Chapter 27
"All hands on deck!" Gerrard yelled into the speaking tube. "We're being boarded!"
"Greven is mine," reminded Tahngarth from the other side of die forecastle. The minotaur had drawn a striva, one presented to him by Commander Grizzlegom. He had not wielded a striva in battle since Mercadia. How fitting that this new blade be inaugurated with the blood of Greven il-Vec. Eyeing the wicked weapon, Gerrard said, "You'll get no argument from me."
Side by side, the minotaur and the commander descended the forecastle steps. Up from the central hatch streamed crew members. Most were seafarers turned skyfarers. They bore with them cutlasses and daggers. Others were ensigns and engineers to whom combat was an unwelcome possibility. Among these came Orim and her assistants-healers who now bore swords. All hands meant all hands.
Striding toward the stern, Gerrard greeted Orim. "You could stay below, wait for casualties."
She hitched her brow. "You'd be surprised what Cho-Arrim water magic can do to Phyrexian metal."
Gerrard and Tahngarth mounted the stern castle steps. They ascended beneath the port-side sweep of the wing stanchions. Suddenly another comrade was beside them. The stairs bowed toward his bulk.
"Karn, what are you doing? How are we going to break free with our engineer above deck?"
The silver golem reached casually to his side, seized one of the grapples, and snapped its line. The cord whipped loose.
"How can we break free with these grapples attached?"
"True enough," Gerrard affirmed, thumping the metal man on the back.
They hadn't time for more conversation. Greven and his il-Vec and il-Dal warriors had headed first for the bridge. The sounds of swords confirmed Gerrard's fears. He rushed around the corner.
The rear door to the bridge had been smashed in. Multani worked feverishly to regrow the wood, but he could not prevail against the axes of the il-Dal. Now only a single figure blocked their path.
"Get back, Rathi scum!" Sisay growled. Her cutlass bashed away the strike of an il-Dal axe and dipped down to open the man's belly. "This is my ship, damn it. Get back!"
Roaring defiantly, the second il-Dal swung his axe in a blow that would cleave Sisay's head.
She couldn't raise her cutlass in time.
The blade hummed as it descended. The warrior completed his stroke-but five feet off the deck. His axe clanged against Karn's silvery back. The golem held him overhead in a pair of huge hands.
"You heard the lady," Karn growled, "get back!" He hurled the warrior over the rail. The il-Dal and his axe plunged toward the crater.
"About time you guys showed up," Sisay said as she stabbed another warrior.
Gerrard shrugged, the move bringing his sword up to block an axe. "You seem to be holding your own."
"I seem to be holding the helm," Sisay replied with a barking laugh, "which means I'm holding everything."
Gerrard smiled. "I'd never argue with that. Of course, you can't take credit for holding Graven." Gerrard gestured outward with his sword. The motion simultaneously severed the arm of a foe and pointed to where Tahngarth faced down the monstrous captain of Predator.
The two warriors circled each other. This had been long in coming. Tahngarth was Greven's escaped prisoner, intended to be his lieutenant. Greven was Tahngarth's erstwhile tormentor, intended to be his master. Both had a score to settle. Both had warned off their comrades from their prize.
As twisted as Tahngarth had become in the torture chambers of Rath, Greven was more twisted still. Every muscle of his body bulked beyond natural dimensions. The cords of his neck, the sinews of his eyelids, and the muscles of his scalp all bulged beneath gray-black armor, but the most deadly modification was the mimetic spine that had replaced his own. It had made him the absolute tool of Volrath and now of Crovax. The evincar of the Stronghold could see through his eyes and hear through his ears and fight through his hands.
Greven swung his polearm. Its head was a pair of crabclaw blades set among spikes. Its butt was a mace that sprouted curved horns. Just now, those horns cracked Tahngarth's own.
The minotaur snorted. He bulled forward and rammed the polearm back toward Greven's face. Tangling his horns with the man's weapon, Tahngarth brought his striva in a two-hand slash across Greven's waist. Well-tempered metal cut through the thick leather straps that corseted the mimetic spine. The striva laid open muscle, stopping only when Greven hurled himself back.
"Your transformations have made you powerful," Greven said through teeth locked in a grin. "Let me finish what I began, and you will be a creature to be feared."
Tahngarth's eyes flared. "I already am."
He charged. His striva swept downward in a brutal blow.
Greven backed up. He lifted his polearm to block the stroke. Hands clenched and teeth gritted.
There was too much rage in Tahngarth's attack. The striva sparked as it struck the haft of the weapon. It sheared right through. The cleft ends of the polearm dropped away. The striva continued on, striking Greven's rib guard. It cut through that as well and severed the flaps of muscle laced through his sternum.
Tahngarth continued forward, shoving the blade into Greven's chest. "I want your heart, if you still have one."
Braced against the stern rail, Greven brought the two ends of his polearm around before him. The mace dug its curved horns into the minotaur's chest. The crab-claw blades sliced across his shoulder.
Tahngarth backed up. The striva came away from Greven, trailing blood.
"I will trade you wound for wound, Tahngarth, and you will die. I am a Phyrexian. You are a half-thing, a nothing. Surrender, and you yet might serve me."
Bloodied but unbowed, Tahngarth snorted. "Serve you? You don't even serve yourself. You are a man with someone else's spine."
Tahngarth attacked again. His striva sang as it sliced the air. It struck the crab-claw blades and bashed them back. In the same motion, it blocked the horned mace.
Tahngarth drove onward. His blade sank into Greven's jaw. It clove skin and muscle to bone, cutting away the lower quarter of his face. "Not so cocky now, are you?"
The mace and the claw blades converged on Tahngarth. One would spike his head and the other sever it.
Tahngarth ducked beneath the blow. The weapons crossed above him. The spikes impaled one of Greven's shoulders, and the claw blades chunked into die other. Tahngarth butted die beast with his horns. One point gouged through the torn leather corset.
Gored, Greven vomited blood on the minotaur's back.
Ignoring it, Tahngarth lifted his foe across his horns and hurled him down.
Greven struck the deck with a boom. His armor dug into the planks beneath him. He bled profusely at shoulders, face, and gut.
"I will never serve you, Greven," Tahngarth said, pointing his striva at the creature. "It is you who must surrender."
Laughing through bloody teeth, Greven barked, "Surrender?" Despite his wounds, he struggled to his feet. "You still don't understand. You do not speak to Greven. You speak to Crovax. You could never best me, Tahngarth, not when we were shipmates and certainly not now. No, you will serve." Greven launched himself at Tahngarth.
It was a suicidal attack. Whether Crovax tossed a useless weapon at his foe or Greven took the final moment of control from his master, Tahngarth would never know.
The striva fell. It clove Greven's head down the middle. The blade did not even cease until it struck Greven's mimetic spine. The captain of Predator fell, his split face striking the stern castle of Weatherlight.
Panting, bloodied, still full of battle fury, Tahngarth stared down at the riven form. He had his revenge on the man who had so tormented him.