“How do you know?”
“We are alike, Aeros and I.”
Each was worse than the other, depending on the day, leastways that was the way Ava saw both Spades and Aeros.
“It is the quality of one’s foe that makes war worthwhile,” Spades said. “And when this war is over, when Aeros’ crusade is complete, we will both miss it, he and I and those who have fought with us. Gul Kana is weak. At least Wyn Darrè put up a fight. And so Aeros looks more and more to entertain himself by creating strong foes near him. He desires the challenge. As I said, it’s all in the game.”
“It is a twisted and cruel game.”
“It is good that you can see it for what it is.”
Naught but a game to them. They toy with me and Jenko. The question is, should I play it with them? Could I?
Spades’ voice was gentle for once. “So will you let me train you?”
Ava nodded.
“Good.” The warrior woman’s eyes sparkled as she drew the sword from its sheath with a silent hiss. “I wanted to start with you sooner, but I was merely waiting for the right sword to come along. This is a fine, strong blade, weighted perfectly for one of your stature and strength. Pretty, too.” It was a long, slim blade, slightly curved, honed razor sharp along one edge, intricate Vallè-inlaid scrollwork etched along the other.
Spades’ voice grew suddenly fierce as she brandished the blade. “As I told you before, a sword is what separates me from you. And that is all. When you’ve a fine blade like this in your hand, and you know how to wield it, that is strength. That is power. There is no greater force in the Five Isles than a woman willing to use her own sword against a man. Unless it is a woman willing to use her own words. Sword. Words. Just one letter separating them.” She smiled, holding up the blade. “But a sword can separate a man from his cock a lot quicker than words.”
Ava’s eyes were fixed on the blade in the warrior woman’s hand.
“Let me ask you, Ava Shay, are you ready to be like Jenko Bruk? Are you ready to do whatever you damn well please?” She held out the sword for Ava again, her intense, stern eyes gazing down its sharpened edge. In fact, Spades’ eyes glinted shards of red, brilliant reflections from the dazzling ruby set in the hilt.
Then, with a swift move, the warrior woman twirled on one foot and spun the sword in her gloved hand, spun it so fast it sent sparks of rhythmic starlight blinking into the night. Then she jabbed at the air in front of her, once, twice, thrice, twisting her wrist, ripping the blade back violently in a sweeping arch that made the air sing.
Then Spades stood silently in front of Ava again, sword held out in offering. “As I said before, we are not in Gallows Haven anymore.”
Ava took the weapon. Held it up. Her gaze fell reverently on the shining heart-shaped jewel in the hilt and traveled up the long curved blade, utterly transfixed by the sharp gleam of the steel. Her chest was pounding to the same beat as when she’d first ventured into Baron Bruk’s hay-filled barn with his son Jenko. My heart feels alive.
If swords were given names, that was what she would name this one. My Heart.
After a moment, her gaze broke from the sword and found Spades. “How am I to hide it from him? Aeros may wish me to train with you. But he will not want me to have an edged weapon near him. He knows I will use it.”
“I shall keep the sword for you. You will train with me. Whenever and wherever I deem appropriate. Aeros has agreed to the training, for his own reasons. Do you?”
Ava nodded. Enna Spades dipped her chin in acknowledgment. “Then we start now.”
* * *
For their valiant help in vanquishing the nameless beasts to the underworld, all dwarven-kind, Vallè-kind, and oghul-kind are deemed free and worthy to walk amongst men, as long as they adhere to the laws and tenets of Laijon.
—THE WAY AND TRUTH OF LAIJON
* * *
CHAPTER TWENTY
NAIL
1ST DAY OF THE ANGEL MOON, 999TH YEAR OF LAIJON
STANCLYFFE, GUL KANA
Nail had followed Liz Hen, Dokie, and Beer Mug across the street, hoping they wouldn’t wander too far off. They stood in front of what appeared to be the least dodgy-looking establishment in Stanclyffe: the Cloven Hoof Tavern—it had a door with actual hinges and actual glass windows. Everything else in this town was beyond broken down. A sign above the hinged door read BIRCH BEER AND VARIOIUS SUNDRIES WITHIN.
“We oughtn’t go in there,” Dokie said, the cowl of his gray cloak pulled up over his head. Nail and Liz Hen were also heavily cloaked, hoods covering their faces in shadow too. “Roguemoore warned us against going inside any place ’round here,” Dokie continued. “Warned us this place was naught but a haven for cutthroats and pirates. Said wait in the road whilst they purchase tack and mounts and gear. And we’ve already ventured across the street without them knowing where we went.”
“We ain’t but twenty paces away from the livery tack house, and I’m starving,” Liz Hen huffed, patting Beer Mug on the head. “And various sundries means food.”
“I don’t think it does.”
“Of course it does, you stupid.” She looked at Dokie, scowling. She’d been scowling all day. “You still have coin in your pockets, right?”
Dokie’s hand dropped to the small leather pouch tied to his belt under his cloak. “Aye. I got some coin here.”
Nail’s eyes scanned the street, looking for pirates, realizing he wouldn’t know a pirate if one was standing right in front of him. Stanclyffe was a decent-sized port town about as big as Ravenker, nestled on a flat isthmus jutting out into the Sea of Thorns under a colossal Glacier Range cliff. The blackish-gray cliff rose daunting and sheer ten thousand feet straight above them, seemingly wanting to curl over and swallow the town whole. Clouds were gathering about the cliff, and a fresh round of rain seemed imminent.
The nine companions aboard the Duchess of Devlin had witnessed the wall of gray stone growing up out of the ocean several days before reaching Stanclyffe—the massive cliffs were that tall. In fact, the entire Glacier Range was a monstrous wonder. Upon approaching the range from the south, Nail had marveled at the sheer size of the snow-covered mountains—twenty thousand feet high from the level of the sea to their lofty peaks. Peaks twice as high as those above Gallows Haven and twice as rugged and steep—so high, in fact, Roguemoore claimed they created weather of their own. They were covered in dense cloud most days. But those few clear days before reaching Stanclyffe had revealed the mountain range in all its awe-inspiring glory—lofty peaks glimmering pearl and silver, like islands afloat above white clouds.
Roguemoore had paid voyage for the Company of Nine on Duchess of Devlin, a fast-sailing ship out of Lord’s Point. Stormy seas and a healthy kick of wind had hastened their trip those first five days afloat. But the last three had been calmer weather. During the voyage, sharks, grayken, and even a sea serpent, as big around as a wild Autumn Range boar and almost as long as the Gallows Haven chapel, had been spotted. The slithering huge serpent had gotten the attention of all, for it seemed to nearly dwarf the length of the ship. Godwyn claimed a sea serpent would never bother a ship, but would be quick to coil itself around an overboard sailor, constrict his bones till he was dead, then swallow him whole. Once, a few merfolk trailed along under the Duchess of Devlin. The ghostly silhouettes of the merfolk slithering in the deep would send a mysterious ache raging up Nail’s biceps, and the scar from the mermaid’s claws would come alive with fire. He couldn’t help but recall the nightmarish journey he’d taken under the sea during the grayken hunt aboard the Lady Kindly.
Most every day aboard the Duchess of Devlin had seen Stefan and Seita on the forecastle just below the prow, practicing with Seita’s ball-and-chain mace. Nail had been content to just watch. Liz Hen and Dokie, too, Beer Mug with them.
But Liz Hen had developed the knack of sucking the joy out of any moment aboard the ship. At every opportunity she teased Stefan about the doe-eyed looks he gave Seita, cla
iming all he ever did was daydream about the Vallè maiden slurping on his noodle. Then she’d tease Seita for being naught but a delicate Vallè flower, or a precious Vallè flower, or a dainty, frail, flimsy, thin Vallè flower. Eight days sailing up the Saint Only Channel and into Sea of Thorns with Liz Hen Neville had proven taxing for the entire group. Now, finally berthed in Stanclyffe, Liz Hen still managed to irritate.
Like now, ignoring all warnings and wandering away from the main group in search of food. “I say we sneak a quick look inside the Cloven Hoof,” she said. “I’m starving.”
“There’s folks selling food outside near that corner shop half a block away.” Dokie pointed. “I can see them cooking there in that large brick oven against the wall. Under that tan awning behind the table. See? I can smell it even. Smells good. Pork, I wager.”
Liz Hen’s eyes watered in hunger as they followed Dokie’s gaze. “Street vendors.” She immediately set off that way, gray cloak aswirl behind her, Beer Mug at her heels. Dokie followed. Nail grumbled inwardly and marched after them, not wanting to see his friends stray too far from the tack house.
One of the vendors was a middle-aged, kind-faced lady, a shockingly purple bruise on the left side of her neck. She introduced herself as Mardgot. Her burly helper was hunkered over the wood-burning oven, his back to them. When Liz Hen asked the fellow what he was cooking, he straightened his back and turned, looking right at her.
It was an oghul. And huge, with features unbearably deformed and grotesque. Thick, cracked lips of a deep purple hue were wrapped around two massive lower teeth escaping upward out of his mouth past his nose. It looked like he had a plug of tobacco in his bulging lower lip. The jutting teeth were caked in filth—or rotten. One tuft of scraggly hair shot up from a scarred gray scalp, while two tufts sprouted at odd angles down from either side of his misshapen chin. The creature’s brows were as thick and protruding and purple as his lips.
Twin beady eyes of brown stared back at Liz Hen. A red dot was tattooed on the oghul’s face just below his left eye, atop a thick cheekbone. It looked like a tear of blood.
“I don’t sherve nobody who’sh face is covered in no hood.” The oghul’s deep voice was gravelly as a saber-toothed lion’s growl. He sucked on the tobacco in his lip. Liz Hen took a step back. Dokie’s mouth hung open. Beer Mug’s ears were twitching and alert. Other than the raggedy trapper they’d passed on their way to Godwyn’s abbey high in the Autumn Range, Nail had never seen an oghul this close.
“Remove your hoodsh,” the oghul commanded, his brown, pinprick orbs unreadable. “Been too many come into town with their faces covered of late. Vallè and oghul piraytes and such.”
“But you’re an oghul,” Liz Hen blurted.
The ugly fellow raised one eyebrow. “Take off your hoodsh!” he demanded, then with one finger dug the tobacco out of his lip and tossed it to the ground. Only when it hit the ground, Nail noticed it wasn’t tobacco at all but a gray rock about the size of a duck egg. Dread coiled gently inside his gut as a dense silence filled the street corner.
Then he felt Seita’s presence suddenly behind him; he was instantly aware of her aura. “Oghul’s ofttimes suck on rocks to stave the need for blood,” she said. Nail flinched as her hands came to rest on his shoulders, and he felt a flush wash over his skin. He shuddered, distracted by the Vallè maiden’s calm demeanor as she leaned over and whispered, “What do you wish me to do, Nail? Shall I slay this rock-sucking oghul for you?” She released his shoulder and stepped around him toward the menacing beast. Slay him? The girl was good with her chain-mace toy, but did she really think she could just casually kill a beast like this oghul, a monster four times her size?
Seita also wore a heavy gray cloak, hood up, pale face scarcely visible under the cowl of her cloak.
“Remove your hood,” Mardgot said to Seita. “S’ist Runk gets jumpy around strangers. But he is harmless enough. Takin’ off your hoods will settle him some.”
Dokie shed his hood almost before the words were out of the lady’s mouth. His eyes were wide, his face ashen. Nail dropped his hood too. Liz Hen removed hers.
“Cute.” The oghul appraised Liz Hen, one thick eyebrow rising, the small red tattoo under his left eye morphing as the gray skin stretched.
“Best watch yourself,” Mardgot said to Liz Hen. “Fire-haired and tubby, yer the exact type of lassie ol’ S’ist Runk here fancies.”
Liz Hen regarded both Mardgot and the oghul with a look of complete and total horror. “I’m a fighter,” she stammered, swooshing back her cloak from one hip, showing the longsword at her belt, squaring her shoulders. “I fought against the White Prince. Killed a Sør Sevier knight. This here’s the sword that proves it.”
“I helped with the killing,” Dokie piped in.
“Oh, missy.” Mardgot smiled. “Now you’re just teasing ol’ S’ist Runk. He adores a big ol’ squirmy girl who’ll put up a hardy fight, ’specially if she got a sword.”
The oghul smiled too, a ponderous curling back of his thick purple lips, which revealed an even more gruesome row of jagged, dirty teeth. “I like your shword.”
Seita giggled, eyes sparkling with amusement as she glanced back at Nail from under her cowl. The oghul laughed too as he turned and opened up the large brick oven and pulled forth a long, flat tray full of burnt chicken gizzards that smelled strongly of pine. He set the tray on the table in front of Liz Hen and Dokie. Beer Mug wagged his tail at the smell of cooked meat. Mardgot announced, “Roasted chicken parts. Eat.”
Dokie sniffed at the food, a glum look on his face. Liz Hen reached over and popped a gizzard into her mouth. Her face scrunched up as she chewed once, twice, then spat the chewed-up meat out into her hand.
“Aye,” S’ist Runk grumbled. “You shertainly look ready for many battles.”
Liz Hen popped the chewed-up food back into her mouth and swallowed hard, stern eyes never leaving the oghul’s. S’ist Runk watched and then nodded his approval.
Then the oghul turned to Seita. “Show yourshelf.” He motioned for her to remove her hood. Seita slowly pulled her hood back, revealing her porcelain Vallè features and pointed ears, her flowing hair chalklike in the gloomy weather.
“The oghul raiders in them mountain passes above are growing thick.” Mardgot looked down her nose at the Vallè maiden. “Most oghul-kind have declared Hragna’Ar up here in the north. They’ll come down and steal the likes of you, little Vallè girl. Rape you bloody. Shred your twat with their huge cockled dongs, they will. Bleed you dry. Best watch yourself.” The oghul next to Mardgot wasn’t smiling anymore. Nor was Seita. Even Liz Hen blanched at the description.
Beer Mug’s eyes were focused down the street. Bishop Godwyn and Culpa Barra strode up to the vendor’s stand in a hurry. Culpa’s hood was thrown back, his black Dayknight armor visible under his gray cloak. The unmistakable armor got S’ist Runk’s attention. He pointed to Culpa and growled, “You. Dayknight. Leave.” There was a fierceness in his stance that set Nail on edge.
“Let’s go,” Culpa said, seizing Liz Hen by the shoulder and guiding her in the direction of the livery, where he and the bishop had just come from.
“I told you not to wander off,” Godwyn added.
“I was hungry,” Liz Hen said as they headed back. “The food on that dreadful ship was horrid,” she continued. “I vomited most of it over the side. Now that we’re on dry land and my feet are under me again, can’t I eat?”
“Just keep walking and don’t look back.” The expression on Culpa’s face brooked no argument. They hustled their pace. Stefan, Val-Draekin, and Roguemoore, along with two rangy-looking dun-colored mules, now stood in front of the livery. Both mules had rheumy eyes and matching manes and tails of pitch black.
“Any oghul with a red teardrop tattoo is not to be trifled with,” Culpa said sternly as they headed toward the others. “And no one in Stanclyffe is to be trusted. Not unless you’ve the right amount of coin to buy their silence. And we’ve spent ple
nty of coin on those two pack mules.”
“Why so dour all of a sudden?” Liz Hen asked. “We meant no harm.”
“Listen.” Culpa stopped them all in their tracks, grabbing Liz Hen by the shoulders. “That nice-seeming woman is a bloodletter. That oghul feeds on her. And if he figures out you are headed into the mountains, which is exactly where you are headed, Liz Hen, he will get word to others of his kind—others that hunt those high-mountain woods above, oghuls that will track you down and string you up in the trees and strip the skin right off your bones, then sink their disease-ridden teeth into your soft neck and drain your blood in the most slow and painful Hragna’Ar ritual you can imagine.”
He let go of the girl’s shoulders. “So when we tell you don’t wander off, we mean it. Don’t wander off.”
† † † † †
“Stop trying to hasten my step,” Dokie whined. “I can’t slow and hurry at the same time.”
“Well, you’re in my way mostly,” Liz Hen growled.
“Godwyn said to take it slow for our own safety. It’s a perilous trail. And now you’re behind me, urging me to hurry.”
Liz Hen nudged him along anyway. “Because there might be bloodsucking oghuls a-chasin’ us.”
Dokie hastened his step.
Whilst the rest of the Company of Nine had tried to bandy about friendly jokes to begin their journey up the steep gorge, Liz Hen had been all gloomy fussiness about marauding oghuls. She was none too thrilled about hiking into snow-covered mountains twenty thousand feet in height either. And she’d let everyone know it.
The Blackest Heart Page 30