by Kai Meyer
The Ghost Trader pulled his silver ring out of his dark robe. Gently he stroked the cool metal. “I could waken the gods,” he said. “I could throw them against Tyrone and his vassals. Even against the Maelstrom himself. But who would direct them back into the shadows after their victory? I’m not capable of that. The powers that I awaken would be too great for me. They would fall upon each other, and what was left of the world would be torn to pieces—for hate of the creatures by whom they were forgotten in earlier times, or simply because it pleased them to.” The Trader let himself sink wearily against the edge of a table and propped himself on it with both hands. “Whichever way we choose, both lead to destruction.”
“But they are gods!” contradicted Forefather. “They have the right to destroy. The Maelstrom does not have it. He is only…a sport of nature. A running sore that we have the spinners to thank for.”
“The spinners?” The Trader’s voice grew sharper. “They were created by this world, without your help. They don’t need human belief in them, because the world itself believes in them, every stone and every blade of grass. That is why you scorn them.”
“They are—”
The Trader took a step toward Forefather, his eye appearing to blaze. “When the Mare Tenebrosum stirred the first time, the spinners only did what appeared right to them in view of the danger. They created the polliwogs, in order to fend off the masters of the Mare. Do you intend to blame them for that?”
“Nevertheless, Aina was the first of these polliwogs, and she has become the Maelstrom! Perhaps the greatest failure the world has ever seen.”
“But it was the failure of humans, not of the spinners. You do the three a disservice, my friend. They tried to protect the world.”
Forefather lowered his eyes. “Because he who created the world could not protect it,” he said guiltily.
Side by side, Soledad, Walker, and Buenaventure hastened over the coral bridges and stepped streets of the devastated city. They’d joined a troop of guardsmen who were supposed to scout out the fighting morale of the cannibal king’s army. How hard had the long sea battle hit them? What sort of cooperation was there within this army of native tribal fighters thrown together with the scum of the Old World?
In the meantime, the cannibals’ fleet had stopped firing on the city, likely because the ships’ cannons couldn’t angle wide enough to hit the targets that lay higher up Aelenium’s steep cliffs. All the balls had reached only the already destroyed shores.
The reconnaissance patrol made its way downward, and the lower they went, the thicker grew the smoke of the smoldering fires. Soon they came to the first ruins. In many of the houses and villas, only the walls were left, reaching skyward like blackened rib cages.
None of them said a word, and it wasn’t the fire and smoke alone that made them speechless. Soledad had taken part in many battles at sea, but only rarely did one see more than a few dead in the water; often the dead adversaries went down along with their ships. But walking through a city that had turned into a giant battlefield was like a nightmare.
She cast a side glance at Walker and was surprised to discover how much the sight of all the destruction also affected him. Wordlessly she took his hand as they walked.
“Look!”
The cry startled them. They stopped. One of the soldiers had run to a coral railing that bordered a small plaza to the south. From there a smoke-veiled view opened out over the waterfront. Soledad and the others hurried to his side.
On the embankment of the sea star arms, the first attackers were just jumping onto land from their rowboats with wild war shouts and storming in disorder into the openings to side streets.
One of the guardsmen, a man with a white, neatly cropped beard, now sprinkled with kobalin blood, made a disgusted face. “Pirates and savages aren’t even soldiers. They only understand plundering, not how to fight a war.”
Walker was about to contradict him energetically, but he noticed that neither Soledad nor Buenaventure were protesting.
“Is that an advantage for us?” asked Soledad.
The soldier shook his head. “With so many of the enemy? Before the first ones get to the wall, the streets will be swarming with them. They’ll probably just continue there where the kobalins left off.”
Buenaventure growled agreement. “They’re going to overrun us.”
Soledad massaged her wrist thoughtfully. “Well, scarcely. Tyrone must have had around two hundred ships. I can see no more than half of that.”
“A quarter, at most,” said Walker. “Provided there aren’t more waiting out there in the fog.”
“I don’t believe that. Tyrone will throw everything he has left into battle.” Soledad smiled coldly. “The Antilles captains took care of him quite nicely.”
The white-bearded soldier spoke up impatiently. “That’s all well and good, but the fact remains that they far outnumber us. I suggest we go back to the wall. Soon they’re going to need every man there. And,” he added, with the suggestion of a formal nod in Soledad’s direction, “every woman.”
“You go ahead with your men,” said Soledad. “Walker, Buenaventure, and I will try to get at Tyrone.”
Walker raised an eyebrow. “Oh, yes?”
“Soledad is right,” Buenaventure agreed. “It sounds like a plan, anyway. In any case, better than waiting up there on the wall until they trample us under.”
The soldier grew pale, but he continued to hold the gaze of the pit bull man. Then he nodded. Perhaps he was glad to get free of the three pirates.
Soledad turned to Walker. “Let’s at least try.”
He sighed softly, then shrugged. “A beautiful woman is always right, my father said.”
Soledad flashed a smile. “I thought you never knew your father.”
The white-bearded soldier cleared his throat in disapproval. “Very well,” he said firmly, “my men and I will make our way back. Good luck, you three—and I mean that sincerely.”
The steps of the soldiers quickly died out beyond the crackling of the fire and the cries from the shore. A few moments later the three set out. Soledad and Walker went ahead, Buenaventure remained directly behind them.
In some streets the fire burned so hotly that they had to turn around and look for another way. In several passages, on the other hand, the smoke was so thick that it was almost impossible to breathe.
Finally they crossed a narrow, railingless coral bridge that led over one of the wider streets. Below them a pack of pirates and cannibals in garish war paint stormed up the mountain, followed by a troop that moved in an orderly formation, suspiciously eyeing the burned-out windows on both sides of the road. Some also looked up at the bridge, and Soledad, Walker, and Buenaventure were just able to throw themselves to the ground in time not to be discovered.
In the midst of the band of pirates strode a black figure. The cannibal king’s head was shaved bald up to a long, black ponytail at the back of his head. In contrast to the other pirates, he’d assumed the war paint of the savages he’d made his subjects years before. His black, flowing clothing was that of a nobleman, with knee-high, wide-cuffed boots and a wide cape, which looked as if Tyrone were pulling a dark trail of smoke behind him. From up here the three couldn’t see his filed teeth, but the mere knowledge of them made Soledad feel sick.
She feared him. There was no reason not to admit that to herself. Tyrone was cruel, without any scruples, and thus an outstanding fighter. Even when he was still sailing the Caribbean as a pirate, the stories of his raids had been legend. After his disappearance into the jungles of the Orinoco and later when he returned as the leader of the cannibal tribes, the rumor mills worked overtime. There was no grisliness, no barbarity that he hadn’t surpassed long since.
His officers hurried up through the smoke-filled streets in his wake, big men with scarred, hardened faces. Another swarm of pirates followed them, ragged cutthroats who protected their masters’ backs.
Behind them was someone who looked l
ike—
“Griffin?” Soledad’s jaw dropped. “Look! Down there! Isn’t that Griffin?”
“Impossible,” growled Buenaventure.
“Yet you’re right!” Walker’s voice sounded excited, and he tried to damp it even as he spoke. He didn’t like to show how very fond he’d become of the pirate boy in the weeks they’d been under way together.
Griffin was walking in the middle of the pirates. He wore a dirty shirt, red-and-white-striped trousers, and a black cloth on his head. He had a nicked saber over his shoulder like a hiking stick.
Soledad stretched her head a little too far over the edge of the bridge; for a moment she had to be clearly visible from below. But only one of them raised his eyes, almost as if he’d felt her presence.
Griffin concealed his surprise and tried hard not to betray his excitement. The strain of moving in the midst of his enemies was getting on his nerves. His face twitched.
“What a devil of a fellow,” growled Buenaventure.
“And with the devil is just where he’s going to land if he doesn’t look sharp right now!” Walter sounded alarmed, and the two others saw at once what he meant. Soledad smothered a frightened exclamation.
Two pirates walking right behind Griffin had clearly noticed that he didn’t belong among them. One pirate pulled his dagger, and the other stretched out his arm to grab the boy by the shoulder.
In a fraction of a second Soledad was on her feet, pushed off, and jumped. While still in the air she knocked the weapon out of the hands of one foe and struck at him with her own. Walker and Buenaventure landed to the right and left of her and immediately went on the attack. They’d landed in the middle of the mob of pirates, almost ten yards from the place where Griffin had just fallen to the ground.
Soledad had no time to keep an eye out for the boy. She had enough to do to take out as many pirates and cannibals as possible before her opponents could realize that they weren’t facing an army but only three desperadoes.
Buenaventure’s fighting technique resembled that of the two others, with the noteworthy difference that the striking power of his gigantic toothed sword measured severalfold more than Soledad’s own blows. Leaping over yelling men as they fell to the ground wounded, he dashed to the edge of the narrow street, and with his left hand he grabbed a beam that had become unsound in the fires of the night. The roof frame of the shed, which had been built onto one of the coral houses, was still burning. “Walker! Soledad!…Look out!” Buenaventure called—then the shed leaned in an eruption of flames and flickering wood, before it landed on the pirate mob as a rain of fire. Suddenly most of them were busy defending themselves, not against blades any longer but flaming timbers. Several pieces of timber at once landed on Buenaventure himself. A furious howling came from his throat. Walker was hit too, a little more lightly, and Soledad was the only one to entirely escape the inferno. Her immediate opponent was also unharmed, and so they fought on in the midst of the flames, the circling men, and the billows of smoke, which soon embraced them all. With one saber blow out of a whirl of them she succeeded in striking the man down. In a sudden panic she looked for Walker and saw him, his hair smoking, dueling with a cannibal. Buenaventure was standing on two feet again, an ugly burn on his left upper arm, but otherwise more or less unharmed.
And Griffin? Where was the boy?
Most of the pirates had left the fire-saturated street for the adjoining ruins. Some had probably also gone on their way up the mountain. It was senseless to wear themselves out down here if the main forces of the defense were waiting on the upper wall. Tyrone had also disappeared.
But when a blond man stumbled out of the wall of smoke toward Soledad, coughing wildly, she suddenly recognized him and immediately went on the attack.
“Bannon!” she cried, as their blades met, striking sparks. “It ought not to have come to this.”
He gave no answer, just struck harder at her and drove her several steps backward through the acrid vapor toward the shore.
The smoke grew thicker and thicker. The stench hurt her throat and robbed her of breath.
Soledad had no choice but to save her skin, and she was almost grateful that it was Bannon, in particular, with whom she confronted that fate. She despised him for his betrayal and because he’d tried to surrender his foster daughter Jolly to Tyrone and the Maelstrom.
Bannon fought silently and grimly. Again and again their blades met. He was her superior in strength, but she was faster and more skilled with the saber than he was. The attacks that hit him between his parries were brutal. Once she believed that her blade would surely break under the weight of his blows, yet the steel held out. But the vibration of the weapon went all the way to her shoulder, so that for a moment she could no longer lift her arm.
Bannon got ready for a lethal blow. He didn’t smile the way they used to say he did when facing a defeated opponent, and he avoided any mockery. Obviously he intended to bring this business to an end as quickly as possible.
Soledad groaned as she tried again to lift her lame arm and parry his blow.
There was a slashing sound. Bannon winced, stopped short, looked down at himself, and stared in surprise at the blade sticking out of his chest. His eyes slowly widened, his mouth dropped open. “A hundred thousand hellhounds!” he whispered. Then he collapsed, as silently as he’d dueled, fell on his face, and was still. An old, nicked saber was sticking out of his back.
A figure in red and white trousers leaped over the corpse, crashed against Soledad, and embraced her.
“Griffin!”
“Princess!” They hugged each other as if it had been years since their leave-taking, rather than several hours. It felt good to know he was back with them. When she let go of him, he reeled. Shortly afterwards his legs buckled.
“Griffin?” In an instant she was bending over him. “What’s wrong? Are you wounded?”
He tried to smile, but it only made him look more tired and sick. None of them had had enough sleep for an eternity, but it wasn’t only exhaustion that robbed him of his strength now.
“You’re bleeding!” She carefully pushed his arm to one side and stared at the dark red spot in horror. The dirty pirate shirt was completely soaked through.
“Not deep,” he murmured. “Not dangerous.”
Soledad didn’t listen to him and raised her head. “Walker! Buenaventure!” she called out into the smoke. Her eyes burned, breathing was increasingly difficult, but at the moment she was thinking only about the boy. “I need one of you here with me!”
A shout like an answer resounded through the smoke, then Buenaventure came stomping up, followed by a disheveled Walker covered with scratches. There was a gaping burn hole in his shirt, but he appeared not to be seriously wounded.
“Most of them have gone on,” he gasped in between coughs. “But this smoke is going to kill us if we—” Walker broke off as he saw the blood on Griffin’s side. “Goddamn it!”
Griffin’s mouth twitched again, but this time there wasn’t even the shadow of a smile. “It isn’t bad. Only it hurts…a little….”
“Come here, boy.” Buenaventure pushed Soledad aside and lifted Griffin from the ground like a flyweight, very gently, so as not to cause him any more pain.
“We have to get behind the wall,” said Soledad. “He needs help.”
“I do not.”
She wouldn’t allow herself to be distracted. “Do you think we can do it?”
“No.” Walker spoke candidly, as always. “We’re behind enemy lines now. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s already fighting at the wall. And there are still more of Tyrone’s people down on the shore. As soon as the smoke clears, they’ll be coming through here.” He shot a concerned look at Griffin, who lay like a child in Buenaventure’s muscular arms. “I guess we have to find ourselves a hiding place right now and wait until it’s more opportune to push through to the others. So far we’ve just had good luck.”
He’s right, Soledad thought. The skirmish
with Tyrone’s people would have turned out differently if Buenaventure hadn’t made the shed collapse.
“I can walk,” gasped Griffin unconvincingly.
“Of course you can.” Buenaventure hurried off without setting him down on the ground. He bore Griffin uphill through the smoke, until the billows thinned a little and they could see more clearly what the situation was. Soledad and Walker stayed beside him.
The stepped street in front of them was empty, but the sounds of the battle reached their ears from above. The fighting around the defense wall had been reignited. This time, however, it was men against men.
“Looks as if we’re exactly between two attack waves,” Buenaventure said. “The rest of the crews from the ships will be coming along pretty soon. We’ve got to hurry.”
They stormed up the steps, striding breathlessly over the bodies of kobalins and fallen defenders, and very soon they reached the Poets’ Quarter.
The shouting and stamping behind them was growing louder.
“They’ll be here soon!” Walker whispered, adding a formidable oath.
“Let’s duck into one of the houses.” Buenaventure was about to run into an entry and kick in the door, but Soledad held him back.
“Wait! Just a little bit farther.”
Walker threw a doubtful look over his shoulder. The smoke at the foot of the stepped street was swirling in bizarre eddies, the billows moving erratically. Behind the smoke it was dense with human silhouettes. Any minute the first ones would break through the haze and discover the fugitives.
“To the left!” Soledad ran ahead. There was nothing for the two men to do but follow her. In Buenaventure’s arms, Griffin clenched his teeth. Despite his pain and the wild shaking, his eyelids threatened to close.
Soledad ran down a narrow alley, came to a crossing, and turned upward again. Even here it was going to be swarming with Tyrone’s people any minute.