Kingdom Of Royth

All except Blade and Brora. They clung like monkeys in a tree to the catapult, and as one of the creatures threw a yard-thick coil into the air, skewered it with a pointblank bolt. The air split apart with a hiss of agony, foam and blood showered them, and the writhing creature hurled itself at them, jaws opened to seize, the head smashing like a battering ram into the catapult. It flew to pieces, and in the seconds when the half-stu

Blade and Brora bent to pick up axes-more suitable for this butcher's work because more robust-then spun around as screams sounded from aft. The oarsmen had snatched up their weapons and armor and were pouring up onto the deck. The fanged jaws closed on one sailor, crumpling his armor and crunching his bones in a single motion; twenty feet of its body swept like a giant flail across the deck, knocking another half-dozen off their feet. One brave soul rolled clear, snatched up a javelin, ran forward, drove it into the back of the serpent's skull. The monster dropped its first victim in bloody rags on the deck, turned to confront this new opponent. As it did so Blade and Brora ran in, one on each side, waving their axes. The two broad iron heads came down, splintering the skull and chopping through the spine and a foot into the massive body. The creature died without a further motion, the sheer weight of its body dragging it over the side.

With two of her allies slain and a third wounded, Blade wondered for a moment if Cayla might not call them off for a space. But it seemed that the woman on Sea Witch's deck was now driven by a lust for blood and vengeance only a little less mindless than the hunger and fury which drove her serpents. At least she could guide them into a more cu

This time, the three survivors came on together. It seemed that the sea itself had risen against Charger as the creatures hurled themselves out of the water to smash down on her decks like falling trees, pulping the men caught underneath, sweeping others overboard, flailing and thrashing about. Their weight dragged Charger down until her lee rail was only a few feet above the water, their hissing deafened, their musky odor clawed at Blade's nose and throat, their thrashing made the deck seams gape and the hull timbers groan.

Blade saw that he and Brora were alone on Charger's deck now and that the ship herself was coming apart under the punishment the three monsters were inflicting. A few more minutes of this, and he and Brora would be swimming for their lives in the water, where any of the serpents could pluck them up as easily as a fish. He had forgotten about the larger battle, forgotten even to care whether Royth was wi

He and Brora backed as far forward as they could go and looked at each other. Even now, Brora hefted his axe and gri

There were a few remaining catapult bolts lying on the tilting deck along with the rest of the debris. Six feet long and steel-tipped, they were clumsy but serviceable spears. Blade bent to pick one up, saw Brora do the same. He hefted his, testing it for balance. The sun flashed on its head, flashed into the eyes of one of the beasts until now too concerned with obeying its orders to smash the ship down into the sea. It lifted its head, opened its mouth, swelled out its sides and throat with a deadly hissing. Then it lunged.

Blade and Brora leaped aside. Blade saw his companion backed up against the opposite railing, saw his mouth open in a scream as the creature's head swung toward him. Then Blade shut everything else out of his mind, concentrating only on placing his thrust and his axe blow as he hurled himself forward for the kill.

He moved so fast that his bolt skittered across the scales of the head, flew out of his hand and over the side. He sprawled headlong across the creature's back as his axe came down, chopping through scales and flesh and into the spine. The hiss of the creature in its death agony almost deafened him, and the putrid green mud that gushed forth from the wound seared his skin like scalding water and choked him like the odor of a cesspool. Halfblinded, he clawed at the creature's scales for a handhold as it reared up, until the dangling head was thirty feet above the deck. Then the serpent twisted in its final convulsion, flinging Blade high into the air like a stone from a sling.

Clinging by instinct to his axe, he saw the water coming up, felt it slam him across face and body, and kicked out furiously the moment he hit. But he went far under, far enough to see the weeds wriggling on the sandy bottom, far enough so that when he turned on his back and looked up the surface was a silver roof over a gray-green cave. Then he was struggling upward toward the surface, kicking off his boots as he went, dropping his belt and trousers, coming to the surface clad only in his shirt. He stripped that off with two quick motions of his free hand and looked about him.

He had expected that the two remaining serpents would be on him the moment he hit the water, but he suddenly realized that Cayla might not have seen him hurtle through the air and plunge under the water. If that were the case, she would not know to call her allies off from their job of sinking Charger to comb the waters about her for Blade. As long as he was invisible to Cayla he might have a chance of safety. He turned his head and began sca

He saw Charger, her ram now jutting green and slimy from the water as the writhings of the great serpents dragged her farther and farther down, churning the water white about her now-submerged stern. Bodies and wreckage were floating away from her as she dipped lower. He saw no sign of Brora. But he knew that in the murk the half-sighted monsters would have little hope of detecting anything more than fifty feet from their scaled noses without their mistress' aid. If Brora had clawed his way clear of the sinking ship, he might be hundreds of yards away by now and safe.

He turned back toward the flagship, in the direction where he had last seen Witch, and saw only the smoke and a skiff making her cautious way through the murk under oars. Then, turning farther, he saw two ships grappled together-a galley of Royth and a pirate galley beyond her-their decks a mass of struggling figures. He blinked water out of his eyes and looked again. Was one of the figures standing apart from the mass slim, with a head of hair so blonde and fair it gleamed even in the murk? Yes! His powerful legs churned the water behind him as he hurled himself through the water like a human torpedo toward the two ships. As he closed the distance, his few doubts vanished-here was Cayla, here was the final reckoning with the she-demon! Would tough and faithful Brora ever know about it?

The battle on the ships' decks had risen to its climax as Blade pulled himself alongside the Royth galley. Every few seconds a living man or a dead body would topple over the side, to strike out frantically or sink or drift away. Blade seized a rope trailing over the side, braced his feet against the weed-slick planks of the galley's bull, and scrambled up onto the deck.