by E. S. Bell
Niven watched the grubby men drag Selena out of the keep. He had never wished so mightily for a weapon, and then realized the floor was littered with dead Bazira; Accora’s frantic bursts had been more deadly than any expected of the old woman.
Niven scrambled to Gareth. Blood leaked from under the ruins of his skull. Niven swallowed hard and unsheathed the dead man’s sword just as the window nearest the front door exploded. A bottle stuffed with a burning rag crashed through it and rolled across the wooden floor toward Captain Tergus who had appeared out of nowhere, a smoking flintlock in his hand.
The smell of oil was pungent. The blast was a clink of breaking glass and then a roar. Niven saw Julian sweep his long black coat over his head, and then Niven had to recoil. He shielded his eyes as a thousand droplets of flaming oil splattered him. When he looked again, Julian was on fire.
Niven scrambled to his feet, and tore off his blue and silver overtunic. He smothered Julian’s shoulder but the skin peeled off his neck in blackened curls. Nivine reached for his ampulla but there wasn’t time. Julian staggered to his feet, snarling curses and pushing Niven away.
Niven gripped Julian’s shoulder, squeezed his eyes shut, and uttered the sacred word. The orange glow came, smothering the burnt flesh and leaving much of it whole. Niven stared at his own hands and then Julian shoved him and raced to the back of the keep.
“Through the kitchens!” the captain shouted, and then ran the opposite direction, toward the front door that was all but obscured by smoke and fire.
Behind Niven, a native woman screamed. A second bottle smashed another of the windows that lined one wall of the feasting hall. Another followed, and then another. The bottles rolled this way and that, and Yuk’ri and crewmen scrambled away from them as if they were slithering snakes. A table burned from the first explosion; fire licking upward and spreading outward, fed by the hay strewn over the floor. Flames raced over it in every direction.
“Get back!” someone cried—a man’s voice, though Niven didn’t recognize it.
Niven, still stunned by what he had done, thought to follow Julian through the front, but Cat was dragging him the other way, toward the kitchens in the back—a path that wasn’t yet burning.
The second explosion lit up the room, heating the air with roaring flames and spitting burning oil and shards of glass. A third bottle ignited shortly after, and Niven and Cat were thrown against the wall. Niven bit back a scream as hot oil spattered his face and the back of his neck. Cat shrieked.
The room roiled with biting smoke and then the final bottle exploded on the other side of the room near the stairs that led to the upper floors. The walls’ musty tapestries were afire, as were several of the dead bodies. Niven’s eyes watered at the stench of burning flesh and he ran blindly, crashing into Cat, stumbling through the kitchen, and then he was outside, sucking in clean air. Many Yuk’ri and the rest of the crew were scattered all over the grass of the inner bailey, well away from the burning keep.
“Niven!”
Grunt lay with Whistle’s head in his lap. The boy cradled his arm that was burnt bare of clothing, his face a grimace of agony. His flesh bubbled; sickening white blisters boiling up even as Niven watched. “His back too,” Grunt cried. “I can feel the heat.”
Niven’s own face and neck were spotted with burning oil droplets, but he ignored the pain that must be nothing compared to Whistle’s arm. Niven started to reach for the moon and his ampulla, but instead heaved a deep breath and laid his hands on the boy. He muttered the word and the healing glow dutifully came, emanating from under his palm and spreading over the wounds. The flesh knitted itself in some places but remained red and raw up to his elbow. Too much oil on his skin. Niven thought of Selena’s lesson with Jorqui. He asked for healing, and then held on to the answering glow.
The pain in his own face and neck vanished and Niven felt infused with power. With his newfound energy, Niven called for more healing magic and then sent it to Whistle. His flesh’s angry red shade lightened to pink, and then to his natural color. He stared at his own healed flesh while Cur, behind him, sank to his knees in relief. Grunt stroked the boy’s hair and murmured soothing words.
Niven looked around at those gathered on the grass, and hurried to a Yuk’ri man’s whose hands were raw and red. Niven healed him while the keep burned like a stone oven, full of flame.
“Ilior! Where’s Ilior?” he cried just as a huge single-winged shape loped down the small hill, into the jungle where the pirates and Bazira had gone. Cat tore down the hill after, a cutlass in one hand and a small knife in the other. She was missing one glove and her bare hand was as orange as her hair.
Was she burned? Is that oil? He sat back on his heels, exhausted from healing and his nerves jangling from the attack that had been so sudden and so violent.
Now that Whistle was safe, the crew of the Black Storm had gathered their weapons to follow. Grunt pushed a sword into Niven’s hand and Niven took it. It was a Bazira’s curved blade.
“And you,” Niven said. “You can speak.” The old sea dog didn’t reply but turned and loped down the hill and Ori was suddenly at Niven’s side, her white shift smudged with soot. “He can speak,” he told her, bewildered.
“Strange night. Strange tidings.” The black pits of her eyes danced with the flames of the burning keep. “And what about you, Aluren? Are you ready to fight?”
Niven glanced down at his hand that had healed without moon or seawater, and that now gripped a sword. “Yes.” He swallowed hard. “Yes,” he said again, louder. “Paladin Koren needs me.”
He hefted his borrowed sword and ran down the hill, toward the wilds of Saliz’s jungle.
I’m in Svoz’s realm, for failing to fulfill the blood oath. Sebastian’s ears rang and his neck screamed in hot agony, but then the smoke from the first bottle’s explosion dissipated enough to reveal he wasn’t dead. He was on fire. His long black coat had protected his face from the blast but he was sure his hair would go up like Boris’s had on Isle Nanokar. Niven appeared. The adherent smothered the flames with his Aluren garb and prayed for healing.
Sebastian felt the glow soothe his skin and the shock of the pain released him enough to get his bearings. Those miserable shit-eating bastards had dragged Selena from the house. He tore away from Niven as more windows shattered and glass bottles rolled at his feet.
Keep them safe, she’d said.
“Through the kitchens!” he told the others, then left them to either obey or die. He’d done his part.
He raced across the hall, hurdling the dead. Sebastian stopped long enough to grab Gareth’s flintlock and that of another dead pirate beside him, and then more explosions lit up the keep. He threw himself into the stony inner bailey as the feasting hall became an inferno of orange flame and sizzling oil.
Sebastian rolled and came up on his feet. Men loped out the darkness with flaming glass bottles in hand. Sebastian took aim with his newly acquired pistols and pulled the triggers. There had been six men in all, then there were four.
The survivors hurled their missiles at the keep, shattering windows as Sebastian dropped the smoking pistols and replaced them with scimitars. He cut down the pirate nearest him, slicing the man at neck and belly. The other three men turned tail and ran, following the group that headed into the jungle. Sebastian gripped his blades tighter and gave chase.
The jungle sought to take back the stone-and-mortar keep; foliage crept out of the denser forest a few hundred spans from the outer bailey wall, and reclaimed the land a few paces after that. Sebastian plunged in. Dark shapes loped in front of him and shouts of men rang out and were immediately swallowed by the thick air and thicker plant life blotted the sky above and the ground below. He fought to keep the men in sight lest the jungle swallow him whole. Vines curled around his boots to trip him and he had to hack and slice at wide-leafed plants that barred his way.
When the jungle finally thinned, the sky showed the first hints of dawn in the sky ahead of
him. Sebastian inhaled the greatest of scents: ocean air. A hundred more steps and the forest broke to a narrow beach of pale sand. On the Harrowing Sea, a huge frigate sat at anchor less than a half league out, like a floating black castle draped in linen. Her three masts were heavy with square sails, her gunwales loaded with cannon. On the northeastern curve of the beach, black-clad Bazira climbed into skiffs while the pirates who served them strained to shove them off. Sebastian recognized his own olive skin and dark hair among the pirates and guessed they weren’t pirates at all. Bazira recruits. Bazira fodder. He spat and ran harder.
A glint of pale hair was visible in one of the dinghies for a brief moment and then obscured again. Selena. A red haze erased his thoughts and he started down the beach when a huge shape loped past him, flashing steel. Ilior stormed the men at the skiffs and loosed a roar as strong as the crashing surf but that ended in a choking gasp. Three Bazira adherents ringed around him. Lances of ice bolted from their open palms that left white patches on his gray skin, and drove him to his knees.
Intent on their prey, the Bazira didn’t see Sebastian until it was far too late. They died quickly, his blades puncturing lungs and severing spines. From a departing skiff, another adherent barked orders for the Farendii pirates to stop him. Soon Sebastian found himself fending off six or seven cutlasses at once. He spun and ducked and danced. His scimitars arced through the air in twin paths, or split apart to bite and cut in a masterful sequence that required his next adversaries to trip over the dead to get to him. Flintlocks fired. Several kicked up little bursts of sand as they hit the beach. One hit the shooter’s own man. One grazed Sebastian’s thigh, though he hardly felt it. He moved too fast to think but in the periphery of his awareness he knew that the dinghy that held Selena had shoved off and would soon be too deep to reach.
The last man fell and corpses ringed Sebastian. Men he might have sailed with or drank with or fished with, had war not torn his life apart, lay dead at his hand. Gasping like a bellows, he turned to the shore. All dinghies had shoved off. The boat that held Selena—and Accora too, the old woman slumped against the younger—was fifteen spans out now. Ilior remained crouched on the sand, unmoving, his skin a patchwork of white and gray.
“Get up or she’s lost,” Sebastian snarled, and lunged into the surf.
He took four strides through knee-high water when a magnificent pain flared behind his eyes. Purple and yellow stars burst in his vision and hot blood gushed down the back of his skull. The strength in his legs seemed to drain out with his blood and he fell to his knees. His scimitars disappeared beneath the boiling surf as a rough hand gripped his hair from behind, forcing him to stand. The pain in his head was like a thousand bottles of hot oil bursting at once. His attacker spun him around and Sebastian watched with a dull fascination as the man brought up his cudgel for the killing blow.
“That’s enough out of you,” said the man voice in his ear and in the heartbeat before the Farendii smashed his head open, Sebastian marveled how the night’s perfection could be so utterly destroyed in a handful of minutes.
“Krystak!”
The man arched his back, a grimace of pain contorting his features. Ice rimed the man’s open mouth. The cudgel splashed and then the man did, falling face down into the surf.
Sebastian felt like doing the same.
“Sebastian Vaas,” said a woman’s voice, cool and amused. “I’ve missed you.”
The world was spinning madly but Sebastian saw a slender form, a curved silver blade, and red hair that glowed like dying embers. The woman stood beside him but at a careful distance.
“Jude Gracus,” she said. “We met on Isle Kabak.”
“I know who you are,” Sebastian muttered dully. He swayed on his feet. The boats were escaping; small shadows gliding toward the larger Bazira frigate. Only one skiff remained ashore, manned by six men, all Bazira.
“My lord, the Vicar, was right,” Jude said. “The weakness in you…I can smell it like the blood you bleed for Selena Koren. It was her head you were supposed to give me. Instead, you nearly lost yours.” She made a tsking sound with her teeth. “Not the stuff of ballads, Bloody Bastian.
His knees wanted to buckle and he let them. The water came up to his waist, swirling darkly about him.
“You were a failed experiment. Bacchus will see to your salvation, and the Vicar will reward me for doing what you could not.” She jerked her chin. “Pick him up.”
Sebastian felt rough hands grab him under his arms; men he hadn’t known were there. Pain assaulted him from a thousand places, but his head throbbed murderously. He retched. From pain. From failure.
Just like Mina. You couldn’t save her either.
Jude’s voice sounded sour. “Unbecoming. You’re such a beautiful creature, Sebastian Vaas. Or you were.” Now that he was safely bound with rope at his wrists, she drew near, and ran her fingers over the burnt skin of his neck that Niven hadn’t been able to heal. “I’ll take care of you, love.”
The men dragged him, and Sebastian watched the ground skim from surf, to sand, to planking. He was tossed onto a dinghy. Thank the gods, he thought. If they were taking him to the Bazira ship, they were taking him to Selena.
Wait. Rest. Bide your time until you see the opportunity to strike.
He almost laughed. In his current state he couldn’t strike a match.
And besides, said Mina, who seemed to have taken permanent residence in his mind, Jude will tell Selena everything, and then what will you do?
It didn’t matter, he realized. Selena could live long years hating him, so long as she lived.
He wondered about Ilior left on the sand to die. Or perhaps he was already dead. Good, came the thought from the ugly part of him that hurt so badly. Another voice reminded him of Selena’s grief should the dragonman perish. Then let him live. Get the crew and the natives and the Storm and come find her.
Bazira adherents pulled across wind-tossed water as the sun broke fully in the east and he saw how foolish an attack from his little ship would be. The Bazira ship was a black, winged beast in the orange light behind it. It boiled with sailors, Bazira, and enough cannon to blow the Black Storm to kindling in one blast.
Sebastian’s eyes wanted to close, to block out the sight and sleep, but he forced them open. The deep pain in his head warned him that if he fell asleep, he might not wake up again. The dinghy scraped against the black hull and Sebastian looked up. They had arrived at the frigate. Silver lettering at the prow named her the Fast Lady.
Under the tinny ringing in his ears he heard Jude say, “Put him in the hold with the others.” Two large men hauled him aboard the Bazira ship. He closed his eyes and slipped away for a bit, only half-conscious of hatches opening, footsteps stomping, and the smell of oakum, hemp, and the sound of snapping canvas.
When he opened his eyes to total darkness a few moments later, Sebastian felt a shard of fear slip into his heart. I’ve gone blind… But then shapes resolved themselves as he was forced to kneel on planked wood. He was aboard the ship, belowdecks, in the hold as Jude had commanded. A light flared and he winced as pain in his head flared with it. Rough rope bit his skin at the wrists and was pulled tight.
Selena was there in the small hold, and Accora too, both bound. Both gagged. The old woman sat slumped, defeated, staring at nothing. Selena’s eyes were shining and she shook her head, despairing to see him there.
Jude Gracus climbed down into the hold and knelt beside Sebastian. “Have you two met? I think the answer to that is yes and no. Lovers and strangers, both. Marvelous. And I think, the gracious hostess that I am, I should make the proper introductions.”
She tapped her lip with a finger, a slow smile spreading across her face. “On second thought, I think she should hear it from you. I want you to do two things for me,” she said to Sebastian. “The first is that I want you tell Selena Koren your name. Your true name.”
Sebastian raised his head that felt as if it weighed a thousand stones. He met
Selena’s gaze that still, for a precious few more seconds, regarded him with affection.
With love, he thought dully. She loves me.
“The second thing I wish for you to tell her is what, precisely, you were hired to do and by whom.” Jude stroked his hair; it felt like hammers bashing his skull but paled in comparison to the pain that was to come.
“Tell her, sweeting. Tell her everything.”
Dangerous Games
Niven raced through the jungle with the crew of the Black Storm, leaping over stands of greenery and ducking under boughs of moss-covered trees. The dawn had come but the interior of the rain forest was still dark. Shapes loomed out at him, and while the insect cacophony went quiet at their passage, he could hear the squawking calls of birds heralding the morning, and—much closer—slithering, hissing noises that sent his skin to crawling. He gripped his borrowed sword tighter, sometimes using it to hack awkwardly at a leafy obstacle. His heart hammered in his chest, but he told himself it was from the mad run. Isle Saliz’s heat was intense within the jungle; sweat poured off his brow and trickled down his back, under his linen shirt. He felt naked without his Aluren overtunic but was glad it wasn’t there to snag on branches or stifle him further.
But if I have to fight, I wouldn’t mind a full suit of armor, heat or no heat.
The other crewmen ran with him in a loose group, some ranging ahead, some fanning to the side. Niven hoped one of them—Grunt perhaps—knew where they were going. But even to his untrained eye, he saw the signs of passage from others: bent and broken plant stalks, muddy footprints, and freshly cut wounds on plants or branches.
He ran on, harder, endeavoring not to cut himself with the curved Bazira sword in his hand. But shame burned his face as much as the heat of the jungle as a small voice told him he ran because if he stopped the jungle would eat him alive. Going on was the only option.