“Do you believe this man?”
Kartholome dipped his eyes toward the table for a second. “You going to cut me again?”
Melio realized he had tightened his grip around his knife’s small handle. He released it, lifted his palm, and tented his fingers over the blue metal of the blade. “Can I speak to him?”
“Not a chance. He’s Ishtat. He talked too much even talking to me, but they were all spooked. Pretty big to-do if you ask me. I wouldn’t know where to find him even if I wanted to, and he wouldn’t talk to you anyway. Not a chance.”
“How do you come by this information? I thought the league never let anyone get out of their fold. You shouldn’t even exist to be here talking to me.”
“The league scrubs their own decks. No doubt about it. The league used to use contractors for interisland stuff. Not anymore. They’re keeping everything in the family now. I just got lucky, managed to get away before they permanently retired me. If they knew I was alive, I wouldn’t be.” He grinned. “They think I’m dead, and I’m happy with that. Look, Marah trainer, I’ve got more reason to doubt you than the other way around. I’m only talking because I know Clytus.” After a moment, he added, “And because I knew Dariel.”
In answer to Melio’s questioning look, Clytus nodded.
Kartholome smeared drops of semidried blood onto the tabletop with his finger. “Anyway, there are more than a few reasons to hate the league. I could show you a few if you’re up for it. You all in the Inner Sea have no idea what goes on out here. At least, I hope you don’t.”
“You know I don’t. That’s why I’m here.”
“All right, then. Let’s go fishing tomorrow. You’ll have to show me that knife trick, though. That was something. Didn’t even see it coming.”
“What trick?” Melio smiled his crooked smile. “I just misjudged the distance.”
M elio had been on his share of dubious vessels in the Inner Sea-and even rafted out as far as the Vumu Archipelago, where he had found Mena that wonderful day years ago. Still, when they rowed through the breakers off Tivol the next morning he had to swallow hard to keep his breakfast down. The boat was too small. He could jump from gunwale to gunwale. It took-what-eight strides to teeter from the stern to the bow? Powered by a single square sail, the boat skimmed across the water at a good clip. Faster than he liked, considering the size of the Gray Slopes’ swell.
Geena from the Ballan joined them, making for a crew of four, a crowd in the tiny fishing skiff but the right number to look like they were working the yellowgill that passed between the mainland and the Outer Isles. That, in fact, is what they did. They spent the afternoon fishing the current that flowed through the channel, tacking into the northerly wind the whole time.
League transports passed in the distance several times. Once a patrol clipper skimmed the horizon to the north. They were in a loose flotilla of fishing boats, though, and the clipper paid them no mind. Melio lost himself in the work that was their cover, baiting hooks, throwing out lines, keeping them from tangling, and then hauling them back in turn. The tiny eel-like fish he had crooked onto the hooks came back as lean slivers the length of a man’s arm, sparkling silver. There was no sign of the trait that gave them their name until they were unhooked and gasping in the water-sloshed bottom of the vessel. Each flare of the gills revealed a bright burst of yellow, a vibrant hue that would have made a beautiful flower.
Without knowing where the thought came from, Melio remembered Mena. He had letters from her wrapped in oiled paper and buckled tight within a case in his satchel back on the Ballan. He had read through them many times before. For in the space of the reading he heard her voice and could imagine where she was and knew her to be safe. That illusion held only when the written words spoke in her voice inside his head. Now, on a small boat in the salt air of a vast ocean, he knew that she could not have imagined he would be here. So how could he have any true idea where she was, what she was doing, or who with? Alive or dead? He hated it that he did not know. He should just be able to feel her. She should be able to speak his name and he should be able to answer. What did miles matter between two people in love?
The league brig appeared as if it had emerged right out of the water’s depths. To the north of them, heading southwest. It looked to be at a safe passing distance, but as it grew nearer its trajectory skimmed it closer. Figures appeared at the bow. The glint of glass catching the light betrayed their spyglass.
Kartholome growled, “Bastards.”
“What? They’ve noticed us? They’re too big to-”
“Bastards!” The pilot leaped around the boat, adjusting the sails. Clytus leaned on the rudder, changing their tack so abruptly Melio nearly pitched overboard. Cursing, he spread himself low in the boat, half soaked by the warm water sloshing among the fish and tackle and salt-caked old ropes.
“A nervous bunch, brigands,” Melio mumbled. Looking back at the galley, he noticed that a school of dolphins leaped and dove in the wave surge pushed out from the prow. Beautiful. Then the galley’s bow veered toward them in earnest. Sails bowed as they caught a larger portion of the wind. The ship leaned with the turn, a sudden change by the big ship’s standards. Nothing to account for it as far as Melio could see from peering over the gunwale, especially as it brought them churning directly toward the fishing vessel. “Ah…”
Geena appeared beside him. “Grab on to something,” she said, worming her way under the seat slats.
“Grab…” He did not need to be told twice. He worked his hands under a beam, pressed against others with his feet. Like that, on his back, he could not see the water anymore, but he could see the frantic motions and darting eyes of the two seamen. The vast rise of the galley bore down on them. As tall as any building he had ever seen, it came yawning at a slow rhythm out of time with the speed it traveled.
“Furl the sail!” Clytus roared.
Whether or not Kartholome managed this Melio did not get to see. The hull of the ship pushed before it a curling fury of water. The swell lifted the small boat up. The wave curled over them, terrifyingly smooth, glass green and translucent, frothed across the crest with white. Three dolphins leaped out of the glass and over the boat. Beautiful. Then the wave struck. The vessel went over. The hull bucked and the world tilted and water rushed in like a monster made of liquid muscle. Melio closed his eyes, held his breath, and clung as the boat churned over and over, jolting and shuddering when it contacted the hull of the great ship. For a time all was black motion. His lungs began to burn. Water yanked and smacked him. It felt like actual hands and fists battered him, trying to get him to let go.
When the boat popped into the air again, it did so with the bow pointed toward the sky, twirling. As water drained toward the stern, Melio clung to one of the low benches. Just as he began to doubt he could hold on any longer, the bow smashed back down. Geena got jolted away from her hold. One side of the boat dipped, and a gush of water washed in. It swept her with it, dragging her along the gunwale. She fought it, clawing for purchase. She began to slide overboard, one arm upraised and flailing, while the tongue of the sea slurped her in. Melio caught her by the wrist. He braced his feet against the submerged gunwale and hauled back with everything he had. She smashed into him. Their limbs entwined as Melio scrabbled back toward the rear storage compartment, Geena in his grip. She understood and crammed in next to him. The two of them knotted together and stuck fast just as the boat passed into the swirling chaos rushing around the galley’s rear end.
Again the small boat’s stern submerged, making the bow pirouette in the air above them. Melio watched it against the sky. Among the falling debris, water glistened as it dropped. The mast had snapped in half and the sail hung like a dead thing. A tide of hissing, bubbling air rose around them. Melio tried to breathe, but the air was foaming water in his mouth. He spit it out, but it rushed in again. He spit it out; it rushed in again. He gave up trying. He closed his eyes and clung to Geena.
CHAPTER NINE
It could have been worse. Mor had been angry, fuming and spitting venom, on the verge of using those stubby nails of hers to rip new tracks across Dariel’s face. She danced through an improvised tribute to her anger. One of her eyelids twitched out a rant of its own. By the time it all ended Dariel had admitted his fault and claimed to be chastened. He swore he would never do something as foolish as sneaking alone into Amratseer again. Eventually, Mor left her exasperation at Dariel’s feet. She ordered the others into motion and she told the prince to leave the pups behind. He didn’t. Chastened, yes, but not without some resolve.
It took them a full day to circumambulate Amratseer. By the second morning they cleared the semiorder of the agricultural region outside the city and plunged into Inafeld Forest. It extended all the way north as far as anyone had been, hemmed in at the west by the mountains of Rath Batatt. Tam claimed that they were following a route of sorts, but it was one of many that the People had developed over the years. Not wanting to leave a traceable path to the Sky Isle, they used a variety of trails, each of them trodden on rarely enough that they betrayed few signs of actually being trails.
They wormed over and beneath tree roots, along fallen old-growth trunks, and through dank waterways, stepping carefully on the moss-heavy stones. The forest grew thick enough that the sky was only a distant idea. The pups did not make it any easier. Fully half the terrain was unmanageable for them. Before long Dariel had given up on encouraging them forward and instead carried them in a sack slung over his back. When he complained about the weight of them one afternoon, Birke took one and walked with it cradled like a baby in his arm. “You’ll have to name them, you know?”
“Yes, I guess I will.”
“You must geld them. Not yet, but before too long.”
“Cut their balls off? No, I don’t think that’s-”
“Scoop it up, Dariel,” Birke cut in. “They’re cathounds. Male ones. The Anet used them to hunt lions. In six months they’ll be almost as tall as you are. At least they’ll be lighter without their balls.”
“Be sane! I saw their mother. She was-”
“Young. They birth children young. And the females are smaller anyway. No, Dariel, believe me, you’ve got more on your hands than you know. Snip them. I could do it for you if you like.” Birke made his fingers into shears and demonstrated the ease of the action. He smiled. What should have been fearsome-the thick hair that covered his entire face, the canine incisors that shone savagely through his grin-usually managed to cheer Dariel. Not so this time.
Dariel reached for the pup. “I don’t mind carrying him after all.”
He still carried them both an hour later when they stepped into a clearing in the woods created by an enormous fallen tree. A man stood atop it, arms crossed and still. Blinking in the unaccustomed bright light, it took Dariel a moment to believe that he was really there. Mor shouted something to him in Auldek; the man responded and pointed to a route up onto the tree. Without a word of explanation, Mor led them up.
The man was slight of build. His head was clean-shaven, with a splattering of tattoos across his scalp, patterning that Dariel had not seen before. “So this is him?” the man asked, switching to Acacian. “There is much talk of him in Avina. The destroyer of the soul catcher. The Rhuin Fa.” He studied the prince with a trader’s critical eye, as if he were considering a purchase. “Funny, he just looks like common Shivith clan, not even ranked. I hope he is what he promises.”
“I never promised anything,” Dariel said. The pups churned in the sack, trying to get a view of the stranger. Dariel tried to stand without flinching, but they really did have sharp claws. “And I’m standing right in front of you. You could address me directly.”
The man gave no sign that he heard him. “Last word from Avina was that the clans are squabbling and that league ships are patrolling the coastline. More each week. If this Dariel Akaran wishes to prove himself, he’ll have ample opportunity, and soon.”
Before Dariel could respond, Mor asked, “Tell me, messenger, why have you come?”
“With a message, of course.” He drew himself up and spoke more formally. “I carry an elder within, a voice meant for your ears.”
Mor said, “May the vessel never crack.”
As she and the messenger moved away together, Dariel unslung his sack. He poured the pups out onto the wide tree trunk, across which they surged with bumbling enthusiasm, greeting one person and then the next and then starting over again.
“What’s this about?” Dariel asked Birke, once the others had settled down to wait.
Birke stroked a puppy’s head. “The council sent him with a message.”
“About what?”
“We’ll see shortly,” Tam said, laying out a spread of hard crackers and cucumbers on the tree bark. He set out a wooden bowl. Above it, he used his knife to cut off the bottom of a plee-berry, a nondescript fruit, brown, slightly hairy, and oblong. The liquid inside it gushed out as he squeezed the length of it. The juice looked like a collection of frog eggs, blue tinted, slimy. The first time Dariel had seen it he had gagged and stared in horror as the others drank it with relish.
“Some of your favorite drink, Dariel?”
After having made a show of being disgusted by the frog-egg look of the fruit pulp, Dariel had to admit he had grown to rather like it. It was like drinking liquid sugar, and the strange texture of the seeds had actually become his favorite aspect of it. He took a slurp from the offered bowl, rolling the slick orbs around on his tongue.
Tam pulled his tiny instrument from his pack and began plucking it. Dariel watched Mor and the messenger, but could gather little from their distant exchange. He thought he saw stiffening in Mor’s spine, an indication of anger, but the next moment it melted into something softer as she gestured with her hands.
“What’s he mean he has an elder within him?”
“It’s quite a trick. Can’t say I understand it, really.” Birke pushed one of the pups into Dariel’s arms. “Here, take your pup. I shouldn’t handle them so much. I’ll end up liking them. Have you named them yet?”
The pup climbed happily enough into Dariel’s lap, churning in a circle around the geometry of his folded legs. Dariel stilled it with his hand, rubbed under its chin, and looked into its eyes. They were the same color as its fur, which was a reddish-brown, soft, short coat. Only the ridge along its back was different. There the hair bristled back against the grain, almost spiny. It was the only part of him not completely adorable. “I was thinking of this one as Scarlet.”
“Scarlet?” Birke asked. “That’s no name for a cathound!”
“No? What is, then?”
Birke did not hesitate. “Ripper. Killer. Punisher.”
“Jaws of Death,” Tam said.
“Devothri-grazik,” offered Anira. “It means ‘Devoth’s bane.’ ”
Tam said something in Auldek, pointing at the other pup, who had just tumbled over in an effort to lick his bottom. The others laughed. No one offered a translation.
A little later, they all stood as the two rejoined them. The messenger looked as pleased as ever, but Mor’s lips pressed a new measure of annoyance between them. She barely opened them when she said, “The council has spoken. We have new instructions. From here we go to Rath Batatt. We seek the Watcher in the Sky Mount.”
“Na Gamen?” Birke asked, a measure of awe in his voice.
“Yes,” Mor said. “Na Gamen. Let’s go. Time is more important now than ever.”
Dariel came close to asking who Na Gamen was, but the group was already in motion.
T he mountains that the People called Rath Batatt sprouted like bony crests along the backs of horrible, reptilian beasts. Rank upon rank of them, stretching off unending into the west.
“Beautiful, eh?” Birke asked.
“Not the description I had in mind.”
“They say the Sky Mount is not far in. We won’t hike more than a day or so in the mountains. Just along the edge of
them.”
“The edge?” Dariel asked. “How far do these mountains go?”
“I don’t know. No one has been all the way through them. This was once Wrathic territory. My clan’s home. They lived at the edge of Rath Batatt but ranged into it, hunting. I’ve always wanted to do that.”
“You never have?”
“How could I?” the young man asked. “The time that the Wrathic hunted in Rath Batatt is but legend now. Tales they tell the children to bind them to the clan. Wonderful tales of packs of wolves and how they hunted mighty beasts together. I never even thought I’d live to see these mountains with my own eyes.”
Dariel placed a hand atop his shoulder. “I imagine the hunting is good now. Shall we? We haven’t had fresh meat in a while. Even Mor would like that.”
That afternoon Dariel and Birke loped away before the others. They climbed a steep slope, navigated the pass at its peak, and dropped down into the alpine valley on the other side. They picked their way through massive boulders, some of which pressed together so that they had to squeeze through or beneath them. Beyond the boulders stretched a long descent to a crystal blue lake, rimmed by short grass, abloom with purple wildflowers. A herd of woolly-haired oxen grazed-stout creatures thickening to face the coming winter, with flat horns that spread across their foreheads like helmets welded to their scalps. At first they were unaware of the humans, and then unfazed, and then-when Birke sank an arrow into one’s shoulder-furious.
The insulted beast charged them. After a brief moment of consideration, Dariel and Birke turned and fled. They reached the relative safety of the boulders with the ox’s hooves pummeling the ground just behind them, grunting insults into air suddenly thick with its musk. The creature pursued them in. It rushed through the narrow crevices between the stones. Dariel, trapped in a dead-end corridor of granite, had to scramble up it.
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