Natural death through old age or illness was a slow ebbing of life: the human soul slowly withdrawing from the flesh. Murder and sudden death were very different – the link between body and soul was untimely severed, and all that soul essence left behind in the flesh was a great resource. The obsidian blade at the necromancer’s hip grew warm as that cast off essence was sucked into it.
Maeven shuddered and bit her lip. Had she tried to contain so much power within her own flesh she would have immediately exploded and painted the walls with her body parts. The knife vibrated, growing closer to awakening. The released power could not compare to that of a strong soul, and she needed something greater to awaken the weapon to its true potential.
As for the demonologist, her demons had acted quickly, snatching away some confused souls to the depths of Hellrath before the necromancer’s deathly touch could fall upon them. Let Maeven take the bulk of the soul essence, for Black Herran was more concerned with blood flavoured with pain. Her demons drank up all that terror and torment she had carefully built up inside the enemy and turned it into raw power.
She reached out with her arts and triggered the demonic glyphs she had spent weeks preparing before the battle. Her magic wrenched all lifeforce from the gory mess of the battlefield and bound it to her service. The glyphs throbbed in her mind, blinding with power as they revolved around the field of the slain, visible only to the eye of a demonologist. Faster and faster until they were a screaming blur of power. Thunder boomed as it lanced down through the earth, shattering a hundred doors between Essoran and Hellrath, opening the path for something vast and powerful to come through. She called out to Duke Shemharai and informed him of old bargains finally being honoured. She offered her world to the demon who owned her soul. In the deep and burning darkness, Duke Shemharai raged at her tardiness, but accepted her plea and sent his mighty general on ahead to widen the ways between the worlds.
Black Herran shuddered. “Now we are ready to fight the Falcon Prince.”
“Perhaps,” Lorimer said. “But once he is dealt with, who will fight what you two have wrought? My skin crawls with your sorcery, and all here know nothing good will come from this.”
Black Herran ran a trembling hand through her short, red-tipped white hair. “You are correct, Lord of Fade’s Reach, something very bad indeed is coming from this. One step away from the end of the world, in fact. I have broken open the gates to Hellrath and Duke Shemharai’s great general Malifer approaches. I have just unleashed one of the mightiest of all demons upon the Lucent Empire.”
BOOK THREE
Darkness Devouring Light
CHAPTER 28
The noonday sun burned away banks of thick sea fog, enabling the spotter up in the Scourge of Malice’s crow’s nest to catch sight of a half-dozen Lucent Empire ships lumbering south, hugging the rocky coast as if their lives depended on it. It looked as if they had become separated from the rest of their fleet in the fog. Poor little calves, straying so far from the safety of the herd…
Queen Verena Awildan gave the order for her flotilla to give chase. Her five swift and heavily armed warships forced the inexperienced Lucent captains and their over-laden cargo hulks to head further out to sea in a vain attempt to escape – there was no safe port for them until they neared Tarnbrooke and she would ensure they never reached it.
Her warships quickly caught up to the enemy and their catapults and ballistae rained incendiary shot down. Columns of black smoke writhed up into the sky from flaming, sinking ships. The air tasted of burning tar, salted with the tears of the dead and dying. The crash of white-peaked waves did not quite drown out the screams.
Verena stood on her deck chewing blackroot as the Scourge of Malice closed on the last of the enemy vessels, the potent taste chasing away the stench of burnt flesh and the loss of ships and gold. She spat black overboard and screamed: “Loose!”
The catapult arm thunked forward and a fiery ball of pitch sizzled through the air. It arced out over the water towards the wallowing Lucent ship. It was no valuable supply ship bearing trade goods, but instead packed with soldiers about to die.
The missile struck the mast and broke apart, showering the human cargo with sticky burning pitch. The men took light before the ship, their linen and wool gambesons bursting into flame. Some leapt overboard, preferring to drown than be burned alive. Many wore their armour, heads and hands bobbing up and down for only moments before the weight of steel and leather dragged them down into the silent depths.
Verena waited until the sails and mast came down in a burning mass atop the hulk’s remaining crew. Then she waved her archers to lower their bows. There was no need to waste arrows on this lot of doomed landsmen. Her crew did not cheer as they left the enemy behind – for fire was a terror to all sailors. This was not respectable piracy where a captured crew might have a chance to be ransomed back to their loved ones and lords, this was a slaughter. She was glad that her family were safely back home in her fortified manor in the Awildan Isles, as far away from danger as she could get them.
The Scourge of Malice and her flotilla left the flotsam behind, heedless of the cries from survivors grimly clutching onto debris as waves crashed over them. Some might survive long enough to wash ashore somewhere, but Verena doubted it. These waters were cold and shark-infested at this time of year, and there were things worse than sharks – things that swallowed those predators whole.
An hour later, on a northerly heading, they sighted a forest of sails and masts flying the emblem of the barbed whip – the main Awildan fleet. Signal flags were run up the Scourge of Malice’s mainmast and shuttered lanterns flashed orders to follow their queen north and regroup with the two flotillas she had sent on ahead to track enemy movements.
She didn’t expect to face much of a challenge from the enemy. Only ten years ago the Lucent Empire had been completely land-locked, their experience of sailing limited to navigating the calm waters of a single large lake, the Ellsmere. Their best sailors had been conscripted from recent conquests, the empire subsuming city states and petty kingdoms all along the northern coast. They lacked dedicated captains and skilled crews trained for naval combat.
Spoiling to vent some stress, Verena toured the deck with her whip in hand examining every rope, knot and plank to ensure the ship was battle-ready. Her crew were the best, but nobody is perfect all the time; she bent to examine droplets of solidified pitch below the cup of the catapult. A treated cow hide had been stretched across the deck, now spotted with scorch marks. Its operator, Krevan, paled and backed away, only to be seized and held by her armoured guards.
“Unacceptable,” she snapped. “This could have caught light. Your carelessness endangers this ship and our lives.” Her vicious barbed whip uncoiled across the deck like an angry sea snake.
Her guards stripped the trembling crewman of his shirt before lashing him to the mast, his back exposed to receive the whip.
Verena looked out across the sea to the north. More enemy ships would be on the way, and nobody knew just how many the bastards had managed to cobble together; with them she expected to see at least a few actual warships rather than crude cargo transports and repurposed fishing boats. She sighed in disappointment and sent a guard off to fetch her a less lethal bull-hide whip. As much as she wanted to strip all the flesh from Krevan’s bones, at the moment she needed him able to work. She tested the hide whip, sturdy leather creaking in her hands, and then looked to her sweating sailor.
“Krevan,” she said, “take care of my ship and her crew or I will no longer take care of you. This is for your own good.” Her whip snapped out, tearing a narrow strip of skin from his back. Krevan bit his lip to stifle a scream. She licked her lips and struck again, his back bearing a bloody X. This time Verena smiled as he howled and strained at his bonds. She worked out her stress on his bloody flesh, a dozen lashes that left her panting and satisfied, and her damned hip throbbing.
She tossed the dripping whip aside and waved her sailors t
o take care of the mess. “Do better, Krevan.” They leapt to carry out her will, scrambling to demonstrate fervent obedience to their beloved queen.
She returned to the quarterdeck and her new first mate, Aleeva, a bald black woman with arms thicker than Verena’s thighs who had transferred over from the Moon Queen. The extensively tattooed foreigner was an improvement on the traitorous Gormley, still lingering in her brig, and could be relied upon to keep her mouth shut when it was none of her business. Verena rewarded loyalty, competence, and the ability of not pissing her off – except when she truly needed a talking to. It was a fine line, and crossing it had shredded many a back, but it was also the quickest route to a captaincy in her fleet.
“Easy pickings, My Crown,” Aleeva said. “Even for land-pigs.”
Verena sat on a barrel to rest her aching hip and pursed her lips. “We can hope they are all as incompetent.”
Aleeva quirked an eyebrow. “How many ships and soldiers can the vermin have left? Six sunken ships and over two hundred men now walking the briny depths.”
“It’s not the number of ships and soldiers that concern me,” Verena replied. “It’s what might come with them. Storm and fire are a sailor’s greatest fear… under normal circumstances. Where magic is involved, nothing is ever certain.”
A cry from the crow’s nest: “Ship, ho! Caravel approaching at speed. One of ours.”
Aleeva and Verena exchanged glances. Dark Spear and Morning Mist were far swifter and more manoeuvrable than dedicated warships like the Scourge of Malice and had been sent on ahead to scout for the bulk of the enemy fleet. For only one to return meant they had found trouble.
The Dark Spear ran a sequence of flags up its mast: enemy fleet sighted to the north-west. Prey. Predator. A mix of cargo ships and warships. Then the flag that every Awildan most dreaded was run up the line – a black skull on bright red with lightning bolts to either side, the warning of magic users.
Verena cursed. Something had gone badly wrong. They should never have got close enough to the enemy to find out if they had magic or not. She started as something warm and soft leapt onto her shoulders. Irusen settled down around her neck, the slynx’s quiet cat-like growling and needling claws doing far more to worry her than sighting any number of warships on the horizon. Beyond being late feeding her, only strong magic ever irritated the lazy little creature.
As the Dark Spear drew closer every eye was fixated on a black scar running down her entire starboard side. The slynx hissed and glared as the ship drew up alongside and shortened her sail to match speeds with the Scourge of Malice. Her captain, Sly Maldane, caught the knotted rope flung from the flagship and squirreled up it in no time.
“My Crown,” he said, fist pressed over his heart. His eyes were red and his face, braids and beard were grey with ash.
“Report.”
Her crew stilled, ears straining.
“Morning Mist is lost with all hands. Golden fire burned her up from bow to stern. The Lucent warships have magickers on board.”
Groans and curses rippled through her crew. Verena glared at them and they hurried about their tasks. “What’s the point in having scout ships if you get too close to the enemy?”
The captain scrubbed a hand through his beard, dislodging a shower of ash. “Two of their warships took on unnatural speed running against the wind. Morning Mist was ahead of us and the only reason Dark Spear escaped is the land-pigs ripped their sails and rigging apart in the attempt.”
“How many?” Verena asked.
“I counted twelve heavy warships heading south along the coast, leading eighty-odd low-riding cargo hulks.”
Verena’s eyebrows climbed. Such a number was beyond all expectations. The Lucent Empire was not a sea power, and this misadventure had been sold to her as a skirmish at most, a simple task to prevent a small force from landing soldiers to threaten the rear of Tarnbrooke. Instead, they faced a full-blown invasion fleet.
“Two magickers tossed fire at the Mist from separate ships,” Sly Maldane added. He wasn’t a man to waste words on maybes and what ifs, he was a slippery but solid smuggler who dealt in hard fact and assumed nothing; he left the hard thinking and speculating up to his betters.
“Current distance?” she demanded.
He glanced up at the flags, flapping in a rising wind from the south. “In this weather? We can reach them in an hour.”
Verena’s nails dug into her palms and she fought to keep her expression calm. Did twelve warships mean a full twelve of those shitty inquisitors able to strike at a distance comparable to her catapults? More of them could be on the cargo ships… but Black Herran had sounded so very certain that the main force would be coming via land. It might only be the two of them there to shepherd their flock through unfamiliar seas, but lack of information had sunk many a ship in the past. The only way to know for sure was to dip a hooked line into the water and see what manner of monster took a bite.
She looked to the captain of the Dark Spear. “The warships were at the head of the fleet, you say? The hulks – were they clustered together?”
Sly Maldane nodded, a malevolent twinkle in his eyes. “Aye and aye.”
Verena Awildan chuckled. “The fools are trying to fight a land war at sea. Magic or not, we will have them.”
She called her signal-master to attend her and laid out the master plan for the fleet. A series of flags were hoisted and lanterns flashed their messages from ship to ship until all understood their role. Flammable cargo was shifted to six older, smaller ships in need of repair. Those crews transferred to her largest warships leaving only a skeleton crew behind to steer their fire ships towards the massed enemy, tie off the rudder and then leap into rowboats. It was a wildly dangerous job to crew a fire ship, but great rewards were paid in Verena Awildan’s favour, in gold, and in glory. Only the hardest and bravest of pirates were up to the task – an opinion that generations of Awildan queens had encouraged. It was arguable as to which reward proved the greatest incentive to them, but Verena was inclined to go with glory – pirates did love their bragging rights.
The fleet split in two, the bulk of her smaller and swifter vessels and the six readied fire ships under Sly Maldane’s command heading west until they had sailed out of sight. Soon they would curve round to the north and return to smash the enemy cargo ships in the rear. The rest of the fleet would lure the lead warships and their damnable magickers forward into an engagement.
The holy knights would be the greatest threat to her fleet, but she did wonder how well they would swim when their ships broke apart beneath them. All those bleeding men she intended to ditch into the water would likely whip the sharks up into a feeding frenzy.
Verena embraced the edge afforded by fear and gave the signal to set off. The Scourge of Malice’s sails bloomed out to catch the wind and the heavy warships of the Awildan Isles cut through the waves heading north. An armada of shark fins trailed in their wake, the dread beasts knowing that a feast of human flesh would soon be coming their way. All those legs and feet dangling down like juicy worms…
She eyed the dark waters the sharks swam through and licked her lips nervously. Far hungrier beasts dwelled in the deeps that only the line of Awildan queens knew how to summon as a last resort. She prayed to the many gods of the sea that she would never have to see the Kraken again. Once had been enough to give her a lifetime of nightmares. Humans, who thought of themselves as the rulers of the world, couldn’t abide the idea of being no more than snacks to vast and ancient beings beyond their comprehension.
After perhaps half an hour, a cry from the crow’s nest announced that the Lucent fleet had been sighted. Verena peered through the spyglass at the distant ships with sunburst white flags flying from their masts. The flag atop the largest and heaviest warship was different from the others, gold trim and a crown above the sun of their Goddess. As they closed the distance, Verena eventually made out a figure in shining silver standing at the prow, the visor of his helmet worked into
the golden visage of a falcon.
The queen froze, staring. A shiver rippled up her spine. The Falcon Prince was here in person and not heading south with his main army. The man lifted his visor and peered towards her fleet.
Even after all these years she instantly recognised another of Black Herran’s one-time captains: Maeven’s deranged little brother, Amadden, the judgemental brat that had trailed after his necromancer sister like shit clinging to a fish. No wonder the Lucent Empire was so vicious if he was the one leading it.
The wind began to shift, filling Awildan sails while slowing the Lucent fleet. It seemed that the gods of wind and water were with her.
She smiled thinly. He had been the one who cut open his sister’s face – and who could blame him for that! If only he had finished the job instead of leaving her with a hideous scar. Verena could not kill the necromancer for the moment, but she would happily try to murder her brother. With any luck she would see this Falcon Prince drowned within the hour.
In the view of her spyglass, Maeven’s brother looked directly towards her and sneered. He looked so like his sister that it roused her ire. She would have his head.
“Ready catapults!”
CHAPTER 29
Dawn arrived in Tarnbrooke, clear skies and harsh sunlight burning away the comforting morning mist that had hidden Jerak Hyden’s horrors from the sight of the exhausted townsfolk.
Not a soul had ventured past the town’s palisade since the wall had ceased to exist in a conflagration of alchemical fire, and none wanted to. The victory celebrations, such as they were, consisted of hard drinking and huddling under blankets, numb to the world as the townsfolk tried to ignore the cloying stench of burning human flesh. The night had been filled with the crackle and hiss of unnatural flame and the harrowing screams had continued for hours, until one by one those voices fell silent. Most of the town took no pleasure in such things.
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