Kal Moonheart Trilogy: Dragon Killer, Roll the Bones & Sirensbane

by Rob May

  Kal didn’t know what to do. She remained outside the door for a moment, refusing to leave. ‘I want you,’ she said in a low voice, more to herself really, but Lula must have heard because the door finally opened. Lula’s dressing gown was done tightly up.

  ‘Kal,’ Lula said, in a soft voice. ‘We don’t have a thing, me and you. I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression. I’m not saying we won’t hook up again in future, but I’m not looking to get tied down right now, you know?’

  ‘Oh,’ Kal said. ‘But I thought …’

  Lula flashed her an unreadable smile. ‘I still love you, Kal. So let’s not complicate things, okay?’

  Kal stumbled into her own room and fell onto the bed. It was too hot to sleep, so she lay awake all night stewing over things in her head. Why hadn’t Lula or any of the rest of crew told her that the governor was no longer in control? Were they trying to protect this mysterious person Jako had alluded to? Did they think Kal would blab to Dogwood? Kal figured she still had quite a way to go to gain the confidence of the crew.

  And what about Lula herself? Did she know that Kal had followed her earlier? Or could Kal attribute tonight’s snub to the mercurial Lula that she already knew so well? Most likely the latter, she thought. What did I expect when I got involved with her? What did I expect when I got involved in any of this? Trouble!

  After an hour of fitful tossing and turning, Kal got up and went back downstairs. If I can’t get some rest, I may as well go and find some fun!

  * * *

  The morning sun was so bright, Kal felt like her eyelids were being attacked. She had forgotten to angle the shutters in the window the night before, and now bars of sunshine were raking the bed. Kal had a rule, though: once she was out of bed, she had to resist the temptation to get back in it; so once she had adjusted the window, she fell to her morning exercise routine.

  Twenty minutes later, she was glowing with a coating of sweat. She let it dry on her skin: no one else in her company seemed to bother washing very often, so why should she go to any trouble. She didn’t want bad breath too, though, so she unpacked her tooth cloth and pot of tooth powder—a delightful mixture of chalk and peppermint—and scrubbed her mouth out.

  Lula entered the room as Kal was strapping on her arm bracers. ‘Zombies don’t carry weapons, Kal,’ she said. ‘You don’t need to be that careful.’

  ‘What about their teeth?’ Kal said. ‘Do they bite?’

  Lula shook her head. ‘No. If they do get violent, they tend to try and grab you around the neck and throttle you.’

  Kal went to her chest and took out one more piece of equipment: a wide leather choker with spiked studs fitted all around. She fastened it around her neck. She also had a long knife at each hip, and a strap over her shoulder, from which her butchers’ cleaver hung down between her shoulder blades. ‘I think I’m ready,’ she said.

  Lula grinned with delight. All of last night’s awkward encounter was seemingly forgotten—not that Kal would have expected anything less from her friend. Kal smiled back and the tension was completely broken, but she still felt a twinge of regret looking at Lula, who was dressed in black trousers, a black silk shirt, and a black hat with a purple ribbon in it. She looked amazing. Kal was wearing a simple linen shirt that had once been a deep navy, but was now a faded blue. She promised herself that she would go shopping for something more exciting as soon as they returned from the jungle.

  Jako was waiting for them at the front door. His outfit consisted of a leather thong and sandals, and there was more leather in the sandals than in the thong. He had two full-length scimitars at his belt. ‘I’m ambidextrous,’ he explained when he caught Kal’s look. And evidently strong enough to wield two swords at once, as well, Kal thought. Jako would be a powerful ally in a fight … or a dangerous enemy.

  Jako had brought along a bag of fresh fruit for breakfast. He tossed Kal a banana, and then the three of them stepped out into the day, a vivid world of white and blue: whitewashed buildings, white sand, and blue sky and sea. Port Black in the day was a complete contrast to Port Black at night, not least because it was silent.

  ‘Where is everybody?’ Kal said. ‘It’s not that early!’

  ‘Asleep,’ Jako said. ‘Nobody gets up before noon here.’

  Kal didn’t buy it. In Amaranthium she was usually woken by the smell of baking bread, and the sound of the market below her window. ‘Nobody? What about market traders and fishing boat crews? No town ever just stops dead.’

  ‘There’s next to no local economy any more,’ Lula explained. ‘Everyone here is either a captain or a merchant, or employed by a captain or a merchant, or in the business of feeding, watering and entertaining people employed by captains and merchants. This town was built on the profits of trade and piracy—on the buying and selling of exotic and illegal goods.’

  Kal caught sight of the fort: a round, squat turret bristling with cannon, that rose from the water a hundred yards out to sea. ‘And the governor runs the whole show on behalf of the Republic,’ she said, as if simply remarking on the obvious.

  ‘Not any more,’ Lula said. ‘The Republic is half a world away. It was bad enough when we had to send ten percent of our profits back, but when your friend Senator Godsword and his cronies demanded twenty, we rose up and ran the governor out of town.’

  Lula laughed. ‘I say we, but I’m just a lowly sailor. The richest captains control the trade now, and protect their profits with so many mercenaries and bodyguards you could almost call them private armies. There’s no law or justice in Port Black any more, just the law of supply and demand. Whoever has the most money, the biggest ship and the heaviest cannon calls the shots here.’

  Him! Kal remembered Jako’s wenches warding against evil last night. ‘And who might that be?’ she asked, as casually as she could manage.

  Jako looked around nervously as they walked. The street was empty save for a man sheltering under a wide-brimmed hat, driving a horse-drawn wagon laden with ale barrels. ‘The Magician,’ Jako whispered.

  Lula waved her hand. ‘Don’t listen to this frightened fool, Kal,’ she said. ‘The Magician may be a strange one, but he’s the most generous businessman in Port Black. Everyone who works for him or trades with him is generously and fairly paid. He believes in sharing out profits and spoils equally, and he demands that everyone else in town follows his example. Me and the rest of the Swordfish crew have done well for ourselves smuggling for him. And he keeps the zombies out of Port Black …’

  They had reached the palisade at the edge of town. The row of twenty-foot sharpened stakes was enough to keep out all but the most determined mortal enemies. But strung along a rope above the sharpened spikes was one extra row of defences—a collection of wards and talismans: silver trinkets, wooden effigies, feathers, posies of dried flowers … and tarot cards.

  * * *

  The jungle outside Port Black was a riot of bamboo, ferns and rosewood. What paths there once were had long overgrown since the zombie infestation, and Kal, Lula and Jako had to use their weapons to hack their way through the foliage. It was hot, thirsty work, and they stopped to gulp down water from the first stream they came across. Before she drank, though, Kal cupped the water in her palms, and carried it to a spot where a shaft of sunlight broke through the canopy. She held the water under the light and peered into it

  ‘The water’s clean,’ Jako said. ‘I’ve drunk contaminated water many times before, anyway. Its didn’t turn me into a zombie; it just gave me the shits.’

  ‘Let her do her job, Jako,’ Lula said.

  ‘The only way Kal’s going to break this curse is if she takes it up with Vuda herself,’ Jako grumbled.

  ‘What makes you so sure Vuda has cursed the Islanders?’ Kal asked him, as she sat down on a rock for a rest.

  ‘Not just the locals. Me, you … everyone who ever sets foot on these islands. It’s because we’ve wrecked the place: acres of jungle on the south coast have been chopped down; all the fish
have been caught and eaten; the silver mines have been emptied, and all the beautiful shells that you used to just find washed up on beaches have been stolen and sold. So yeah, either argue your case with Vuda … or burn down Port Black, and maybe then she’ll leave us alone.’

  ‘I can’t imagine this Magician character would be very happy about that,’ Kal said.

  ‘No he wouldn’t,’ Lula said. ‘Everyone in town who hasn’t suffered the curse is happy to keep on making money while they can, and damn the consequences. It really would be easier to find a god and beat her into submission than to take on the Magician and the coterie of captains that rule Port Black.’

  Kal smiled grimly. So that was what they expected of her—to search the islands for the elusive god of dark magic, who everyone believed was still alive and living in a hidden temple somewhere, and parlay with her for the lifting of the curse. Jako seemed to honestly believe it was their only chance. Who knew what Lula really thought.

  Kal got up. ‘Well, let’s go ask a seashell where to find Vuda,’ she said lightly.

  Jako held up a hand. ‘Zombies!’ he whispered. ‘I can hear them … that way!’

  Kal couldn’t hear anything. She followed Jako and Lula to where the trees ended, and a sloping meadow stretched out before them; a field of low, lush green plants. There was a sickly sweet smell in the air … and there were zombies in the field.

  Kal counted about a score of them: twenty or so. They were walking slowly along furrows in the field that they had trodden down over time. When they reached the end of their row, they turned and doubled back. They made no noise except a quiet rustle as they brushed past the plants.

  Kal turned to Lula. ‘Give me your telescope.’

  Lula handed her the brass instrument, and Kal put it to her eye. It was a five-draw instrument that extended to about thirty inches. Kal spent a few moments struggling with the focus, but then suddenly she was staring so closely at a zombie’s face that she gasped.

  The face was white and cracked, as if it was made of ashes from a burnt-out fire. Its eyes were just black glassy spheres, with no iris or pupil, and its mouth was pressed shut in a grim line. The creature was wearing clothes that were old and dirty, but otherwise in good condition. It had once been a man, but some of the others in the field had been women. There were no child zombies, Kal was relieved to see.

  ‘What are they doing?’ she wondered out loud. ‘Morning exercises?’

  ‘If you stumble on them in the jungle, they never seem to react unless you approach them,’ Lula said. ‘But then sometimes, when you think there’s none around, they rush out of nowhere and attack you. There’s no sense to what they do.’

  Kal drew her knife. ‘I’m going down to see them.’

  ‘Did you just hear what Lula said?’ Jako hissed. ‘They’ll get you!’

  ‘So you both say,’ Kal said. ‘I need to know for myself.’

  Jako growled and turned away. But it was a good job that he did, because at that moment about a dozen zombies came crashing through the jungle behind them. Jako barely had time to shake loose his scimitars before they were on top of him. He lashed out with both blades, decapitating two zombies at the same time. Lula drew her cutlass, and Kal pulled out her knives.

  ‘They don’t feel pain!’ Lula shouted to Kal as she hacked the outstretched arms off the nearest creature. ‘So don’t stop til you’ve chopped them to pieces!’

  II.iv

  The Blue Dragon

  The thing stepping towards Kal, arms grasping for her neck, had once been a tall, well-built man—a villager, judging by its simple clothes and bushy fuzz of hair. Its face was dry and cracked, like sun-baked mud, and its black eyes stared at nothing.

  Kal ducked beneath its outstretched arms and sliced its belly open with her long knife. The guts that fell out were cold and grey, and the blood that covered them was black and viscous. The zombie didn’t react to its awful wound; it just reached down and grabbed Kal around the neck, its fingers catching on the spikes of her collar. Kal wrenched her head back and forth, and the zombie’s fingers fell away, shredded by Kal’s dangerous adornment.

  She drove her knife hard into the creature’s neck. The flesh was dry and dusty, and was easily breached, but still the fingerless zombie flailed at her, trying to crush her in a fatal embrace. Kal gritted her teeth, planted her feet firmly on the ground, and pushed her blade upwards, under the zombie’s jawbone and into its brain. Finally it got the message, and collapsed in a heap at her feet.

  Another was ready to take its place. Kal put her blades either side of its neck, her wrists crossed over each other, then ripped her arms out wide, separating the zombie’s head from its body.

  There were no more left to destroy. Lula and Jako had efficiently butchered the rest. Both of them were sweating and panting with exertion. Lula wiped crumbly zombie flesh and sticky zombie blood off her cheek. ‘You alright, Kal?’ she asked.

  Kal was shaking as she stepped clear of the pile of limbs and chunks of flesh. ‘I’m fine,’ she lied. ‘I got two. How many more to go?’

  ‘Thousands,’ Jako said. ‘You can’t fight this curse, Kal. For every zombie you kill, two more people will have turned in the meantime.’

  People! Kal recalled the warning of the tarot cards. Did these two count towards the twenty-nine she was fated to kill? Or didn’t they matter now that they were mindless zombies? Kal couldn’t bear the thought of murdering innocent villagers, but twenty-nine mercy killings wouldn’t be so hard to live with …

  The jungle was silent again. The zombies down in the field were still stomping up and down the rows of low shrubs, as if either they hadn’t noticed the fight, or had no interest in it.

  ‘Lula,’ Kal said. ‘People are still alive on the island, right? In villages? Your father …’

  Lula’s father was a local fisherman who had been seduced by a visiting merchant—a wealthy woman long since vanished from Lula and her father’s life.

  ‘His village is five miles along the coast from here,’ Lula said. ‘He was fine last time I visited. I told him to leave the island. I almost daren’t go and see …’

  Kal could see that Lula was worried—frightened, even. She didn’t care about her own safety half the time, but she still looked out for the only family she had left.

  ‘Did he carry the white spot … the curse?’

  Lula shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘But my step-mother did. Dad promised he’d look after her and my step-brothers, no matter what, but Kal … I can’t bear to know!’

  Jako was shaking his head. ‘You don’t need to go there, Lu,’ he said. ‘Whatever’s happened to them, there’s nothing we can do until we break the curse. Right, Kal?’

  Kal looked at the pair of them; minutes earlier, Jako and Lula had dismembered five horrific monsters apiece, but now it was Kal who was the strong one they were both looking to for reassurance. But this was why they had brought her here: in the face of supernatural terrors, only she had the cool head to look the worst of it in the eye.

  ‘We’ll swing by the village,’ she decided. She needed more information, and the one thing she hadn’t seen yet was someone actually turn into one of these things.

  They tramped downhill until they emerged from the trees onto an endless strip of narrow beach. The sand was soft and fine; Kal carried her boots as they walked, so that she could get a sure footing with her toes. They walked for an hour in bright sunlight, shunning the shade of the trees in case anything awful leaped out at them. Kal felt her neck and forearms burning. Lula, however, looked cool and comfortable under her hat, and Jako’s black skin was natural armour against the sun.

  The first signs of habitation they encountered were the villagers’ canoes pulled up onto the beach. The brightly-painted boats looked cheerful against the white sand and pale blue sea, but Kal could tell straight away that something was wrong …

  The canoes were upside-down, their bottoms smashed out—most likely by the large rocks that lay s
trewn around. Would mindless zombies do this? Kal wasn’t so sure.

  The village was a collection of bamboo and palm-thatched huts scattered on the lush green lower slopes of one of the island’s tallest mountains. Even at ten thousand feet high, its peak was green, and a strange purple mist covered the trees. It was alien and unlike any mountain Kal had seen before.

  There was no sign of life anywhere in the village; only a few wild boar rooted around the huts looking for scraps. Lula’s family had lived in the largest hut in the centre of the village, befitting her father’s status as a village elder. It was raised on stilts—a precaution against floods and vermin. Not zombies, though: the front door panels—lightweight cedarwood frames supporting tightly-woven bamboo rods—had been ripped off their hinges.

  ‘Don’t go in there,’ Kal said to Lula.

  But Lula had already seen the graves at the side of the hut: four small roughly-carved stone effigies standing on low mounds of fertile soil.

  The largest stone figure was about a foot high: a crude representation of a round, jolly smiling woman. The other three were smaller, skittle-shaped males. ‘He lived long enough to bury his family, at least,’ Jako said. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’

  Lula just stood over the graves. ‘My step-mother always said that I’d meet a bad end on one of my crazy adventures,’ she said. ‘That’s what she hoped, I suppose; because every time I came home I reminded her of my father’s indiscretion.’

  While Lula was lost in memories, Kal entered the hut and looked around. The place was a mess: the thin partition walls had been torn down, and clothes, fishing spears and ornaments lay scattered around the seagrass rush-matted floor. Had zombies been in and trashed the place?

  Maybe. Maybe not. Kal stooped at the foot of the bed and picked the broken neck of a rum bottle that was lying amid a pile of sharp shards. Maybe it wasn’t the fresh water that was contaminated here.