Book 3: Sound And Fury Ch 16

  Thriller

  Pontiff Lumos had watched with deep satisfaction, as his armada sailed for the horizon and their passage through the void. There would be no mortal screw ups or failures, this time. His handpicked officers were all true believers, their fanatical devotion fortified by generations of privilege, luxury and indolence.

  Getting humans to betray, abuse, ensve and even sy each other for trinkets and worthless baubles was simplicity in itself… Many could be convinced to do almost anything, simply by providing opportunities for them to abuse their fellow mortals.

  He’d mused thoughtfully on the absurd gullibility and adaptability of mortals, and humans in particur, as his fleet sailed out. Years of interrogations, inquisitions and investigations had discovered not a single clue or hint of where pontiff Luxor had been sealed away… or how the deed had been done.

  His small fleet was fully stocked with all the material the cult could provide. Six sve galleys, each bearing a full complement of marines and ritualists, led the way for a dozen heavy cargo vessels, den with preserved corpses. A legion of smoked and salted corpses, with integral armor y in their holds, awaiting reanimation once carried across the veil.

  The mortal officers should follow instructions, once they arrive on the prime world. Even such bumbling, inbred and indolent idiots, should be capable of properly executing the summoning.

  Poor admiral Gyllenhall firmly believed that the spell would allow him to channel the divine light, through a few simple sacrifice rituals…

  He would, instead find himself possessed by the shade Fletcher, a lich lord who hoped to join the inner circle of the church. That being’s only goal was to discover the whereabouts of the lost pontiff, Luxor.

  After fifteen mortal years of searching, it was time to use brute force.

  Perhaps it was his new, young and fit vessel, but he felt an urge to press the matter personally, despite the inadvisability and impossibility of such a thing. He could not cross the veil in his vessel in any case and mortal conflicts were chancey things at the best of times.

  /

  Empress Gabriel, unchallenged sovereign of the empire of Light, was feeling deeply uneasy; despite fine weather and calm seas. The clear blue sky held only a few hazy wisps of cloud, while the shallow sea sparkled and danced under a fresh breeze as her ship cut the wavelets with her keen edged prow.

  Three corvettes of her imperial navy had been lurking off Port Ellis, awaiting her… In open defiance of her expressed wishes. “Sail on, captain.” She murmured unhappily. “I’m still on vacation.”

  Hermione had the helm, wearing her silly northern barbarian’s garb, rather than her naval uniform and was far more rexed around her empress than she had been at the start of the journey.

  Perhaps because the empress currently wore the costume of a common barbarian sailor. The shocking scandal of the very idea had sent her more conservative escorts into fits, but she would not be moved. “Until we re-enter imperial waters, I am a tourist! Sail on.”

  The unfgged imperial vessel slipped by her three rger sisters, ignoring their signal fgs and shouted hails. “They seem insistant, my empress…. Er, Gabbie.” Captain Hermione murmured softly. “The signal fgs indicate a matter of some urgency.”

  The empress watched with displeasure from the rail, as the imperial naval vessels quickly set sail and took up station around her unnamed and deliberately anonymous ship.

  “Oh, very well! But if this is some nonsense, or if I see any paperwork…!” Gabbie stomped below decks to change, as sailors ran up signal fgs and lowered sails.

  “If I get all dressed up and someone just needs my signature on a document… I shall be very cross!”

  Since she had the empress, her husband and four naval fg officers aboard, including the ship’s actual commander, there was bound to be at least a little official idiocy. Light’s glimmer carried the empire’s three pirate princesses and first officer of the currently unmarked and unfgged naval ship, sir Tanaka, who had been rgely unseen the entire voyage.

  The swift little ship might be taken for a fast cargo vessel, such vessels often carved through the shallow sea, carrying perishable goods, luxuries, or items of dubious legality. The smuggler’s trade was still highly profitable, wherever seaports or caravans could be found.

  “I chose this ship specifically so that we might pass unremarked…” The empress compined mildly, when her first minister boarded from a small skiff, looking very green. “In much the same way that I specifically neglected to inform my courtiers of my departure or destination…”

  “Apologies, radiant one.” Lord Guinness murmured weakly. “My message is urgent and cannot be deyed.” In viotion of protocol, he held out a scroll directly to her divine glory, rather than to one of her bodyguards.

  Sir Dermaptera intercepted the scroll smoothly, and unrolled it a safe distance away from the empress, with a sour gre at the courtier.

  “My empress, we are at war… with an army of the dead.” Dermaptera announced coldly.

  /

  Lich lord Fletcher reclined on his throne of rejected materials and sighed a long, wheezing death-rattle through his current body’s ragged throat wound.

  His original host had been swiftly torn to shreds in the wild melee, when the assault force stormed the little town…

  The red armored warriors stationed at the port town’s little garrison had fought with dogged tenacity, grinding his force to a halt at the gates to the town proper, long enough for their fellows to close and secure the portal, sealing the defenders outside.

  Fletcher’s red armored foes had then doffed their sturdy helmets and stood silently as the rgest of their warriors clubbed each of them down, bashing their brains to mush, while his army approached. He hadn’t even been able to salvage the st one standing… A ptoon of archers on the walls had drilled a half dozen arrows into his unprotected head the moment his task had finished, and continued spending shafts on the body, ruining even that corpse for his purposes.

  His expedition was rapidly becoming an absolute shit-show, bogged down in a siege around a town that should have been just a simple raid for more troops.

  His corps of preserved zombies were holding up even better than he expected, even though the locals preferred to cremate their dead.

  That left slim pickings in the ground… He had to make do with whatever mangled remains his forces left in their wake.

  The reeking, patchwork panquin crab, sewn together of partially reanimated, mangled human and beastkin bodies, scuttled him over to another neat stack of battered, bloody materials. His idiots had dragged so much back to his ir, most too ragged and damaged to be of much use.

  With a silent flex of his Will, Fletcher’s minions began hauling the useless flesh over to the meatpile, for mass reanimation.

  Meat golems and patchwork skeletons were about all the locals were good for, once his army finished with them, he would have to wait for nightfall to start gathering shades, spectres and other incorporeal night stalkers to his banner.

  Over his six centuries of unlife, Fletcher had suffered far worse setbacks, but this was annoying… He’d already had the mortal officers and crew sin and reanimated, so there were not even any stupid flesh-bags left for him to punish for their abject failure. Torturing zombies was the epitome of a waste of time!

  Arrows and javelins flew from the walls, whenever one of his idiots wandered in range, on his instructions. The weapons could simply be plucked from the preserved corpses and saved for ter use, once he’d razed this filthy little town and…

  A rending crash from the harbor behind him drew Fletcher’s dead eyed gaze that way, to a scene of chaos… Tiny fishing boats, den with fmmables and merrily bzing, bobbed among his small flotil, as fmes licked and crawled over the pitch soaked cordage and wood.

  The filthy mortal fishermen swam back to the jungle draped shores around the harbor and vanished into the reeking verdure, casting defiant shouts and terribly rude gestures at his forces… and at himself in particur! The nerve of some living filth!

  The coming night would change their tune, as he could feel so many shades and spectres lingering at the scene of carnage the dock ward had become. Fletcher smiled with his meat puppet’s face, in anticipation of a rich harvest. He was going to draw so many shadows and wights from the blood soaked streets and tumbled bodies all around.

  /

  This is the end of On Ether Tides. Watch out for the next issue, to be released soon!