Onslaught & the Vadeli Part 3

From: martin <102541.3423_at_compuserve.com>
Date: 16 Aug 96 14:34:44 EDT


Onslaught & the Vadeli Part 3

        Renna awoke to the sound of stamping. Her ears rang with it. After a week of getting trying to get used to the rocking motion of the hammock she needed all the sleep she could get. Now it was the noise of booted feet on the deck above that stirred her from her sleep. In a fury she stormed out to find the miscreant responsible.

	She should have known, it was him.
	For a week now he'd hovered around the ship like some armoured vulture,
waiting with terrible patience for its next bite to eat. He was practicing his sword and axe combinations again. Its all he did, practice to kill. With weapons, with his hands and feet and when he didn't fight imaginary foes he lifted weights and ran round the ship toughening his body even further. The sailors had blanked out the noise of his ceaseless training days ago but Renna heard only the screams of the dying and the moans of the wounded in each swish of the blade, each clink of armour. "Will you just please stop it!" She screamed at him.

        His lightining attacks ceased and his movements slowed to visual speed. Onslaught looked over at Renna, a slight frown on his scarred face. It was one of the geatest signs of emotion she'd seen on him all week. "What do you want healer?" he grated.

"I want you to stop, I want you to cease this dreadful noise and give
this ship some peace!"

        Onslaught looked at her momentarily then shook his head. "I will not cease. I have never been aboard a ship before and I must explore the opportunity to widen my skill."

"What do you mean? Widen you skill? Practice to kill harder against
invisible opponents? I'm sure you're good enough at that already!" She said tartly.

"Really? Let me show you something. Run down the deck and back again."
Renna looked perplexed. "Just try it, or can a healer not run?"

        Renna snorted. "I can run, I was the fastest woman in the New Crystal Tourney when I was younger."

"Then do it then."

        She did, she took off at a strong lope which would bring her back to her starting position in a few moments. As soon as she picked up any speed at all the deck slewed sideways as the ship crested a low swell and Renna staggered into the wall of the foredeck. She nearly fell twice on the way back for similar reasons.

        He stood there with an almost smile on his face. It was hard for a man with fanged iron teeth to make a smile convincing. She was annoyed. "Okay, so I nearly fell, whats your point?"

"You nearly fell doing something you've done all your life because we
stand on an unstable platform. Imagine for a moment, if you can, that I am fighting a warrior of lesser skill to me. On land I would triumph every time barring ill luck but were I to be fighting an experienced seaman with only slightly lesser skill than I on a moving ship when I had only fought on land, how would I do?"

        Renna saw his point. "So you practice your swordplay while on a moving vessal to allow you to fight without disadvantage at sea?" Though he nodded and he was right in his own way she still resented the noise. "Do it when everyone is awake then, I'm trying to sleep. Don't you ever sleep, you always seem to be training no matter when I awake or go to bed."

"I don't sleep, I have made a vow to Humakt not to, not to waste any time
with human weaknesses. The power of my vow to him sustains me."

"Thats terrible! You gave up sleep? You're mad!"
        Onslaught did his near smile again. "No, not mad, committed in a way that few people can truly imagine."

        Renna shuddered. What he'd given up was what had made him human. Now all he had was war, combat and killing. That was soul-rending in itself but what scared her the most was the fact that he had _chose_ that path, not been forced into it.

"Sail ho!" Yelled the lookout.

        Odrough was on the deck in moments, peering out to sea. The dawn air was still hazy and he saw nothing. He climed the mainmast and saw for himself. When he came back down his expression was grim.

        Renna felt impatient with these taciturn sailor. "Whats wrong captain? What did you see?"

        Odrough looked over at the horizon. "I saw a Crimson sailed ship closing fast." The crew muttered in concern at this. Odrough continued. "Its the Crimson Corsairs, I've heard whispers that they were out there but no ship has ever survived an encounter with them, only seen them at distance." Odrough looked around at his crew. "Well lads, were going to be the first ship that tells the tale of the Crimson ship!" His men cheered, they had confidence in him, he was the best in Handra, if anyone could save them it was him.

        Renna watched as the crew bustled into action under the bellowing voice of the Captain. The ship slewed hard and headed for the distant coastline, sails billowing as they caught the wind.

        Nearly an hour later Odrough was cursing audibly. "Damn them, they've got me going in against a land wind, I have to tack an hour to gain a league!"

"They're gaining?" Asked Onslaught who'd spent much time putting on his
armour and checking his weapons in the last hour.

"Hells yes they're gaining! They don't seem to need the wind. I figured
I could lose them in the Wenelian Isles, I know them like the back of me hand but the Gods of wind have forsaken us today."

        Onslaught and Renna looked over the stern. The red ship was clearly visible now. The dawn mist had lifted and the air had a crystal clarity which showed how the crimson vessal cut straight towards them as if it were using a different wind to the rest of the world. At its rate of gain it would be on them in half an hour.

        Onslaught turned to Odrough who still stood fuming. "Captain, you'll have to stand to to repel borders sooner or later. They are going to catch us. How well armed is your crew?"

        Odrough looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. "I have twenty-three men including myself. We've got boarding pikes, good Pasos swords and some leather armour. Some bows too. Our best protection has always been our size. No Wolf Pirate can easily board us, we have much greater freeboard than any of 'em. But that ship." He pointed to the Crimson Corsair. "Its as big, if not bigger than us. Obviously a warship from its lines. Catapults mounted front and back and without big holds it could carry maybe a hundred men. Warriors all I would guess."

"So we're outmatched?"

        Odrough nodded solemly. "Aye but we'll fight. Handrans don't give up their ships easy, whether to storm of pirate. Its not our way."

"Good, for I made a vow to stand by you and your crew. If we're
outmatched and outnumbered it will be a good fight!" Onslaught seemed animate for the first time since they met him. His black eyes seemed to glitter with a grim inner light and the aura of gloom and coldness that hung constantly about him seemed to expand and fill the deck.. Renna shivered uncontrollably.         

        For the next shift of the sun the crew worked to defend their ship. They hung anti-boarding nets up from the masts to the deck, they brought up bails and crates to form a bulwark around the helm and strung their bows and placed their spears ready.

        The first moment they realised they were in range was when a cheerful old seas salt named Frenk was picked up bodily and pinned to the mainmast by a spear sized bolt. The twang of the ballistae was heard long moments after it had done its deadly work. "Keep you heads down!" Yelled Odrough. Everyone complied except Onslaught who stood like a statue in the middle of the deck.

        For several minutes the ship was bombarded by a hail of head sized rocks and long ballistae bolts. Thanks to the little redoubt of cargo they hid behind only one other crew member was hit and only lightly.

        There was a shower of arrows that riddled the deck. A few glanced off Onslaughts armour or were struck casually aside by his drawn Sword and Axe. Then there was a grinding impact, wood on wood as the Crimson ship came alongside the Norramor.

        A horde of Red Skinned warriors unleashed a bloodthirsty roar and leapt from their ship into the anti-boarding nets defending the ship.

        The action had begun.

Martin Laurie


End of Glorantha Digest V3 #124


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