I shook my head. “I’d rather you were with me.”
“As you wish.”
I rapped my knuckles on the door, a chill running down my spine as I did so.
The pacing stopped, but no one said anything.
“Hello?” I asked.
But how was I supposed to follow it up? It’s me, your son. The one you haven’t seen in over a decade. The one you abandoned because you’re a murderer. Hope this isn’t a bad time to speak.
I gritted my teeth, hating even the idea of saying my name. Should I introduce myself as Volke Blackwater so that he’d know who I was?
Perhaps fate decided I was taking too long, because in the next moment the whole airship shuddered. I glanced around the empty corridor, wondering what could’ve caused such a tremble, when the ship quaked a second time, nearly knocking me to the floor. I braced myself on the bulkhead. The harsh clang of a bell sounded from above deck.
“Let’s go,” I said to Luthair.
I stepped into the shadows and moved through the darkness at a quick pace, slithering over the steps and reaching the deck of the airship in a matter of moments. I couldn’t breathe when I shadow-stepped, but I had long become accustomed to holding my breath for the short trek between locations.
My body burned after the use of magic, however. It was a lingering side effect from being second-bonded to Luthair, but it was one I was overcoming. I shook away the dull aches and took stock of my surroundings.
Thunder rumbled from the dark clouds below the airship. The night sky, still as wondrous and beautiful as before, was now filled with the jittering bodies of birds. A couple dozen swarmed around the Sun Chaser, their flight irregular and their noises bizarre. Between the caws and the shrieks, I heard giddy laughter and manic howling.
I reached for the shadows, intending to pull out my sword, but nothing came.
My sword had broken—shattered during the queen’s assassination.
When one bird flew close, I got a better look at it. A grifter crow—a mystical creature with low levels of magic, the kind that specialized in parlor tricks and sleight-of-hand. But it was riddled with the arcane plague, and the terrible sickness had warped its body. Instead of two wings, it had five—four functioning wings, and one deformed baby wing that hung off its chest like a wart or mole. Its eyes bulged out of its head, gray and jiggly, akin to a dead fish.
It laughed as it dove for one of the deckhands. She gasped and drew a flintlock pistol. The crack of the gunshot disappeared into the breeze washing over the deck. She had missed the grifter crow, even though the beast was the size of a small dog. They were slippery creatures.
As the deckhand tried to reload her weapon, the crow slashed at her with its razor talons, slicing open her forearm from her wrist to her elbow in one deadly cut.
I lifted my hand and evoked terrors. The crow screamed, tormented by unseen fears, and then it fell from the sky. It hit the railing of the airship and tumbled over the side, falling into the dark clouds below.
The deckhand didn’t need any instructions. She ran below deck, holding her injured arm the entire way.
“My arcanist,” Luthair said.
He moved to merge with me, but I held out a hand.
“No,” I said. “Just help protect the crew.”
Luthair formed as a suit of black armor next to me, his cape fluttering in the wind. He lifted a gauntlet and willed the shadows to lash out at any crows who drew near, his use of magic precise and without hesitation.
Technically, we were stronger when merged, but…
I feared somehow infecting him.
Of the dozens of plague-ridden monsters, four of them flew toward Luthair. They extended their claws—some had more than two feet—and they tried ripping at Luthair’s cape.
But none came for me.
“Luthair,” I said. “Stay back.”
One wrong attack and Luthair could get infected with the plague as well. Since he was a mystical creature, the plague would affect him more thoroughly—and faster. I couldn’t let that happen.
Luthair hesitated for a moment before melting back into his shadow form.
Fain and Wraith emerged from below deck. They stared up at the sky, their gaze unfocused, even though there were tons of birds swooping in close. They couldn’t see in the dark, and the feathers of the crows rivaled the darkest of coal.
I dashed over and put my hand on Fain’s shoulder. Master Zelfree had taught me about augmenting magic—granting my abilities to others for a short period of time—and I gifted Fain my dark sight. Then I touched Wraith and did the same.
“Thank you,” Fain said.
Once they could see, they ran across the deck, trying to keep the birds from attacking anyone.
A few grifter crows went for the sails, tearing at the canvas and clawing at the masts.
“Dammit,” someone shouted.
I glanced over my shoulder and spotted four individuals—Captain Devlin, Karna, and a man and woman I didn’t know. They had come up from the officer’s stairway, and the moment the captain could, he evoked the most powerful burst of wind I had ever felt in my life. A gale-force blast sent the grifter crows flying away from the airship, but it also sent Fain and Wraith collapsing to the deck. I shifted through the shadows to avoid losing my balance, but I could still feel the residual breeze of the attack for moments afterward.
The powerful winds didn’t deter the crows for long. They laughed—giggled, even—and swarmed back toward the Sun Chaser, as though this were all a game. With renewed vigor, they tried to rip the airship apart.
“You’ll all… suffer…” the crows chanted, their speech bizarre and hard to listen to.
Captain Devlin put two fingers in his mouth and let loose a whistle that pierced the night. I had to cover my ears, and I wondered if its potency had anything to do with his magic.
His roc—the giant golden bird larger than most beasts who walked on land—emerged from the storm clouds, answering the captain’s whistle as though just waiting for a signal. She screeched, drawing the attention of the grifter crows. Then she turned and flew toward the distant clouds, leading the plague-ridden mass of birds away from the airship.
Karna ran to me, her appearance slightly different from earlier. She wore practical sailing clothes, including long pants and a coat. Her blonde hair had been braided and then wrapped into a tight bun.
“Are you hurt?” Karna asked.
I shook my head.
The other woman on deck pulled a zigzag dagger from her belt and pointed it to the sky. “Another one’s coming!” The gold blade glittered with magic, and I knew right away she was the one who had threatened my life.
She wore an outfit similar to Karna, though her pants were striped and her coat went all the way up to her jaw. Her pixie-cut fiery hair reminded me of Zaxis. It fluttered in the breeze, but it was much too short to get into her eyes.
A beast dropped out of the sky. It landed on the deck of the Sun Chaser so hard and fast it almost broke through the wooden boards. It had the scales of a dragon, the wings of a bat, the stinger of a scorpion, and the short face of a snake. It only had two legs, marking it as a wyvern—a type of small dragon typically found up north. The beast was larger than a draft horse, and its wings stretched out twenty feet from one tip to the other.
A man rode on the wyvern’s back. He held a long rifle in one hand and the reins of the beast with the other.
The wyvern laughed as it spread its wings wide. Its chest looked like a second wyvern was ripping its way out of the creature’s ribcage, but then had become frozen in place. A half-formed head, wings, and a single leg dangled from the body of the plague-ridden wyvern.
“Die,” the wyvern said with a rumbling chuckle. “Die, die, die, die!”
Then the beast vomited blood and chunks of flesh. It splattered across the deck of the airship. The vital fluid would’ve sloshed everywhere, but Fain leapt up from the deck and evoked ice. The frosty magic washed over the crimson fluid, keeping
it from spreading. A slight dusting of rime covered everything from the railing to the sails.
Wraith went invisible and then appeared by the wyvern’s leg. He crunched the beast’s ankle, but the plague-ridden monster barely noticed. It laughed and gargled another round of infected blood.
The woman with the zigzag dagger also leapt forward. She stabbed the beast in the other leg, and a flash of lightning burst off the weapon and crackled up the wyvern’s side.
The wyvern whipped its tail around and struck the woman, throwing her into the airship’s railing.
The captain dashed to her side with unrivaled celerity, as though he were aided by the wind itself whenever he moved. He didn’t approach the wyvern, however, no doubt because he was worried about contracting the plague.
“Can you handle the wyvern?” Karna asked me, her attention set on the rider. “I’ll take care of its arcanist.”
Before I could answer, Karna dashed across the deck. When she got to the frosty blood, she leapt over the puddles, flipping and jumping, showcasing a whole host of athletic prowess as she nimbly avoided touching anything dangerous. When she neared the wyvern, it tried to bite her—both with its giant head, and then a second time with its half-formed head—but Karna was far faster. She arrived at the creature’s side and then shoved her hand under the rider’s pant leg.
The moment Karna touched the man’s skin, the wyvern arcanist locked up, as though a puppet on strings and his puppeteer hadn’t yet made him move. As a doppelgänger arcanist, Karna could manipulate people, but I hadn’t expected her to have so much control during the heat of combat. With her magic woven throughout the man’s body, she didn’t even need to maintain contact to control him.
The plague-ridden man slid off the saddle of his wyvern. He pulled on the reins, but the beast didn’t listen. Instead of fighting with it, the man walked to the side of the airship, his movements jerked and awkward as he fought against Karna’s controlling magic. When he reached the railing, he planted the muzzle of the rifle against his neck, right where it met the jaw, and then pulled the trigger. The lead bullet slammed through his flesh and sent him staggering over the railing.
The wyvern laughed—unhinged and insane—like the whole event was the best comedy it had ever seen in its life.
Fain snapped his attention to me. “Now’s your chance. Do it.”
I lifted my hand and manipulated the shadows to grab on to the wyvern, but I wasn’t strong enough to keep it trapped for long. And without the added power of being merged with Luthair, I couldn’t make the shadows into viable weapons.
“Attack it,” Fain shouted.
I shook my head. “I don’t have a weapon!”
The last person on deck—the man I didn’t recognize—threw back his buccaneer coat to reveal several weapons. He had two swords of differing lengths, a whole host of daggers, and an intricately designed flintlock pistol.
“Take this,” he said as he unlatched a sword from his belt and tossed it over, the blade still in its scabbard.
I caught the weapon and ripped it out of its protective casing. Fire flared to life the moment the sword was free, lighting up the deck of the airship like a brilliant ray of sunlight. Taken aback, I almost dropped the weapon, but I took a deep breath and regained my bearings.
The edge of the sword remained heated and glowing bright, as if the blade had just been removed from a forge. When I swung it to test the weight, it burned the air, sizzling even small particles riding the current.
The weapon was surprisingly light.
“You’re one of… us…” the wyvern said, staring at the glowing blade in my hands, its dead fish eyes jiggling. “Help me…”
I stepped forward. Luthair shifted at my feet, and despite what I had told him, formed up around me, merging us together as one being.
I can’t sit idle and watch, he said straight to my mind. We’re stronger together. Aim for the beast’s chest.
The wyvern vomited more blood.
I ducked into the darkness, taking the scorching blade with me and leaving the scabbard. When I emerged, I was directly in front of the monster, much to its confusion. With one powerful thrust, I drove the weapon deep into the creature’s twisted chest. The blade sliced through the scales with shocking ease.
The wyvern screamed and tried to claw me with its feet. I dove back into the safety of the darkness and exited on the deck behind the wyvern.
The blade in my hand crackled with power, like it was getting hotter every second it wasn’t in the scabbard. I slashed it through the air, leaving a wake of flame, and sliced through the wyvern’s flank. It whipped its head back to savage me, but that was what I wanted.
I cut upward, not holding any strength back, and split its face in two.
The monster crumpled to the deck of the ship, somehow still giggling as it died.
My heart hammered in my chest, and it wasn’t until that second that I realized how tense I had become. Something about the fight… I had never felt so certain about killing before. It had seemed right. Like I had needed to do it.
My arcanist, Luthair said. You’ve done it. Dispose of the body.
With a twist of my gauntleted hand, I created hooks and chains from the shadows and dragged the still-bleeding corpse of the wyvern to the side of the airship. After one unceremonious tug of the shadows, the monster fell overboard, ripping one of the sails with its tail on the way down.
6
Jozé Blackwater
I sheathed the scorching blade in its heavy scabbard. The heat subsided, as though the weapon had gone to rest. The wootz cotton under my clothes kept me warmer than I liked, though. Luthair unmerged, and I stumbled backward, sweat soaking into the bandages.
“I told you this would happen!”
I braced myself on a part of the airship, my head spinning. It took me a long moment before I realized the woman with the zigzag dagger was shouting. She pointed at me and then the gore splattered across the deck of the ship.
“These plague monsters never came for us before,” she said. “It’s because of him.”
Karna leapt over the half-frozen puddles and shook her head. “No, it’s not. You saw what happened in Thronehold. Those plague lunatics are becoming more brazen. They’re making active attacks. Why would they come for one knightmare arcanist who’s already infected? Get it together, Vethica.”
The woman, Vethica, tucked her lightning dagger back in its sheath. She smoothed her short, reddish-blonde hair, her narrow face hardening into something resembling a mix between resignation and indignation. “I still think it’s a mistake to have him here.”
She turned on the heel of her boot and stormed off to the nearest stairwell.
Captain Devlin straightened his tricorn cap and sighed. “Throw me into the abyss,” he muttered. “Flying used to be the safe option.”
Deckhands cautiously trickled out from below deck, cleaning supplies in both hands.
The captain motioned to the mess. “Sorry ’bout this. Clean it as quick as you can.”
After a few deep breaths, I regained my footing and wandered over to Karna and the captain. I didn’t need to avoid the blood, but I did so regardless; otherwise, I’d have to wash my bare feet in the cramped washroom.
“You were amazing,” Karna said with a smirk. “I expected nothing less.”
Captain Devlin tipped his hat. “I do appreciate you puttin’ in the work.” He narrowed his eyes, his jaw tense. “You didn’t summon those monsters to us, right?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“I didn’t think so, but I still had to ask. You understand.”
The captain sighed afterward, his posture slumped. The winds continued to rush by, playing with his shoulder-length curly hair. He seemed like a man who had done this for a long time—it only took him a few seconds to harden back up.
I glanced around, looking for the man with all the weapons. He wasn’t on deck anymore. I held his sword close, surprised by the considerable weight
of the scabbard as compared to the blade itself.
“It’s a fine sword,” Captain Devlin said. He ran his hand along the thin line of his chinstrap beard. “Jozé does good work. You should bring it back to him and have a chat. The man’s been talkin’ about you nonstop, ever since we watched your matches in the Sovereign Dragon Tournament.”
I caught my breath, my grip tight on the weapon.
Jozé…
That was my father’s name.
He had been on deck? We had been standing fewer than twenty feet apart, and I hadn’t even gotten a good look at him—just the weapons he had flashed when I had said I had needed one. I couldn’t even recall the expression or clothing he had worn. Why hadn’t I paid more attention?
Karna smiled wide. “You haven’t spoken to him yet, have you?” She rubbed my shoulder. “I knew this would be a shocking surprise, but I didn’t expect this kind of reaction. What’re you waiting for? Go speak to him.”
I suspected she misinterpreted my silence as delight and wonderment, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. My father obviously knew who I was, but he couldn’t even look me directly in the face. He was avoiding me, and that only confirmed the guilt he harbored, either from abandoning me or from the crimes that had gotten him exiled from the Isle of Ruma.
With the blade held close, I headed for the stairs below deck. I would return the weapon. I would speak with him—hear him out—but if he didn’t offer a proper explanation, I doubted I would ever interact with him again.
Luthair walked as a suit of armor behind me, his black plate clinking the entire way. He didn’t normally remain a suit of armor, so I wondered why he maintained the form, but I didn’t ask him about it. Most arcanists kept their eldrin nearby, no matter their sizes.
The crew of the Sun Chaser rushed to clean the frozen mess. Fain and Wraith stayed with them and helped, and I appreciated their efforts. I didn’t feel like participating, and Fain’s icy magic would help with the containment. Most sailing ships sealed their hulls with pitch or tar—it kept water from seeping in—and I suspected the blood wouldn’t leak into the airship, but we were better not taking any chances.
Plague Arcanist (Frith Chronicles Book 4) Page 5