The Chronicles of the Eirish: Book 1: The Lich's Horde Read online

  Sure that the guns were laid the way he wished, the young man said the first words of his spell, using a dialect of ancient Aegyptian no longer used in that land, except for purposes such as this. He could feel the slight surge of energy start to flow through his body, not all that much, just enough to prime the pump, so to speak.

  The pirate ship drew closer, and more shot spattered across the deck and into the rigging. Here a rope parted from a shot, the sail it was holding flapping in the wind. There a bullet hit a railing, sending splinters into the air. The pirates yelled and shrieked their bloodlust. No one onboard the Ishara understood the words, but the intent was clear.

  As the foe drew closer they angled in, and the rifle fire increased, keeping the crew under cover. Men cowered behind masts and barrels, or lay down close to the railing, anywhere they could take cover. A few where hit, one by a bullet, more by the splinters raised by the shot.

  Marcus stood alone, staring at the enemy ship, the only person uncovered on the deck other than the strange warrior, who held his ground as if the weapons of the pirate were nothing to him. Even Master Aepep was not in sight, though the young man had not seen him actually leave the deck.

  The pirates were raising hell, continuing to rain a firestorm of shot on the merchantman’s deck. Rounds struck at Marcus, hitting the field his spell had erected around his body, losing all of their momentum and falling harmlessly to the deck. This seem to enrage some of the pirates, while others subjected the musketmen to derisive laughter at their observed lack of marksmanship.

  Grappling hooks flew across the closing distance, and pirates began to haul on the ropes, pulling the two ships closer. A small cannon went off, throwing a storm of musket balls onto the deck of the merchantman. A dozen struck Marcus’ field and fell to the deck. The first pirates readied themselves to swing across as the gap as it continued to close.

  “You might want to go ahead to do it, boy,” whispered the voice of Master Aepep in his ear, though the wizard was nowhere to be seen. “Before you have a horde of pirates on this deck with you.”

  Marcus nodded, still dealing with the fear of actually releasing the spell. He had done it before, on a smaller scale, but nothing this big. Done wrong and it would be his body lying on the deck, in a thousand pieces.

  The young man stepped forward, raising his staff in the air. It was made of the wood of the Tree of Power, a singular species that only grew in the jungles to the south of Aegypt. The wood had the ability to pull energy from its surroundings and channel it to the place its holder wished.

  Marcus shouted a word, then slammed the butt of the staff to the deck. The ship came to a sudden lurching halt, all of its inertia through the water stolen by the staff, which glowed with so much power it started to smoke. Some of that energy was flowing into the body of the mage, making his muscles quiver with the overload.

  The wizard shouted another word, reaching forward with his staff to touch the rightmost of the center guns, being careful to stay between the weapons. The gun ignited, while a line of flame ran to the other cannon on either side, then the final outer weapon. The power flowed out of the staff and the form of the wizard, before too much damage could be done to his body by the overload of inertial energy.

  All four guns spoke as one, but much louder than expected. Two blew back through their tackles to fly across the deck, one smashing through the opposite railing and into the water some hundred yards beyond. The other splintered the railing as it struck, rebounding back onto the deck to fall over on its side.

  The outer guns flew back, straining on their ropes, one of which snapped. But in their case they were held in place.

  The effect on the pirate ship was nothing short of horrifying. The four small balls, twelve pounds each, struck like they each weighed twelve hundred pounds, streaking into the wooden sides with tremendous deafening cracks. Huge pieces of hull flew into the air and out to strike the side of the merchant ship. Splinters flew everywhere, and the mass of pirates on the deck of the corsair turned into a mist of blood.

  Both ships were pushed apart by the force of the shots, the merchantman sliding through the water and tilting heavily, the corsair doing the same, with gouts of seawater flowing into the holes on both sides of the ruined hull. And then her onboard powder went up, along with what was left on the deck of the ship. From there it was only moments for the ship to start settling in the water, on her way down.

  “That was impressive, young Marcus,” said Master Aepep, fading back into existence as the invisibility spell terminated. “You will truly be a powerful wizard.”

  Marcus stared at the destruction he had caused, not really sure whether he should believe it or not. But there it was, before his eyes, not to be denied. The sailors were coming out of cover, eyes wide, bouncing between the sinking ship that had been their doom and the young man who had saved him. But the most horrified looks were aimed at the man who had destroyed the predator.

  Marcus looked around, his eyes falling on the strange warrior, who gave back a level gaze without fear. The wizard wondered again who he was, and what the tale was behind his being here.

  “You will tell no one what happened here,” said Master Aepep to the ship’s captain.

  “We would never think of such,” said the captain in a stammering voice.

  “Of course you would,” said the master, pointing a pair of fingers at the captain in a threatening manner. “I know you planned to sell us out to the authorities in the Etruscan port. As you saw today, that would be a very bad idea, as well as the definition of ingratitude.”

  The captain nodded his head, his eyes widening beyond what seemed possible for a human.

  “Do you think he will keep his word?” asked Marcus, staring at the back of the captain as he hurried back to the poop deck.

  “Of course not,” said the smiling master. “He will hold his tongue as long as we are within sight, then will spill his guts to the port authorities. But we will be gone long before that happens.

  There were some advantages to being a magic user, after all. Destruction wasn’t the only skill of the master and his apprentices, as the Etruscan authorities would soon find out.

  Chapter Three

  Tengri stood on the deck, watching the port draw closer as the merchant ship came in on the evening tide. So different from the lands that I once ruled, thought the man who was more than a man, if now less than a god. It was becoming more and more difficult to remember what he had been like when he had been the sky god of his people. In that state he had been little more than divine power, with a minuscule dash of personality, just enough to use that energy according to the wishes of his worshippers. And then the people had turned to his brother, Erlik, the God of Death, and away from Tengri. Tengri had lost his power, retaining only enough to manifest as a human, if still not quite mortal. Over the months, as more of the people turned to Erlik, and his energies grew weak, he started to develop the personality of a mortal. And he realized that the people he had loved would soon be doomed in their blind servitude of the Death God. Bound for the hell of the afterlife, not something he wished upon even his former worshippers.

  The only way to save them is to rally their enemies, so that the survivors of the defeated can once again live as real people, thought the demigod, looking at the distant twin lighthouses that marked the opening to the channel, just around the headlands. Smoke drifted from the tops of the two hundred foot tall spires, the sign that fires were now burning, and would soon mark the way in the night for the few ships attempting to leave or enter the port in the dark.

  The muscular man he had become took a deep breath of the salt air, another different if not quite new experience. The air of the steppes was also fresh, in a different way. The ocean he had traversed for the last few weeks reminded him of that sea of grass in some ways, though it was also completely different.

  “Lower sail,” yelled the voice of the captain from the poop deck. “Prepare to drop anchor.”

  They
weren’t into the harbor yet, and Tengri wondered what they were about.

  “Get that boat over the side,” called out the captain in a quiet voice to the four crewmen with him.

  Tengri looked over to see the burly crewmen moving one of the two surviving boats on its davits to hand over the side of the ship. It took some minutes to get the boat over with some grunting and cursing. The demigod was almost ready to approach the captain to see if he could get on that boat, to proceed ashore without the attention of the harbor patrol, when eight robed figures came out of the shadows and walked to the small vessel.

  “I appreciate this, Captain,” said the older of the people, who Tengri now recognized as the master wizard.

  “You saved my ship, and it would be complete ingratitude to allow the city guard to detain you,” said the captain, looking around the deck, his eyes stopping on Tengri. “And I can’t guarantee that no one will talk, or what the result will be when it becomes known that magicians are in Priana,” he continued, naming the port city. “The Etruscans have little use for magicians.”

  Nor do the rest of the Western peoples, thought Tengri, his sensitive ears following every word. He himself didn’t understand it. He saw wizards as no better or worse than the priests of the many gods who had railed against the mages for using magic that was not divinely powered. Sure, there had been some evil bastards using magic, there still were. He thought of the priests of his brother, Erlik, and knew there were evil men serving evil gods as well.

  The wizards were now all going over the side, clinging to the rope ladder leading down to the boat. Tengri was still tempted to take the boat for his own, but thought better of it as his sight focused on the power of the wizards, especially the master, Aepep, who shone with arcane energy beneath his mundane appearance, and Marcus, the young man who had destroyed the pirate ship, who had an untapped force running through his body unlike anything the demigod had ever seen. Tengri did not think that any priest or guard would enjoy an encounter with that youth.

  The demigod walked to the opposite railing to watch the boat pull away from the ship. The Master was standing in the stern, one hand aimed at the water behind the boat, the water rippling with force and the boat moving away from the ship at a much faster rate than could be produced by men and oars.

  “Aren’t you concerned that the authorities here might not appreciate you turning those magicians loose in their land?” he asked the captain in his deep rumbling voice.

  “They saved my life, and my ship, Master Tengri,” said the captain, turning to look at the giant of a man standing next to him. “I would be damned before the gods if I turned them in to the priests, no matter what those bastards say. Surely someone like you can appreciate that.”

  “Yes,” said the demigod, who suspected the captain had guessed more about him that he was comfortable with. And knowing that he would not repay the man’s hospitality with anything less than he had done for the wizards. “And where are they heading from here?”

  “They didn’t say, directly. But one of my crew, from Aegypt himself, said they were talking at length about Eireland. There is talk that the king of that land is more receptive to allowing mages refuge than some others.”

  And if they had gone to the Ming Empire instead, they would have been welcomed with open arms by the wizard emperor of that land, thought Tengri, wondering why the mages hadn’t tried to reach that nation, even though it was threatened with destruction by the same nomads he had left behind. They wouldn’t have known that until they arrived.

  “I also am trying to get to Eireland,” said Tengri, looking down on the captain.

  “Well, I’m not going there, Master Tengri,” said the captain with a barking laugh. “Unfortunately, the isthmus of the Latins is between me and the Western Middle Sea, and the only way I could make it to Eireland, or any of those fabled lands, is to sail around the Southern Continent. A journey I would not relish, crossing those monster and pirate infested waters.”

  “They say those same Eirishmen, and the Gauls and Bretans, voyage around that continent to trade with the East.”

  “And they travel in convoys of heavily armed merchantmen,” said the captain, waving a hand at his own vessel. “Not a lightly armed vessel like my own.”

  The captain walked away, shaking his head, leaving Tengri to his own thoughts. He knew he had a hundred miles of isthmus to traverse, either by canal boat, or on horseback. And another ship to seek passage on at the port on the other side of the isthmus, preferably one from Eireland itself.

  The crew worked to raise sail again and the anchor clanked upward on its chain. In minutes they were making way again, the bow cutting through the water as they proceeded at a couple of knots around the headland.

  The ship made its way through the pass, and the torches of the docks shone ahead, partially illuminating the many hulls with bare spars that took up the quays. None of the ships showed any kind of activity for making way. Ships usually didn’t leave harbor at night, unless up to no good. Most didn’t try to enter at night, unless there was good reason. Most would anchor for the night and come in at dawn, but Ishara had wounded aboard, men who needed the services of a healer, even a few for which such a service might still not be enough.

  I could have healed them, thought the demigod, looking over the side and back at the captain’s cabin beneath the poop. Its windows were lit, the master’s chamber now in use as a hospital, while at times a faint moan could be heard over the slapping of the sails and the rushing of water past the hull. But that would have been dangerous, thought Tengri, still trying to get used to his mortal body. It would indeed have been dangerous, to those fools who tried to meddle in his business. Tengri still had the attitude of a god, and lacked much of the empathy that most mortals had for others of their kind. He knew that attitude might someday get him into trouble he couldn’t handle, but his arrogance kept him from caring too much.

  The ship was now in the middle of the harbor, and naval etiquette called for them to wait until a harbormaster’s boat came to them so they could learn what quay they would need to be towed to so they could tie up. The sails were pulled up into their stored configuration on the yards, and the ship lost way without the wind to push them. The clinking of chains sounded over the yells of men as the anchor dropped with a splash.

  The sound of oars in their locks roused him from his thoughts.

  “Ahoy, the ship,” called out voices from below. “Why did you risk the passage at night?”

  “We have wounded men aboard,” yelled the captain in return, running up to the poop railing. “We met pirates on the open seas, southerners, and barely escaped with our lives. But the men need aid the soonest.”

  There was some muttering below, then men climbed up onto the ship, among them a robed priest who was led immediately to the captain’s cabin, so that he might begin the treatment of the men.

  “You were lucky to survive such pirates,” said a man who had the appearance of an officer of the watch about him, with his chain hauberk and coifed helm. The man raised an eyebrow and gave the captain a look of doubt. “And just how, by the gods, did you survive an attack by those reavers?”

  “Some luck,” said the captain, shrugging his shoulders.

  “Uh huh,” said the officer, looking away, his eyes coming to a rest on Tengri. “And what’s your story?” asked the man, walking toward the large warrior.

  “I travel, on business of my own,” said Tengri, staring into the officer’s eyes, feeling a slight sense of triumph as the man looked away from the intensity of his glare.

  “I have stabilized two of their wounded, Lieutenant,” said the priest, coming back onto the deck. “But one man will not survive without a miracle. And such can only be contemplated within the environs of a church.”

  “Can he make it till morning?” asked the officer.

  “I would not think so,” answered the priest, shaking his head. “I’m also not sure that the man would survive us moving him down into t
he boat and taking him ashore.”

  “So we had best leave him be, for now,” said the lieutenant, glancing one more time at the large warrior, then back at the captain. “There you have it, Captain. With the rising sun a trio of ships in harbor will sail, and you may dock in the place of one of them. And then we will get your injured man to a church, if he is still alive.”

  “But, we hazarded the passage that he might get treatment.”

  “And he will have to wait until we can do something for him,” said the priest in a petulant voice. “I am only the god’s servant, not the god himself.”

  “And can you save him if he gets to the church tomorrow? If he is still alive.”

  “That is up to the god,” said the priest, waving off the concern of the captain. “If it is the god’s will, he will live. If not, then may he journey to paradise.”

  Tengri stared at the man in disbelief. He knew for a fact the much talked about paradise of the many priesthoods was not what they thought. Something of man survived death, but not as much of them, their personality and memories, as they thought. Mostly just the meme of their existence, to be absorbed into the spirit of the planet, where the energy could be rebirthed into another being.

  “Who are you?” asked the priest, staring at Tengri.

  Tengri looked back at the man, feeling the intensity of his regard. The priest’s yes widened, and his lip started to tremble. He grabbed the arm of the lieutenant and whispered in his ear. Tengri heard the words, “god who walks,” from the priest’s lips, and the guard officer looked at the large warrior with surprise. In a moment they were both heading for the railing, to climb down the ladder to the boat below.

  The demigod thought for a moment about swimming ashore, quite the task for a normal human carrying his weight of armor, but something he was sure he could accomplish with ease. And why would I run from mortals? thought Tengri, his ego stomping on his common sense for the moment. He was still having problems with the emotions that came with his new, corporeal body. Anger he could handle, as that was an emotion he had felt even in his form as a sky god. Fear was not, and his normal reaction to it was first denial of the emotion, then even stronger denial of the reason for the fear, the fact that he could now be harmed.