Darkwalker on Moonshae - Douglas Niles [76]
The northmen heard the words, but mostly they felt the power of Kazgoroth’s unnatural essence. And the power enchanted them, so that they became capable of nothing more than following the orders of their king. Certainly, without this enchantment, the appearance of the leviathan would have driven them mad with terror.
But now the longships surged forward as callused hands took the oars. Transfixed by the awesome sight of their leader, the northmen ignored the deaths of their comrades, seeking only to hear and obey the next command.
“Swing starboard!” The next order rang out with the same clarity as the first.
Like choreographed dancers, several hundred longships swung gracefully to the right. The frothing surface where the leviathan had disappeared melted back to the dark gray of the rest of the sea. The longships raced ahead, as sails were trimmed and oarpower gained momentum.
Kazgoroth again felt the leviathan climbing, and calmly watched it destroy another longship in the same manner as the first. The massive tail smashed another vessel to splinters as the creature crashed back to the surface.
The Beast waited again, pleased with the effect of its enchantment. The northmen rowed like automatons, showing no signs of panic. Kazgoroth knew that the leviathan would soon change its tactics, for the leaping and diving attacks would sap its strength too quickly.
And then, when it attacked from the surface, the poisoned rams would work their own magic. The crewmen on his ship saw Thelgaar stoop down and open a long crate that he had stored in the bow. From the crate he extracted a harpoon – one such as these sailors had never seen before. Thicker than a giant’s wrist, it seemed nearly as long as one of the oars. The head of the weapon was a wicked barb of black, corroded steel. The air around the barb shimmered from the effect of its putrid essence.
The leviathan attacked again, and again, diving deep and then crushing a ship between its awesome jaws. Often, its tail, or the huge splash created by its body, would crush or swamp another vessel.
Kazgoroth watched perhaps a score of his vessels die thus, before the leviathan began to tire. Now, instead of diving, it swam just below the surface among the longships. Its great back rolled above the water like the coils of a snake. It turned suddenly and caved in the hull of a longship. It capsized another with a flip of its tail.
“Attack!” Thelgaar’s voice boomed forward, propelled by the power of Kazgoroth. “Ram the beast!”
The longships now veered toward the monster, triggering dozens of collisions as the sailors, their wits slowed by the enchantment, could not take proper care with the maneuver. Nonetheless, a hundred longships closed in on the creature.
Several died from the powerful strokes of the tail, or the crushing bite of the massive jaws. While making one of these bites, however, a ram plunged through the leviathan’s jaw. Roaring with pain, the creature bucked backwards, sinking several more ships with the frenzy of its agony.
Kazgoroth felt some small dismay, for the fleet suffered greater losses than the Beast had anticipated. It cared nothing for the dying sailors, only for the loss of valuable tools in the master plan.
Still, the northmen’s persistence began to tell. As the leviathan thrashed, another of the wicked rams plunged into its flank, tracing a long and bloody wound before breaking from the ship. Now the sea creature’s thrashing became more frantic, and a dozen longships suffered accidental destruction or damage. Several more of the rams slashed into the slippery flanks, and the creature’s struggles began to weaken.
“Forward!” cried Thelgaar, in a voice intended for his own crew alone. The longship darted forward, the figure of the white-bearded king standing proudly in the bow. His upraised arm held the impossibly large harpoon.
The ship drove close to the leviathan’s massive head, which now rolled listlessly at the surface. Thelgaar’s powerful shoulders flexed, and the harpoon rocketed forward