‘This way,’ he said, and sprinted in the direction of the noise, Hero and Drake following. Stalking their way through the ruins, Joss kept an eye out for any movement, for any sign of life. Nothing stirred, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being watched by some unseen force.
He tried not to check over his shoulder too much for fear of giving himself away, though every time he did he saw nothing suspicious. Maybe it was just the lingering effects of the wisp’s touch playing tricks on his mind. Still, he remained keenly vigilant as the chanting grew ever clearer.
The words being recited were harsh things, spat from the back of the throat to befoul the ear. Though he had no hope of pronouncing them himself, nor any way of translating them, Joss knew the nature of them. He knew their dark origin, their malevolent intent. He knew it all from having heard them before, and he feared why he might be hearing them again.
Running through the shadows of Daheed, Joss slipped past a row of terrace homes, where he remembered staying once in the care of a distant relative. From there, he turned a corner into a wide avenue that he recalled leading to the waterfront, and it was here that he found all the fires blazing. It was here he found the well of voices.
‘Hide!’ he told the others as they caught up to him. Together they dived behind a fallen statue, the plaque on its base identifying the subject as Consul Tazh, the first independent leader of Daheed. Even in the midst of danger, Joss felt a pang of sorrow at discovering such a magnificent artefact destroyed.
The chanting continued. Only when he was sure they hadn’t been spotted, Joss cautiously inched up to steal a glance. Over two hundred figures were gathered on the Thousand Sacred Stairs. Once, the rough-hewn limestone steps had led down the avenue into the sea, as if the steps were an amphitheatre with all the ocean its stage. Now they fell away into nothingness. The figures were lined up on the descending tiers, humming and chanting together, their spiked helmets muffling their voices but failing to silence them.
A large cage had been soldered into place on the walls that surrounded the stairs. It was full of hostages, arms reaching out from between the bars, faces pressed up against the cold black iron. As Joss scanned it, he hoped desperately to spot the one face he’d come all this way to find.
But Edgar was nowhere to be seen, leaving Joss as tense and fearful as the prisoners watching from their cage while a pair of armoured pyrates marched up and down before them. They seemed to be assessing the hostages as a buyer might judge a herd of stock at market, and when they’d made their decision they came to a stop in front of the cage’s door. The hostages inside screamed.
‘No! Please no!’ one man, still dressed in his Sea Spirit Festival garb, cried as the pyrates unlocked the cage and pulled him out. Though he struggled against them, they kept a tight hold as they dragged him down the Thousand Sacred Stairs. There, on Daheed’s First Step – where Joss had been blessed with sea water and given his name – stood two men.
The first was slender, with a brass apparatus that housed a glowing mechanoid eye sewn onto the top half of his face. The eye shifted and contracted as the pyrate surveyed the crowd, a cruel little smile playing on his lips.
The second figure sported a big red beard, streaked with silver and woven through with bird skulls and finger bones and thunder lizard fangs. He wore a long coat covered in ornate eye designs, its colours faded to a bruised purple. Joss recognised him as the captain who’d led the attack on Crescent Cove.
‘Brothers!’ the captain shouted, and the pyrates ceased their chanting to roar with full-throated zeal. ‘You have toiled! You have plundered! You have wrought a tribute of agony and heartbreak, and now the hour of triumph is at hand! And here to lead us into our glorious new era, here to herald our master’s fated coming, is the Shadow God’s first true disciple!’
The pyrates roared even louder, their excitement growing into a frenzy. Joss wondered if all that enthusiasm was for the slender man with the mechanoid eye. His skulking demeanour betrayed him as an underling, however, not a leader. But there was nobody else near the First Step. Who could these fanatics possibly be awaiting?
The answer came all too soon.
A shadow glided along the ground. It swam between the captain and the pyrate with the mechanoid eye to gather in the centre of Daheed’s First Step, forming a pool as dark and deep as a bottomless pit, from which there now arose a third figure. His stone mask, black hood and feather cloak made him a thing of nightmares – a malevolent unkindness that could materialise anywhere, at any time, that could not be struck down or evaded.
Constant.
Immortal.
‘King’s mercy!’ Hero gasped.
‘That’s not …’ hissed Drake, unable to finish the horror of his thought.
‘It is,’ Joss said. ‘It’s Thrall.’
The masked man stood with arms outstretched, basking in the pyrates’ collective adulation. As the hostage was brought before him, kicking and thrashing, Thrall lowered a single hand to draw his curved blade from its scabbard, raising it as if were a holy object to be admired by all.
‘With this sacrifice, we show our fealty,’ he said, his voice low but as resonant as distant thunder. ‘With this sacrifice, we demonstrate our devotion. And with this sacrifice, we usher forth a new and unpitying age, to be ruled over by our rightful master.’
The mob roared its approval. The hostages cowered in terror.
Desperate to see what was happening, Joss spotted a row of barrels that skirted the very edge of the stairs, just behind the crowd. Without saying anything, he darted from behind the fallen statue and to the hiding spot. He ran as fast and as low to the ground as he could, ignoring the alarmed protests that Drake and Hero hissed behind him. Peering over the rim, he now had a better view of the First Step. Once, sapphire waters would have lapped at its edges. Now those waves had been replaced by a strange black vortex, just like Lord Malkus had described, which swirled around and around the city’s bedrock, gradually eroding it.
The damage would have been catastrophic if not for the dome of purple energy that cut through the vortex, to cradle the underside of the island and keep it from slipping all the way into oblivion. It shocked Joss to see just how precarious the city’s position was, teetering on the edge of destruction. Most of the vortex was outside of the dome, pooling at the bottom of the trench. But there was enough inside, swirling below the First Step, for the pyrates to do their worst. Joss watched as Thrall dragged his prisoner to its very edge.
‘We give this sacrifice willingly, that we might please our master and hasten his arrival into this world,’ Thrall said, clamping a hand on the prisoner’s shoulder. ‘Darkness take us!’
‘Darkness take us all!’ the crowd chanted in return.
The prisoner didn’t cry. He didn’t scream. Instead, a single gasp escaped his lips as Thrall thrust the blade into the man’s heart, then pushed him into the vortex below. The body hadn’t even hit the swirling black nothingness before the man’s flesh gave way, disintegrating into a cloud of calcified particles swallowed quickly by the void.
The darkness had taken him.
And it was only a matter of time before it took everything else.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
A BLADE IN EACH HAND
JOSS gagged on the bile burning his throat, the wisp mark throbbing beside his heart, as the whole island rumbled beneath him. What was happening? Thrall looked unperturbed by the tremors. Instead, he stood calmly on the edge of the vortex cleaning the blood from his sword.
‘Bring me another,’ he ordered. And the two pyrates who had pulled the first prisoner from the cage stalked back to choose their next victim.
They’re going to kill every single one of these people, Joss realised. And when that’s done, who knows what they’ll unleash!
Again he scanned the row of caged faces, panicked that Edgar might be offered to the vortex next. Or worse, that he’d already suffered that fate while Joss had been quizzing Qorza, o
r asking for hot cocoa in the Drake household, or sightseeing through the Northern Tundra. So, when Joss finally caught sight of him, it was with a profound relief that immediately turned to horror.
Edgar’s mouth and chin were covered in dried blood, his pale pink skin stained brown and copper. He was towards the back of the cage, a small frightened face in the crowd. Joss gripped the hilt of the Champion’s Blade. Without thinking, he raised it before him. He had no plan. No real hope. But he couldn’t stand by and let more innocent people die. He wouldn’t.
‘What are you doing?’ he heard Hero hissing at him, and looked back to see her glaring from behind the fallen statue. Beside her Drake was shaking his head, imploring him to stay still, to keep silent.
He looked back towards the cage. Edgar was staring at him. Stunned, he mouthed Joss’s name.
‘Admiral Ichor!’ someone shouted, his voice echoing across the gathering below. ‘Intruders!’
Joss whipped around to see two pyrate guards to the left of the fallen statue, advancing on Hero and Drake.
‘Impossible!’ the bearded leader grunted, before catching sight of the two Bladebound prentices. Teeth bared in a furious snarl, he issued his orders. ‘Catch ’em, kill them, whichever’s easiest! They can’t escape!’
Drawing their swords, the guards rushed for Hero and Drake. Hero palmed a zamaraq from her bandolier and launched it at the closest guard, striking him between the seams in his armour. He grunted through his helmet as he collapsed to the ground. This only spurred on his partner, who slashed at Hero with lethal fury. His attack was blocked by Drake wielding the Icefire spear, the sound of clanging metal enough to make everyone’s eardrums throb.
Springing up from behind the barrels, Joss rushed to join the fray. But his path was blocked by a whole regiment of guards surging upward from the Thousand Sacred Stairs, each of them armed and ready for battle. They converged upon Hero and Drake on the landing at the top of the stairs, quickly outnumbering the pair but not overpowering them.
‘Drake! Hero!’ Joss called out, drawing the attention of a handful of the pyrates. They broke off their attack to converge on him, surrounding him like a pack of wild raptors. Drawing his humming knife, he stood with a blade in each hand, ducking the axe of the closest pyrate.
Joss raised the Champion’s Blade just in time to deflect the swing of a rusty sword across his torso. Slashing with his humming knife, he backed away from his assailants towards the sandstone wall of the old clock tower, the clock itself long since silenced. Within moments they would have him cornered. And then what? He didn’t dare to imagine.
All the while, Thrall watched on coldly. Even as Admiral Ichor’s face reddened to the colour of a blood blister and his words rang out like cannon fire, the masked man beside him didn’t move. He seemed spellbound by the chaos breaking out before him.
‘I want to squeeze that runt’s heart in my fist until it bursts! Do you hear me?!’ Admiral Ichor screamed. ‘None of them leaves here alive!’
‘Joss!’ he heard Drake shout, and looked over to see him and Hero overwhelmed. The pyrates had them by the arms and legs, wresting the weapons from their hands as they dragged them back towards the cage. Hero was kicking and biting at every helmeted thug that came within striking distance, though even with all her thrashing she was soon overcome by the sheer numbers. They had a firm hold of her now, just as they did Drake. There was no quarter left to fight, no chance left to escape.
‘Joss, go! Save yourself!’ Drake’s voice was strained as he thrashed against the dozen pyrates who had him by each limb.
‘I can’t leave you!’ Joss cried out, losing ground to his attackers with every step. He was only just holding them at bay now, but still he searched desperately for some way to break through them, to aid his brethren, to save Edgar, to keep them all alive. There must be some way out, some way to win, even if everything was screaming at him that it was impossible.
And then, from some unseen source, a clay pot flew through the air. Trailing sparks from a lit fuse, it sailed past Joss to shatter right in front of the pyrates. Blue flames erupted violently, spreading with just as much force. A second clay pot landed less than a foot away from the first, and was soon joined by a third. Joss could feel the fire licking his face, could see the pyrates scurrying back through the eerie blue light of its flame.
‘There’s no help for your friends now,’ someone said behind him, and Joss spun around to see a hooded figure lurking in the shadows of a narrow alleyway. In one hand he held a last clay pot, while the other beckoned Joss to follow him. ‘Come with me or stay and die. Choose!’
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
A FADED MAJESTY
JOSS hesitated, turning back to see Drake and Hero being pushed into the cage with the hostages. ‘I can’t just leave them,’ he said, the flickering blue flames that separated him from the pyrates growing weaker by the moment.
‘You also can’t save them if you’re imprisoned alongside them,’ the hooded figure said.
‘And I can’t save them if they’re thrown into that void!’ Joss stood his ground.
‘This interruption means the entire ceremony will need to start over from the beginning. It’ll be some time before any other sacrifices are needed,’ the stranger replied, growing impatient. The pyrates were now gathered just beyond the wall of fire, testing its heat with their blades. Any moment they would be leaping through, ready to renew their attack. ‘Now follow me.’
The stranger disappeared down the alley. Uncertain, Joss gazed again at Hero and Drake as the cage was closed on them. Admiral Ichor was still screaming bloody murder from the First Step, while Thrall lingered beside him. But he didn’t appear to be looking at any of them. Though his stone mask made it impossible to tell, Joss could have sworn that the cloaked man was staring straight at him through the flames. He shuddered at the thought.
And though he was reluctant to flee, he knew now that he had no other option. Taking one last look back, Joss followed the stranger. As he squeezed between the walls of the alley, he swore to himself that he would return.
His mysterious rescuer was waiting for Joss at the other end of the alley, hood drawn low to hide his eyes, scarf pulled up high to hide everything else. A leather satchel sat on his hip, while a crossbow had been slung across his shoulder along with a quiver full of short barbed bolts. His tunic was woven from fabrics of bright sky blue and deep ocean green, stitched with threads of sunrise red and decorated with foam-white braids around the cuffs and collar. It was a traditional form of Daheedi dress that Joss recognised not only from the books he’d read but also from the recordings that Qorza had shown him. Did it mean that this man had been an inhabitant of the Gleaming Isle before its fall? Or a false friend leading him into an even greater danger?
‘This way,’ the stranger said, crossbow thumping against his back as he darted around the corner of the alleyway. Joss followed him into another alley, this one twice as wide but littered with papers and refuse and broken bottles. While the stranger navigated all the obstacles with ease, Joss had to choose each step carefully. It was almost enough of a distraction to keep him from questioning the man.
‘Who exactly are you? And what’s going on here?’ Joss asked.
The stranger just kept moving, approaching a rope that hung against the wall at the end of the alley. ‘You can call me Darra,’ he said. ‘Any other questions you may have will be answered in time, but for now we need to keep moving.’ He grabbed hold of the rope to pull it taut. ‘Up this way, quicker than you think you can.’
Joss paused, eyeing both the rope and this Darra warily. But he took the rope and started to climb. When he was halfway up, the stranger followed him, and together they scaled their way to the ceramic tiles of the rooftop. Joss watched as Darra then untied the rope from the chimney around which it had been strung, gathering up its length in his fist.
‘How long until the pyrates start sacrificing people again?’ Joss asked.
Darra shrug
ged. ‘Hard to say. We should have until tomorrow, at least. But time’s like a jellyfish down here. Spongy. Prone to stinging. And it’ll be particularly spiky if we’re caught.’
Noises echoed from the alleyway. Joss glanced over the edge to see that the pyrates had followed them. They were barking in confusion, searching every inch of the alley and confounded as to how their quarry had eluded them. Joss stepped back out of sight, while behind him Darra was dashing across the roof.
‘Wait for me!’ Joss hissed, pursuing Darra, who doubled his speed and showed no signs of slowing even as he came to the other end of the rooftop. Tiles clacking beneath his sandals, he vaulted off, landing on the building opposite. Frowning, Joss ran faster to do the same.
But his last step was snagged by a loose tile, throwing off his balance just as he launched himself into the air. His jump became a wayward tumble to the paving below. Before he could scream, he felt an iron grip snatch him by the arm. He’d barely realised what was happening before Darra had yanked him up to safety.
‘You need to take more care. Only a turtle can turn a century,’ Darra said as Joss panted at his feet, unable to begin puzzling through the stranger’s odd turn of phrase.
‘Thank – thank you,’ Joss gasped. His breath was coming in bursts, his heart pounding furiously, and the wisp mark hot on his chest.
‘Control your breathing. Calm yourself,’ Darra said, crossing his arms. Joss watched him closely, trying to glimpse the man beneath the hood. Whoever he may be he was fast and strong, though anything more than that was impossible to tell with his face so hidden. All Joss could see was a severe brow that topped a pair of piercing maroon eyes, pupils specked with distant stars. But even those small details proved deeply revealing.
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