by Ben Galley
‘Hereni,’ Bull whispered.
Hereni realised the silence before she followed Bull’s pointing arrow.
The crows that had been so content to flap and bicker around the mountain had fallen quiet and still. Every rock above was lined with them. There must have been thousands.
Hereni kindled flame around both her fists. Despite her worst expectations, the birds did not give chase as the workers fled back to the palms.
‘Back to the ships,’ she hissed.
The funeral pyres were lit as the sun dipped below the cursed mountain. Only a hundred bodies were taken from the ships. Five dead from the poisoned water. Hundreds more had been lost to the sea.
The pyres burned like beacon fires. The smoke drifted between the palms. The tens of thousands standing on the ships sang a low dirge that spread from ship to ship. The witches and snowmads said goodbye to their lost ones.
Standing in the shallows, Elessi looked upon the pyres with unblinking eyes. The heat of the flames failed to keep her eyes dry. Modren’s pyre had been stolen from her. She watched the palm wood and bodies burning as if he lay atop them. Yet when she closed her eyes, she saw only the carnage of the day. Sailors smeared across the deck. Splinters still prickled her hands where she had clung on for dear and speechless life. Lerel had saved them from worse.
Elessi looked away, and stared into the darkness of the west where the ocean roiled in a fresh wind. The night that approached was full of clouds. The leviathan had disappeared from view, but she knew it still lurked. They had spilled leviathan blood. It was now personal for both of them.
Elessi felt the eyes of the crowds upon her. She offered no speech. She didn’t have it in her. Anything she said would only have sounded like an excuse.
Her feet washed through the warm waters. Her toes sank into the sand. Lerel and Sturmsson were holding court on a falling palm. Towerdawn and Nerilan stood by. The dragon’s scales were aflame with the pyre-light. The witches and yetin stood beneath in the darkness of the trees as if the heat bothered them.
‘Go on then,’ Elessi announced as she entered the circle. She spoke mostly to the dragon queen. ‘Let me have it. Tell me what a mistake it was to press on. I’ve heard the crews muttering half the day. No doubt you have something to say.’
Nerilan had the class to stay silent. She shook her head and let Towerdawn speak for her.
‘Lerel was just informing us there have been no suitable harbours for the armada until now. Whatever you decided, Loki’s beasts would have still found us. We have suffered, but not because of you.’
Elessi let out a breath.
Lerel was jabbing at their small fire with a branch. Elessi saw her wink, brief and furtive though it was. By her side, the burly Admiral Sturmsson was nodding along while massaging his enormous beard. The words, ‘Hold Fast’ were tattooed across his knuckles. A refugee of Essen and the eastern half of the Arka empire, he commanded one of Malvus’ warships in the early years of rebellion. He’d almost sunk Lerel’s Waveblade before she rammed his vessel to pieces. He had surrendered, and after Malvus hanged the crew that swam ashore, Sturmsson swore allegiance to Farden instead.
‘As I was saying, we can survive a day or two here with the supplies we have. After that, we have to move on, no matter what. We’ll die of thirst here before we starve.’
‘It’s waiting for us out there,’ Peryn whispered. She pointed past the dark waves crashing on the sandbars. Inside the witch’s sleeve, a small finch cheeped. Lightning ran through the distant night in brief flourishes, highlighting the contours of clouds unseen and towering.
Lerel chuckled. ‘That’s why we can sneak around the island when that storm hits. We’ll escape behind the lea of the island, run south along the coast.’
‘Are the ships ready to sail?’
‘Enough as we need. The Revenge is in the worst shape of all, and now without a captain.’ Lerel paused to swallow her emotion. ‘The rudder’s been rigged up to another wheel below. The other bookships can tow her. Best chance we’ve got if you asked me.’
‘After you killed that sea snake today, I trust you,’ Ko-Tergo growled. The poor yetin had spent most of the voyage vomiting, so for him to agree with sailing through a storm was remarkable. Elessi was jealous of the admiral in that moment. She bit her lip with regret.
Peryn spoke up again. ‘The High Crone Wyved wants to know what comes after that.’
‘Elessi will decide,’ Lerel announced.
‘Agreed,’ boomed the Old Dragon.
Elessi kept her face stony as the decision was made without her. Some leader she was proving to be. The stress of the day poked at her irritation until it became anger.
As they filtered back to the ships, Elessi bent close to Lerel.
‘You and I both know we saw several safe harbours coming here. I don’t need you to stand up for me.’
Lerel looked her up and down, catlike eyes narrowed. ‘I… Apparently you do, Elessi. We’re fractured. We need a leader.’
‘We have one. His name is Farden, and he needs our help.’
Lerel tutted as she brushed her aside to tend to her crew. ‘He’s not here, Elessi. We look to you, but you keep looking away.’
It was browbeaten and with curses on her breath that Elessi returned to her cabin, dragged open the inkweld, and scribbled a rough note. She didn’t care if Farden was there or not.
‘How did you do this?’ Elessi spoke the written words aloud.
As the thunder broke open the western sky, she felt the sand scraping on the mighty keel of the Autumn’s Vanguard. She saw the list of the ship in the leftover wine in a glass. Better, but the armada’s finest still limped their way into a dark sky. Every crunch and scrape, every creak of quick patches, Elessi felt her hands trembling. She clutched them.
Elessi closed her eyes, and let fear rule her.
A prickle of pain shot through her neck, beneath the scars the daemon had left. She froze, willing the sensation to fade. It refused to when daemons were near. That would have meant their situation was even closer to hopeless. Fortunately, it seemed to be just a spasm of old and tired muscles. She massaged her tender scar and exhaled slow and shakily.
Above the island, where the coasts of the Falcon’s Spur held fast against the ocean waves, the storm ruled. Rain battered the clifftops from every direction in the ceaseless gales. Not a creature dared to show its face above its burrow or den. Not a single bird could lift a wing for terror of being swept away. Not a soul braved the fierce night.
For a daemon had no soul to count.
Prince Gremorin sat upon a fist of slick black rock. His claws crunched and scraped, casting dislodged moss into the turbulent air. The crown of fire on his head crackled and hissed madly. As did his skin. His charred hide smoked and steamed where the rain lashed it. Every time he breathed, cracks of fire would sputter back into life.
Gremorin felt the tension in the air. He raised a hand to the clouds. The bolt of lightning crashed into his palm. Its white light ran through him, and he shuddered from its power.
The prince’s many eyes squinted at the shapes far below him, black even against the storm water. Only the lightning showed them. Nine ships in a line, battling sandbars and rogue waves.
Though they only shone a handful of scarlet lanterns, to Gremorin they glowed with souls and magick. He tasted its stink on the air, and breathed it in.
Smoke billowed as the daemon folded into darkness.
CHAPTER 21
ENEMY OF MY ENEMY
Darkness is the enemy of both dawn and dusk.
OLD GOLIKAN PROVERB
The High Cathak Tartavor prised another sliver from the table with his knife and flicked it at the beetroot-coloured innkeeper.
‘I have asked you repeatedly to stop that,’ protested the man. ‘These tables were carved by the grand artist Vang Ol himself, and they are very—’
‘More drinks,’ Tartavor pointed, momentarily forgetting his injury and cursing as pain sho
t across his chest. He felt the warm dribble of fresh blood seep down his ribs. Not to mention the tightness of his tender cheek, scorched by dragonfire.
The innkeeper recrossed his arms. ‘As I’ve said. You haven’t paid for the last hundred you and your kind have gulped down.’
Whatever thread of patience Tartavor clung to snapped. ‘I said more drinks!’
‘Look here, plains-scum,’ the man started. He paused to leaned forwards and place his meaty hands on his precious table. ‘The Tourney’s over. Ruined. Vensk don’t want no foreigners here no more. ’Specially ones that can’t pay for ale and board—’
Tartavor slammed the knife into the innkeeper’s hand. Before the man could bellow in pain, half a dozen Cathak grabbed him and wrestled him to the floor. The wife standing behind the bar with a broom screamed. Fists and boots rained until the innkeeper crawled bloody across the wooden boards.
‘More drinks!’ Tartavor barked before going back to his carving.
One of his captains, Novod, put a hand on his good shoulder. ‘The herd can’t stay here forever, High Cathak. What should we do? What’s your orders?’
‘My orders?’ Tartavor laughed scornfully. They were without vengeance. They were without coin. And he swore the arrow-wound was turning sour.
Before he could summon up the wit for a reply, the door to the inn was kicked open. Soldiers of green Golikan armour swarmed inwards, yelling at the top of their voices and pointing their stupidly large crossbows. Tables clattered. Chairs flew.
Several idiots within his men decided to put up a fight. One threw a drunken punch before he was pinned to the wall by a dozen bolts like a tapestry to stupidity. Another was stabbed through the heart and left to bleed. The rest of the Cathak scrambled up against the back wall of the inn and held their hands up or over their faces. Only Tartavor was left at his table. No less than a score of Golikan soldiers surrounded him.
Within moments, the inn was packed to bursting with soldiers. Apart from the groaning of the dying, silence descended.
Tartavor eyed the crossbows with a sweaty unease. He placed the knife on the wood and shoved it out of reach. If this was to be the end, then the Dusk God would welcome him with open arms.
‘What is the reason for this? What crime are we being arrested for?’ he spoke.
Nobody answered him. The crowd of soldiers slowly began to part, starting from the doorway and spreading forwards.
Even leaning crooked on a golden cane, the Queen Peskora of Golikar towered above her soldiers. Beneath her usual finery, dressings and silks of gold covered up her injuries from the attack on the Viscera. A cut spanned her brow. Her other hand hung limp.
She cast a shadow across Tartavor and spent a moment examining him from head to toe.
‘You,’ she hissed. ‘You are a High Cathak of the Dusk God.’
‘Yes… Your Majesty,’ Tartavor replied. ‘Though the others would call me outcast.’
Peskora held the tip of her cane an inch from his face. ‘It has been revealed to me that you are the patron who entered Aspala of Paraia and the grotesque beast known as the Warbringer into my Scarlet Tourney.’
Tartavor had committed enough people to the fires of the Dusk God to know a death sentence when he heard one. ‘This is true.’
‘Why?’
‘Because of the one they follow.’
Peskora raised her chin to stare down her beak of a nose. ‘The man of red and gold armour. The Emaneskan?’
Tartavor nodded. ‘His name is Farden. Not only did he blaspheme our sacred grounds, he took my son from me and killed him in cold blood. I sought revenge, and I thought it fitting to force him to watch his companions forced to fight.’
Peskora sucked a breath through her bared teeth. ‘You dare to use my Tourney for you own purposes?’
‘Many do, Your Majesty.’
The cane struck him hard on the temple. He looked up at her then, turning the burned side of his face to her.
‘It was a dragon that did this. The same dragon that attacked you. The same dragon that answers to Farden.’
Peskora rapped her cane on the floor. ‘I do not come to hear what I already know. I come here because I wish to make Farden’s head a new Tourney trophy. And those of any that follow him shall decorate my palace. My cousin, Irien, for example, shall be a new goblet. And that dragon? Once I eat its heart, I will have it stuffed. Do you understand me, High Cathak?’
Tartavor did not. Fortunately for him, the queen preferred the sound of her voice.
‘You wish for the same, no?’
Tartavor ground out a reply. ‘More than anything.’
Peskora signalled with a waggle of a bejewelled finger. Something worked its way through the crowd of soldiers. ‘Join Golikar. Assist me in finding the mage,’ she said, ‘and I will allow you to take his life in payment for your son.’
Two soldiers carrying a wooden chest emerged. The table almost collapsed under its weight as they hammered it down before Tartavor. When it was opened, a pool of gold and silver leaves stared back at him.
‘Summon your herds and the men of the Rivenplains. We leave at dawn,’ ordered Peskora.
Gremorin watched the milky eye of the sun through the mists. It now hovered between two tall pines, one leaning precariously to one side as it clung to life in the bog.
The hour was growing late. For almost a day they had waited in the wretched marshes. Flies plagued them, drawn by their char and the steam the daemons’ skin made as it sputtered in the fetid waters.
There was one allure to the marshes of the Wounds, and that was the souls. Barrows on firmer grounds, drowned souls still clad in rested armour, even travellers overcome, they all vomited their souls.
Around the prince, the daemons stalked the marshes, sizzling and growling here and there as they scared faint ghosts through the marshes. Their blue lights were barely visible in the light of day. Here and there the faint souls would be caught and devoured. It was the closest a daemon ever came to fishing.
The helbeast at Gremorin’s side shrieked at the southern sky. Its front four claws raked at the marsh-mud independently.
‘Be calm, girl,’ Gremorin hushed it. He tasted the air with hair tongue to see what it was whining about. ‘Loki is coming.’
His daemons spread in a line. A sorry few of them after the war. He had lost fifteen to the mages and minotaurs of Scalussen. Three more had drowned in the ice under Irminsul’s fire. Barely a score remained of his kin. Even now, they stood hunched as if defeated, wings of smoke slack, shoulders hunched, claws hissing in the waters. Prince Gremorin’s power was waning in the shadow of change and the light of these foreign lands.
Thunder filled the southern sky. The daemons craned their heads, clenched their swords. Storms did not worry them, but the wind tasted wrong. The smell of magick wafted with it.
As the sun grew dark, the mist swirled thicker, driven by the storm winds. Gremorin’s helbeast snarled as they were enveloped. Smoke drifted from the daemon’s skin. He had no love for its cold edge.
Gremorin drew his sword, staking it deep within the mud. Fire flushed through his skin. Char fell away with the wind.
‘Show yourself, little god!’ Gremorin yelled. ‘We have waited too long for you!’
The black snout of a fenrir appeared between the mists. Frogs scattered with frantic croaks. Upon the beast’s matted back sat Loki proud as ever. The god wore a little shine to himself since last they had met. Some mail beneath his damnable coat. The god had little company besides a few shuffling humans. They had been branded by fire and battle. Their minds glassy as their eyes. Gremorin could smell the scent of magick upon them. The helbeast at his side pressed itself to the mud and shrieked once more.
‘How wonderful it is to see you, Prince Gremorin,’ the god smiled his sickly smile, the one Gremorin longed to carve off.
‘You are late, Loki.’ he rumbled. ‘We have waited the entire day.’
‘Late is relative, Prince. Especially to
those travelling south through these foul marshes to avoid the attention of a foreign empire. Golikar, I believe they call it. To me, I am in time. Early, you could say, given that I’m the first of my party to arrive.’ Loki looked behind him to the growing darkness in the sky.
Gremorin bristled, spines rising, skin cracking red. ‘Who else marches with you?’ demanded the daemon.
Loki stayed silent and swayed with the movement of the prowling fenrir beneath him. It seemed tolerant of the daemons, but only just. It padded forwards. Water and flies scattered. The grotesque wolf dripped saliva as it brought its snout inches to Gremorin’s face and rumbled deeper than the approaching thunder. The daemon snarled back, opening his fanged jaws wide. The fenrir recoiled at the blast of heat and cinders.
Loki sighed. ‘It is a shame to see how few of you are there now, Prince Gremorin. All gathered in one place, I can see how many of your daemons Farden and Mithrid felled.’
His daemons stirred. Several dragged out their blades with showers of sparks as if insulted.
‘Enough of your talk, silver-tongue. You cannot be trusted.’
It was Loki’s turn to look offended. ‘You are too impatient, Gremorin.’
‘I have waited long enough! Twenty of their years we have waited on false promises and for a war that has never come. First Malvus and now a god of lies. You have promised us the world when even now it slips through your fingers.’
Loki’s head swivelled around. Gremorin’s smile cracked across the charcoal hide of his face.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘See? You are not as all-knowing as you pretend to be, god, nor as powerful. Scalussen and the Sirens still survive.’
‘Do they, now?’
‘Even now they are sailing south around Paraia. The daemontouched woman and the oldest dragon leads them.’
Loki forced a laugh. ‘No matter. They are inconsequential compared to Farden and Mithrid.’
‘You underestimate them.’ Gremorin wagged his claws. ‘How unwise of you, little god. They have killed two of your sea monsters already.’