by Ben Galley
Farden bowed deeply in Emaneska style, trying not to groan as he straightened. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Enjoy your ship. And if a fat man ever comes asking for it, do with him as you will.’
The Chanark weaved his hands in a bow of his own, and with the moon watching on, their brief meeting parted. Saddling supplies onto their backs and setting foot to the gritty sand of another new land, they walked onwards into yet another night filled with the darkness of the unknown. Another foreign road.
Durnus was not the only one who kept a furtive watch over his shoulder.
CHAPTER 26
GAUNTLET
I am to be ever cursed for meddling, it seems. My experiments with perfecting the vampyre venom, though arduous, were arguably and thankfully a success. My blindness was cured by the vampyre’s strength. I am immune to the fire of sunlight at last, and the fangs I missed all those years as Arkmage, in my true form, have returned. But the frailty is a constant hindrance. A curse in addition to the hunger for blood I was prepared for. However, it seems my experiments with necromancy have had the opposite effect, and awakened something… other. Older. I fear my true form has arisen despite the strength of the vampyre’s curse, and that no other magick will now dampen it.
I must resist the urges of my parentage, my daemon’s blood. I cannot fail Farden. I cannot fail Emaneska.
FROM THE WRITINGS OF DURNUS GLASSREN, YEAR 925
‘You sure about this, Elessi?’ Lerel spoke, slapping a hand onto the wheel of the Summer’s Fury. Though carved by the same shipsmiths, it felt distinctly different to the wheel of the Vanguard. Borrowed. Belonged to another.
‘I’m sure I’ve already made my decision, if that’s what you mean,’ Elessi said, giving her a sidelong look. Despite the growing heat of day, she still insisted on wearing her general’s furs. ‘Whether it’s the right one, I guess we’ll see soon enough. There’s no other captain I’d trust than you, that’s for sure.’
Lerel puffed out her cheeks. She reeled off their status to calm her own nerves. ‘One bookship gutted of everything except food and weapons. Every ballista is loaded and manned. One hundred mages and soldiers aboard. A hundred and fifty crew. Every one of them mad enough to join us.’
‘And Hereni only asked for fifty good souls.’
‘See? You’re not alone.’
Elessi didn’t look back to the beach. ‘Feels it, seein’ as we’ve got twenty or so thousand staring back at us, all a-wonder what in Hel we’re up to.’
Lerel looked. Past the shallows, where the trains of bodies loaded the last supplies and unloaded the final cargo, all of Scalussen and the Jar Khoum watched the Fury ready to sail. The sun had only just risen, and yet the warmth was already growing to scorching. Umbrellas of palm branches wafted back and forth. Every surviving dragon had gathered, and they glittered like huge jewels in the bright sunlight. Their kaleidoscope of colours reached all the way down the beach. She saw Kinsprite and Shivertread flanking Towerdawn. They seemed to be arguing something. Older dragons like scarlet Clearhallow and Glassthorn watched with shaking heads. Nerilan was not to be seen.
What tore at Lerel’s heart with the teeth of wolves, however, was Eyrum, standing defiant in the shallow waters, crutches repeatedly sinking in the sand as waves lapped at him. Sturmsson stood with him, a hand hovering to help but always shrugged away. Eyrum glared at them with his one eye, grey scales shining in the morning sun. It had been his decision to stay, but she could tell he loathed it. She ached to tell him he was wrong, that he was needed. But in truth, with Lerel and Elessi gone, Scalussen needed the general’s mind to keep them from the mutiny she privately feared.
‘What is this plan of yours, then, other than “go that way”?’ She pointed out from the bay to the still slumbering ocean. She had to nudge Elessi to get a response.
Elessi cleared her throat of its tired grit. ‘Draw the leviathan along with us and kill it in open waters, as we did the last two. Loki will have nothin’ to threaten us with then. Scalussen will be safer than we are with the Jar Khoum. All Loki has are the daemons. There’s no army left in Emaneska to raise, after all.’
Lerel nodded to every word without speaking.
Elessi had to ask. ‘What’re you thinking?’
Lerel laughed. ‘That this is insane, but I believe it’s the best chance we’ve got. Never liked having my fate in somebody else’s hands, never mind the promise of that poisonous little cunt they call a god.’
Elessi spluttered, her severe demeanour at last cracking into a smile. Even Ilios trilled with amusement. ‘That he is,’ said the general, sighing as if finally understanding some riddle. Lerel had a mind to send her below to sleep, but there was no point trying.
Two figures came aboard below.
‘If it isn’t Bull the monster-slayer!’ Lerel cried, raising a cheer from a crowd of sailors. Bull grinned wide, cheeks red and bashful. Hereni looked too busy for merriment. She stormed up the stairs to the bridge ahead of the lad, polished crimson armour clanking and a sword between her shoulders.
‘Let’s get this bookship moving!’ Hereni announced with a clap of her hands. Despite the polish, the steel plate still bore scars of battle and leviathan spit.
‘Aye aye, Captain!’ smirked Lerel. ‘What’s your rush?’
‘Got us a leviathan to kill and people to save, haven’t we?’
Elessi rested a hand on Hereni’s shoulder. ‘That’s the spirit we need. You ready?’
Lerel caught the fire in the blue of the mage’s tired eyes. She smelled of smoke and char. ‘Ready for what?’
Hereni had already answered with a curt nod. ‘You’ll see,’ said Elessi.
‘You know what? I’ve grown really tired of surprises,’ Lerel sighed, as she felt the ship’s heartbeat beneath her: the groan of wood and iron, the slight wallow back and forth with the waves, the footfalls of the sailors running with cargo. The bookship felt alive, and she was at one with it.
‘Raise anchors! Make ready to sail!’ she bellowed, making Elessi and Bull flinch away at her practised volume. Teams on the shore had already dug the keel free with the help of high tide, and began to push and pull at ropes. The Fury swivelled to face the endless west. Lerel’s bosuns and mates, borrowed from the Vanguard, worked levers upon the three masts. Clockwork sang its rattling tune as colossal sheets of black canvas unfurled from the spars. Sailors bent to the capstans, hauling up the two thick anchor chains in with barks of rhythmic, ‘Heave!’
‘Wind mages, get ready!’
Across the ship, within the masts and on ramparts against the aftcastle, the mages took up their stances. Hands and lips weaved spells until the still, crisp air of fragrant palm and fire-smoke began to whip their cloaks and hair. Lerel felt the tingle in the air as they focused their magick between sprawled fingers, ready.
‘Anchors up, Admiral!’ came a report from the main deck.
Their departure seemed a sombre event. Tears ran down faces. Prayers to the old gods were rampant. That was until Eyrum grew tired and roared at the height of his lungs.
‘For Scalussen!’
Cheers broke from the crowds. Dragons’ roars and dragonfire filled the morning air. What had been funereal became the shouts of glory and honour. Battle-cries. The crew of the Fury joined them, from the sailors’ cries to the gryphon’s keening screech. The Jar Khoum must have been deafened.
‘LET FLY!’ Lerel joined their roars. The mages unleashed their spells, and the Summer’s Fury leapt across the waters as if it had a damning thirst for blood and battle. With her holds and libraries emptied, the huge bulk was lighter, more nimble. That dawn, she was a warship, no longer a bookship. Lerel relished every tremble of the rudder.
A glisten of colour called her attention. Blue and silver scales pirouetted overhead, much to the whistle of the gryphon. Lerel thought Kinsprite and Shivertread were putting on a display before they landed with a scrape of claws on the rear of the ship. The Fury was built just the same as the Vanguard, with landing
areas and eyries for a dozen dragons at a squeeze.
‘What are you doing?’ Elessi approached them, raising her hands as if to calm them.
‘We are joining you on this mad voyage,’ Shivertread replied as his scales flushed an obsidian hue. ‘Our queen was not happy. Cursed us, even, but Towerdawn understood. On the condition we don’t perish, of course.’
Kinsprite bowed her head low to the general. ‘We owe it to Farden and Mithrid. And Modren. They saved us, maybe we can do the same.’
Elessi rested her hand upon the dragon’s snout and nodded in slow cadence. Lerel wondered what words, if any, passed between her and the young dragon. Memories, perhaps.
It was over within a moment.
‘We’re glad to have you,’ said the general, withdrawing her hand. She looked to her skeleton crew with a grim smile and shouted over the wind. ‘No turnin’ back now! Hereni, shall we?’
Hereni clapped her hands together and wandered between the two dragons.
‘If you’ll excuse me…’ she said, nonchalant as ever. Few in Scalussen had as much swagger as that mage. Not a tattoo graced Hereni’s skin, and yet many had thought her a Written because of her power. Not to mention the fact she had barely seen twenty winters. Lerel had, and always would, blame Farden for teaching her his ways.
‘What’re you doing?’ Lerel asked, snatching looks over her shoulder. They were coming to the southern hook of the bay and her attention was needed.
‘Gambling, as Nerilan would put it,’ answered ELessi. ‘I’m still of the opinion those leviathans were drawn by magick. We might not ’ave a pile of spellbooks aboard, but we’ve got wind mages. And our good Hereni there. Finest mage we’ve got this side of the map.’
While Elessi spoke, Hereni took a stand upon the very rear of the bookship and stared upon the wake and the beach they left behind. Already, Scalussen’s survivors looked small.
Lerel turned the wheel and moved the ship around the headland, sending the Fury out into open, choppier waters. Her iron blade of a keel sliced the whitecap waves with barely a shudder. She glimpsed Hereni with her hands splayed.
With a whip-crack, two orbs of fire burst into life above the mage’s palms, yellow as her locks. Hereni bowed her head, forcing the spell to greater levels. The flames grew in size, burning dark and crimson as she made them crackle and spin. There she stayed, arms splayed, spells burning fiercely in a meditation of power as Lerel guided the bookship south down the last westerly coast of Paraia.
The dragons spotted it first. Not a leviathan, much to the ship’s relieved heart, but a green sail far on the southern horizon, where the waters were stained gloomy with cloud-shadows.
As soon as the other ship spotted the Summer’s Fury, it turned tail and ran along the coast. The dragons watched with their sharp eyes, as did the lookouts and their spyglasses, but the ship was lost to distance and clouds.
‘Reckon that might be the pirates the Jar Khoum talked about?’ Bull asked. He was preening the scarlet fletching of his arrows, seeing how many he could stuff into a quiver before it became ridiculous.
The gryphon regarded him with the placid gold of his eagle’s eyes. The trilling whistle that came from his beak meant nothing to Bull, but the others had told him how smart Ilios was. A mortal mind trapped in a feathery body.
‘I reckon so, too,’ he said. Bull had been wary of the beast first. Not only was he the Forever King’s beast, but even at half the size of a dragon, somehow the gryphon seemed more dangerous. Perhaps it was the unintelligible attention of his eyes, or the curved black claws that sprouted from every foot. A monster, Bull would have called him in Troughwake. Not now.
Out of arrows to check, Bull resigned himself to the waiting that seemed part of being aboard a ship. With nothing to do but keep watch, and with eyelids of lead thanks to a sleepless night of carrying cargo, Bull found his head drooping against his chest.
It felt as if he gave in for only a blink, but when he awoke, he was leaning against the broad grey and tawny feathers of Ilios’ wing. The sun had moved halfway across the sky. The coasts had changed, now a sage green instead of the sandy yellow that had followed them for days. The gloom to the south had only darkened. Bull could see the foam of wind-chased waves.
The gryphon growled to the boy, nudging him awake. Confused, Bull watched Ilios trot across the deck. It was then the shouts made sense to his ears. It was Lerel, yelling at him.
‘Bull! Sweet gods, shake the seawater from your ears, boy. It’s here! It’s worked!’
Bull tripped over his own big feet as he bounded upright. After adjusting his leather jerkin, his bow was quickly in his hand, an arrow in the other. ‘A leviathan?’ he asked.
‘You bet your fluffy beard, boy!’ Lerel bayed. Bull couldn’t tell whether it was excitement or fear that animated her. ‘The bastard has picked up the mage’s scent. Look there!’
While probing the scattered hairs of his chin, Bull followed Lerel’s finger and the cries of the lookouts. In the widening ripple of their wake, stretching miles behind them, Bull saw the blue fins he had come to hate so much, surging after them in sinuous motion.
Not a thread of fear held him back as he marched to the stern. He only saw a job to do. A task in the way of reaching Mithrid.
Hereni still stood at the edge of the Fury, now bent at the knees and arms drooping. With a cry, she finally gave in, letting her magick die and collapsing to her knees. Bull could feel the heat emanating from her armour as if she was a fireplace.
‘Hurricane, mage. You’ll burn yourself out before the battle,’ he warned her. He tried to help and almost singed his fingers.
Hereni cackled between gasps. ‘Worth it. Think I just set a record.’
‘Don’t speak too soon, Hereni. We still have to win this battle.’ Lerel ordered. ‘Not to mention we’re drawing close to the Cape of No Hope. We’re about to turn around Paraia, and the sea gods charge a high toll for that!’
‘Let the storms come.’ Elessi was striding across the bridge, eyes aflame and narrowed at the leviathan. ‘This ends today.’
Lerel mock bowed to her. ‘What’s your plan then, General?’
‘Kill it, nothin’ more elaborate than that. Bull, I want you on one of the dragons. Shoot it from the air, aim for its eyes like you did before, you hear me?’
A rare shiver of trepidation ran through the boy. ‘You want me to be a… dragon-rider?’
‘Don’t get too full of yourself and start sproutin’ scales now, Bull. Kinsprite!’ Elessi yelled as one of the dragons swooped near.
‘Yes, General!’ the dragon boomed. With gusts of wind, she landed next to Ilios, who trilled in complaint at his ruffled feathers.
‘You keep this boy safe, understand?’
Kinsprite bowed solemnly and extended a wing for Bull to climb. A rider’s saddle already waited on her spined back. Bull had not ridden a dragon since leaving Troughwake, and he did not hesitate at the chance to do so again. In his thrill, he took far too many attempts to strap himself into the saddle.
‘Hereni, you and your mages make that fucker’s life a seething Hel. I don’t want it coming out of the water without a dozen spells hitting it in the face. Kinsprite and Shivertread, blast it with fire until the water boils. Lerel, you just keep this ship movin’ and afloat.’
Lerel needed no more. ‘Wind mages! I want to make this a running battle! Keep pushing and give me all you’ve got. Let’s tire this beast out before we tangle with it!’
At last, Bull secured himself, and just before the dragon bounded from the rear of the Fury, he felt the bookship heave ahead. The sails bulged, testing every stitch and line.
The thrill of leaving the deck and the surface of the sea behind was enough to make Bull forget about the leviathan and their dire task all at once. He almost let go of his bow he was so entranced by the wind rattling the skin of the dragon’s wing, the feel of her breath beneath him. For a blessed moment of freedom, he took his hands from the saddle’s horn an
d let his arms feel the wind as if he were the only one flying. He laughed aloud, knowing Mithrid would have hated every second of it.
And so the race began.
The leviathan did not once rear from the water as it had on the last chases. It powered through the water, casting up a bow wave and spray as it chased the Summer’s Fury. Hours passed, until the sun was beginning to die above the wild coast.
Bull hadn’t let the monster out of his sight for a moment. His neck ached from looking over his shoulder so much while the dragons flew alongside the ship. Inch by inch across the miles they sailed, the leviathan had caught them up. It was now so close Bull could have counted its fangs if it dared to show any. The blue fin still thrust from the ocean. Instead of tiring, it seemed only to grow hungrier and more determined the closer it came to the Fury.
He heard Lerel’s roar over the wind. ‘This is it! Ready mages! Ready ballistae! Ready dragons!’
Bull, boomed a voice in his head. He was glad he was strapped in. The shock would have dislodged him.
‘Was that you, Kinsprite?’ he shouted over the wind.
It was. Hold tight!
Bull held on for dear life as the dragon swept up into the air, somersaulted on her wing, and swept towards the leviathan.
Bull’s cold fingers struggled to nock his arrow to the bow. The wind battled him fiercely.
‘Ready!’ the dragon roared aloud. Her wingtip drew an arc of spray as she swung perturbingly close to the waves.
The leviathan chose that moment to erupt from the sea. Its mighty crowned head burst into view in a storm of seawater, jaws splayed and roar deafening. Bull knew fear for a sliver of a second, just as it looked like Kinsprite would be swallowed whole.
Bull almost forgot to loose his arrow. The seething fire exploding from the dragon’s jaws reminded him. He fired by instinct, sending his arrow spinning into the leviathan’s face. The dragon tore into the sky as the leviathan submerged once again.
‘I missed!’ Bull yelled.