cymrian schoolchildren have been reading that tripe, The Rampage of the Wyrm. For the record, I am very offended.
“But since it’s part of the lore now, I feel I should make the lies into the truth. So, if you are willing to have me—I am ready to rampage.
“Let us go and aid your wife, and your people, in their battle.”
48
So at the specific request of the dragon, the Second Fleet remained back at the Prime Meridian while the ridge wave was transformed, by the power of a raging dragon beneath the surface, into a thunderous wall of traveling water, slipping across the sea and rising to a peak taller than that of the light towers that had stood in the harbors of Avonderre and Port Tallono.
The wave could be seen several miles inland, though it missed the coast of Traeg and began its assault on the shoreline of the continent at the northernmost point of Avonderre Harbor, turning over ships, docks, and naval settlements and blasting them inland as far as the edge of the Great Forest, where mountainous ruins were left in its wake.
By some coincidence of nature, it stopped just short of flooding the forest, however.
Further south it roared through the occupied edge towns all the way down to the captive Lirin harbor of Port Tallono, sweeping along the edge of Windswere and the Nonaligned states.
Heading for the eastern harbors of Golgarn.
Taking with it, in a slurry of froth wrapped in a bitter storm of rain and lightning, the recently-built bulwarks of the occupying forces that had been strangling the continent for the better part of a year.
Later, when the history of the tidal wave was written and retold, many firsthand accounts of the rampage were passed along.
Witnesses, too numerous to have their testimony explained away by tricks of the mind or insanity, insisted that in the sky above the raging wave, set against the blackened clouds and the flashing lightning, the image of a evanescent wyrm, sparking in the hues of copper and gold, lashed about in the air, as if it were directing the assault of seawater.
Roaring in a voice that shrieked over the screaming wind and the horrific noise of the tidal wave.
While the armada of ships flying the colors of the Alliance and those of the Sea Mages hovered behind the wave, seemingly undisturbed.
It was said that some sharp-eyed observers noted that, at the prow of the lead ship, believed by some to be the Valiant, stood the shadow of what appeared to be a human man, dark against the sky, colorless save for what appeared to be a shining crown of copper-colored hair and cerulean-blue eyes.
Who seemed to be holding the sea beyond the blasting waves calm for the flotilla of ships.
As was another shadow of another man on the deck of the lead ship of those flying the colors of the Sea Mages, without the gleaming hair, but with the same blue eyes.
Who seemed to be doing the same.
* * *
Once the all-clear was given, Ashe led the soldiers and sailors of the Second Fleet through the streets of the harbor towns, first Avonderre in the northwest, then the Lirin-sheltered harbor of Port Tallono. As difficult as it had been to muster a willingness to aid the continent in the first place, now it was difficult restraining the fury of the Alliance forces in combat with those occupiers who had survived the storm.
What few there actually were.
Edwyn’s walking machines were deployed quickly and sent into enemy encampments that had relied heavily on arrow fire. Ashe later commented that, regardless of Anborn’s unwillingness to make use of the machines for himself, their invasion of the two harbors and any surviving encampments of the forces of Sorbold spared the lives of thousands of men.
“Proof that sometimes intention is not always best for the outcome,” the High Sea Mage said to the liberating troops.
49
THE SEA DUCHESS EATING HOUSE, PORT OF GOLGARN
Beliac, Golgarn’s king and sovereign, had a fondness for dining out-of-doors.
Pa
rticularly now that his palatial home had become less of a welcoming place since he had traveled, seven months prior, to Sorbold for the coronation of Talquist.
He had been properly served, at least, greeted respectfully and led, with full decorum, to the most elegant table on the seaside balcony of the Sea Duchess eating house, an expensive and well-appointed facility at the end of the slanted street leading down to the wharf, with a breathtaking view of the harbor that had a royal balcony reserved for his use alone.
The inn’s finest libations had been swiftly delivered, and each dish he requested had been spectacularly produced and presented to him, amid a good deal of bowing and scraping and protocol followed properly. His guards took their places by the door from the inn to the balcony, allowing only the table servants and the owners to pass to and from the eating house proper to the royal balcony.
Beliac sighed. The Sea Duchess was one of his favorite places to eat.
He glanced around the inn as his pe’detroi was served, a regional delight made from local nautical ingredients—tiny scallops, quail, and crab—lightly sauced, carefully spiced, and served in a pastry shell that never was heavy or dense and topped, decoratively so, with the tiniest tip of a shark fin. Beliac had dug in with relish; then, upon realizing that a number of well-heeled nobility had chosen to dine at the eating house that night to be nearer to their sovereign, he sat back in his chair and carefully attended to his mouth and chin with his heavy linen napkin.
The expressions in the eyes of the spectating diners and the deferential table servants soaked through him like a freshening stream; Beliac could palpably sense their admiration, and it warmed his heart, which had been so intensely exposed to the cold recently.
He lifted his snifter toward the nobility watching him from behind the thick glass of a long window and saluted them, bringing him an excited round of polite applause and murmurs of Bless you, Your Majesty.
He was too busy enjoying the favorable attention to notice that the noise of the street below him, the clopping of carriage horses’ hooves, the bickering of street vendors, the sounds of argument and flirtation, sales pitches and conversation, had died away utterly.
Beliac took a long and luxuriant sip, allowing the bouquet to fill his slightly open mouth and sinuses. He swallowed, feeling the pleasant burn as the liquid went down his throat, and sighed happily, anticipating the relief the potable would bring to his injured pride.
He looked back up, smiling brightly at his subjects of all classes, both on the balcony and behind the window.
Only to see them staring past him, their eyes open wide, their faces set in shock.
Beliac’s brows drew together quizzically.
He turned to the headwaiter, who had been standing politely at his shoulder, the bottle of brandy in his hand, awaiting the king’s order to refill or step away.
And found that the man was drizzling expensive alcohol onto Beliac’s shoes and trousers, the bottle hanging limply from his hand.
Aghast, the king pushed his own chair backward, slapping angrily at the stream of wasted brandy with his napkin.
“You graceless idiot! What are you doing? What are you—”
He caught sight of the waiter’s face, and those of the other diners and servants, still staring over his shoulder, but the shock on their faces, which he had assumed was in response to the damfool who had been pouring fine brandy into his lap, had melted into a richtus of terror.
He turned around, following their gaze.
Only to see that the water in the harbor had drawn back half a league or more, revealing the seabed. Flapping fish and grounded ships were lying in the naked sand where the tide had been a few moments before.
Approaching the harbor was a towering wave, roiling with gray fury, sweeping ships and bricks from the decimated lighthouse that had been standing, moments before, at the end of the quay, toward the shore.
And the town that lined that shore.
The king scrambled back, his ears finally opening to the sounds of screaming and panic, as table servants and noblemen alike scrambled for the door, pushing tables over and shoving their way to the stairs inside the eating house.
“Hurry, Your Majesty,” urged the captain of his guard regiment. “Down the exterior staircase—”
Beliac was unable to respond in words, but let out a harsh, back-of-the-throat gurgle as the captain seized his arm and dragged him away from the table and his pe’detroi.
Together the two men followed the rest of the guard down the staircase off the balcony and into the street that had been all but empty a few moments before. The guardsmen had their longpoles drawn and were slapping the frightened villagers out of the way, clearing a path for the king.
Beliac was shaking so hard that it took a moment for him to notice the drops of water that were raining down above him, lightly at first, then harder, like an insistently pelting rain. He looked above him and saw the cloud-riven sky, rolling and gray with angry clouds, then glanced out to the harbor again.
With a thunderous roar, the monster wave smashed down on the pier, shattering the docks and the remaining ships that had been moored there a moment before, bouncing on the forewave like dogs leashed to a fence post. Then it rushed up over the sand and the harborfront, filling the streets systematically with water that seemed to bleed forth.
Swallowing everything in its path.
“Run, Majesty!” the guard gasped, holding out his longpole futilely, as if doing so could hold back the rushing tidal surge.
Blindly, the king obeyed, turning to the slanted street and dashing up it as fast as he could.
He had only managed to progress a few steps, pushing futilely at the crowd of fleeing citizenry, when the air around him turned gray-black and the most sickening sound he had ever heard filled his ears.
A moment later, smashing water taller than his head engulfed him, drowning out the screaming all around him and sucking him, with an intensity far greater than his body had ever withstood before, first forward, dragging him up the slanted street, blind to anything but the overwhelming gray, and then rapidly back toward the harbor.
At least his terrified mind thought that was what was happening as he tumbled in the grip of the surf, arse over elbow, gasping and choking on water with no access to air whatsoever.
This cannot be happening, he thought as the drawback dragged him down the street and into the harbor proper, pulling him as fast as a team of racing horses. A moment ago, I was enjoying a fine brandy—
His head broke the surface.
Beliac’s eyes had been pounded in the surf, strafing them with salt, so there was little he could see, even now that, for a moment at least, he was head-up in the light of day.
If he could have focused on the distance before him, he would have seen the wave continuing across the city, engulfing carts and horses and humans with ease, climbing hills as if they were not even there. But instead he was forced to take in the sight with his diminished eyes of the carnage around him, the bodies and barrels, horses and haycarts floating in the sea all about, a few living creatures still struggling, but most broken and dead, whatever eyes they had once possessed reflecting the glare of the blackened sun overhead.
The scene turned red a moment later; Beliac realized that his head was bleeding down into his eye.
And at the same moment understood that he had, in fact, survived the wave.
He set to righting himself in the calming surf, pushing wildly and unsuccessfully away from the flotsam and jetsam banging into him with each undertow, slapping back dead flesh and shattering wood.
I’m all right, he thought. I have been a mariner all my life; I can stay afloat, can make my way back to shore—
Something heavy slammed into him from behind.
Beliac lost his balance, floating in the surf, and was dragged momentarily under the surface again.
He curled up into a ball in the drift, struggling to save his arms and legs from being broken by the piece of the ship tha
t had nicked him. Beliac held his breath for as long as he could; then, his lungs screaming, he uncurled and swam rapidly toward the surface and the light he saw there.
He took an immense gasp of air when he broke through, and kept reminding himself the rule that sailors used to chant when their ships were compromised.
Do not panic. Panic will kill you, even when nothing else wants to.
If this is not proof of my Right of Command, I don’t know what is, he thought woozily. All about me is death; everything floating around me in the sea is dead, except for me. And yet, from this maelstrom I have been saved. It appears that I alone have survived.
Because I am king.
Again, something slammed him in the back.
Beliac curled up again, anticipating another contact with a broken ship that had been docked before the wave hit.
And, to his shock, felt a dragging on his leg, then a terrible ripping as it was torn off at the foot.
Numbness swept through him.
What is happening? he wondered.
As a large oblong creature moved past him, a familiar triangle on its back pointed at the forbidding sky.
His lower leg in its teeth.
Beliac flinched, then began to shudder.
He looked around him.
In the swirling red water, he was surrounded by more of the triangles, circling menacingly, as the sharks that had been displaced by the wave righted themselves.
And sought nourishment.
As his lifeblood began to pulse from his leg, his darkening consciousness fought to remain alert.
No, he thought desperately. No—this isn’t happening—
As another shark sank its teeth into his side, his wife’s words from the night he had returned home to Golgarn rang in the shrinking consciousness.
Your childish obsession with being eaten alive by Firbolg has cost all of us dearly, Majesty. Welcome home. I hope your journey west was worth it.