“That was an order, Haskeer. I want the new recruits mixing in more with the band; they’re not learning fast enough. Where do you get off ignoring me?”
“You can’t rely on ’em. They’re greenhorns.”
“What d’you expect if we don’t teach them?”
“I’m a fighter, not a wet nurse. Let Dallog suckle his own brood.”
“What is it with you and him? Why’re you so down on the tyros?”
“Well, he ain’t no Alfray for a start.”
“Shit, not that again. It’s time you got your head round Alfray being dead and gone.”
“More’s the pity. And who we got instead? A puffed up, self-satisfied-”
“Dallog’s not trying to replace Alfray. Nobody could.”
“You’re telling me.”
“You’re being too hard on him. On all of them. The tyros have paid in blood on this mission. Ignar, Harglo, Yunst. All dead.”
“And we lost Liffin, and now Bhose. Either of which were worth a dozen of those rookies. If you wanna talk about dying, Stryke, maybe you should look at the band.”
“Meaning?”
“As if it’s not bad enough having a bunch of learners to shepherd, we’ve a pair of humans tagging along.” He all but spat the word. “And one of ’em an orc killer back in Acurial.”
“We don’t know that for sure.”
“Yeah, right,” Haskeer sneered. “You gonna defend the other one, too, and what he’s up to with Coilla?”
“Whatever Coilla and Pepperdyne do is no business of ours, long as it doesn’t endanger the band.”
“You sure it won’t? This is a human we’re talking about.”
“He’s done nothing to make me distrust him. The opposite, if anything.”
“What he’s doing with Coilla’s enough for me. It ain’t natural, Stryke. It’s… sick. Now, on top of all that, we’ve got this fetch, or whatever it is, telling us what to do. Seems to me that all adds up to a pig’s ear far as this band goes.”
Stryke was about to reply, or possibly end his sergeant’s rant by knocking his teeth out, when Haskeer stared past him and glowered. Turning his head, Stryke saw that Dynahla had silently arrived.
“Am I interrupting anything?” the shape-changer asked.
“Not for me,” Haskeer said. He shoved past them and strode away.
Watching him leave, Dynahla said, “He has a lot of anger.”
“We all do. What did you want?”
“It looks as though the ship’s nearly ready.”
“Almost.”
“And we’ll leave shortly?”
“Soon as we can.”
“There could be a problem. I sense that the Krake is still nearby.”
“That’s another of your talents, is it, sensing things?”
“I have some ability to do that, yes. Not unlike the farsight dwarfs possess, though somewhat different in nature. But how I know doesn’t matter. What’s important is what you’re going to do about the Krake.”
“Any suggestions?”
“Only that you’d do well to think of a strategy before setting sail. The creature might not bother us, but if it does-”
“Yeah, I get it. That all you’ve got to offer?”
“I might be able to cloud what passes for the beast’s mind, and slow it a little. But not much more.”
Stryke remembered something. “I’ve got this.” He showed the bracelet Mallas Sahro had given him. “Could it help?”
Dynahla studied the bracelet, then bent and sniffed. “Elf magic.”
“You can tell by smelling it?”
The fetch nodded. “Different classes of sorcery have distinct aromas, if you know how to detect them. As to the efficacy of this totem; it could ward off minor magical attacks. Though you shouldn’t expect it to offer any protection against Jennesta.”
Stryke pulled down his sleeve. “And against the Krake?”
“A creature like that operates on pure instinct. We need a more physical method of hampering it. Perhaps your band can come up with ideas.”
“More time wasted,” he grumbled.
“Better that than facing the monster unprepared.”
Stryke had to agree.
Ordering most of the band to keep at work provisioning the ship, he hastily got together a conclave of his officers. Naturally that included Dallog, despite Haskeer’s silent though palpable disapproval. He wasn’t keen on Pepperdyne and Dynahla being present either, but knowing Stryke wouldn’t tolerate any more arguments, he curbed his tongue.
“We’re ready to leave,” Stryke told them. “Only we’ve got a problem. The Krake’s still out there.”
“What makes you think that?” Jup asked.
“Dynahla here can sense it.”
“Really?” Coilla said. “You can do that?”
“Yes,” Dynahla confirmed.
“So how do we get clear of the Krake?” Stryke wanted to know. “Any ideas?”
“We don’t,” Haskeer offered. “We kill the fucking thing.”
“Any useful ideas?” Stryke restated, ignoring the sergeant’s offended glare.
“Can’t we outrun it?” Dallog suggested, further stoking Haskeer’s annoyance.
Pepperdyne said, “Unlikely. Not from a standing start, even with a strong wind. Which we don’t have off these shores. Though with a good enough diversion I reckon we’d stand a chance of getting away.”
“Such as?” Stryke prompted.
“Remember what the resistance used against the Peczan forces? Acurialian fire they called it, didn’t they? Perhaps we could use that.”
“How?”
“Same way the resistance did; as a barrage, and maybe we could tip spears with it, and arrows.”
“That ain’t gonna kill the brute,” Haskeer objected.
“But it might slow it down.”
“Do we know how to make the stuff?” Stryke said.
Pepperdyne nodded. “It’s similar to a weapon we had back on Trougath. Mostly it’s oil. The other part’s something mixed in to make the burning oil stick to its target. We used various things: tree sap, soap shavings, honey, certain gummy berries. Though I guess we’d need quite a quantity for something the size of the Krake.”
“There are plenty of barrels of lantern oil on the ship,” Jup recalled, “along with pots and other containers to hold it.”
“And lots more scattered around the settlement back there,” Coilla said, jabbing a thumb at the jungle.
“All right,” Stryke decided, “we’ll try it. Let’s get that oil ashore.”
“Why bother hauling it over here? We could do the making on the ship.”
“And what happens if the Krake pops up before we’re finished? No, Coilla, I want us fully armed and ready when we set sail. So one party to bring the oil. Another to search out the tacky stuff to go with it. You seem to know about that, Pepperdyne, so go with ’em. A third party scours the settlement for pots and the like. The rest get making more arrows and spears. We need lots. And cloth or something, to wrap them with. Now move yourselves.”
Jup and Haskeer gathered the rest of the band and got them into groups. Everybody had a task, including Standeven and Dynahla. The human scavenged for rags; the fetch helped mix the brew.
Barrels were used to blend the oil and a variety of viscous fluids, some more successfully than others. Once they got the mixture right it was ladled into as many suitable vessels as they could find; pots, bottles, flasks, pitchers and jugs. Anything that would shatter on impact. Oil-soaked cloths, jammed into the containers’ mouths, served as fuses.
Arrows and spears were made in prodigious numbers. This should have been straightforward, but proved tricky because the wood yielded by the jungle was of variable quality. Once hewed, their sharpened tips were hardened over flame. Nor were the band’s usual weapons ignored. Swords, hatchets and throwing axes were whetted, and bow strings tightened.
All that remained was to test the Acurialian fire. Selecting a charged pot at random, Stryke positioned himself about fifty paces from one of the large, half buried rocks that dotted the beach. Fuse lit, he lobbed the bombard. It struck the rock near its crown and instantly exploded. The sticky, blazing oil covered a good two-thirds of the rock’s surface, its intense orange flame billowing black smoke. It carried on burning a lot longer than they expected.