Dragonwall (The Empires Trilogy) by Troy Denning

Author:Troy Denning [Denning, Troy]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780786964000
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Publishing
Published: 2012-09-25T00:00:00+00:00

11

Yenching

On the Shengti River, as in the summer palace, the night was humid and black. Despite the warm drizzle, the General of the Northern Marches remained on deck with his ship’s first mate. The wiry riverman hung over the gunwale with a lamp in his hand, watching the dark waters for any hint of trouble. The man’s shirtless torso glistened with what might have been rainwater, but was more likely a nervous sweat. Periodically, he called out an instruction that another boatman promptly relayed to the helmsman.

The hull bumped something pulpy, and Batu inhaled sharply. “What is it?”

When the mate did not answer promptly, Batu feared they had hit a sandbar. The summer flood season had ended two weeks ago, and the river had since returned to normal, exposing hazards that had not previously troubled the general’s fleet. Already tonight, a dozen ships had run aground. Batu was beginning to regret his decision to continue upriver in darkness.

“What did we hit?” Batu repeated, laying a hand on the mate’s bare back.

The man did not look up. “I don’t know, General, but there’s no cause for worry. If it was anything dangerous, it would have slowed us down.”

The mate’s reassurance did little to make Batu breathe easier. The moonless night was stifling and ominous, silencing even the owls that lived along the riverbanks. Only the sloshing of the fleet’s oars disturbed the quiet.

Behind his own junk, Batu could see another dozen bow lights twinkling in the drizzle. An additional four hundred and seventy boats followed the twelve he could see, but the weather was so close that it obscured the rest of the fleet completely. Had the other ships not been behind him at dusk, the general would have found it difficult to believe that they were there now.

Two more pulpy thumps sounded at the ship’s waterline. Swearing at the river dragon, the mate pulled himself back onto deck. His eyes were opened wide, and his face was as pale as ivory.

Another soft bump sounded against the hull.

“What?” Batu demanded. “Is something wrong?”

The mate pointed at the river. “Spirits. They’re blocking the way.”

Batu took the man’s lamp and peered over the gunwale. The smell of rancid meat assaulted his nose. He retched and nearly dropped the lamp. A bloated white form with stiff arms and puffy legs drifted into view. It bumped the hull and slipped away into the darkness as suddenly as it had appeared. Though he had glimpsed the figure for only a moment, the general had seen and smelled too much death to mistake it for anything but a decaying corpse.

Another half-dressed cadaver came into view, bringing with it the renewed stench of rotten flesh. Batu steeled himself against the awful odor and examined this body more closely. It had once been a woman, but the flesh was so grusome and pallid that he could not say of what age or appearance. She lay tethered in a bed of dark weeds.

The vegetation alarmed Batu more than the dead woman.

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