It crunched into the demon’s brow, rocking its head back.
She lunged for it, tugging away one of the heavy swords gripped by the closest hand, which was twitching as the huge beast sagged on to its knees. Blade clashing as she beat away the swords flailing about at the ends of the five other arms, she chopped into its thick neck, once, twice, three times, until the head rolled free.
Spinning, she looked for more of the damned things. Five corpses and nothing more. Apart from her heavy breaths, the glade was silent.
From one fire straight into another – she’d landed in the middle of a camp – and it was her luck that she’d been ready when they clearly were not. The fire burned on here and there, where the hottest embers had scattered. If she was not careful, she’d end up burning down the forest – and all the wood the captain and her crew sorely needed.
The handmaid retrieved her weapons, and then stamped out the smouldering flames.
She cursed as something bit into the back of her neck. Scrabbling with one hand, she closed her fist about something small and furry, brought it round for a closer look. A vole, with a mouthful of her flesh. Snorting, she flung the thing away.
‘Well, Highness,’ she muttered, ‘seems I’ve found some trees.’
Some beast shrieked close by, and the cry was echoed by a half-dozen more, surrounding the glade, drawing closer.
‘Errant’s bunghole, those things sound vicious.’
Pointless hanging around here, she decided. Choosing a direction at random, she ducked into the forest.
Absurdly dark, and the air was damp and cold. Plunging forward, she held her axes at the ready. A shriek sounded directly behind her and she whirled round. Something skittered on the forest floor. Another damned vole. She watched it pause, tilt its head back, and loose another curdling shriek.
A short time later she’d left the voracious things behind. The huge boles of the trees thinned out, with more undergrowth now impeding her way. She caught glimpses of the sky, a sweep of stars, no moon. A dozen paces ahead the ground fell away. She came to the edge, looked down into a ravine crowded with treefall, the trunks grey as bones.
Clumps of low fog wandered the length of the channel, glowing like swamp gas.
The channel was the product of flash flooding, and those trees had been savagely uprooted, flung down and carried along in the tumult. Studying the wreckage, she caught a shape in the ravine’s gloom, twenty or so paces downstream. At first she’d assumed it was a barrier of knotted branches and trees, but that detritus had fetched up against something else … a hull.
She drew out the splinter of wood in her belt. It seemed to be sweating in her hand.
Boots skidding, she half slid, half stumbled down the steep bank of the ravine. Avoiding the fog as best she could, she clambered and climbed her way closer to the ship. How it had made it this far down this treacherous, winding channel without being torn to pieces was something of a mystery, but she knew enough to trust this sorcerous link. Whatever shape it was in, there would be enough of it to be of some use.
At last she reached the hull, set her hand against it. Not rotten. She thumped it, was rewarded with a faint hollow sound. Five arm-spans above her was an ornately carved gunnel, the heavy rail formed in the shape of entwining serpents running the length of the ship – which she judged to be somewhere between fifteen and twenty paces.
She glanced down then, to see the fog rising up to swallow her knees. And in that fog, small clawed hands reached out to grasp her thighs, the talons stabbing deep, the limbs writhing like worms. Gasping at the pain, she pulled out her sword and began hacking.
Her thighs were shredded and streaming blood by the time she cut herself loose and worked her way up the side of the hull, using the clutter of trees and branches for foot- and handholds. Gasping, she lifted herself over the gunnel and thumped down on the slanted deck.
And found herself in the midst of a squall of black-haired, scaled apes. Howling, the dog-sized creatures bared dagger-long fangs, eyes flashing lurid yellow, and raised their knotted clubs. Then they rushed her.
From somewhere up the length of ravine, there came a deep, rumbling roar. But she had no time to think about that.
* * *
‘My ootooloo thinks this is sex – how strange.’
Felash glanced sidelong at the captain, her lids slowly settling in a lazy blink. ‘Back in the palace, there are exquisite mouthpieces carved in the semblance of a penis.’ She gestured with one hand. ‘All part of a princess’s education—’
Shurq set the mouthpiece down. ‘Enough of that, I think, Highness. I leave you to your … devices.’
