Wings Over Talera - Charles Allen Gramlich [91]
Others started forward then. Half a dozen. Then a few more. I thought it must have been nearly all that was left of the ship’s crew, but I knew the character of the Nyshphalians and knew they would not quit until Vohanna was stopped...or they were dead.
The latter seemed the stronger possibility at the moment.
“Wait!” I shouted as I pushed to my knees.
Vohanna’s gaze fell upon me and the men halted their advance in confusion.
I looked at the witch. “Here I am,” I said.
She smiled with a terrible curve of her lips, showing yellow teeth that had been filed into miniature skulls tipped with tiny dagger points. Her hand lifted and a finger pointed toward me that dripped rainbow embers.
“Time, Ruenn,” she said. Her voice was almost soft.
I smirked, started to get up. If she were going to kill me, it wouldn’t be on my knees. But a new voice, strong and vibrant, melodic, cut through the tableau, stilling us both.
“Ruenn Maclang is mine,” Rannon Jystral said. “You can’t have him.”
I could not help but look toward the one who spoke, though Vohanna held my death in her hand. And what I saw snagged the breath in my throat. Rannon stood near the rail of the ship in a chainmail shirt and leather breeks. Her greaves and helm were of silver alloy, her buckler of bronze. She held a crossbow and a rapier whose blade was soiled with blood. There were others near her but she was the only one I noted. She was...exquisite.
Vohanna did not seem impressed. She chuckled as her glance explored Rannon’s weapons and dismissed them.
“I’ll leave you his husk after I eat his soul,” she said.
I drew one knee up, placed my foot flat to the plank floor in order to stand and be ready if Vohanna threatened Rannon. For the first time I noticed a coil of rope nearby, maybe thirty, thirty-five feet long. One end had been cut but the other snaked through the debris to loop firmly around the stump of a shattered mast. On impulse, I reached for the sheared end where it curled near my boot.
“No,” Rannon was saying in answer to Vohanna’s comment. “I’ll have Ruenn safe and sound. As my husband.” She sounded absolutely sure of herself, and her words were like a cool kiss on my fevered heart. Rannon loved me still. As I loved her.
“But you,” Rannon added to the witch, her voice growing harsher, “will get...off...my...ship!”
Pride swelled in me. But my hands were working as I knotted the free end of the rope around my ankle. Vohanna’s attention was locked on Rannon, whose words had enraged her.
“I’ll crush your ship like a rotten grape,” she raved. “And all its crew will serve me as—”
I exploded from my crouch and hurled myself at Vohanna. She heard me coming, jerked her head around to face me, her palms lifting, fire smoking from her fingers. I felt the electric heat of that charge as it coalesced, but she had no time to release it.
I hit her in the stomach with my shoulder, wrapped both arms around her steel-muscled thighs as I drove her backward. The ship’s rail was right there and we splintered through in a shriek of tearing wood.
Vohanna’s sharp-nailed hands clawed at my shoulders, at my hair. Her mouth was open, shouting curses. The wind tore past us. Pieces of shattered wood rained down alongside us. The rope dragged around my ankle as it uncoiled like a whip across the ship’s broken railing.
Ten feet we fell. Fifteen.
I let go of the witch with my arms, tried to shove her away from me. Her rage mutated into fear, into terror. Her curses choked in her throat as her eyes went wild. She clutched tightly at my shirt.
At twenty feet we hit the end of the rope and I screamed as it snapped taut, nearly wrenching my leg from its socket. The woven cord held. For a moment, so did Vohanna. Then my shirt tore and the witch