Bone Lord 4, стр. 55
“See, here’s the thing, Warlock. I already have more gold than I know what to do with. I’m Lord of Brakith, which is a wealthy city, and I have hordes of devotees in a growing religion. I’m also kinda attached to this whole divinity thing, you know? It’s damn cool being the God of Death, I won’t lie.”
The Warlock’s smile morphed into an angry scowl. “You dare to mock me, you puny insect?”
“Oh, I’m not just trying to mock you, dumbass. I’m trying to kill you.”
I squeezed the trigger on my wrist crossbow. The bolt was barely free from the rail when there was a flash of light and a puff of smoke. With that the Warlock was gone, and the crossbow bolt splashed into the ocean a few hundred yards away, having passed through nothing but smoke.
“Fool!” the Warlock’s voice echoed in the air. “You have chosen pain and suffering for yourself and everyone else in your cursed party. I will see you soon, Vance Chauzec. And when I do, I will wring your wretched soul from your body like water from a damp rag!”
There was a sudden howl of wind that roared all around the ship, but as quickly as it had come, it vanished. The Warlock was gone.
A strange scent entered my nostrils, like the coming of a storm. The hairs on the back of my neck stiffened, and I felt a sudden compulsion to flee.
Something was coming.
I dived across to one of the tower shields left on deck and plunged my spirit into the farthest depths of the ocean. I drew up every ounce of ancient Death energy I could and channeled it furiously into the shield. Just as I bolstered the shield with this Death magic, the air around me felt as if it was sizzling and crackling with sudden energy.
The world itself suddenly felt like it had split in half, and I was blinded by a dazzling flare of the brightest light I’d ever seen. Next thing I knew, what felt like a Jotunn’s dropkick hit me and smashed me down through the deck, through the cabin below that, and into the hold at the very bottom of the ship.
For a few moments I just lay there, pressed against the hull, splintered and shattered wood lying all around me. A shrill whining screamed monotonously in my ears. The shield lay a couple of yards away, battered and twisted and glowing red hot. There was a biting sting in my palms. When I looked down, I saw that my hands had been burned where they’d been holding the shield. Without all the Death energy I’d summoned last minute, I certainly would have been fried to a crisp. It had been a lightning strike that had hit me, I was sure of that, but this was no ordinary lightning strike. It was magic lightning, sent by the Warlock. The ugly son of a bitch was stronger than I’d thought.
Anna-Lucielle was the first to get to me.
“Vance!” she gasped. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I grunted, sitting up and dusting myself off.
“My ears are ringing, it sounded like the world was ending! What happened?”
“That was the Warlock,” I said. “And I have a feeling that that was only a taste of what he’s capable of. Prepare yourself, because Yeng is gonna be one hell of a ride.”
Chapter Nineteen
Three days passed without any more sightings of the Warlock or the Transcendent Sails, and we approached Gongxiong Harbor at dusk. The pirate crew spent these calm days repainting all our fleet’s sails. In place of the Church of Light’s white sails with the golden sun sigil, and the pirates’ plain black sails, all eight ships’ were now black with a gray skull sigil.
The Temple of Necrosis had officially come to Yeng.
Before we entered the westernmost port, we sailed through a fascinating bay where hundreds of tall, steep karst mountains jutted from the water. The rock was covered with dense green vegetation, producing the effect of gentle abundance. The land beyond the bay was just as mountainous and richly green, and the setting sun added a sizzling orange fire to their tops that stretched all the way to the end of the horizon.
The bay was filled with curious-looking fishing junks. They were long and curved, like brown bananas in the water. They had small square sails, and paper lanterns in tones of red hung from their masts. When we finally entered the harbor at the end of the bay, we saw more fishing boats, some Yengish and even Prandish merchant ships. There were also a couple of Yengish warships moored some distance from the main quay. Their sails were red, with a stylized gold dragon sigil. This, Rami-Xayon told me, was the sigil of the Glorious Emperor of Yeng. The warships didn’t come out to meet us; they didn’t even seem to be manned.
The town of Gongxiong reminded me a little of Lough Harbor back in Prand, with the tight-packed jumble of buildings. The buildings here were very different, though: the yellow-and-red-tiled roofs curved up in grand gestures off their eaves, and there were similar-looking awnings above the doors and windows. Other ramshackle buildings and market stalls were constructed with bamboo and woven roofs and walls of dry palm leaves. Crisscrossing paper lantern festoons gave the town a pleasantly welcoming atmosphere.
When we were finally mooring our ships, however, we saw that the marketplace was anything but lively. There were only a couple of vendors and a handful of people strolling among the stalls. Some were dressed in flowing robes of brightly colored silk, which seemed to be standard attire for the rich locals. Others were dressed in simple white shirts and