From the Deep - Jaine Fenn Read online

Assani, climbing out the water after her, asked, Should we try and get behind the enemy, to surprise them again?

  It had worked against foes not expecting trouble, but the battle was in full swing now. By the time the Naereids got behind the enemy army and made their way back up onto the ice, it might be too late for them to make a difference. We may be of more use lending aid to the forest folk, perhaps fighting alongside them. Maybe we should–

  Kelara’s words died as the blizzard cleared further, affording a glimpse of the full scale of the battle. The forces arrayed against each other stretched along the ice as far as she could see. Holding the line for the forces of Order were beings such as she had never imagined. They had the form of men, but were encased in shining armour of silver and blue. A double line, shields locked, faced the Chaos horde. Behind the wall of shields, more shining men raised ornate bows and fired arrows that burst into bright flame, raining down a storm of celestial fire on the seething mass of the Chaos army.

  Assani echoed her amazement. What manner of man are they?

  I do not know. Kelara called to her sisters below: All those able to fight on land come with me! The rest of you, wait here.

  As soon as her companions had assembled on the ice, Kelara began to lope towards the strange warriors as fast as was safe on the treacherous surface. Suddenly a great roar rang out over the clamour of shouts and clashing weapons. A huge, bull-headed figure crashed through the armoured ranks, tossing the fighters around like driftwood in a stormy sea.

  The beast turned, slipping on the ice, its tree-sized axe swinging. It had not seen Kelara’s small force but appeared intent on attacking the lines it had just broken through – a rear attack, just as Kelara and Assani had considered. The shining men, moving in perfect synchrony, had already plugged the gap. Focused only on the enemies before them, they appeared oblivious of the danger from behind. Kelara sped up, hoping to engage the bull-creature before it ran amok behind friendly lines. But they were too far off, too slow.

  A tight formation of armoured men appeared out of the snow and set upon the creature. Their leader cracked its leg with one swing of his weapon. The beast toppled onto the ice and his comrades fell on it, despatching their enemy with brutal efficiency.

  As the bull-creature gave a final tortured bellow the warriors’ leader saw Kelara and ran over to her. He carried a great hammer, and the insignia on his massive shield was also a hammer, set between twin thunderbolts. His face was hidden behind a silver mask. Recalling the bubble-headed invaders, Kelara half raised her spear. The newcomer halted. Beneath the gore that spattered it, his armour was the blue of sunlight through pure water.

  ‘What are you?’ he called, perhaps taking in her frost-rimmed fronds and pale blue-green limbs, so different in form to the sylvaneth fighting on the ice. His voice was deep and hoarse, but that of a man, not a monster.

  Kelara shaped her words into a form the shore-dweller could understand. ‘Not what. Who. I am Kelara, Guardian of the Kelp Forests. These are my Naereids. And what, I mean who, are you?’

  ‘I meant no offence, Lady Kelara. This land holds so many strange creatures. I am Retributor-Prime Markius of the Hallowed Knights.’

  ‘And why are you here?’

  ‘To escort Queen Alarielle to safety.’

  ‘The Everqueen! Where is she?’

  He gestured with his hammer. ‘Ahead, but… your queen’s handmaiden wove an arcane song that drew on the last of Alarielle’s power. She commanded a living mountain to freeze the sea, that we may cross it.’

  ‘I saw that!’ The Jotenberg, glimpsed through snow. What else had the power to turn the sea from water to ice in an instant? Then the full import of the warrior’s words hit her. ‘But you say it was “the last of her power”?’

  ‘Queen Alarielle is… diminished. Her essence is now contained in some kind of magical seedpod. Her handmaiden carries it – her. Half of our troops remained behind to delay the forces of Chaos who seek this queen-seed. It is–’

  ‘–over there!’ Kelara pointed ahead. Now she knew what she was dealing with, she could sense the divine beacon of the Radiant Queen’s soulpod just over the horizon.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How can we help?’

  ‘The queen-seed must reach the far shore. Go to the aid of your queen.’

  ‘We will.’

  As Kelara turned to go, the Hallowed Knight returned to the fray.

  Once back under the ice, Kelara gathered her Naereids and, focusing for a moment on the distant, divine presence, led them away from the battle overhead and towards the Everqueen.

  But they were under the ice shelf now. It formed an impenetrable ceiling.

  Assani voiced her fears. How can we lend aid, trapped here below the ice?

  Before she could answer, the queen’s presence flared, and a strange, silent song impinged on Kelara’s consciousness.

  A moment later, the ice quaked.

  Sudden creaks and groans filled the ocean, then the ice overhead buckled and cracked. Kelara stared upwards, eager to reach the action. But the quake did not abate. Anyone trying to surface risked being crushed, ground between ever-moving, interlocking sheets of ice.

  We must reach the queen-seed.

  Kelara sensed a pattern in the ice movement: it came from behind her. They were heading into a more stable region.

  Then she saw light ahead. Not just the dull snow-filled light of day, but a divine glow as bright as pure sunlight. It had to be the Radiant Queen’s soulpod.

  She started forward, drawn to the presence of her deity. But the way was blocked. Though the ice was not thick here, it remained unbroken. The frozen surface was thin and clear enough to see through; she made out spindly, distant forms that must be the sylvaneth. But so few, and moving so slowly! At the centre of their small group shone the transcendent light of the queen-seed, carried by Alarielle’s handmaiden – that must be the brave and faithful Lady of Vines, who was said to have sprung from the very body of the Everqueen.

  Kelara cast her awareness wide, searching for some means to get to the Lady of Vines and her precious cargo.

  Her senses recoiled at the touch of Chaos. The enemy was close, converging on the small party of sylvaneth. For a moment she thought she caught a dark echo of corruption and power in the water itself, but then her roving senses lit on a mundane and welcome clear spot ¬– a gap in the ice.

  This way. She shot through the water, her Naereids trailing behind her. The hole was some way from the Lady of Vines but it was their only route up. Hurry!

  The gap was tiny, a body-sized fissure in thin ice. As she approached, Kelara scrutinised the immediate surroundings, checking for cracks or faults that could, should more shudders come, turn this from an exit into a death-trap. All appeared stable.

  When she put her head above the freezing water, the air was full of chill salt mist, and the distant grinding of the ice competed with the sounds of combat: battle-cries from the throats of men, and the howls and grunts of their vile opponents. Above it all a song such as Kelara had never heard wove through the air, soft yet powerful, evoking days of light and life while compelling all who heard it to fight, to stand up against the forces of darkness. Summoned by the song, Kelara pulled herself up onto the ice shelf.

  Ahead, through the mist, a heavenly radiance shone. Even at this distance the queen-seed filled Kelara with wonder. The Lady of Vines, who cradled it in her arms, had the form of a shore-dweller; though she was a branchwraith, her woody torso was encased in shivering creepers. The exquisite song came from her. She was surrounded by a dozen dryads.

  As Kelara looked for the best route across to them, a shadow fell over the Lady of Vines’ party. A moment later, a spear of darkness stabbed down from the misty sky, skewering one of the dryads. The remaining dryads turned to face the threat; but their movements were sluggish and uncoordinated. The cold, which Kelara barely felt, was slowing these woodland dwellers.

  Something comes!

  The distant shout came from below, but before she could respond, darkness boiled overhead, and a miasma of Chaos assaulted Kelara’s every sense. She jerked her head up and met the blank, many-eyed stare of a giant fly swooping down on her. The green-skinned figure on its back held its twisted ichor-black sword high, ready to cut her down in passing as it flew towards the Lady of Vines.

  Without thinking, Kelara hurled her spear. The bone tip buried itself deep in the rider’s flaccid gut, which was already marred by a pustulent wound. The Chaos-rider shrieked in surprised agony, and toppled backwards off its mount. The fly-thing flitted away, showing a swollen, diseased abdomen. Kelara refocused her attention on the deeps, from where a panicked chorus of mind-shouts was rising.

  But the aerial abomination was coming back round. As it darted towards Kelara, a venom-tipped proboscis unfurled from the point of the creature’s great scabrous head.

  She had no weapon, and the only escape route was cut off by the Naereid still hauling herself up through the ice-fissure. She could not even save herself and her folk, let alone help the Lady of Vines.

  The ice beneath her erupted.

  Kelara was flung upwards as the surface burst out and up with a thunderous crash. As she flew through the air, she caught a brief glimpse of grey flesh pushing up through shattered ice. She came down hard on ice that tipped the moment she hit it. Stunned, but saved from a severe concussion by the slippery surface, she slid helplessly back into the water, a rain of smaller fragments pelting down around her. She kicked down and away, tracing an erratic yet urgent path out of range of the turmoil. When sense had returned enough to know she was out of immediate danger, she turned and looked back up.

  A great serpent, young enough to swim free but still as long as a kelp-tree was tall, thrashed and twisted above her, churning the icy surface to splinters as it coiled in on itself.

  For a moment Kelara’s heart sang: Usniel had sent aid!

  But something was wrong. Why would the serpent break up the very ice the Lady of Vines was fleeing across? Then she saw how its once silver-grey flanks were dull and scarred, pocked with open wounds and patches of raw, diseased skin.

  The serpent had been corrupted. No wonder the Lord of the Deeps had refused her call to fight Chaos: the taint she sought to keep out of the sea had already taken hold in its depths. This epic creature had come from the deep, but not to help. It must have been summoned by the fell power she had scented earlier. The forces of darkness had subverted this serpent, using it to disrupt the Lady of Vines’ flight.

  And it was not alone.

  She tuned into the calls from her sisters. More serpents were heading up into the light, heeding the call of Chaos.

  Closer, she sensed a small bright point, fading: the Naereid who had followed her through the fissure had been trapped, then battered and crushed by the shattering ice. Even as Kelara started towards the distant figure, the final spark of life fled.

  A brief tide of despair washed over Kelara. What hope was there for Ghyran when its mightiest denizens, the Jotenbergs and sea serpents, had been infected by Chaos?

  No, they must fight, no matter how hopeless their cause. While the Radiant Queen lived, the Realm of Life might yet recover.

  Naereids, to me, she cried. We must stop the serpents! She kept her tone buoyant, though they all knew the odds.

  While her sisters converged on her, Kelara swam over to the dead Naereid, and eased her poor sister’s spear from her unfeeling hands.

  Beware below!

  Alerted by Assani’s shout, Kelara extended her senses.

  Not one, but two serpents were rising up from the darkness towards them. She dimly sensed her more distant sisters scattering and reforming in their wake, then the lead serpent loomed up from the depths. Its great head was thrust forward, the heavy frill that edged its cheeks and jaws flattened by its passage through the water. The huge, luminous orb of its eye was clouded, no longer the rich, deep blue of the open sea but a milky green, the colour of shoreline scum. Its anguish washed over Kelara. Insofar as the serpents felt such emotions, it hated what it was becoming – and what it was being forced to do.

  The monstrous sea-beast ignored Kelara. Propelled by the sorcerous call, it arrowed past, homing in on the beacon of the queen-seed. Amidst everything else, Kelara could still sense the divine presence, whole, undamaged and on the move. But not for long. This was a threat the Lady of Vines was helpless against, perhaps oblivious of.

  Even as she thought this, the serpent twitched and recoiled, as though struck by an invisible blow. The sweep of its tail swatted aside several Naereids. At the same time, the serpent thrashing overhead froze, going limp.

  Both serpents started back into movement a few moments later. Yet they appeared oddly unfocused. The serpent at the surface turned on its tail once, then began to swim back down and away, only to pause, shudder, and circle again. The nearby serpent tossed its head, as though trying to dislodge something, then swam off, but at a diagonal to the Lady of Vines’ position.

  Kelara, attuned to the sorcerous currents weaving through the water, saw the truth. Usniel was fighting back. From the depths of his reefcastle, he was extending his will, trying to regain control of his beasts, or at least divert them from the deadly mission the Chaos sorcerer had set them to.

  Even as hope flared, a new apparition appeared. A third serpent swam upwards into sight. Bigger than either of the two she had encountered so far, this beast showed no hesitation, no sign that it harkened to the Lord of the Deeps. It was heading straight for the queen-seed, mindless insanity burning in its blank, monumental gaze. Kelara’s meagre magics could do nothing to affect the silent, sorcerous battle for control of the serpents playing out around her. But here, so close to the queen-seed, she could make a difference. This serpent was a creature of Chaos now. It must not be allowed to reach the Lady of Vines.

  Stop the serpent!

  Most of her Naereids had reached her safely. Every one still able to obeyed without hesitation. They exploded into action, swimming hard to keep pace with the beast as it slid through the water with sinuous swiftness. When they closed on it, they were going flat out. They would only get one chance.

  Strike hard!

  As one, her Naereids thrust their spears into the serpent’s diseased flanks. With several score hitting it at once, these pin-pricks got its attention. The beast convulsed, its progress arrested. It coiled in on itself, swatting the attacking Naereids as it sought the source of the irritation. Cries of agony exploded in Kelara’s head. The light of half a dozen lives went out around her.

  Again!

  Fewer spears hit home this time. The serpent writhed and twisted. Kelara ducked its swishing back-frill; once three times her height, the fronds along the creature’s spine had been eaten away to scabby lace by leprous growths. But even a passing blow, by any part of this giant of the sea, could end her life.

  Though the serpent had slowed, the jabbing spears were little more than an irritation. They delayed the beast, but did no serious harm.

  Kelara kicked forward and swam ahead, fighting to keep a straight course through the turbulent water. Keep harrying it, my sisters!

  She reached the serpent’s head. Just off to the side, Finala hung limp in the water; half her upper body had been crushed to a pulp, wave-wings and one arm reduced to stringy masses of flesh and membranes teased into streamers by the swirling current. Kelara tore her eyes away from the heart-breaking sight and turned to assess her target.

  One obvious point of weakness stood out: the serpent’s huge and baleful eyes, attuned to the darkness of the deeps. The half-blind eye on this side was overhung by a cankerous nodule that burst forth from the brow-ridge.

  Kelara swam nearer.

  The serpent still twitched and flailed under the Naereids’ spear-thrusts, but too many of Kelara’s sisters had been disabled or killed. As the remainder tired their attacks became less effective. The serpent started moving forward again.

  Kelara braced her spear under one arm, holding it close to her body. Then she rushed forward, sleek as an eel. She held the spear ahead of her like a lance, aiming for the centre of the eye. An up-close vision of the slimy orb filled her sight. After momentary resistance, the spear went in, puncturing the tough surface of the eyeball then breaking through into the gelatinous centre.

  The serpent convulsed. Kelara, remembering her encounter with the beastman earlier on the ice, kept a tight grasp on her spear. She held onto it – but the weapon itself was being eased out by the serpent’s frantic movements. It gave a last shake of its head and the spear tore free of its eye with a gout of thick green ichor. Kelara, and the spear, flew backwards. She braked her motion with a frantic kick and a silent curse.

  The creature’s eye was too big. Her spear had not penetrated deep enough to do serious harm. Did it not have any vulnerable spots?

  Yes, it did.

  The infected creature had opened its mouth in a silent wail of pain when Kelara stabbed it in the eye. Before she could think better of it, Kelara swam between its gaping jaws and into the cavernous maw.

  As soft darkness engulfed her, she noted the irony. She was surrounded by weapons such as the one in her hand. Some of this serpent’s teeth were missing from its rotten gums. For all she knew her spear could be a tooth shed by this very beast.

  Thinking this, she grasped the weapon firmly in both hands.

  For Finala! And Anela, and every other Naereid who had lost their lives to the march of Chaos. And for Ghyran!

  Bracing her spear, she swam with all her might towards the far end of the living cave. Her weapon rammed into the soft skin at the back of the serpent’s throat. It met little resistance, and plunged deep. Her leading hand came up hard against soft, pulsing flesh.

  The shudder that went through the serpent almost dislodged her. But she held on. She had found her mark. She pushed harder, pressing herself into the disgusting wall of spongy tissue in an effort to penetrate as deep as possible. A paroxysm of agony went through the serpent. The spear, slippery with its lifeblood, slipped from Kelara’s hands. With nothing to hold on to, she was knocked backwards.