This is madness, thought Roth. That ghastly monstrosity had to have been one of Noctilus’ fleet; no one else had the power to raise something that large from the dead. There was no way he could fight such terrors with conventional means and they couldn’t afford to go blundering blindly into the darkness anymore. Roth cursed himself for his haste. In his rage he had wanted to begin the hunt as soon as possible. But it had become painfully clear that he needed to know his enemy, know where they came from and how to protect himself against them.
There was only one place he could think of to find the answers—with his father’s old crew, if any of them were left alive. And if they were, Roth knew exactly where to find them.
In the lowest, cheapest dives of wretched Sartosa.
Though it galled him, he had to go back.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Murderine’s Hilt, Smuggler’s Dock, Sartosa
3rd Day of Sigmarzeit, 2522
Since the fire, Sartosa had become a blackened slum. The cobbled streets of Smuggler’s Dock were dark and stinking, jagged spars of burnt wood jutting up from the vermin-infested remains of collapsed buildings. Roth splashed through a slick of blood-flecked vomit as he accompanied Aranessa towards the eighteenth tavern of the evening. Rain pelted down, dribbling from awnings and pattering from the brims of their bicorn hats.
The Magus had politely declined to accompany them on his search for Roth’s father’s old crew, insisting that he had been inspired to create a gift for Aranessa. He was probably more concerned about getting his robes wet, but after their narrow escape at the rat-coves Roth didn’t press it. The lying old toad was still as full of bilge as ever. He was probably frolicking with his harem girls in a sea of silk cushions at this very moment, laughing as Roth traipsed through the black muck.
Roth muttered to himself irritably. Aranessa picked her way through the streets by his side, also looking thoroughly unimpressed.
“What makes you think this rut-hole’s going to be any different from the last dozen? Recruiting’s all well and good, but we’ve still got no answers. Even you’ll run out o’ coin at this rate.”
Roth stopped and looked exasperatedly at his companion.
“Loose Jessi said one of the old guard runs the Murderine’s Hilt, and she’s too stupid to lie. I’m not going after Noctilus without learning everything I can about how to kill him. You know the stories. You can put one of those bloodsuckers down, but it won’t stay down for long. I want to make sure that when I burn the bastard, he stays down for good.”
“Fine, fine. But you’re buying.”
The Murderine’s Hilt was mostly intact, though its mould-covered roof was badly bowed and holed in dozens of places. The windows were covered by strings of empty bottles and partially-gnawed bones that hung dripping from shattered spars. Even through the rain, Roth could smell the heady stench of wyrdroot and black tobacco.
A monstrous set of moonshark jaws served as the tavern’s entrance, hung with an assortment of fishbones, broken blades and mouldering driftwood. Roth pushed his way past the talismans and ventured inside, Aranessa close behind him.
The Hilt was filled with drunken and downhearted men, lost in a fug of rum and pipe smoke. The low hubbub of gossip was punctuated by the plip-plip-plip of a leaky roof dripping into an assortment of copper kettles and tureens, and the tavern’s customers were so intent on their own misery that barely anyone stirred at Roth’s entrance. A few heads turned as Aranessa strode past and a grubby hand snaked out from under a table to grab at her rump, but she scowled at the letch and the hand quickly disappeared.
Heading for the far side of the tavern, Roth leant both elbows on the stacked coffins that formed the tavern’s bar. The barkeep was a squat, pugnacious brick of a man with a gut that overhung his sword belt by almost a foot. He had his back to them, but Roth recognised the dragon tattoos across his back and shoulders. Lucas Arcbright, ex-captain of the Rascal and, before that, one of his father’s crew.
“At last,” breathed Roth.
The barkeep turned, still filling a pipe with something that looked like shoe leather.
“You what, mate?”
“Arcbright, right? It’s me, Jaego Roth. Remember? Indigio’s son?”
“Indigio’s lad? Nah, he buggered off ages ago, back when I was a midshipman. Did for his dad, that, or what was left of him.”
The barkeep lit his pipe with a battered tinderbox and took a long, foul-smelling draw.
“There’s nothing left of him at all, now,” said Roth. “Nor the Enlightenment, come to that. Nor Lisabet, nor Armando.”
“Blind me dead, it is you! Jaego, eh? Has it been that long? You must be what, two score an’ ten?”
“Something like that, yes.”
“And you must be Captain Saltspite, judgin’ by the legs.”
Aranessa inclined her head, smiling thinly.
“We thought you went off with the Nightwatch, never to return.”
“This place always brings you back. You should know that. We’re thirsty. Two brandies, clean.”
The barkeep lifted the lid of the coffin behind him and pulled out a dull black bottle wrapped in hessian. With a practiced flourish, Arcbright thumped the soot-encrusted vessel onto the wooden bar top.
“Not much call for this stuff. The bottle’s yours for a twin-piece.”
Snatching the bottle from the bar top, Roth uncorked it with his teeth and took a long, heavy swig. He flicked a double coin in Arcbright’s direction. It hit the barkeep’s open palm with a meaty slap.
“Nightwatch was scuppered on the Reik, last I heard. Went down with all hands,” said the barman, pocketing the two-piece.
Roth passed the half-empty bottle to Aranessa, who took a long swig of her own before handing it back.
“Is that right?” said Roth. “Shame. Not much in the way of rebuilding since the fire, I see.”
“Ha! Little point. That lot are still out there by all accounts.”
“You mean the Dreadfleet?” asked Roth, lowering his voice.
“Yep. Working their way round the coast, last I heard.” The barman looked troubled. “I know why, and all. He don’t take too kindly to trespassers.”
“Go on.”
“Well, word has it that after they hit Sartosa, they went back to raiding the mainland coast. About the only place they ain’t touched yet is Luccini.”
“Luccini, eh?” said Roth, raising his eyebrows. He looked over to Aranessa, but she was busy tracing spirals in a puddle of rum. “The same ships attacking each time?”
“Yep. The Bloody Reaver, there’s no mistaking it. Had that tentacled bastard with him too, the Black Kraken they call it. And the ghost that did for the Castilla, of course.”
The barkeep shuddered and made the sign of Manann. He uncorked a clay flagon and poured himself a glass of thick, black liquid, choking it down with a shudder.
“It’s not just them lot out there, neither. Word is there are other vessels fighting with ’em, now. Some say one’s a war barge, a sand-ship from the desert coast. Others swear there’s a whale that shoots lightning, would you credit it? No doubt it farts fireballs an’ all.”
“It’s real all right,” put in Aranessa, her face deadly serious. “Two days ago, it blew a hole right through my ship.”
“Huh. Well, it’s no stranger than a steel kraken, true enough. Frankly, I’m just glad I was on the Rascal when your old man took his penchant for exploration a little too far. Everyone that went on that voyage is either mad or dead.”
Arcbright put a meaty hand down the front of his ill-fitting breeches and had a good scratch, pouring himself another shot of greasy black liquor before continuing.
“You hear all sorts, in my job. One-tooth Uther over there said he strangled Noctilus with a twist-rope. The only bloodsucker that feeble old bastard ever killed was a ’skeeter, and that were in his prime.”
The barkeep spat out an ugly, mean laugh, exposing a yellowed tongue. Roth stared at him eve
nly until he had finished.
“I need to find someone who was on that last voyage,” said Roth urgently. “I don’t care how mad they are, just so long as they can talk.”
“That’ll cost you more than a twin-piece, friend. They’re a dying breed, them lot. Noctilus has got the lot of ’em, just about.”
Roth silently produced a broad coin of solid silver and clicked it meaningfully onto the beer-stained wood of the coffin bar top. It disappeared swiftly into the barkeep’s apron.
“Red Hager? Bozetti? Better-than-Thou, Jan the Knife, Inky Schultze? Seen any of that lot?”
Arcbright just shook his head, lips pursed.
“All long gone, mate.”
Roth continued, clicking another silver coin on the bar.
“Dividio? Black Nils? Orinoco? Fredricksen? Long Morgan?”
“You know Fredricksen, do you? Well shoot me down dead. No one calls him that no more. They call him Black Socket nowadays.”
The barman gestured to a trapdoor at the end of the bar.
“You might even get some sense out of him, if he remembers you. Grubby little bugger’s below decks. These last few weeks he’s been eating rats raw and stealing my grog to wash ’em down, but you’ve covered his board for a while, I reckon. He’s been skulking in my basement ever since the raid. Won’t come out, not even for rum. Says the drowned’ll get him.”
The barkeep’s expression darkened.
“I ain’t too sure he’s wrong, neither.”
Roth sighed heavily and slid a broad gold coin across the bar.
“So are you going to let me see him or not?”
“I certainly am, with manners like that,” said Arcbright, snatching up the coin and biting its edge. “He won’t see you, though. Not any more.”
The barkeep slid a rusted iron key across the bar. Picking it up, Roth followed the barkeep’s nod towards the basement trapdoor. Behind him, Arcbright examined the gold coin by the light of a storm lantern before pocketing it and handing the lamp to Aranessa.
“You ask me,” said the barman, “the mad old boot needs putting out of his misery.”
Roth yanked open the trapdoor into the basement of the Murderine’s Hilt, coughing as dust and mildew gusted up from the stairway below. He fanned the worst of it away with his hat, peering into the darkness. Aranessa leant forwards, her storm lantern illuminating a rickety staircase that led into a well-stocked cavern filled with barrels, crates and sea-chests.
Something moved at the back, tucked away in a strange little nest in the corner. Roth and Aranessa approached cautiously, the light of the storm lantern held back so as not to alarm their quarry.
“Fredricksen, is that you? Heindal Fredricksen?” asked Roth. “It’s Indigio’s boy, Jaego. You remember me, don’t you? We caught a white marlin once, remember?”
There was a rat-like scurrying in the corner, but no reply.
“Fredricksen?”
The thing that burst into the lamplight looked barely human. Sparse white hair clung to a wrinkled mask of pain and old age. Two eye sockets gaped in the darkness. A feeble mouth of infected gums opened and closed in the manner of a suffocating fish.
“Jaego was a boy!” he shrieked. “A little boy!”
Aranessa and Roth shared a look. She shook her head, sadly, and jerked her thumb back at the stairs, but Roth pressed on.
“Once, long ago,” said Roth. “But the years change us all, old friend.”
“Have the drowned got in?”
It was hard to make out what the old man was saying. His voice was so reed-thin and gummed with saliva that it was little more than a wet whisper.
“No, no. They’re long gone.”
“Did… did they get Indigio?”
A moment of silence passed in the darkness.
“Yes. They got Indigio. And I want to get revenge.”
“No, no!” cried Black Socket, scrabbling forwards on his knees and pawing the straw at Roth’s feet. “You’ll make it worse, boy, don’t you see? He’ll come after you. He’ll find you out. It sucks you in, boy. The spiral. You can flee, you can hide, but it sucks you in…”
Black Socket rocked back and forth in the gloom, clutching his bony knees.
“I need to know more, Fredricksen. What is the spiral?”
“The spiral of skulls,” said Aranessa. “It’s alive, right?”
“Yes, yes. She’s right, boy. You should listen to her.”
“What? I…” said Roth, turning quizzically to Aranessa.
“Dreams,” she said, shrugging.
“Your father never listened,” said Black Socket, bitterly. “Should have listened to your mother, he should have. Mother knows best. Mother knows best.”
“All right, all right,” said Roth. “Try to stay with us, Fredricksen. Try and help.”
Roth opened the map case at his waist and went to pull out his father’s strange map before remembering that the old man had no way to see it.
“This spiral. Is it something to do with the curse?”
“It is the curse, boy! The maelstrom. The maw. It eats the dead, draws them in, steals them from the deep. Ship, sailor, vessel, vassal, it draws them all in. Sucks them all in, the sickness. The ocean’s wound. The grave-wound!”
“The… the Galleon’s Graveyard, do you mean?”
“Aye, aye, that was what he used to call it. Not just dead galleons there, boy. It got him in the end. It’ll get me, too, and you, and her. Her too, yes, despite her blood. You’ll not smell so pretty as a corpse, salt-girl, dancing like a puppet to a dead man’s tune.”
Aranessa stepped forwards, and Roth heard the sound of a blade being unsheathed. He reached out a hand and gently steered Aranessa’s sword-arm back to her side. Black Socket whined like a beaten dog and scratched hard at the places where his eyes used to be.
“And this is where the Dreadfleet is coming from? The graveyard?”
The reed-thin old man gave a whispering laugh that ran Roth’s nerves ragged.
“Yes, yes, the Leech’s lair. Castles and cadavers and corpse-coral. They come through the storm. It’s the only way in. Can’t kill what’s already dead though, boy, and he’ll come after you if you try. He’ll come looking, out of the mist and the madness…” The old man trailed off, muttering and whimpering to himself.
“Fredricksen, listen. You have to tell me how to get there,” pressed Roth. “You have to give me a chance.”
“The moondial, boy. Your father had it. The moon’s the key, time and place. But you can’t kill ghosts, boy. Can’t kill ’em. Hawthorn, silver, cloven moon, cut off the head, spike the heart. No chance. You’ll only give yourself to him, one more bloated corpse. Please, leave it be. Please… You’ll just make it worse…”
Fredricksen’s dismal utterances tailed off altogether. He started to cry, curling up into a ball and pulling pieces of straw over his scrawny body as if to keep out the cold.
“Jaego, this isn’t right,” said Aranessa. “Let’s go.”
Roth sighed heavily, eyes closed. Shucking off his greatcoat, he covered Black Socket as best he could, and left a hip flask of potent Estalian liquor within arm’s reach.
“I’m sorry, Fredricksen. I’ll do what I can.”
There was no response save a frightened, incoherent whimper. Two empty eye sockets turned towards him in the gloom.
“Please… please kill me. I don’t want to go back there. Make it quick.”
Aranessa advanced again, jaw set.
“Nessa, don’t.”
She turned to Roth, her frown lit from below by the lantern’s light.
“It should be me,” said Roth.
Shaking his head sadly, the captain pulled out his thrice-pistol and shot the old man in the heart.
CHAPTER NINE
The Vigils, Luccini
21st Day of Sigmarzeit, 2522
At midnight on the eighteenth day of lying in wait, the clamour of warning bells rang out across the decks of the Heldenhammer.
<
br /> Roth dropped the table leg he had been whittling and slammed open the door of his quarters, hurriedly pulling on his jacket as he ran through the ship. He barged onto the topdeck and leapt up the stairs.
Out to sea, jags of vivid purple lit the skies. Flashes of magenta light burst through the waters towards them.
Clambering up the steep stairs that led to the observation deck behind Sigmar’s Wrath, the captain brought his father’s spyglass to his good eye. The epicentre of the distant tempest sprang suddenly into perfect focus. Ragged sails blighted the skyline, and strange silhouettes were cast against the sky whenever the lightning burst above.
“It looks like we finally have company,” said Roth, stowing the spyglass and marching up to his first mate.
“Aye, sir. Not before time, the Heldenhammer’s shipshape again and the men are itching to kill something.”
“They’re about to get their chance. It’s the Dreadfleet all right. They’re heading for Luccini. There must be one of the mapwright’s crew holed up there,” said Roth. “Look lively, Ghow. Get the war colours up the mainmast and the sally-bells rung, double quick. We’ll head out from the Vigils on the starboard side, and straight into whatever comes out of the storm. Get Burke to prime the cannons, too.”
“Aye, captain. It’s time to test the figurehead at last, is it?”
“I fervently hope so. Get the lads up there immediately. This is the best chance we’re going to get to sink him.”
“It can be sunk then, can it sir? The Reaver?” said Ghow, fiddling with his facial piercings.
“I’ve close on four hundred cannons and a sacred hammer the size of a building that says so, yes. Besides,” Roth said with a sly smile, “we’ve got the gods on our side, remember?”
As the crew ran to their positions, the Heldenhammer left the shelter of the Vigils. She sailed at full speed towards the Dreadfleet, flanked by the Flaming Scimitar and the Swordfysh. The oncoming galleons grew larger with every passing minute, their tattered sails bathed in the pallid moonlight. A strange bank of mist rolled out before them, purple tendrils of light writhing within it.
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