The Mercenaries - Ed Greenwood [11]
And then she saw what was rising ahead of her. Sharessa gasped and skidded, frantically trying to stop. She slipped in oil and fell heavily on her knees, still sliding slowly forward; she jabbed her sword into the decks to finally bring herself to a halt. And gaped.
With a sound like rustling leaves, things that were gray, brown, and mottled ivory were rising out of a shattered clay ball. Angular things, delicate and somehow familiar-bones! Human bones! They circled each other, awkwardly, the skull floating up to surmount an assembly of ribs that seemed to be missing pieces, but still hung together and moved as if… alive.
"Gods!" Sharessa husked, as the skeleton turned its head for all the world as if it could see her, and raised a scimitar-a blade of bone, she saw with a sudden chill-as it glided forward. Bones clicked as it moved, swaying and dancing in the air just above the decks. She tried to back away, and grimaced. It wouldn't be slipping in oil, as she was.
Beyond the advancing skeleton more bouncing bones were rising in eerie dances, and she saw Kurthe snatch up a sailpole and smash a skeleton into spinning fragments; his defiant snarl rose into a yell of exultation. Others closed in around him.
The Tharkarans were shrieking and fleeing for the rails. Sharessa heard a despairing wail and then a splash, followed by another. Their terror was driving them to seek death in the sea! Something burst past her, heading for a wailing, running sailor, and Sharessa saw it was Belmer.
He was moving impossibly fast for one so fat. As she watched, he caught up with the crewman, tackled him, and they slid together past a grinning skeleton. A bone sword swung down and missed, and beyond it Belmer rose and slugged the man under him. When he scrambled up a moment later, glistening with oil, the sailor lay still on the deck.
"Sharkers!" their fat little employer roared. "Knock the crew senseless! We'll need them to sail, later!"
Flames were crackling and dancing over the decks now, the skeletons ignoring them as they danced forward, seeking the living. She saw Ingrar slip with a despairing cry, and Rings leaping over him with both axes flashing. The skeleton above the snarling dwarf flew apart, but she had no time left to see if its bones would draw together again. Her own skeleton was upon her.
She stared into its empty sockets out of habit, trying to read what her foe would do by looking at eyes that were not there. The bone sword cut the air with deceptive slowness, coming down…
Chapter 4
Bonedance
Sharessa stood in a trance and watched the dancing skeleton swing at her, but at the last moment she shuddered and flung herself to the deck. As its blade of bone passed over her, she kicked out at the thing's shins, saw it stagger, and scrambled to her feet, hacking at its sword arm.
It was not a pretty attack. She slipped once, then again, and ended up clinging to the brown bones she was trying to sever. That grinning skull turned to look at her, only inches away-and in a sudden surge of terror Sharessa brought the hilt of her blade smashing down into its teeth.
Bone shards flew in all directions, and with a snarl of horror she hacked and slashed, hewing at the headless undead horror until it flew apart. Bones fell and spun around her at last, and she staggered back, panting. The bone blade was still waving feebly; she stamped on it with both feet and ground it into the deck.
Another skeleton was dancing her way. Sharessa swallowed, hefted her blade, and went to meet it. Beyond it she saw Anvil cut down a skeleton with a rain of calm blows, like a woodsman chopping a tree; beyond him, Brindra laughed and hit one with a sail-pole, spinning the long spar in her hands as if it weighed nothing. The ghoulish thing flew apart around the wood like a smashed toy, its bones tinkling down the mainmast in a shower of fragments.
Sharessa dared watch no longer. Her own skeletal foe was moving to meet her, raising its blade-and then it wasn't. Kurthe had come around one of the deck boats at a dead run, lowered