by Jen Williams
‘Evening, Captain.’
Kellan came up the stairwell, looking behind Devinia at the dark that followed them, before joining her at the wheel. The fine rain had stopped, but his hair and beard were dusted with shining droplets.
‘Kellan. How goes it?’
He looked away from her again, as though he expected some great monster to loom up out of the dark. For all she knew, it could.
‘Only Antrew left, Captain. He lingers, and Augusta can’t say for sure which way it will go.’
Devinia nodded slowly. She could smell smoke on the air now, very faint. ‘And the rest?’
Kellan shrugged. He was always reluctant to deliver bad news. ‘The crew are with you, as ever. But they’re nervous. They’re playing cards and dice, and drinking their rum, and they’re swapping stories. You know the sort. A friend of a friend who wandered away from Two-Birds, and they found him the next day missing all his skin. That sort of thing.’
‘All pirates tell those stories. And how much more delicious they must be, with this view?’ She gestured to the cliffs surrounding them. ‘Keep an eye on it, Kellan. We’ve only just started to make our way into the interior of the island, and I don’t need them losing their nerve before—’
It was the tiniest noise that gave it away, but Devinia had been at sea for many years, and she knew the sounds of a ship better than her own daughter’s voice. It was the soft clonk of a wooden oar against the edge of a boat, so soft and careful she almost didn’t hear it. And it didn’t come from her ship. It came from behind them.
Instantly Devinia extinguished the lamp next to her and turned around to peer into the dark. Kellan opened his mouth and she silenced him with a gesture.
The waterway behind them was a shifting mass of black; ink below them, velvet above. She could see nothing, but there was that scent again; the smoke of a torch recently extinguished. That and the sound of an oar. The Poison Chalice had no oars.
Without taking her eyes from that view, Devinia knelt and retrieved a specially made flare from a wooden alcove in the helm. She had bought them on their last trip to Onwai; a cunning mixture of powders and explosives that produced a powerful light. With her forefinger she tugged the loop of fabric that acted as a trigger and threw the whole thing, overarm, across the rearmost guardrail. Halfway through that slow arc the flare surged into life, lighting the space beyond the Poison Chalice with brilliant blue light like a falling star.
Crawling along behind them in utter darkness were three sleek raiding ships, each of them filled with men and women bristling with weapons. They had been sneaking up on them, so slowly, so carefully, following the beacon that was the Poison Chalice. Before the flare hit the water and fizzed out Devinia saw a woman stand up in the prow of the nearest ship; she wore a dusty greatcoat, and her face was slashed with a streak of red greasepaint.
Devinia turned, already bellowing, already drawing her weapons. The bastards had been sneaking up from behind them, hiding from danger in the wake of the larger ship.
‘Attack!’ she cried. ‘We are under attack!’
Kellan was down on the quarter deck already, barking instructions to the crew. Devinia spun back to look at her enemy and immediately had to duck as an arrow zipped past her right shoulder. She snarled – arrows were a coward’s weapon.
‘Come up here, Ristanov, and show me your steel! You will have to board me to take this prize!’
There came an answering crow of laughter. ‘Perhaps I will stay down here and poke you full of holes. Even the fattest sow will bleed to death eventually!’ The woman’s crew roared at her response and clashed sword against sword.
Devinia backed away. It was all very well exchanging pleasantries, but she had several immediate problems. First, the ship was stuck with her rear in the face of the enemy ships, and her cannon were all facing to either side rather than directly behind. Second, they could not race away; even with Lord Frith powering their sails with his magic, they were like a rat caught in a maze.
‘Get ready to fight,’ she called to her crew. ‘I want to cut that smile from the Banshee’s face myself!’
Wydrin and Frith appeared on the deck, their faces twin moons of surprise.
‘You! Mage boy! Use that fire of yours to keep them back! Wydrin, oil down the sides of the ship – I want those bastards slipping right off.’
The Poison Chalice was a well-ordered ship, but the crew were already rattled, thanks to the tentacled monster and the burning fog, and for a few moments everything was chaos. Devinia caught sight of Lord Frith dashing towards the rear of the ship as she made her way down, sending bright fire balls behind them, but the lookouts in the rigging were already shouting that the ships were coming alongside, two to port, one to starboard. There were shouts, voices raised in anger that she didn’t recognise, and despite their best efforts, there were men and women climbing over their sides. In seconds, fights were breaking out all across the ship.
A man with scars across his bald head lurched out in front of her. Devinia met his sword with her own cutlass, pushing him back easily before dealing a blow to his shining scalp that would leave more than a scar. She stepped over his body, bellowing more orders. There were so many strangers here now, so many of the Banshee’s men, and where was the bitch herself?
‘Kellan? Where is Kellan?’ She couldn’t see the first mate anywhere. A young sailor known as Freckled Freya stumbled past her, so she grabbed her shoulder. ‘Turn the mainsail to starboard, now. Stop gawping at me and obey your captain!’ The girl ran as though her trousers were on fire, while Devinia turned to bellow at Frith. The young Lord had taken to sending cones of ice over the guardrail.
‘Lord Frith! Get over here and earn your place in my daughter’s knickers!’ She saw him turn, a mingled look of confusion and outrage on his face. He paused to crack the end of his staff into the face of an invading pirate, before running over to her.
‘Madam, I really must—’
‘Can you fill the sail from this side? With as much force as you can muster?’
‘I can, but that would—’
‘Just do it.’
For a moment she saw a dark look in his eye, but he held his staff aloft and the sail filled as she willed it. There was a groaning all over the ship and the Poison Chalice suddenly lurched to one side, so abruptly that the black cliffs to the right of them loomed alarmingly close. In seconds, they could be dashed to pieces, but instead she heard a chorus of screams as the longboats that were alongside them were crushed between them and the cliffs.
Devinia had been in battles before – many, in fact – and was familiar with the way that the fear and anger could stretch and distort the perception of time. She also knew that panic could turn the tide of a battle, that a single act could change everything. But never before had she witnessed so many things going wrong so quickly.
Lord Frith released his grip on the spell and the Poison Chalice righted herself violently, pushing a wave against the opposite cliff that came back and showered them with spray. Out of nowhere Kellan finally appeared, straining against the rocking deck with a look of black thunder on his face. Devinia opened her mouth to shout a command to him, then found her words snatched away as her first mate walked up to Lord Frith and punched him solidly on the temple. Her daughter’s lover crashed to the deck as though his bones were made of jelly, and the mage’s staff fell from his fingers, rolling with the motion of the ship.
In an instant Wydrin was there, standing over his body, the staff snatched up and held securely. Devinia could see her daughter shouting at Kellan, could see him shouting back, but could not make out the words. She ran, meaning to come between them before her daughter could do real damage – perhaps Kellan had thought Frith meant to destroy the ship, not realising the order had come from her.
‘Stop it, the pair of you!’ Around them, the fighting was fierce. ‘We haven’t got time—’
Kellan spun and pushed his knife smartly into her stomach. She took a sharp bre
ath, her fingers automatically trying to grip the handle, but Kellan had already pulled it out. Blood filled her silk shirt, obscenely hot.
‘Nothing’s ever straightforward, is it?’ said Kellan in a pained tone of voice. Devinia stumbled backwards just in time to see Wydrin screaming, bringing the staff around in a wide arc to connect with Kellan’s stomach – too slow, silly child, thought Devinia faintly, a dagger would be faster – but he stepped away so that the blow only caught at his hip.
‘What are you doing?’ Devinia pressed a hand to the hole in her gut. It felt deep. ‘What have you done?’
‘What have we done, you mean?’
Devinia turned. The Banshee stood behind her, grinning widely. The slash of greasepaint across her mouth was like a wound. Dimly Devinia was aware of Wydrin fighting, Wydrin calling her name, and Kellan holding her back. She gritted her teeth, forcing herself to concentrate.
‘Get off my ship, you grinning lunatic.’ With one hand she brandished her cutlass. ‘Or I’ll use your guts for rigging.’
The Banshee grinned all the wider.
‘Full of bullshit to the end, yes. I will kill most of your crew I think. For the foolish mistake of sailing with you. And then I will kill you slowly, for the foolish mistake of thinking you could best me. That, and sleeping with your first mate.’
Devinia looked to Kellan, but he was fully occupied keeping Wydrin away from him – her daughter still held the staff in one hand, using it defensively, while her short sword stabbed and whirled like a stinging insect. For the briefest, shining moment Devinia felt a queasy mixture of pride and fear. I should not have brought her here.
‘Shut your hole.’ Devinia turned back and leapt forward, meeting the woman sword for sword. There was no time for fear or pain here, there was only the fight: only survival, and who wanted it more.
She was quick, leaving no time for the Banshee to think. It was her only chance, to put a burst of strength behind her sword arm and drive the woman back, hoping for a lucky strike. The Banshee opened her mouth and screamed, her pathetic gimmick meant to scare pirates witless. In response, Devinia spat in her face.
‘Couldn’t face me on the Torrent, could you?’ she called, hoping her voice sounded stronger than she felt. ‘Had to sneak up behind me on your belly like a snake.’
‘Old woman, you talk too much.’
The Banshee struck forwards and then up sharply, pushing Devinia’s cutlass to one side. It was the sort of move Devinia could normally deflect through sheer strength, but the wound in her stomach was rapidly pumping out her last reserves of that into her sodden clothes. She gritted her teeth, bringing the sword up again as quickly as she could, but it was too late. The Banshee snapped forward, striking Devinia on the temple with the pommel of her sword. Abruptly the deck seemed to suck at Davinia’s knees and, before she was truly aware what had happened, she had sprawled on the boards, and the Banshee had one booted foot pressing down on her wrist. She felt her cutlass drop from her numb fingers.
‘There you are, old woman. Yes. On the deck where you belong. Perhaps I will make you scrub it before I flay you, yes.’
Devinia screwed her eyes shut and then opened them, trying to see properly. The Banshee’s face was a dark shadow hanging above her, but beyond her head she could see the clouded sky. And something was moving in it.
‘What’s that?’
There must have been genuine curiosity in her voice because the Banshee turned away from taunting her and looked. Devinia could tell from the way that she straightened up that she’d seen it, too. Three shapes floated down towards them, looking like great birds with rigid wings, except that as they got closer, Devinia could see that the wings had intricate wooden frames, with a material not unlike canvas stretched across them. Underneath these strange contraptions were three people – two women and a man – and they floated down in a tight spiral, obviously looking to land on the deck.
‘What bastard nonsense is this now?’ murmured Devinia.
The Banshee had left her and was stalking back towards her own crew.
‘Eyes to the skies!’ she called. ‘I want them caught and held too!’
But the newcomers were fast. Devinia watched them land, almost at exactly the same time. Immediately they threw off their makeshift wings and brandished long curved swords that looked wickedly sharp. Two of their number made short work of the men and women who were close by, while the other – a short woman with pale skin, black hair and a tattoo that covered all the skin below her chin – seemed to look around casually, as if searching for something. There was a shifting of the light – Devinia blinked rapidly, convinced her vision was fading – and the black-haired woman faded from view.
Grunting with the effort, Devinia forced herself to sit up. There was a cold feeling in her guts that had nothing to do with the stab wound.
‘Wydrin!’ she cried, ‘get out of here! Now!’
She caught sight of her daughter, still fighting, blood thick on her sword, and then she pitched forward, as though an invisible force struck her from behind. Wydrin stumbled, leaning on the staff for support, and then the other two strangers descended on her. Devinia saw the ropes then, saw the sack go over her daughter’s head. She surged to her feet, ignoring the way the world tipped around her like it was rolling off its axis.
‘WYDRIN!’
It was too late. The woman with the black hair had reappeared, and in the midst of the chaos and the blood, they dragged Wydrin to the guardrail with the sack now pulled smartly down to her torso. Together they lifted her up, and dropped below out of sight.
19
Wydrin had been aware of sudden movement behind her, a shadow that shouldn’t have been there, and then the world went dark. Her nostrils filled with the smell of old sacking, and she could feel rough hessian weave against her face. Instinctively, she brought her arms up, slashing wildly with her sword and trying to keep her attackers at arm’s reach, but someone delivered a hard blow to the top of the arm holding the staff and she felt it go numb. The staff was snatched away from her and she crumpled over as someone punched her solidly in the stomach.
‘Get her over the side,’ said a low voice just near her ear. ‘Fast and quiet, give them no time to think. And handle that thing carefully.’
Another blow, this one to the side of her head, and Glassheart was ripped from her fingers. Wydrin growled and tried to throw herself out of range, but her head was ringing and strong arms were forcing her back towards the guardrail. There was a moment of alarming disorientation as she was shoved against the rail and then over it, before being lowered somehow into empty space. She kicked wildly, cursing and even biting at the sack but before she could get a clear idea of where she was she hit solid wood again. The sound of water was much closer here.
‘Frith!’ The last time she’d seen him, he’d been unconscious on the deck, and her mother had been bleeding from a wound in her stomach. Nevertheless, she called for them: ‘Frith! Devinia!’
Someone struck her again, and for a time she was lost to the dark. When she came back to herself her head was between her knees, and it took a few moments to remember what had happened. There was the rippling sound of oars through water, and she could no longer hear the chaos of the ship. Taking a slow breath, she held herself very still.
‘I know you are awake now.’ The voice was low and female. ‘Do not try to pretend otherwise. It would also be a mistake to try and escape. While you were unconscious we tied you more securely, and a dip in the waterways now would be a quick way to drown.’
‘Who –’ Wydrin paused and cleared her throat. Her head was pounding. ‘Who are you? You’re not the Banshee, and I don’t think you’re her crew.’
‘I am Estenn the Emissary.’
Wydrin shifted slightly. Her arms had been bound; firmly, but not tight enough to be painful. ‘I have to tell you, Estenn, that’s an impressive title, but I have no bloody idea who you are. Why have you taken me? Where are we going?’
�
��I have taken you for the glory of the gods.’
Wydrin barked laughter at that. ‘You took me to please your gods? They are going to be very disappointed. From what I remember, godly sacrifices tend to be virgins who wear a lot of white. Well, I don’t want to dash your dreams, but—’
‘You will not talk idly of the gods,’ said the woman mildly. ‘Not in front of me.’
‘Oh, we are going to get on like a house on fire.’ Wydrin tensed her shoulders, trying to ease the ache in her head. ‘Can you take this bag off? It’s not helping my headache any.’
There was a pause, and the sack was pulled up. It was still night, and the small boat they travelled in had a single oil lamp at its prow. There were two people at the oars and two others at the prow, all with hoods up, while facing her on the bench opposite was a woman with a heart-shaped face, ghostly in the lamplight. She wore a mixture of furs and leathers, and bracelets bristling with small charms circled her arms. There was a tattoo at her throat, a sprawling, intricate thing that covered her skin like a blanket of shadows, and she sat slightly forward, her hands held loosely together. Wydrin sensed a great potential for movement from the woman; this was someone constantly alert and ready to act. It was a skill she valued in herself, and once again she cursed her own stupidity at being taken so easily. I will never hear the last of this from Mum. If Devinia was still alive, of course. She took a breath, forcing herself to remain calm.
‘Why did you attack Devinia the Red? She is not an enemy you make casually. I wouldn’t kidnap her daughter either, to be honest.’ Wydrin shifted on the bench. To either side were the cliffs, dark and silent. There was no sign of anyone else. ‘I don’t often say this, because she already has the ego of a pirate, but she is a bit of a nightmare when crossed.’
The woman who had named herself Estenn smiled slightly, a slow curling of one corner of her mouth. ‘I have heard the talk of Devinia the Red in Two-Birds, and I have also heard of her daughter, Wydrin the Copper Cat of Crosshaven. Not a pirate, but a sell-sword.’ She tipped her head slightly to one side. ‘Well, I did not attack your mother, Wydrin of Crosshaven. Though when we left her, she looked fairly beaten to me.’