The Sacred Band: Book Three of the Acacia Trilogy

by David Anthony Durham

  Melio ran the last few steps, sword out at his side. He swung, cutting off the man’s words as his blade sliced through his abdomen. Clytus and Kartholomé drew their weapons. Geena dropped flat on the sand just before Kartholomé’s throwing stars hissed through the air above her. One scorched by without hitting anyone. The next slammed into one man’s chest. Another hit the base of a second’s neck. A third man caught the twirling steel in a warding palm. He twisted around with the pain and force of it. Melio hit him with his shoulder and carved him as he tripped on his own feet. Clytus arrived, screaming like ten men and hacking with brute force. The sailors were soft sacks for the hewing.

  Kneeling a few moments later, hand resting on the hilt of the sword he had sunk into the sand, Melio panted out the fear and exultation. He was not a squeamish killer. He had seen too much violence for that luxury. Nor was he haunted by it afterward, as he knew Mena was. He knew it was necessary. He just didn’t enjoy it much. And, most important, if he had died here, Mena would not have known how he died. He would not have been able to explain it to her, to talk it through, to assess what his death meant to her. That, as much as the actual combat, was the possibility he breathed out onto the beach.

  Clytus and Geena took care of the two men on the boat. Still another Clytus found at the stern, trying to climb down into their skiff. This one begged for his life and offered his services as pilot. Clytus seemed willing to consider it, but once aboard Kartholomé would not hear of it. He stabbed the man as he had done the first soldier, turned his hunched over body around, grabbed his legs, and hefted him into the sea. Melio watched this as he hung on the ladder, about to climb aboard. He would have to study this Kartholomé closely. So far, he hadn’t figured out what to think of him.

  I’ll have to study them all closely, he thought.

  Once they had checked the ship, named the Slipfin, and confirmed there was no one else aboard, they gathered at the stern. They watched the sea for other vessels as they decided what to do next. Melio assumed they would take a few supplies and flee in the fishing boat. They would sail for home with the news they had gathered, perhaps bring Kartholomé along to be further questioned. He had assumed this, but not because he had actually thought it through.

  “What if we took this ship?” Geena asked. She stood on the railing, balanced on the balls of her bare feet. “Took it right now and sailed for the Other Lands. We could find Dariel. You said he might be alive, Kartholomé. Let’s go get him!”

  “How would we do it?” Clytus asked.

  “Straight across,” Geena piped.

  “This boat is fast,” Kartholomé said, “and I’d expect some very decent winds on the Slopes.”

  “Faster than the Ballan,” Clytus admitted. “Fast enough to outrun sea wolves?”

  Kartholomé shrugged. “Could try it. I think some league captain has probably done it. They do treat their clippers with the skin.” He slid his hand over the white coating on the railing, the same that covered the hull and portions of the deck near the bow.

  Melio expelled a breath. The others gave him a moment to follow up on it, but he just lifted a palm to the sky and motioned vaguely.

  “Melio’s right,” Clytus said. “There’s more than one way. What about going up and over, along the ice?” He cocked his head, lips pursed to warn against hasty judgments. “Might be safer, but it could take months. Longer if we get caught in the ice. It might even drift us backward, or out to sea. Could be a slow death. That’s never been the way I planned to go to the afterdeath.”

  “Straight across,” Geena repeated. “It’s faster to our fate no matter what.”

  “We’d need supplies,” Kartholomé said. “There’s a whaling outpost north of here.” He pulled his beard in thought. “Yes, on a small island. It’s called Bleem. The league used it as a landmark between here and the old platforms. There should be supplies. They outfit ships for long trips. Might even be men on it looking for work.”

  “Looking for work?” Melio asked. “You want to gather up a boatful of whalers and head across the Gray Slopes on Queen Corinn Akaran’s business, a rescue mission searching for a prince?”

  The other three shared an expression. “Does he always state the obvious like that?” Kartholomé asked Clytus.

  Clytus did not answer. “We could use another body to crew this thing. Help with the watches. Not to mention some strong arms to throw harpoons, and then again to fight if we ever get there. We could send a message from Bleem. You could write one, yes?” Melio nodded, just an answer, not a commitment. “We send a message to Nineas on the Ballan, and he could send a bird to the queen. They’d know what we were up to, at least.”

  “Perilous journey to foreign lands,” Geena said. She was not quite grinning, but there was a mischievous tension twitching her cheeks. “No guarantee of return. Death possible. In case of success, riches beyond imagining!”

  “It would work for me,” Kartholomé said.

  Geena grinned. “Me, too. It’s making me tingle just thinking of it.”

  “You’re all mad,” Melio said. “It’s a crazy idea. It’s sailing off the map. Who knows what we’d be sailing into?”

  Clytus stood on his toes and scanned the sea a moment. “We could leave it and try to limp back to Tivol in the fishing boat. Might not make that either, though. If we leave the clipper, it’ll be found by tomorrow, and we’d be captured a little after. No good options, as I see it.”

  “Look,” Melio said, “I know you all are chancers. You’d have to be to be brigands. You like risk, fair enough. But think for a minute: we sail west … and die. Name the method. There’s a thousand to choose from. If that’s what waits for you over there, would you still say go? Tell me truthfully.”

  “I would,” Geena said.

  “Aye,” Clytus agreed.

  Kartholomé shrugged. “Why not? Riches beyond imagining …”

  Geena jumped off the railing. She stepped close to Melio, took hold of his arm at the elbow. “I want to do this because Dariel would do it. Don’t you think he would? He’d do it for you. For Clytus. I’d like to think he’d do it for me. Let’s do it for Dariel. If we die … what’s it matter? We’d die in style.”

  She was so close and so attractive in a boyish, playful way that he remembered her kiss on the boat after they had both almost drowned, tangled together as close as lovers. And that reminded him of the pledge he had made to Mena. If he lived, he had sworn he would do anything for her. Everything for her. If he had the chance, nothing would stop him. That was what he had thought in his last moments of consciousness.

  “All right,” Melio said, “but only because Dariel would do the same for us.”

  “We’ll need harpoons,” Kartholomé said. “Lots of them.”

  “Harpoons?”

  Geena said, “A whaling outpost has plenty of those. Come, Melio Sharratt, let’s get to know our new ship. Welcome to the order of brigands.”

  Melio pulled back. “No, no. Welcome, you three, to the proper service of the crown.”

  “Call it what you will,” Geena said. “Let’s go. No use waiting for a patrol to stop by. I’m done being bait.”

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  The first day she arrived with baskets of fruit for Elya’s children, Corinn stepped through the corridor opening onto Elya’s terrace to the sight of the redheaded dragon flapping its silken wings, maintaining a jolting, unsteady hover a few feet above the patterned tiles. Po, she called him. He grew inches every day. How much of that was natural and how much was accelerated by the Giver’s tongue she had used on them while still in the eggs she could not measure. She knew some of it was her doing, but the young ones already had traits distinctly their own. In hatching, in reaching out to touch her, in flight—in everything so far—Po had always been first. He would be the first to take a rider also. She was sure of it.

  Elya stood, watching him, her eyes wide and her mouth opening and snapping shut, as if she were on the verge of sho
uting encouragement but was too nervous. Two of the other young ones flanked her. These also had names—in Corinn’s mind at least. With Mena away, who else would give them names? The brown one with the yellow stripes down her back was Thaïs. The sky-blue male, hopping from foot to foot at the moment, was Tij. The completely black one lounged atop the balcony railing, a drape of long, sinewy curves. She opened an eye and watched Corinn. Kohl, Corinn called her.

  It took her a while to figure out how she had identified their sexes. None of them had any visible genitalia. Neither did Elya, for that matter. But Corinn had no doubt about her guesses. They did look a little different. The males were more vibrantly colored and thicker in the jaws and neck, with crest feathers that bunched behind their heads and erupted out to either side down their necks. The two females were more modestly hued, a little longer in their limbs, and more serpentine. Their crest feathers flared straight up when they lifted them, thin and high. The females had the same citrus scent in the oil on their feathers as Elya did. The touch of it always left Corinn’s fingers tingling. The males—Po in particular—had a musky, burned fragrance. When touched, their oils did not so much tingle the flesh as heat it. Still, it was not unpleasant. Just potent in a different way.

  “Hello, beauties,” Corinn called. “I have fruit for you.”

  She stepped forward with a jaunty enthusiasm she would never have let human eyes witness. She held the basket out before her as if it contained treasures, which is just how the young dragons reacted. Po froze midflap and fell to the stone tiles. Thaïs and Tij snapped their heads around, recognized her, and scrabbled forward, going down to all fours and slither-crawling. Kohl was slower to rise. When she jumped from the wall, her wings spread out and slowed her descent. She landed gracefully, retracted her wings, and scurried forward to join the others.

  They crowded around Corinn’s legs, making it hard for her to walk. They dipped and bobbed and circled her. They climbed over one another, nipping and hissing on occasion. Tij clawed at her velvet skirt, as if he would climb right up her. Corinn reprimanded him playfully, and made a mental note to wear sturdier garb in the future.

  She sank down among them, setting the basket of fruit in front of her. For a few moments, she held herself still, the center of a squirming ball of raucous, attention-hungry children. They fought for her touch. They pressed their crowns against her outstretched palms, rubbed her legs and back, and leaned into her chest. Corinn knew this could not last. She had wanted to make them love her, and she had. Soon she would have to break them out of childhood. She would need to harden them for the struggles to come.

  Soon, she thought. Soon, but not today.

  Thinking this, Corinn looked up at Elya, who had moved away a little distance, to a corner of the terrace. She paced several quick circuits of the space before settling her backside against the stone, lowering herself with a comically avian motion, a bird settling onto a nest. Only when she was situated did she deign to look back at Corinn. Was that annoyance in the squint of her left eye?

  You don’t trust me, Corinn thought, but you don’t exactly think I’m a threat either. But I am, Mother Elya. I am. I want your children for my own.

  She repeated that: I want your children for my own. She watched for any sign that Elya heard her, but the creature sat, watching. Nothing in her demeanor changed. Corinn often tested Elya this way. She explained her desires in taunting interior language that she held within her head, all the time looking for signs that Elya could read her thoughts. Mena believed so, but Corinn, after weeks of uncertainty, had concluded that Elya could not. For all the ways she dilated her pupils or blinked her eyes or bobbed her head, it was only the human eyes watching her that construed intelligence in her actions. The gifts Mena endowed Elya with were Mena’s own creations. It was a relief, really. Elya would be easier to deal with, harshly if necessary.

  They can’t be both of ours, Corinn went on as she stroked the fine feathers along Po’s neck. If they were yours, they would eat fruit and be playthings for children. They would fly circles above the palace and make people gasp with pleasure. No harm in that, but those are such small goods. If they are mine … well, then they can be warriors for the empire. They can be creatures for the ages, new symbols of Acacian power. Don’t think me evil, Elya. I want only the best things for my family, for the empire, and for the people of it. That’s why I want your children to be my warriors. It’s already begun, anyway. They started being mine when I sang to them in their eggs. I’ve only to sing to them again to seal them to me, to help them grow into the weapons I need them to be.

  Corinn stood and looked around, feeling as if somebody were watching her. She turned a slow circle but saw nobody. She caught a scent in the air and recognized it at some level that she was not interested in reaching down to. With a few whispered notes of the song, a breeze brushed past, freshening the air and clearing her mind. No need to give in to the illusions her use of the song stirred into the world.

  The fruit consumed and their greeting enthusiasm spent, the young dragons moved off one by one to find other distractions. Kohl unfurled her wings and leaped up onto the terrace wall and stretched them wide, absorbing the mild winter sun. Thaïs stood on her hind legs, head craned, studying the nubs that housed her wings. She had not, as far as Corinn knew, spread them yet. Tij lifted his snout, half opened as he watched condors circle high above the island.

  Only Po stayed beside Corinn a little longer. He rested one arm against Corinn’s thigh, and pushed her other hand—as delicate and expressively fingered as his mother’s—through the peels and the few remaining orbs of fruit.

  “You want something more than fruit, don’t you?” Corinn whispered to him.

  The dragon slid his head toward her, mouth open as if awaiting an offering. The yellow of his eyes shone with a wavering intensity, as if his irises were a thin foil of gold and a fire burned just behind it. Corinn stroked his crest feathers. They rose at her touch.

  “Soon I’ll get you something more. Something to make you grow strong.”

  She began to pull her hand away and rise. Po’s head dipped, his eyes on Corinn, and then his serpentine neck snapped up. His jaws opened, and when the blur of motion ended, he had Corinn’s wrist pinched in his mouth. He did bite down, but his teeth only dimpled her flesh. The movement had been so swift that Corinn jerked her arm, causing the sharp, tiny teeth to scratch her skin. She and Po both froze.

  Staring down at him, unsure whether to be frightened or angry or amused, Corinn spoke with a sharp-edged calm. “Not me, Po. Not me.” She reached around with her other hand and tugged his upper jaw. She slid her wrist free. Just a few scratches, thin white lines like the tracks of kitten claws. She pinched Po’s jaws shut with her fingers and tilted his face toward hers. “Never put those teeth on me. Never. If you do, I won’t love you.”

  With that, she snapped her fingers and strode for the corridor. Just before she stepped into the shadows, she glanced toward Elya and met eyes already watching her. Really, she thought, I have to do something about her.

  With that in mind, she spent the next several days trying to convince Elya to fly north to retrieve Mena. She stood before the creature and spoke simple directions to her. Elya puffed through her reptilian nostrils. She pulled her eyelids back and then squinted. She answered with a variety of bodily motions and quirks, quick bouts of preening, her gaze often darting away toward one of her children. None of it showed any sign she comprehended Corinn in the slightest, or cared to.

  Recalling how Mena had explained it, Corinn formed her directions in her mind and offered them. When that did not work, she stood on the balcony, pointing and waving, shooing Elya away. Once, she pressed her palm against the gray plumage and shoved. This got her a hissed rebuke. Through it all, Elya watched her with narrowed, skeptical eyes. When she did finally decide to leave, the event did not seem to have anything to do with Corinn’s orders.

  A morning several days into her efforts, Corinn found Elya wai
ting for her on the terrace that had become the avian nursery. Her young huddled close to her. For a second Corinn thought they looked like children gathered around a storytelling nurserymaid, but then she saw the dangerous slant of Elya’s head. She pushed through her children, jostling them behind her as she moved on Corinn. She lowered her head and dropped to all fours. She covered the short distance in a burst of speed, her shoulder joints pumping. Her head rose so close to Corinn that the air blown from her nostrils stirred the queen’s hair. Standing tall, she hissed down at Corinn, her neck feathers jutting out in an instant bristle.

  Corinn breathed through her mouth. She moved only her fingers, which she flexed out of a need to move something, to steady herself somehow. Resolutely submissive, she just stood. Inside, however, she had a spell dancing, ready to be released should Elya strike. It would rip her apart and leave them all splattered in feathered gore. She would do it if she had to.

  She didn’t. The mock attack was Elya’s version of a parting discourse, perhaps for her young’s benefit as much as a warning to Corinn. She curled away and returned to her agitated children. A few moments spent soothing them, touching them each with the soft spot below her jaw, and then Elya stood back from them. They tried to stay with her, but she huffed them back. Her wings unfurled from the knobby protrusions on her back. They snapped into place with a rapid clacking sound, the flowing motion of it almost liquid until it was complete. Then the finger-thin bone framework went rigid, only the silky membrane hung throughout rippling before the touch of the air. Elya leaped backward onto the terrace railing. She glanced from her young to Corinn once again, then twisted around and dropped out of sight.