On the main deck ahead, a half-dozen crews were laboring to ready their catapults. The skein cords creaked in eerie protest as powerful dwarven slaves pushed against long levers, struggling to wind the cup arms down and lock them into place. With each weapon stood a templar overseer, complicating the dwarves’ task by popping his whip over their bald heads and yelling for them to work faster.
Behind each catapult rested a stone vat, half filled with grainy powder, while the ship’s wizard, an old man with a bushy head of gray hair, stood at the far end of the deck. With him were two assistants, one pushing a cart-mounted tub of black sludge and the other carrying a long ladle.
Under the sorcerer’s direction, the first assistant stopped his cart, and the second poured a ladle of sludge into the vat of powder behind the first catapult. The wizard turned his palm toward the deck in preparation for casting a spell. The process took a little longer than usual, for few plants grew in the Sea of Silt, and most of the energy had to come from a distant island.
When the sorcerer finally had enough energy, he uttered his spell over the concoction. A fiery yellow flash shot into the air, licking the yardarms and setting the sails to smoking. A foul, mordant odor drifted back to the quarterdeck, and the mixture began to burn with an unnatural golden light.
As the wizard moved to the next vat, Tithian turned his attention to the sea near the ship. The giants were still screened by blowing dust, but he could see that the Balican fleet had already closed formation. Off the stern, the Wyvern had come up so close that a strong man could have leaped from its bowsprit onto the deck where Tithian stood. Its foredeck ballistae, with their tree-sized harpoons already nocked, were more clearly visible than those on the foredeck of his own ship.
The wizard kindled his fire in the last of the stone vats, then went to the foredeck to await battle among the ballistae. The catapult crews locked their firing arms into place and stood by with bone ladles in hand, ready to load their weapons as soon as the giants were visible. The rest of the sailors, except those needed to work the rigging, stood in the center of the main deck. Half carried long barbed lances, while the other half, serving as a fire corps, held sacks full of dust. The flapping sails and crackle of Balican fire were the only audible sounds.
“Captain Phaedras is firing his catapults.” There was a short pause, then Ictinis completed his report. “The Lirr Song has gone down.”
“So fast?” Tithian gasped.
Saanakal nodded, and the ship fell even more silent than before word had come of the Lirr Song’s fate. Tithian stepped over to the gunnel and peered into the featureless haze. “Tell me, Saanakal, how many giants will we take with us?”
“A handful,” the high templar admitted, his voice emotionless.
“And the fleet won’t survive?” Tithian asked.
“Not realistically,” Saanakal answered. “We have shallow silt all around, so we can’t maneuver away from our attackers-and no one has ever survived a battle with a hundred giants.”
From the haze ahead came the muffled thumps of several catapult arms striking their crossbeams. A half-dozen streaks of yellow light arced through the sky, bursting into fiery showers as they started to descend. By the time the spray reached the surface of the dust, it had coalesced into a single curtain of golden flame. Across the distance rumbled muted roars and bellows, more akin to the yowls of wild beasts than the cries of manlike beings.
“The Giant’s Bane is taking a charge.”
The shipfloater had barely finished his report before the mate called, “Boulders!”
Instantly, Saanakal yelled, “Catapults!”
Tithian spun around in time to see the silhouettes of a dozen giants wading toward the Silt Lion. He saw the heads of a dozen different beasts-birds, lions, wyverns, kanks, and more-resting on the shoulders of manlike giants, then a barrage of stones came flying out of the haze. Most dropped short of the ship, sending silvery plumes of dust shooting into the sky. Four of the boulders found their marks, sending a series of thunderous crashes resounding through the decks.
One stone shattered a foredeck ballista. As its tightly wound skeins sprang loose, the cords knocked half the weapon’s crew over the side. Two more boulders hit the main deck, opening kank-sized holes in the planking and dropping a handful of reinforcements into the hold below. The last smashed a vat of Balican fire. Five dwarven slaves screamed in pain as yellow flame splashed over their shoulders, and small puddles of burning, syrupy liquid formed on the deck.
The fire corps rushed forward, pouring their bags of silt over the flames to smother them. At the same time, the catapult crews pulled their release cords to return the giants’ barrage. Even the dwarves who had been burned unleashed their missiles, still howling in agony.
The Balican fire streaked away from the ship with a loud sizzle, lighting the sky and filling the air with such a caustic stench that Tithian choked on the acrid fumes. As the fiery balls reached their zenith, the ship’s wizard raised his gnarled finger and cried, “Shower!”
The globes exploded, spraying burning gobs over everything beneath them. For a moment, all was quiet, then a portion of the sea itself erupted into fire and greasy black smoke. A chorus of pained screeches rolled across the silt and broke against the hull. Then, as the flames slowly sank beneath the dust, the cries died away.
When the smoke cleared, the twelve giants that had attacked the Silt Lion were gone. The reinforcements stopped battling the fire long enough to give a rousing cheer. The dwarven crews simply began to pry their catapult arms down again, though the five who had been burned earlier lacked the strength to succeed-no matter how hard their templar overseer lashed their charred backs.
Tithian turned to Saanakal. “I thought you said we were doomed?”
“Our wizard’s timing was remarkable-this time,” the high templar said, pointing over the stern. “But when his good fortune runs out, so does ours.”
When Tithian looked in the direction Saanakal had indicated, a cold hand closed around his heart. In the heat of the Silt Lion’s exchange, he had lost track of the rest of the battle. Now, he found himself looking on in horror as eight giants charged the Wyvern. Each carried a large battering ram in his hands.
The Wyvern’s foredeck ballistae fired. One tree-sized lance lodged in the breast of a goat-headed giant. Another harpoon pierced the scaly throat of a serpent-headed giant. Both attackers fell immediately, vanishing into the silt as if they had never been there. The remaining six hit the ship with their rams, opening great breaches in the hull and shaking the masts with the force of the impact.
Dust poured through the holes in rivers, but the shipfloater continued to hold the schooner aloft. Dozens of sailors rushed forward to thrust their lances at the giants, while the catapult crews used their ladles to fling Balican fire over the side.
Neither effort was to much avail, for the giants slapped the lances aside and easily dodged the clumsy attempts to pelt them with flame. They pushed upward on the rams with which they had punctured the hull. The schooner, still levitated by the shipfloater, tipped easily. Men, catapults, cargo, and everything else not firmly attached to the decks went tumbling into the silt. After the shipfloater and his dome fell away, the Wyvern itself settled into the dust.
When it was about three quarters buried, it touched bottom and stopped sinking. Survivors immediately swarmed to the portion of hull still showing above the dust, but it was clear they would not live much longer. As the Silt Lion sailed away from the wreck, the giants were using their rams like clubs to smash the hull into tiny bits.