by Nick Horth
Keep calm, Miss Arclis, said Occlesius, and for perhaps the first time she was grateful for the calming sound of his voice echoing in her head. Be ready. I will watch for the right moment, and as soon as I tell you to run, you must make good your escape. We’ll get out of this, I assure you. No one can keep Occlesius the Realms-Walker contained for long.
‘Here,’ growled the heavyset man who had her by the arm. She looked up to see an unremarkable two-storey building overlooking the harbour bay. She could see the water from here, dark and glinting in the light of a yellow moon. They pushed her inside, where a single brazier lit a featureless room of red clay, casting flickering shadows across the wall.
‘Our bargain is concluded,’ came a familiar voice, and her blood froze in her veins. ‘You may leave.’
The High Captains’ cutthroats filed out, leaving Shev sprawled in the middle of the room. Darkness loomed in the doorway to her right, seeming to shift and swirl with life. A figure stepped through the portal, a figure she recognised instantly. The expressionless mask of gold shimmered dully in the torchlight, and she thought she could see a faint gleam of silver light deep in its sunken eyeholes.
‘Hello, Madame Arclis,’ said Ortam Vermyre.
Oh no, said Occlesius.
He crossed over the room towards her, and she thought she caught the spectre of a limp in his stride, a slight spasmodic twitch. There was movement behind the masked man, and in the shadow of the doorway she briefly saw a flash of bright colour, and the shimmering orb of an avian eye, lurid yellow and burning like wildfire. She snapped her hand away, suddenly filled with an intense revulsion.
If Vermyre noticed her unease, he did not let it show.
‘My dear Shevanya,’ he said, and though he spoke softly, those words sent a shiver of caution through her. ‘I always knew we would meet again. Please, do not be alarmed. I hold no grudge regarding the ill-favoured nature of our last meeting. I hold myself responsible for the misunderstanding. Of course you ran from me, I accept full responsibility.’
The masked lord leaned close. The stench of ash and quicksilver burned her nostrils. She backed away, desperate to put as much distance between her and this creature as possible.
‘I told you once that you and I were destined for great things, Shevanya. I still believe that is true. For now, however, I require two things. The first is your cooperation for the next few days. Second…’
Vermyre stretched out a hand, fingers curling upwards like claws.
You must, said Occlesius. He will take me from you regardless.
Slowly, regretfully, she unhooked her necklace, and passed him the crystal. As soon as she removed it from her neck, it was as if she knew true silence for the first time in weeks, like a layer of her subconscious mind had been stripped away. The sensation was unsettling, and not entirely pleasant. She had got used to having the Realms-Walker’s voice around.
Vermyre held the orb a moment, staring into its roiling depths. Then he swept it into the pocket of his robes, and gestured for her to follow him. She did not want to. Whatever lurked in that shadowy doorway, she was sure it desired nothing less than to feast on her soul. Vermyre chuckled beneath his mask, a horrid wet sound.
‘You have nothing to fear from them,’ he said. ‘Now follow me, Madame Arclis. We have business to attend to.’
She got to her feet and followed Vermyre out into the night. He led her along the right-hand side of the harbour, lined with shanty-houses and crumbling stone walls. Perched upon these crumbling structures were thin, horned figures with jagged beaks and curving horns. Their eyes burned like coals in the darkness, and she shivered as they peered down at her malevolently.
‘Pay them no attention,’ said Vermyre. ‘They will not lay a claw on anyone unless I desire it.’
‘You’ve certainly improved the quality of your associates,’ she replied.
He laughed.
‘You may not believe this, Shevanya, but I’ve genuinely missed your company.’
‘Where are you taking me?’
He stopped and turned, raising his staff in one hand. The dark, glittering waters of the harbour began to churn and boil.
‘We’re going for a ride upon this. A gift from my new allies.’
A shape emerged from the water, shining in the moonlight. It was a length of red-tinged crystal, perhaps half as long as the Thrice Lucky, fashioned in the rough shape of an arrowhead. At the edges, the crystal folded back to form jagged walls, and a fan of spear-length spines jutted out from the sides of the bizarre vessel, like the fins of a deep-sea creature. Shev noticed that the underside of the craft was lined with strangely organic-looking hook shapes, like curved teeth. At the centre of the vessel rested a pulsing core of purplish light, and when Shev made the mistake of gazing at the emanation, she felt her head spinning and her stomach turn.
There was a sense of utter wrongness about this ship, about these creatures.
Vermyre stepped aboard the crystal ship as it emerged onto the dockside, and held out his hand for her to follow. She did not deign to take it, instead grudgingly making her own way aboard. Though the surface was slick with water and smooth as ice, she found that she could easily keep her balance. The vessel radiated a strange heat. The avian creatures moved to join them, not taking their eyes from her. They muttered and clicked in their own strange tongue as they boarded. Others, she saw, had mounts of their own. Ugly, disc-shaped creations, similarly organic in appearance, and lined with razor-sharp blades and serrated teeth. As they stepped aboard these bizarre devices, they began to lift into the air with a droning hum.
Vermyre intoned an arcane phrase, and the crystal ship followed suit, rising swiftly and gracefully into the night sky. It made not a sound as it rose into the air, but soon the shimmering bay of Bilgeport spread out before them, and they could see the light of the corsair port twinkling and fluttering beneath.
Somewhere down there were Toll, Callis and the others, at the mercy of the High Captains. Shev was not much for praying, but she beseeched any gods that were listening to help her friends survive what was coming.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Callis and the others spent the rest of the night in a lightless, stinking dungeon somewhere near to the dock district, listening to the shouts and drunken chanting of Bilgeport’s noble populace. Huge, evil-eyed rats scurried across the rough stone of Callis’ cell, and he whiled away the few hours until dawn by pinging rocks at them. Zenthe’s snores reached him from the opposite cell, and he shook his head in baffled astonishment. How could she sleep so easily at a time like this? They needed to get out of here, they needed to pick the lock, or bribe the guard or… something. Anything. In a mad rush of fury, he stood and crossed the chamber to rattle the rusted iron bars.
‘Hey!’ he shouted, hoping to draw someone near. ‘Hey, you out there!’
There was no response. Gods, but his head was throbbing. Whatever Zenthe had given him to drink had skipped straight to the hangover.
‘Rest your bones, guilder,’ came Oscus’ soft, calm voice. He was leaning against the bars of the cell next to Zenthe’s, studying his fellow captive with calm amusement. Callis felt a powerful desire to punch him in the jaw.
‘What’s your plan then, exactly?’ he snapped. ‘Wait until dawn to get ourselves drawn and quartered?’
Oscus yawned.
‘There’s naught to be done,’ he said, with an unspeakably irritating lack of concern. ‘Not yet. You see those bars, there’s no give there. There’s no locks to pick, or secret tunnels to escape by. So yes, we wait. They’ve already made their mistake by not killing us outright when they had the chance. We’ll find our moment, and we’ll make them pay. Or we’ll all die. Painfully.’
‘Oh, that’s brilliant,’ sighed Callis, slumping down to the floor and aiming a kick at a particularly ugly grey-white rat that had ventured too close. ‘Not for the
first time I count myself fortunate to serve as acting crewman on the good ship Thrice Lucky. Long may she sail.’
‘Careful, boy,’ said the first mate, softly.
Callis ignored him. His thoughts drifted to Toll. Where was the witch hunter? Had he been captured too? Maybe he was lying dead in a gutter somewhere, killed by the very man he had sought to bring to justice. And Shev… She was at the mercy of the maniac Vermyre, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Purplish light began to seep through the cracks in the ceiling, drawing vertical streaks across Callis’ cell. Dawn was fast approaching. He curled up in the corner of his cell, as far away from the skittering rats as possible, and tried to sleep.
He had only snatched a few precious minutes of sleep when the clatter of boots and a chorus of shouts forced him awake. He dragged himself to his feet. His head throbbed painfully, and his mouth was bone dry. Down the corridor came a score of armed men and women, rattling clubs and blades against the cells as they approached, making a din that did Callis’ tender head no favours.
‘Up you get, scum,’ barked the leading figure, a huge brute of a woman with one side of her head shaved, wielding a vicious barbed whip. She stepped up to Callis’ cell and unlocked the door, and two of her burly associates rushed in to drag him out with little regard for care or restraint.
‘It’s time for you to put on a show,’ said the woman, with a black-toothed grin. ‘Don’t disappoint me now, you’re to give the audience good sport before you croak it.’
‘That will certainly be the first thing on my mind,’ said Callis, earning himself a painful clout from one of his captors.
Zenthe and her crew were bundled out of their cells alongside Callis, though he noted that the guards were rather reluctant to lay hands upon the aelf corsair or her accomplices. For her part, Arika Zenthe was the picture of indifference. She stifled a yawn as they strode up the steps of the dungeon and out into bright sunlight, and the hoots and jeers of a gathering crowd. They were in a plaza of sorts, dominated by a gaudy, bronze statue of a buxom mermaid carrying an amphora, from which she poured a torrent of water into a hexagonal marble-tiled pool. Disreputable types were sprawled across the fountain like beached seals, all of them bearing the look of people who’d not yet quite recovered from the previous night’s festivities. The rest of the square was taken up by mobs of curious onlookers, sailors and capering street urchins, along with several entrepreneurial types who’d erected stalls selling dubious-looking roasted flesh or jugs of ale.
Beyond the crowd, Callis could see that the ground fell away in a series of switchback staircases, revealing a sunken, stone-walled arena surrounded by a rickety wooden amphitheatre. At one end of this ragged-looking coliseum there was a covered platform from which soared three garish flags. One bore the image of two blood-smeared knives, another a leaping spinefang drake, and the last a phoenix in flight, its heart pierced by an arrow.
‘The flags of the High Captains,’ said Zenthe, following his gaze. ‘They’re going to treat their loyal subjects to a live execution, then drink in the applause like fine wine.’
They reached the first stair, and Callis caught a proper look at the arena for the first time. Sleek, stone walls covered in dripping lichen dropped down twenty feet to a surface of slick rocks, dead coral and scattered detritus. It looked like a rough beach at low tide, and he could smell the slightly unpleasant tang of rot and brine as he drew closer. Scattered about the arena floor, which was perhaps three hundred paces across, were deep, dark pools of green-black water that glimmered like the eyes of a ghyreshark in the early morning sun.
The sound of the crowd reached fever pitch as the condemned were led down to a great iron gate at the rear of the arena. One by one they were taken out to this gate, stripped of their manacles and thrust through the entrance. It came to Callis, and he stood and waited for the gaoler to unlock his bindings.
‘What am I going to find in there?’ he said.
The woman smiled widely, and launched a glob of black sputum into his face.
‘Right then,’ he said, wiping it away.
The gaoler and her accomplices grabbed his arms and forced him stumbling through the door. He almost lost his footing on the seaweed-covered floor. From here, he could see four great sluice-gates built into the walls of the chamber, and a series of smaller openings dotted high up on the wall. Brown stains poured from the entrance of these channels, like vomit down a drunkard’s shirt.
Zenthe and her crew stood on the largest stretch of solid ground, a flat shield of sun-baked rock around which bubbled a stream of clear water. Oscus had gathered up a fist-sized rock with a flat, sharp edge. As Callis approached, Zenthe bent and grasped the rusted hilt of a sword that lay abandoned at her feet. The blade was broken about two hand spans from the crosspiece, but the remaining edge was sharp enough.
‘Welcome, welcome all,’ came a booming voice from above. High Captain Kaskin sat sprawled high above on the covered dais, reclining on an enormous cupola while servants and slaves dashed forward with plates of food and immense amphoras filled with wine and spirits.
The crowd now packed the looming amphitheatre. Callis could see row upon row of faces, cackling and whooping at the carnage yet to come. Bottles rained down upon them, along with a variety of less pleasant objects. As Kaskin spoke, the audience began to chant his name. He drew in their worship for a few moments, then held his hand up for calm.
‘Before you stands the legendary Captain Arika Zenthe,’ he bellowed at last, gesturing at the arena. ‘Scourge of the Taloncoast. Raider of the Coast of Tusks. She-wolf of the waves. How many of you here have suffered at her vile whims? How many honest sailors have been forced at sword point to relieve their ships of priceless cargo, or else be butchered and cast to the depths?’
There was a deafening roar, at which Zenthe began to grin delightedly. Callis wondered if there was anyone here she hadn’t made an enemy of.
Kaskin gestured for calm again.
‘Long has the noble haven of Bilgeport suffered at her hand, accused of deviancy and buccaneering by those thin blooded fops of Excelsis, those cowardly hypocrites, while all along they harbour the most infamous rogue of all within their very port!’
Another round of bellowing, and another hail of bottles, rotting food and assorted waste.
‘No longer, I think!’ roared Kaskin, raising his hands to the heavens, then taking a great swig from his wine cup, splashing purplish liquid across his slab of a face. The crowd’s howls bordered on the exultant. Callis never ceased to be amazed at the manner in which a gathering of mortals could indulge themselves with a display of communal hypocrisy. Looking up at those in attendance this morning, he wondered if a man or woman amongst them was even passingly familiar with the concept of honour or decency. The chances were stacked against it.
‘Enough talk,’ growled High Captain Azrekh, and though he barely raised his voice, it still carried clear across the arena. ‘Give us good sport before you die, Zenthe.’
He raised a hand and dropped it sharply, like the fall of a guillotine blade.
At that signal there was a low rumble of grinding chains as the sluice gates slowly wound open. A torrent of foetid water spilled forth from four quarters, splashing out across the rocky ground of the arena. After several moments the openings higher up on the stone walls followed suit. The water level was rising quickly. The crowd began to chant and howl like rabid wolves. Callis fell into a combat-ready crouch, preparing himself for the bloodshed to come.
‘Rally to me,’ said Zenthe, twirling her half-sword with easy grace.
Shapes began to emerge within the rushing water. Lithe, serpentine forms, covered with row upon row of hooked spines. Long, forked tongues licked and tasted the earth, as sightless eyes gazed ominously about the coliseum, and a low, hissing whisper reached Callis’ ears.
‘Voridons,’ muttered Oscus, who
still had his rock clenched in his fist. ‘Beware their bite, or you’ll find your joints locked solid while they start to eat you.’
Half a dozen of the eel-like creatures crept closer and closer, sliding in and out of the swirling eddies. Callis and the others gave ground, retreating to dry earth. One of the aelves hurled a stone, striking the nearest serpent in the jaw, smashing loose a scatter of curving teeth. It reared and hissed, its long tongue waving back and forth like it was brandishing a blade. Another darted forward and struck out, sending Oscus scampering backwards. They were blind, these creatures, Callis realised, but they could somehow sense that there was prey close at hand. With an unsettling, quiet coordination they spread out to surround their quarry.
A small, wiry aelf called Huvon, who Callis recalled had manned the quartermaster’s chamber on the Thrice Lucky, darted out to strike one of the serpents with a chunk of rock. It seemed to anticipate the attack, and as his hand came in it contorted its body and whipped forward, wrapping itself around the unfortunate corsair’s arm. He howled in agony, and the crowd roared their bloodthirsty approval. Callis felt his stomach turn as he saw the serpent’s spined hide contract and twist, forming a grinding maw that stripped flesh from bone with sickening ease. The beast tried to snap its jaws out and bite Huvon in the neck, but before it could strike, Zenthe rushed forward and hacked off its upper jaw. There was an awful, hissing screech, and the serpent released its death-hold, falling away to splash and writhe in the steadily rising water, releasing a cloud of blue-black blood.
Two more of Zenthe’s crew rushed forward to haul Huvon back. The tough old corsair was hissing through gritted teeth, staring up hatefully at the crowd who mocked and jeered his injury. The water was lapping around their ankles now, and rising faster with every passing moment.