Child of a Dead God

by Barb

  As Welstiel crept back along the ship’s rail toward the aft, and slipped down its steps, the smell of blood rose around him again. His patience was already taxed to its limit.

  What had Chane been up to now?

  Chapter Ten

  The moon rose as Chap paced the deck amid the sounds of wind and wave, but his thoughts drifted. He had forsaken so much to protect Leesil and Magiere, yet now felt uncertain of the correct path—again.

  How had the Chein’âs known of Magiere? What did they want from her in exchange for their gifts of a dagger and what Wynn called a thôrhk? Something beyond vengeance, most certainly. And in the great scheme of things, what was the purpose for the artifact which Magiere sought?

  She and Leesil only wished to finish this last task and go home. With all Chap’s mortal heart, he wished this might be. But amid worry for them, something more nagged him tonight as he paced near the ship’s rail-wall. He felt a strong sense of something out there, coming closer—like a hole in the world he could not pinpoint.

  Chap hopped upon a storage chest near the rail-wall and stared ahead into the dark.

  Several elven crew members watched him curiously. They found it unnatural for a majay-hì to willingly leave its homeland. The young woman with the thick braid and oversized boots studied him like a mystery to be unlocked. But the crew’s discomfort did not matter, and he watched only the sea.

  “Chap, where are you?” Wynn called out.

  He glanced back as she emerged from the hatch below the forecastle, dressed only in her white shift, boots, and Chane’s old cloak. Chap sighed, concerned for her as well.

  His kin, the Fay, might still want Wynn dead. Not only for her ability to hear and perceive their presence, but also because she knew they were up to more than just sending Chap as a guardian to Magiere. And why did Wynn keep wearing that old cloak instead of her new coat?

  Her preoccupation with Chane worried him—no, it was outright disturbing. He looked out across the rolling water rushing around the ship’s prow and tensed, looking for . . . something.

  “There you are.” She scurried to his side. “It is getting late.”

  Being treated as her charge—instead of the other way around—was annoying, but it still warmed him at times. Normally, Wynn did not come on deck without Osha or Sgäile. He was surprised to find her alone and knew he should take her back downstairs. But that hollow in the world that he could not quite find began to make him ache. To make him want to . . . hunt?

  Chap inched to the storage chest’s far end, but his sharp eyes saw nothing upon the ocean ahead.

  “What is wrong?” Wynn asked.

  Chap hesitated. Something is out there.

  Wynn put a hand on his head and slid it down his neck. “I do not see anything.”

  You are only human.

  “Only?” she answered indignantly.

  A wink of light rose ahead in the dark.

  Chap reared up with his forepaws perched on the rail-wall.

  “Vessel ahead!” someone shouted from up in the rigging.

  Chap already saw it. The distant wink came again, catching upon sails, and the hackles on his neck stiffened.

  Chane sat upon an old canvas tarp spread over the stained floor. He had propped open the hatch, but the hold still reeked of blood. All was quiet above on deck.

  Welstiel stepped in, glaring at him.

  Chane climbed to his feet, half-hoping Welstiel would make some self-righteous demand for an explanation. He was sick of this existence and spoiling for confrontation.

  Welstiel turned his eyes on each monk, one by one.

  The ferals were markedly better off than when Welstiel had left—more aware and curious about their surroundings. The one Sabel had called “Jakeb” was especially improved. His face had nearly healed of her scratches, and he studied Welstiel calmly. Sethè was also less agitated.

  Yet all the monks were smeared or splattered with blood.

  But Welstiel said nothing.

  He crossed to a bare space below the open hatch, dropped to the floor, and immediately pulled out the brass dish to scry for Magiere. Perhaps he was relieved that Chane had taken care of feeding the ferals. Or he was just lost in his own obsession yet again.

  Either way, Chane did not care.

  A loud call from above vibrated through the hold’s ceiling. Welstiel looked up, having barely nicked his stubbed finger, and only one drop of black fluid had fallen onto the plate.

  “What is it?” Chane asked.

  “Something about a ship . . . ,” Welstiel began, but his gaze dropped to the brass plate.

  Welstiel spun up to his feet and rushed back out of the hold. As his pounding footfalls filled the outer passage, Chane glanced down at the brass plate.

  The one droplet of Welstiel’s black fluids bulged at the center of its domed back, and the droplet had not moved at all.

  Chane bolted after Welstiel.

  Magiere’s ship was nearly on top of theirs.

  Welstiel burst onto deck and looked up to see the loose sail secured. Chane came out behind him, searching about in confusion.

  “Where is it?” Chane rasped. “Do you see the other ship?”

  Welstiel spun toward the ship’s aft.

  Both the captain and Klâtäs stood beyond the helm, exchanging quick, sharp words. He looked past them, senses widening, and caught sight of distant sails shimmering in the moonlight. Chane had followed, and Welstiel grabbed him roughly by his shirt.

  “We must drive Magiere to ground!”

  Chane scowled, but his gaze fixed into the distance behind their vessel.

  “How?” he hissed.

  “We sink her ship.”

  “No!” Chane spit back, swatting off Welstiel’s grip. “Wynn is on board!”

  “We must get them back on land,” Welstiel insisted. “It is the only way we can follow them now. They will have time to abandon ship . . . including your little sage!”

  He strode for the stern before Chane could argue.

  Klâtäs saw him coming and shouted, “Go down in hold!”

  The captain began calling to his men, and the tall, helmed man’s voice was tinged with fear. He walked past Klâtäs toward the bow. Welstiel ignored the helmsman’s order and followed the captain from a short distance with Chane close behind.

  Ylladon sailors rushed about at the captain’s orders. Two raced aft and uncovered the stern ballista. One by one, all the deck lamps were doused. Darkness enveloped the ship as Klâtäs suddenly threw his weight into turning the wheel.

  Welstiel grabbed the rail as the vessel listed sharply, turning from the shore for the open sea. Men in the rigging worked madly to raise more sails.

  “He’s running,” Chane said, watching the captain clinging to a rigging line at the ship’s side.

  “Obviously!” Welstiel returned, and then thought of what the captain had locked in his quarters. “We will change his mind!”

  He ignored the captain standing midship and headed back to the helm.

  “Get below!” Klâtäs yelled, still clinging to the wheel.

  “You cannot outrun that ship,” Welstiel said in a low voice.

  The helmsman spit at his feet, eyes on the ship’s arcing course. “What you know of it?”

  “I know it is elven,” Welstiel answered, inching closer. “And I saw what your captain has locked in his quarters. That ship will never stop coming for you—and the two women you have taken. It is faster than your vessel, and your only chance is to turn and fight.”

  Klâtäs shook his head but did not respond. It was clear the captain feared pursuit, as did the helmsman. Klâtäs spit out a stream of words that Welstiel could not follow, but he spun about at the sound of running footsteps.

  The captain closed on him, his heavy shortsword in hand. Chane drew his longsword at the sight.

  “Tell him that he must turn and fight!” Welstiel shouted at the helmsman.

  Another sailor grabbed the wheel as Klâ
täs let go, still speaking loudly to his superior. The captain slowed, listening, then eyed Welstiel as he barked a short phrase.

  “If is battle vessel, we not can fight,” Klâtäs said to Welstiel. “Their ship keep going fast . . . even crippled and sails down. Something under waves can break our hull, sink us.”

  An elven battle vessel? Welstiel had never heard of such, and the idea of something beneath the water that could sink its enemies sounded like nonsense.

  “Load your ballistae with burning quarrels,” he said. “Set fire to the sails, and its crew will abandon ship. But you must come about. If we charge, we have the element of surprise.”

  Klâtäs shifted anxious eyes toward his captain. The fact that he was even trying to convince his superior—on the word of a foreigner—meant he feared they could not escape. The captain snarled back, grabbed Klâtäs by the hair, and shoved him away.

  “He say we run,” Klâtäs answered. “Even under full moon, we maybe lose them in dark.”

  Persuasion was not working. Welstiel spoke calmly to Chane in Belaskian but kept his eyes on the helmsman.

  “Kill the captain . . . and show them what you are.”

  The captain barked a question at Klâtäs, stepping toward the smaller man.

  In the same instant, Chane thrust out with his longsword.

  The startled captain tried to raise his shortsword in defense, but Chane’s sword was already embedded through the side of his leather armor. The shortsword clanged against Chane’s steel anyway. The impact jarred the longsword, twisting it in the captain’s ribs. He buckled to his knees.

  The fight should have been over, but Klâtäs reached for his saber. Welstiel pulled his sword before the helmsman could draw his and grabbed Klâtäs by the throat. He heard Chane’s hiss grating like some enraged reptile.

  The captain wrapped his thick hand around Chane’s embedded blade.

  The crewman at the helm abandoned his post to rush in.

  “Move and you die,” Welstiel growled in Klâtäs’s ear, and lashed out his sword.

  The tip clipped the rushing crewman and tore through the side of his face. The man twisted away, screaming as he tumbled to the deck.

  Chane opened his mouth, exposing jagged, elongated teeth.

  The captain tried to raise his shortsword again. Blood ran along Chane’s blade in his side, either from the wound or from his free hand gripping the sharp steel. Chane lifted one booted foot.

  He stomped down on the captain’s forearm, just above the man’s grip.

  The captain’s fingers sheared off on the longsword’s edge. He dropped his shortsword with a guttural cry.

  Klâtäs bucked in Welstiel’s grip.

  “Tell your men to stay back or they die!” Welstiel shouted. He dropped his sword to grip Klâtäs’s hair. “Tell them now . . . or I save you for last.”

  Chane slammed his jaws closed on the captain’s throat. He thrashed his head like a wild dog ripping prey in its teeth. Dark blood splattered across the deck, and flecks of it struck Klâtäs’s face and chest.

  Cries of hunger and desperation rose from somewhere in the belly of the ship.

  Chane dropped the captain’s limp body in the red pool spreading on the deck. He spit out torn flesh and turned glittering eyes upon the closing crew.

  Welstiel focused his mind on his ferals below.

  “Come!” he shouted. “Come to me now!”

  Screams of release filled the ship’s hull as Klâtäs cried out to his men.

  Wynn spotted a point of light on the sea as the elven steersman called for his hkomas. But she could not see a ship. The light vanished as the hkomas came at a jog. He glanced at Wynn standing on deck in her shift—without Osha or Sgäile—and stopped below the aftcastle.

  “I have lost sight of it,” the steersman called, releasing the wheel to a crew member beside him. He came down to the deck and pointed. “It was there, ahead of us.”

  Chap began to growl.

  “What is it?” Wynn asked.

  He only huffed and rumbled.

  “Go below!” the hkomas shouted at her.

  "I will not! Look at him.” She gestured to Chap. “Something is very wrong.”

  “Wynn—where are you?” Osha emerged below the forecastle, holding his gray-green cloak closed against the wind.

  “Here,” she answered, then turned quickly back to Chap. “Tell me what you see!”

  Chap’s growl deepened, but he would not look away from the ocean.

  The steersman grabbed the back of Wynn’s cloak. “Do as you’re ordered!”

  Osha reached Wynn’s side and snatched the man’s wrist. He shook his head slowly until the steersman released his grip.

  “What is wrong?” Osha asked.

  “An unknown ship ahead,” Wynn answered, “and it is making Chap uneasy.”

  Osha leaned over the rail-wall, following Chap’s gaze. “I see nothing.”

  “It vanished in the dark, but it must be there.”

  “Ship ahead!” someone called from up the front mast. “Human sails in moonlight, turning seaward.”

  “Human?” the hkomas repeated.

  “Could it be the one?” the steersman asked.

  “Ylladon!” the voice above cried out. “It is Ylladon!”

  Osha glanced upward once, his expression confused. “You are seeking a ship?” he demanded.

  “At our last stop, we heard of a raid on a lower coastal enclave,” the hkomas answered, and the steersman rushed for the aftcastle as the hkomas called out, “All crew on deck! Full sail—and tell lhkasge to rouse the ship!”

  Wynn turned to Osha at this new name. “Who is . . . Closing-Stone . . . and why must he wake up the ship?”

  “He is our vessel’s hkœda,” Osha said quickly. “Even asleep the ship keeps swimming, but the hkomas now wishes for more haste. You should go below.”

  “Chap, come on,” Wynn said.

  The dog remained poised. Wynn grasped Chap’s shoulders, and he growled at her without turning.

  The stairwell’s hatch shattered outward, and feral monks poured onto the deck.

  Chane knew he was trapped.

  Somewhere behind them, Wynn was on that other ship.

  He had followed Welstiel’s every demand. If not, Welstiel would have been overrun by the crew, leaving Chane alone amid marauders and a pack of ferals with no master. And killing the Ylladon captain had made his head swim with euphoria.

  He tried to clear his mind as scattered sailors grabbed for weapons to fend off the monks. Welstiel still gripped the helmsman, but his face . . .

  His colorless eyes glowed in his pale white features. His lips pushed apart around elongating teeth.

  Chane had never seen Welstiel in full vampiric state. Perhaps the man had fallen so far over sanity’s edge that his aristocratic veneer had cracked completely. The sight ate at Chane, until all he wanted was another warm body to tear apart. And someone kept squealing behind him.

  He snapped his head to the side, glaring over his shoulder.

  The sailor Welstiel had slashed rolled on the deck, clutching his face with blood dripping between his fingers. Chane jerked his sword from the captain’s corpse and skewered the crewman through the heart. The man fell silent and limp.

  Half of the crew had recovered from their initial horror and were now facing down the monks. Ferals worked their way around the sailors to cluster near Welstiel.

  Sabel looked to Chane, sniffing the air, and then her gaze found the pool of blood around the captain’s corpse. Chane backed against the starboard rail.

  Could Welstiel control his children cut loose among the living?

  “Tell your men to get back into the rigging!” Welstiel hissed into Klâtäs’s ear. “You turn this ship back . . . or you’ll be bloodless before your body hits the deck.”

  “They not do this,” the helmsman choked, “not charge elven ship!”

  “Look around! Who do they fear more . . . the elves or us?”
/>
  Welstiel felt the helmsman’s pulse under his hand and heard its pounding rhythm in his own ears. The hunger it brought made him sick inside— because he wanted to feed.

  The crew stayed beyond the reach of the hissing, sniffing ferals, but their faces were tense as they clenched their weapons. Klâtäs finally shouted at them.

  Two shook their heads, and one lost all color in his face.

  Welstiel shoved the helmsman into the wheel.

  Klâtäs caught himself on a spindled handle, but he glanced down in horror at his captain’s body. He began shouting again at the crew, but not one of them moved.

  Welstiel needed at least six of them, more likely ten, enough to man the ballistae and at least keep the ship on course once it turned.

  “Feed!” he snarled.

  All five ferals rushed the crew with wild cries of release. Only two crewmen stood their ground as the others scattered.

  Welstiel retrieved his sword. “Turn north, along the coast . . . while some of your men are still alive.”

  Klâtäs threw his weight into the wheel, cranking it hard. “Stop your beasts!”

  Welstiel grabbed the side rail as the ship listed sharply and looked out across the deck.

  The two sailors who had stood their ground were already dead, hidden beneath growling and tearing ferals. Their feast was broken as their bodies slid along the deck’s tilt. Stumbling monks turned frenzied as each tried to close on the bodies first.

  Welstiel counted off crewmen within sight. Four or five more were not to be seen—likely in hiding—and the rest had fled into the rigging.

  “Halt!” Welstiel shouted in Stravinan.

  As the deck leveled and the ship’s prow swung north, he stepped out among his cowering minions. Again, the curly-haired man was last to back away from the torn bodies, his neck and forearms ridged with straining muscle. He still clutched at the deck, reaching for the nearest slaughtered crewman.

  Welstiel raised his face to the ship’s heights and the crewmen clinging to the rigging. Klâtäs shouted at them, and they scrambled to their duties.