Voyage of the Elawn

by Ted Neill

  The Voyage of the Elawn

  Elk Riders Volume II

  Ted Neill

  To My Parents

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 Wounded

  Chapter 2 Adamantus

  Chapter 3 The Judgement

  Chapter 4 Passengers

  Chapter 5 Mother Wyvern

  Chapter 6 The Nested Narrows

  Chapter 7 The Servior

  Chapter 8 Thirst

  Chapter 9 Madness

  Chapter 10 Eastern Lands

  Chapter 11 A Hero Among Us

  Chapter 12 Betrayal

  Chapter 13 Dis

  Chapter 14 The Mountain Tower

  Chapter 15 Foyle Island

  Chapter 16 Slaves

  Chapter 17 Numbers of other Numbers

  Chapter 18 The Treasure House

  Chapter 19 The Furies

  Chapter 20 The Labyrinth

  Chapter 21 Mage Fire

  Chapter 22 Harkness

  Chapter 23 A Bargain

  Chapter 24 The Market Square

  Chapter 25 The Ship of Red Sails

  Chapter 26 Auren Hintland

  Epilogue The Northern Sea

  Chapter 1

  Wounded

  Light flashed from the windows and through the great gaps torn in the walls of the castle as Sybil destroyed everything about her. She must be searching for them. Was she battling Meeshock—or herself? Gabriella could not believe what they had seen and what she had done to Sybil. Had she really split into two separate, identical people? It was just a matter of time, Gabriella feared, before Sybil or her . . . twin . . . would think to look for them at sea, or even in the sky. Gabriella angled the Elawn higher.

  The palace of the Foyles was crumbling like a corpse devoured from within by maggots. Walls collapsed, battlements fell. Gabriella’s breath caught as she thought of all the frozen residents turned to stone and unable to run to safety as the walls and ceilings came crashing down around them. The king, the queen, the woman with olive skin and raven hair.

  As the Elawn cleared the main island, Gabriella could see another section of the castle slide down the cliff face. Stones rumbled and the ocean hissed, as the castle slipped into the sea. A flock of terns, startled by the commotion, spiraled up from the village ruins. Bolts of light flickered again from the exposed honeycombs of corridors, and Gabriella instinctively sank down behind the seat Ghede once occupied.

  The village disappeared behind a clump of trees. The last bit of land, a cluster of guano-stained rocks, passed beneath them and, in the fading light, Foyle Castle began to blend with the island itself. As the ruined island receded on the horizon, occasional flashes of lightning illuminated the shifting pile of rubble. At least one Sybil still lived.

  The sun could not set quickly enough. It was an orange ball resting on the horizon, and it turned Mortimer’s face a bellicose red as he came up from below to check on Gabriella.

  “How is Omanuju?” she asked the hunter-trapper.

  “Resting, but we will have to draw out the dart soon.”

  Gabriella calibrated their heading: due east. They would have to turn around, she knew, but it was a strong wind that pushed them and she was eager to get as far from Foyle Island as possible, no matter what the direction.

  “How did you ever find us?”

  “I followed your brother.”

  “Dameon?”

  “Yes. I was coming back from checking traps, and I found him in the woods on the hills over the village. The hour was early, and I thought perhaps he was sleepwalking, but when I came closer, I realized he was quite awake and that he was truly following a trail.”

  Gabriella thought back to the night she left their home on Harkness with Omanuju in order to seek Nicomede’s treasure. So Dameon had been awake when she slipped out the window. She remembered how her knees and hands had been scraped raw when she tripped following Omanuju through the forest. Her clumsy stumbling had left a clear trail for Dameon to track. It would not have been the first time he had obsessively followed her. She had lost so many friends as a result of his trailing along—uninvited—to sleepovers and picnics. It seemed that even riding in the sky over the sea, she could not escape the burden that was her brother and his odd ways.

  “But we covered such a great distance on the elk,” Gabriella said.

  “Through the highlands, which are covered in wild grasses. Your trail there was easy to find. And it was clear some hooved creature had made off with you,” Mortimer said.

  “Why did you keep following?”

  “He couldn’t be stopped, your brother. It took us a few days to cross the island, but I had two rabbits with me from my traps.” Mortimer shook his head. “It was a scene just to get your brother to eat. By the mill race, you said he was different. You were right. A bit mad really.”

  Gabriella considered Mortimer. He looked no cleaner than the day he had pulled Dameon out of the mill race, saving his life. His hands were black with dirt, his face cracked and lined from weathering the elements, his hair and beard a tangled mess, and his clothes hung loosely on his undernourished frame. She was well aware that many islanders had made the very same observation about him.

  “But weren’t you scared of the creature that might have carried me off?” she asked. Mortimer shrugged his shoulders, drew a knife from his belt and pared away at the end of one of his fingernails.

  “I wanted to catch it, kill it,” he said flatly, as if it was as ordinary to track a strange beast and kill it as it was to spread feed for the chickens. “Imagine our surprise when we found that cave and those ships on Harkness, floating on air.” He turned his face skyward, then looked back at Gabriella while chewing the piece of nail he had cut off. “That was when things became truly strange. Your brother ran up the gangway to one of the ships, the Tantallon, it was called, saying something about seeing a woman.”

  “A woman?”

  “Yes.” Mortimer lifted his hand and rubbed his neck.

  “Did you ever see her?”

  “No. I thought she was imaginary, but once we were on the ship, I was not so sure. See, it cast off completely on its own. The sails unfurled, the tiller moved, and the next thing I knew, we were flying. I’m not one for superstition, but I wondered if it was a ghost. Dameon saw something. He’d have long conversations with whomever he saw in the prow. Called her Bridgitte.”

  “Did he describe her?”

  “He did.” Mortimer rubbed his neck again as if it ached.

  “Golden eyes, red hair, blue skin?” Gabriella said.

  He froze and stared at her. “How did you know?”

  Gabriella sighed, touched the sprig of blue leaves in her pocket, and felt her eyes mist. “I’ll explain later.”

  “No, maybe it is time you explained now. What is this sorcery that surrounds us?” He said, rocking forward, closer to her.

  “I’m not sure myself. I know these ships have guardians. Ours was named Ghede, but he was killed by Sybil.”

  “Sybil?”

  Gabriella did what she could to explain the bizarre and nightmarish things that had happened in Castle Foyle. “Sybil was a princess. She did not want to grow up. The Servior gave her a wand that allowed her to freeze everyone in time by turning them to stone. One of her spells went wrong and she split herself into two . . . gave herself a twin. They both were mad.”

  “So it was a wand that destroyed that castle?” Mortimer asked.

  “Yes.” Gabriella knew it sounded implausible, but amid flying ships and invisible blue women, Mortimer was ready to consider it.

  “Why did you set out in the first place? What are you doing here so far from home?”

  “The Dead spoke a prophecy through me, during a summoning a
t the tower. They said if a worthy Harkenite went in search of Nicomedes’ treasure and returned, the price could be paid to the Servior and they will leave, never to trouble Harkness again.”

  “The Servior, those are the foreigners who came to Harkness a few days back?”

  “Yes, we can’t let the Tower of the Dead fall into their hands. They are dangerous. That is why we have to find the treasure.”

  Mortimer’s eyes lit up with a disturbing intensity when she mentioned treasure. “We could be rich. We could return like conquerors.”

  Gabriella’s lips twitched. She turned away to make a show of checking the wheel lest she betray her expression. “We were seeking it to save the tower,” she said.

  Mortimer snorted. “You believe any superstition you want. Me, I believe brute force and money are the only gods worth serving.”

  “Is that why you walked onto the island with a loaded crossbow?”

  Mortimer looked struck at her words.

  “I didn’t know what we would find there,” he said, his voice small. “It was an accident. Omanuju was the last person I would want to harm.” Tears wet his face. He wiped them away with the back of his hand. “He showed me kindness as a child when no one else did.”

  She regretted being so harsh. “We should check on Omanuju,” she mumbled.

  “The dart must come out. We will need to heat some tools.”

  “I’ll build a fire.”

  Gabriella found bottles of wine and boiled their contents in a pot over the brazier. She searched the galley for bread, hoping to find a source of mold to mix in with the wine, but the search was fruitless. She only found the biscuits and the tubers Ghede had dug up on Kejel. She contemplated soaking the biscuits in water, then locking them away in a dark cabinet, but to build up the mold might take days and the dart had to come out soon. The wound was already festering and red, but at least the bleeding had slowed. The dart looked so unnatural sticking from Omanuju’s side. Gabriella’s own belly twitched just to see it.

  They heated a needle, soaked some thread in the boiled wine to be used to sew up the wound, and heated one of Mortimer’s knives until it was glowing hot, just in case they had to cut the dart out. Omanuju drank some of the wine they had not boiled and held a cork in his teeth as Mortimer closed his fist around the end of the dart, the stiff feathers crunching softly.

  The hurt was greater upon removal than it was for entry, and Omanuju cried out. Stunned and shocked by his show of pain, the tears coursing down his cheeks, Gabriella was unsure what to do. Fortunately Mortimer knew how to wash the wound and put pressure on it with bandages when it began to bleed anew.

  “Press the bandage there,” he said.

  “I’m afraid of hurting him,” Gabriella said.

  “Discomfort is better than bleeding to death,” Mortimer said.

  Omanuju trembled, but the worst was over. Soon the freshly torn flesh was covered from view by white wrappings. The sleeping quarters was crowded with all five of them—Omanuju prone on a mattress, Dameon curled in the corner—the cries of pain had set him rocking—and Adamantus the elk who would not leave Omanuju’s side. When Mortimer cursed as he tried to carry a bowl of bloody bandages past the elk to the door, Omanuju reached up to reassure Adamantus, stroking the mane that surrounded his neck.

  “It’s alright. I am safe. You can go topside.” As if he understood, Adamantus tramped through the galley and out the double doors onto the deck, where he curled his legs beneath him and lay down like a dog awaiting his master.

  Dameon had wet himself and smelled as if he may have done even worse. As Gabriella was the only one who knew how to deal with him, she asked Mortimer to watch their heading at the wheel while she changed her brother. The trapper complied. Gabriella was glad to be rid of him. The sleeping quarters felt less claustrophobic, and she realized she simply did not like sharing close space with Mortimer.

  Dameon’s knees were locked to his chest, his thumb in his mouth.

  “Need to get him out of those clothes,” she said to herself. The scent of urine was layered on top of sweat and dirt. Dameon’s limbs remained stiff and curled even as she tried undressing him. The new surroundings, the chaos, not to mention Omanuju’s screams, had made him nearly catatonic. He would not remove his thumb from his mouth as Gabriella drew the shirt over his head. The fabric ripped as she struggled with it. He did not cooperate with his pants either, causing her to curse and yank at them as she tried to straighten his knees. “Damn you, Dameon.”

  “Gabriella, he cannot help himself.”

  She was surprised Omanuju was still awake. Instead of shame, she felt defensive, just as she had when her mother criticized her. She carried Dameon’s filthy clothes to the door, her arms and legs shaking with weakness, returned with a bowl of water, soap, and a cloth and scrubbed her brother clean. Afterwards she washed her hands, then ate a biscuit, sitting quietly on the bench in the galley. With Omanuju and Dameon in the next room and Mortimer and Adamantus on deck, she was, as much as she could be, alone, stewing in her misery.

  Gabriella had trusted Ghede and Omanuju. Now, one was dead, the other injured, and they had two more passengers. One an eccentric man she certainly did not like, or even trust, and the other, the ever-tiresome burden of her brother. She had hoped if she had saved the tower, the gods or the dead would cure him. Even if Omanuju said Dameon was unique and his talents valuable, Gabriella would have happily traded him for a normal brother at that moment.

  Before, even with the dragons, the sylphs, and the red riders on Kejel, she had felt confident about her newfound friends and their journey. Now that feeling was gone, replaced by the wearisome responsibility of her brother. She was yoked again with him. And Mortimer . . . why did she feel so uneasy around him? She rubbed her head. Why did everything feel like it was flying out of control? She finished the biscuit and entered the sleeping quarters, where she found both Omanuju and Dameon asleep.

  She stared at the flickering shadows cast on the wall from the lantern. Nothing looked real. Everything looked as if it were made of wax, a simulation of a real ship. She looked at her brother, briefly, curled like a ridiculous newborn. She thought of her parents, wondering what had happened to their children.

  Both of us, gone.

  She thrust those thoughts away as her eyes wandered about the room. She studied the beds, the deadeyes that secured them to the walls with chain, the cabinets and the unobtrusive handles carved so delicately into their doors. But always her gaze was brought back to the bandages wrapped around Omanuju’s torso, the stain of blood slowly growing.

  Before her resolve failed her, she fetched food and dishes from the galley and woke her brother. She knew he needed to eat. She held a flask up before Dameon’s face to show him its smooth lip. He would not drink from anything with a coarse surface. He refused clay cups unless they were glazed.

  For a moment, Gabriella feared her brother would not drink from this container either, but he did. After ten deep gulps, she pulled it away, afraid he would drink too quickly and get sick. With the bowl in her lap, she crushed the biscuit with the spoon, mixed it with water, then mashed it further. Soon she had a porridge that she could spoon into Dameon’s mouth. He ate it, slurping it from the spoon.

  When the bowl was empty, Dameon’s eyelids began to droop. Gabriella took blankets from the compartments beneath the bed and wrapped Dameon in them. Soon he drifted back into slumber. While he slept she leaned back against the wall, her own eyes burning her head heavy with weariness. She wished for sleep, to relieve her bone-deep weariness, to offer her some break from the thoughts and worries running through her mind. But sleep did not come, those very anxieties running too fast, the voices in her heard too loud for her to relax. She thought of her brother and how she would care for him. She worried for her parents, who must have been fretting about them both this very moment. But most of all, her thoughts, even her gaze drifted back to the figure sweating beneath the blankets across from her and she wondered if
her friend, mentor, and protector, Omanuju would live.

  Chapter 2

  Adamantus

  Two days out and they were still sailing east. Gabriella was not sure why except that no one had said to turn back to Harkness, to home, and she was reluctant to admit defeat. She spent most of her time at the wheel feeling anxious. At night, a ripening moon mocked her. She remembered the Servior had given them until the new moon to match their price for the lands that Mab Miller threatened to sell about the tower. Gabriella did not eat much herself, but she did prepare food for Dameon and the others.

  The rocking boat had lulled him since that first night, and he kept himself occupied counting clouds, tracing meridian lines on the maps in the galley, and drawing calculations in chalk on the boards of the deck.

  Without Ghede there to nag her, the boards remained un-scrubbed and Dameon’s chalk calculations proliferated. Gabriella kept the Elawn low, and Mortimer was able catch fish off the stern for their meals. The winds at these altitudes were slower than those higher up, but she did not care.

  Occasionally Mortimer asked her about the treasure they were seeking. Gabriella answered honestly that she didn’t know. She couldn’t answer his questions about how much gold and silver, or how many precious stones could be waiting for them. Gabriella hated to consider it, but one reason she had not turned the ship back to the west was because she feared Mortimer and what he might do when he realized they were no longer tracking towards the treasure. She felt trapped.

  The Elawn was altered without Ghede. Gabriella was still able to find useful supplies, including some oversized trousers and tunics that she sewed and reshaped to fit Dameon. But cupboard handles broke off in her hands. Rigging that was formally reliable now slipped knots. The sail needed more tending than she ever remembered, and the gap in the port deck had grown wider. Mold had formed on many of the biscuits. It was as if the ship was in mourning for its true skipper.

  She mentioned this to Omanuju when she checked on him one evening. He had not been able to leave his bed in the days since he had been injured, although every day she hoped this would change. She was not encouraged when she told him about the state of the Elawn.