by Jon Skovron
Once Vaderton’s men had thrown everything overboard, the Glorybound gained enough speed to reach the Breaks before the frigates caught up with them.
From a distance, the Breaks looked like a solid line of reefs, but if you were reckless enough—or desperate enough—to get close, it became clear they were actually grouped in tight, uneven clusters, with pockets and gaps that a nimble ship and a skilled helmsman might slip through. Although Vaderton had been captain of the Glorybound for only a short time, his compulsive need for order had driven him to inspect every inch of it before he’d set sail, and already he knew it better than the palm of his own hand, which truth be told, he really only looked at when he was washing it.
He found a long corridor between two lines of reefs. As he entered, he turned back to see if the frigates might abandon the chase. But his faint hope evaporated when he saw them continue apace, shortening sail to give themselves some maneuverability.
“They’re following us in?” asked Jilly. “I thought you said it would be suicide for them!”
“It is,” said Vaderton. “There’s only one reason those captains would throw their ships into something like this. There must be a biomancer on board making them do it.”
“So what are we going to do?” asked Jilly.
“I am going to my fallback plan. You are going to continue concentrating so you can keep contact with Captain Bane. We’ll be needing her for certain now.” He raised his voice. “I want all the gunpowder moved to the poop deck, quick as you can!”
Then he returned his attention to navigating through the narrow, treacherous corridors of the Breaks. As he yanked the wheel back and forth, he scanned ahead for a likely spot.
“That one.” He turned to Biscuit Bill the helmsman, who stood anxiously by. “I need you to gather the entire crew on the quarterdeck.”
“The entire crew?”
“That’s what I said. And find among them the best shot and have that person ready with a rifle loaded.” He gestured to Jilly. “And take her with you, but don’t let her do anything. She needs to maintain her focus and stay alive, or else no matter how this plays out, we won’t survive. Keen?”
“Y-yes, sir.” He took Jilly firmly by the shoulder and led her to the quarterdeck. Then he began shouting to the rest of the crew, herding them back as well.
Vaderton steered the ship further down the corridor. All the sails had been struck, but he moved on the hard currents that coursed between the reefs. His arms ached as he spun the wheel first one way, then the other, trying to keep her on an even keel toward his goal.
At last he saw it. A passageway where the corridor narrowed too much for the Glorybound to get through. He pointed her bow at the sweet spot right between the two reefs and shouted, “Brace!”
The Glorybound smashed into the narrow crevasse. The air filled with the sound of rending, cracking timber as the front section of the ship folded like a book all the way to the waist, leaving the tail end of the ship where the crew huddled poking out from the reefs.
“Everyone, climb onto the reefs!” shouted Vaderton. “Get around to the far side as quickly as you can!” Then he turned to Bill. “Where’s my shooter?”
“Oh, uh…” He shook his head as if to clear the shock out of it. “Kismet Pete!” He pointed to the bald man.
Vaderton grinned. “Sunny. Now, Pete, you’re with me. The rest of you, get windward of that reef quick as lightning if you want to live. And Bill, you mind Jilly, ’cause she can’t mind herself right now.”
“Aye, sir!” Bill started hustling the rest of the crew and Jilly over to the starboard side, where they all began to climb over the gunwale and onto the reef. It was ragged enough at this height that there were plenty of hand- and footholds.
Vaderton watched them, and nodded with satisfaction once they were all clear. Then he turned to Pete. “Alright, we’re last.”
“I think I’m starting to see what you have in mind,” said Pete as he gazed down the corridor of reefs.
The frigates were coming single file, barely fitting in the tight space. In fact, on closer inspection with his glass, Vaderton noted that they had both already sustained some hull damage. Even the best captains in the empire couldn’t maneuver those massive warships through a space like this. They had to know by now that no matter how this went for them, they probably weren’t getting out of this alive. But they were just following orders. Like Vaderton used to do. He felt a pang of sympathy for them. But then he looked back at his crew huddled along the reef. Most of them were men and women that had come with him from the Empty Cliffs. Some he’d befriended; all he’d trained. He cared more about this crew than any other he’d ever had. These were his people, and he’d be damned if he let them die today.
He turned to Pete. “Let’s get into position.”
They climbed up onto the reef, but didn’t move around to the windward side with the rest of the crew. “It’s going to get hot.”
Pete grinned. “I ain’t got no hair to get singed off, and anyway, it’ll be worth it to see how this idea of yours plays out firsthand.”
“On my mark, then,” said Vaderton.
He watched the frigates draw closer. The bow chasers, twelve-pounders just like the Guardian’s, moved into position. Like as not, they couldn’t see the reefs at the end of the corridor behind the wrecked Glorybound and hoped they could blow the ship to pieces and make it to the other side of the Breaks. Of course, Vaderton couldn’t let them drown all that gunpowder he’d left on the quarterdeck, but he had to wait until the front frigate was as close as possible. He watched with his glass as the cannoneers prepared to fire the bow chasers. Just before they struck their powder, he said, “Fire!”
Pete’s rifle went off loud in Vaderton’s ear, making it ring. A moment later, the powder cache on the Glorybound went up in a single explosion. With nowhere else to go, it vented backward down the corridor. The front frigate was completely engulfed in the blaze. Its masts caught fire and the sailors screamed as they burned alive. The ship’s hull flickered with fire, and staccato bursts of gunpowder explosions went off from unfired cannons. The frigate careened to the side and smashed into a reef, then bounced off back into the narrow channel at an angle.
There was no worse fate for a sailor than to be burned alive. It was universally dreaded. In his panic, the captain of the second ship gave the order to drop both anchors to stern in a desperate attempt to stop before they crashed into the flaming wreck in front of them. But rather than drag along a sandy bottom to slow the ship down, the anchors hooked sharply on the smaller reefs below the waterline, pulling so hard they tore holes in the hull.
As they desperately tried to keep the second ship afloat, the fire on the first ship finally found the powder room. As Vaderton well knew, the powder room for a ship with so many cannons was very large. This second explosion was twice that of the first, swallowing both frigates in an inferno.
Even at his distance, Vaderton felt the heat of it on his face.
Kismet Pete turned to him, his face black with soot. His expression was grave as he said, “Well, Captain. I do believe we gave ’em the slip.”
Bleak Hope felt that same icy prickle up her arm as she cleaved into the hordes of the dead. She couldn’t have said whether it felt better or worse, but while she usually had to fight against the weight of the grief, the coldness kept her sharp. Her movements were quick and brutal. Unfortunately, her entire arm was slowly growing numb.
Then the soldiers appeared, led by a group of biomancers. To Hope’s mind, this was an act of desperation. She must be gaining enough ground on the dead army that Progul Bon, or whoever was in charge, felt reinforcements were needed. But some of her crew lost heart merely at the sight of the white-hooded figures emerging from the tent in a long line. Hope had almost forgotten how ingrained that fear was for most people. She had to get over to where the biomancers were so she could show them that even this enemy could be beaten.
But there were so many living
dead between them, it would take her a long time to hack her way through. And all the while, her people were crumbling or igniting or melting at the touch of biomancers. She slashed and spun, the ice crawling through her veins as she fought harder than she’d ever fought in her life. But it was like moving through tar.
Then, all at once, the dead jerked to a halt. They shuddered, their mouths opened, and colored stalks of mushrooms sprang from their mouths. Hope stared around at the strange forest that suddenly surrounded her.
Between the rainbow trunks, she saw Brigga Lin on the other side of the battlefield. She was pale, and a river of blood poured from her nose. She leaned heavily on Gavish Gray’s shoulder. And yet there was a beatific smile on her face. She had somehow found a way to neutralize the necromancer’s work.
But screams continued to ring out on the battlefield. The biomancers were still killing her people.
Bleak Hope turned and barreled through the frozen dead, knocking them over like stalks of wheat. She reached her prey seconds later, the Song of Sorrows held overhead. The biomancers saw the flashing blade and fell back. Clearly they recognized it, and feared it. It was just as Jilly had said when they embarked on this cause. It was about time they were the ones who were scared. She wanted them to be afraid of her. As they reached hands toward her in what they probably knew was a pointless effort to protect themselves with biomancery, she struck them down with a savage satisfaction she had never known before. It was for Filler. It was for Nettles. It was for Sadie. It was for Red. It was for her parents and her village and all the little girls who had died on this island. The biomancers were a sickness in the empire, and she was the cure.
The shots of grief came again, but she welcomed the pain. It burned away the cold numbness that had been growing within her. It felt like when she plunged cold hands into hot water. It was a good pain. She didn’t stop until every soldier and white robe had fallen and she was soaked in their blood.
A stillness fell over the field. To one side were the surviving members of her crew. She was relieved to see Alash among them. But easily more than half her people had been killed.
The colorful fungus forest had grown even taller now, nearly ten feet in places. The corpses at the base had begun to blacken, as if the fungus had turned weeks of decomposition into minutes. One could almost forget that they had once been innocent children. Almost.
Beyond the rainbow forest she saw Brigga Lin. She seemed unable to stand without Gavish Gray’s help now. The lower half of her face and the front of her gown were stained with blood. There were precious few survivors from Gray’s crew as well.
Hope turned to the large tent. The girls from the latest shipment were in there. And so was the necromancer. Dimly she was aware that her body ached with exhaustion. But the burning, hungry grief had spread from her arm and lodged itself in her chest. It gave her the strength to move forward at a slow, deliberate pace toward the entrance.
When she drew back the flap and looked inside, it was like her village all over again. The dim, stuffy interior of the tent was scattered with dead bodies. No living girls. In the middle of the carnage stood the necromancer in his brown hooded robe, grinning at her with yellowed teeth. In his hand was a sickle covered in blood.
It had happened again and she had been unable to prevent it. Was she really a cure? Or just a bandage? That old darkness coiled up inside her and fused with the burning grief of the sword. Her entire body seemed to vibrate with the force of it, but it didn’t give her any strength this time. Instead, the feelings seemed to fight each other, pulling her down with them.
“You… killed them all.” Her voice was hard and grinding, and sounded unfamiliar in her ears.
“I wasn’t about to let anyone else have them,” he said in his piercing whisper. “Not even a fellow kinsman.”
“We’re not kinsmen.”
“Of course we are. Look at your skin and hair. Deny it all you like, but we are both children of the Haevanton Triumvirate.”
The twisting conflict inside her grew stronger, threaded through with new doubt. “I’ve never heard of such a place.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. But perhaps it is destiny that we meet. It may be that my defeat here today is merely a necessary step in the larger victory. My name is Vikma Bruea, last of the Jackal Lords.”
Hope lifted the Song of Sorrows and pointed it at the Jackal Lord. She had made this gesture so many times, and never had the point of her sword quivered as it did now. Was it exhaustion? The growing conflict and doubt within her? She took a deep breath and forced the blade to grow still.
“Vikma Bruea, you are guilty of slaughtering the innocent. I will be their vengeance.”
“I know who you truly are,” he said in a mocking tone. “But who is it you think you are, that you should bear this responsibility?”
“I am…”
Was she Dire Bane, champion of the people? Was she Bleak Hope, vengeful warrior? Was she either of those things? After all, neither of those names were truly hers. But try though she might, she could not remember what her real name was. The name her mother had called out just before she died. It now seemed like a failure on her part. Why could she not remember?
“Don’t you know?” Vikma Bruea’s voice taunted her.
“Who I am doesn’t matter,” she said finally. “You must die for your crimes.”
“Do you think a Jackal Lord fears death?” He sounded almost amused now. “When the biomancers released me from my prison on Height of Lay so that I could do this work for them, I had no illusion that I would live beyond my usefulness. And I far prefer death at the hand of a kinsman than that vile brood, or any of the foul, subhuman vermin that make up the majority of this empire.” He lifted his arms out to his sides and dropped his sickle to the ground. “So kill me, if it pleases you. But someday, you’ll see. The Jackal Lords will return with the might of the Haevanton Triumvirate to end the line of the betrayer and crush this pathetic empire of savages. And where will your loyalties lie then, fair daughter of Heaven? Will you still side with these foul mongrels, or will you finally accept your true lineage as a warrior of the supreme Haevanton Triumvirate?”
There was a moment where she was tempted to ask him more. What did he know about the people of the Southern Isles? What were these things he spoke of? But she knew if she began to unravel that thread, it might never stop. So she hardened her expression and said, “Your words have no meaning to me.”
He suddenly grinned. “Someday, they will. Then you will know who you truly are, and why—”
She thrust her sword into his chest. His pale eyes narrowed and his lips peeled back from his stained teeth in a grimace. He clutched at the blade and shuddered for a moment. When he slid lifelessly to the ground, there was almost no blood.
A new influx of grief brought the turmoil that was already boiling inside her to a level so excruciating, she fell to her knees. Every muscle in her body seized up as she stared first at the dead necromancer, and then at the dead girls. One did not in any way correct the other.
“Captain, did you find them?”
It was Alash, tentative as he peeked into the tent.
“Oh, God,” he whispered. “We were too late. They’re all dead.”
Hope remained on her knees, her hand pressed to the cold earth.
“Are… you okay?” he asked.
“No.”
He paused for a moment, then said, “Listen, I think you better come out here.”
“Why?”
“They’ve found the last biomancer. The one Brigga Lin calls Progul Bon. They’re all waiting for you to decide what to do with him.”
That name brought some strength back to her limbs. One more act of vengeance. She would confront the man responsible for Sadie’s death.
She slowly got to her feet, and turned to Alash. “Show me.”
They had tied ropes to the biomancer’s hands and were pulling them in opposite directions so his arms were stretched as far as they
would go. He couldn’t touch anyone, including himself. His hood had been pushed back and they had tied a rope around his neck. His face looked like melted wax, although there were cuts on his forehead and cheeks that suggested the crowd had been throwing rocks at him. Now they were screaming at him, their voices mixed with hate and fear. The only exceptions were Brigga Lin and Gavish Gray, who stood off to one side. Brigga Lin was now strong enough to stand on her own again, but she still stood close to Gray.
“There she is!” said a wiry young woman Hope recognized as one of the crew they had fished out of the water from Sadie’s ship. “Captain Bane, what should we do with him?”
Hope stared at Progul Bon. She would have to kill him. She knew this. Not long ago, this would have kindled a fierce satisfaction within her. Now she had to steel herself for the act.
“We will get nothing from him,” she said bleakly.
She lifted the Song of Sorrows.
“Wait, that’s not true!” he shouted, his voice like bubbling oil. “If you still value your Rixidenteron, don’t kill me!”
She paused, her blade hovering. “What do you mean?”
“Let me go and I’ll tell you how to cure him.”
“Cure him?”
“I have done things to his mind to make him more pliable. You would hardly even know him if you saw him right now. Kill me, and you might never get him back to the way he was.”
Hope’s jaw clenched, her stomach tight with anger that rose up even now from some previously hidden reservoir. Brigga Lin had warned her something like this might have been done to Red, and she hadn’t let herself believe it before. But she knew that biomancers were incapable of lying. If he said it, she knew it had to be true.
She took a slow breath. “If I spare you—”
A single shot rang out. Progul Bon looked surprised as a line of red ran down from the hole in his forehead. He pitched forward gracelessly onto the ground.