“Aye,” said Yarl Vengir. “This much is well known among the Fenyir. Serl negotiated safe passage with the ruler of the walled city of Daenipor, the Moon Lord Kalishni’coor. But Kalishni’coor—curse his black soul—betrayed his word and had Serl seized and executed for piracy. Serl’s crew escaped with, I’m guessing, this journal you speak of, Fioni, as well as Serl’s sword on Iron Beard.”
“According to my father, Serl entered the Rose Palace under assurances of safe passage, with only a handful of men.”
“And, unfortunately for him, his famous shield as well,” said Yarl Vengir. “The man never went anywhere without that shield, a pity for you, Fioni.”
“What about this shield?” Owen asked again.
Vengir considered Owen before answering. “Serl Raven-Eye possessed a famous shield, one covered with the chitin of marsh ticks.”
Owen had fought the ticks in the Feldwyn Swamp. The plates covering their bloated bodies were stronger than steel but far lighter. Such a shield would have been worth a fortune.
Danika sat back, her hands resting in her lap. “So the secret to Torin Island, where Serina’s heart lies—”
“With a fortune in magical blood gems,” added Yarl Vengir.
“Is hidden on Serl’s shield,” said Fioni.
“A shield that now hangs as a trophy within the Rose Palace,” said Yarl Vengir.
“Will you help me get it back?” asked Fioni. “Together, we can raid the Rose Palace, steal back Serl’s shield, and use it to find Serina’s heart. My uncle, Denyr–if he still lives—will help us. We’ll use Sight-Bringer on Serina’s heart—killing her. The gems I’ll share with you. Gods, I’ll give them all to you for your help.”
Yarl Vengir stared at her for long moments and then shook his head. “Fioni, nothing has changed. We cannot take the Rose Palace. It’s too strong.”
Fioni’s face drained of all color. “But…we have to.”
“Why?” asked Lady Danika. “Why do you have to take the Rose Palace at all?”
“How else are we going to get the shield back?” snapped Fioni.
“You have your father’s silver hoard,” said Lady Danika. “Barter for it.”
Fioni’s eyes flashed angrily, but Lady Danika kept going. “My family has long dealt with Daenipor’s new Moon Lord, Kory’ander Dey. Hishtari merchant vessels always provision on Greywynne Island. And while I’ve never met Kory’ander Dey, by all accounts he’s a very reasonable and intelligent young man. I can use my family’s name to get an audience with him. Let me bargain for the shield. Once we have it, we can sail north for this Torin Island.”
“It might work, Fioni,” said Yarl Vengir. “I can help you take back your home, but I don’t have the warriors to throw away needlessly attacking the Rose Palace. And you don’t have much time. If Serina turns her attention this way, I’ll have no choice but to swear allegiance to her.”
“You’d bend knee to her?” Fioni asked.
“I would to save my clan,” snapped Yarl Vengir. “And so would you. You don’t know what she’s like. Do whatever you have to do to destroy her, but do it quickly. Buy the shield back, pay whatever the Hishtari dogs want, and then find your uncle. Kill Serina while she’s still gathering her forces—before it’s too late.”
Danika and Fioni still stared at one another, but Fioni looked away first and nodded, although to Owen’s eye it looked more as if she were trying to swallow fire.
“All right, Yarl Vengir,” said Fioni. “In the morning, I’ll sail for Daenipor and use my father’s silver to buy back what was treacherously stolen from us forty-eight years ago.”
“Good,” said Yarl Vengir. “But tonight, we get drunk.”
Chapter 20
Danika
Danika sleeps restlessly, tossing and turning.
Then she bolts upright in bed, confused and lost, her skin drenched with sweat.
Where…?
Then she remembers—she’s a guest in Yarl Vengir’s home. A cold breeze—too cold—turns her skin to ice, and she turns to face the open window. Her heart leaps into her throat, both in fear and longing. A man stands silhouetted against the open window, the moon and stars outlined behind him. She can’t see his face in the darkness, but she’d know his outline anywhere—Brice Awde, her lover, dead now.
He shouldn’t be here. He should be in the afterlife, held in the loving embrace of Father Craftsman.
Waiting for her.
She reaches a hand out toward him, but he is too far away. “Brice, why are you here? Why don’t you come to me?”
And why is it so cold?
“Beware the Blue Man,” he says, his voice echoing in her skull.
She swings her legs out of the bed and rushes toward him.
But he’s already gone.
And Danika stands before the open window in her guest room, shivering and wondering if she’s awake or asleep.
Chapter 21
Galas
Galas woke with a start, swinging a wild punch.
He had been having a nightmare, dreaming of red stone steps leading down into darkness. A great evil waited at the bottom of the stairs, he somehow knew, an insatiable hunger. And he had been about to descend those stairs.
“Galas, it’s me, Hringol. Calm yourself,” his first mate hissed in the darkness.
His breathing wild, his heartbeat pounding, Galas remembered where he was—in the common room of Welmen Town’s alehouse, where he had passed out drunk. The darkness was nearly complete, with only the glow of the embers in the fire pit giving off any light. As his eyes adjusted to the dim, Galas saw Hringol’s face take form, leaning over him. Galas had fallen asleep on the rush-covered floor of the alehouse.
“Are you calm?” Hringol asked.
Galas’s head pounded from drinking far too much ale, and his mouth tasted as though he had been sucking on a seal’s ass, but he realized he was in no immediate danger. “Gods,” he mumbled, sitting up and looking about himself. All about him, as close to the fire pit as they could get, at least a dozen of his men lay sprawled, snoring. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
And then he remembered Fatah Yur Min. A tremor of fear swept through Galas, burning away the cobwebs of his alcohol-fueled lethargy. He staggered to his feet, his hands reaching for the hilt of his sword on his waist.
It wasn’t there.
Frantic, he dropped down on hands and knees and patted the rush-strewn dirt floor, only relaxing when his fingers brushed against his belt and sword.
Hringol placed his large hand on Galas’s shoulder. “Thunder Killer has returned. Our men are back.”
Galas stared past Hringol at the darkness through the still-open doorway of the alehouse. “What time is it?”
“It’s not yet dawn,” Hringol said. “As you ordered, we kept a watch over the easterners last night. Our men saw Thunder Killer sail upriver. It beached near the fishing boats, where Fioni’s ship had been.”
Galas scowled at Hringol. “Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Ullyn. Finally—with another twenty warriors.
He’d still be outnumbered by the mercenaries, but the odds had slightly improved. Fatah Yur Min would still demand the townsfolk—and Iron Beard—but he might not risk attacking Galas as well now. Still, he’d lose his town, most of his clan. I’ll be the yarl of nothing and no one. Welmen Town will just… cease to exist. Damn Taios. Damn Fioni! Damn the bloody gods for abandoning me. Even worse, if the easterners took the townsfolk as slaves, his own men would turn against him. What am I going to do? Why is this happening to me?
He groaned and grabbed the sides of his head as a particularly bad wave of pain coursed through his skull. Hringol reached out and gripped his arm, steadying him. When the pain lessened, a worry began to nag at him. “What drove Ullyn to risk sailing at night?”
Hringol’s features were wreathed in shadow, but there was no hiding the fear in his voice. “I don’t know. They’re all still on the ship…waiting.�
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“Waiting for what?”
“For you.”
A chill ran through Galas. “What… what nonsense is this?”
“I don’t understand either, but Ullyn and his entire crew are still aboard Thunder Killer. They said to bring you.”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“It’s… it’s not just Ullyn and his men. The ship was packed with armed men, scores of them.”
“What armed men?”
“Greywynne Islanders, all wearing kingdom ring mail and castle-forged swords. I think… I think they’ve taken the fort, Stron’s Watch.”
Galas felt a tightening in his chest as his alcohol-laden brain grasped at this new development. Scores of well-armed Greywynne Islanders would tip the scales in his favor. With that many men, plus the twenty aboard Thunder Killer, Galas would have almost as many men as Fatah Yur Min, more than enough to stop him from taking Iron Beard…and the townsfolk, of course. Fatah Yur Min wouldn’t dare risk a pitched battle, not with such equal odds.
Galas smiled. “Where is Ullyn? Is he a hostage?”
“I… I don’t know. I only saw him from a distance, waiting with the others. There’s more… though.”
“What?”
“I felt something on that ship, something…evil. It…terrified me.”
Galas could hear his own heartbeat throbbing in his ears as he stared at Hringol. “What nonsense is this?”
Hringol shook his head, looked down at his feet.
He’s not lying, Galas realized. He’s really frightened of something.
Serina Greywynne. The Dain woman insisted she was alive.
Galas shivered. What choice do I have? “Let’s go see what they want.”
#
Galas stood on the edge of the river with Hringol and ten of his best warriors, staring at Thunder Killer. The longship had been beached, its prow pulled up on the grass. A single torch thrust into the ground blazed in front of the ship, illuminating the crowd of men who stood silently waiting, watching. But it was the woman who stood before them that demanded his attention, who sent waves of fear coursing through him so badly, he feared he’d foul himself.
Tall and beautiful, with long blond hair tightly braided in the Fenyir custom, she wore a dark-blue gown, but of a style favored in the kingdom, not the islands. Over her shoulders, she wore a fur-lined cape. Carrying herself with the arrogance of a yarl, she looked down her perfect nose at Galas. At first, he thought she wore a mask, but then he realized that a series of intricate blue tattoos covered the entire upper half of her face. When he looked into her bloodred eyes, he knew the Dain woman had been telling the truth—he stood before Serina Greywynne, the Blood Queen of legend.
His first reaction was to run and hide, but it was too late for that, intuitively understanding his life now hung by a thread. His knees shaking, he forced himself to step forward, cold rivulets of sweat running down his spine.
A young man with short dark hair, wearing a ring-mail coat but carrying no weapons, stood just behind her, watching Galas’s approach with hungry red eyes—another blood fiend. Just behind him lurked another man with a gaunt, bookish frame and a bandage over one eye. As Galas came closer, the young man in the ring mail smiled hungrily, exposing his fangs.
“Yarl Galas Gilt-Mane,” said the woman, Serina Greywynne. “We welcome you.”
He trembled uncontrollably, unable to move or even think clearly.
“The correct response is to kneel,” she said softly.
Overcome by dizziness, Galas fell to his knees on the grass and lowered his head.
She stepped forward, her feet before his eyes. “I won’t bother asking if you know who I am. After all, you sent a man to find me, didn’t you?”
“I… yes. I…” His lips were numb. He gasped for air. The words wouldn’t come. Everything was so hard. She’d kill him; he knew that for a certainty. He shouldn’t have come here. He should have run away—anything but this.
“I have no intention of killing you, Yarl Galas,” she said, as if she could read his mind. She ran her slender fingers through the hair on his head. “I have need of men such as you.” She paused then, making a fist and yanking a handful of his long blond hair from his scalp. “Although…your clan did stand against me.”
“Not… not me, my queen,” squealed Galas, ignoring the pain running through his skull. “That was Serl. I’d have been loyal.”
She let go of his hair, wiped her palm against her dress. “Yes, I’m sure you would have. Do you seek forgiveness, Yarl Galas?”
“I… I do, Your Majesty. I’ll be loyal, you’ll see.”
“I shall indeed. Come, Yarl Galas. Rise. I would speak with you in private.”
She held her hand out to him. Dried blood crusted her fingers, but he took it despite his revulsion, forcing himself not to let go when he felt the chillness of her flesh. He rose, staring at the ground, shivering helplessly. She strolled away, and Galas followed, too frightened to do anything but obey. From behind, the moonlight shone upon her locks of bound hair, turning them silver.
Unerringly, she went directly for the mass grave of the Kur’teshi soldiers, buried earlier that day. Standing before the fresh mound of earth, she sniffed the air, her eyes closed. “I can still smell their blood. These are not Fenyir clansmen. Who, then?”
“Kur’teshi mercenaries, my queen, killed during the fighting last night.” Galas’s eyes darted to the walls of Welmen Town, where even now he could see torchlight as the easterners—aware that Thunder Killer had returned—began to line the walls. Was a fight inevitable now?
“Mercenaries,” she repeated in a soft voice, staring at the mass grave. “Once, the Fenyir clans inspired such terror all along the coastlines. We were death from the sea, fierce and proud. Now look at you, letting foreign dogs fight for you.”
“I had no choice. I didn’t want to use the Kur’teshi, but—”
“But you wanted power. You wanted to be yarl.”
“I wanted to be yarl.”
She watched him with her all-red eyes. “But how long will you be yarl, I wonder?”
He stared at his hands. “There were… complications.”
She cupped his cheek with her palm, her flesh like ice. “We are Fenyir, Yarl Galas Gilt-Mane. We worship the true gods. We do not deal with lesser men.” When her fingers slipped away from his face, he shuddered. “Your man Ullyn spoke of a female raider, Fioni Ice-Bound, the Red Wolf. This woman took something from the sea that belonged to me, an heirloom I want back—as well as a young woman with dark hair, a kingdom noblewoman.”
“Lady Danika Dain,” Galas said. “I saw her in my uncle’s hall—and the… heirloom you speak of.”
“And now?”
He hesitated, his heartbeat pounding in his skull. “Gone, my queen, fled last night with…with the Dain woman.”
Her displeasure seemed to roll off her in waves. “Fled?”
“They… fought their way to her ship and sailed away.”
“And the item I seek?”
“We didn’t find it. My uncle burned his longhouse. It may have been destroyed in the fire.”
“No,” she said softly. “No fire could damage it. But I don’t feel its presence. It’s gone from here, no doubt sailing west even now with the niece of Stron, this Danika Dain. This is so vexing! Now she will bring it to my enemy, that guppy who calls himself king in Conarck. It won’t help him, but it will give his people hope, and I will have to slaughter thousands in order to shatter that hope.” She shook her head. “The acts that others force upon me.”
“My queen… Fen Wolf sailed northeast, not toward the kingdom.”
Now she turned to face him again, a look of puzzlement on her beautiful features. “Northeast? Why?”
“I… I assumed they were going to our allies in the Windhelm clan for support. With my uncle Taios dead, Fioni will need help.”
“Where is this Taios?”
“Dead, my queen. Killed while fleei
ng the battle.”
She advanced on him, and he scurried backwards, tripping and falling onto his ass. “I did not ask what state he was in. I asked where he was.”
Galas pointed down the beach, where his uncle had fallen, and Serina swept past him. Galas drew himself to his feet and followed, wishing he were anywhere but here. She stopped before Taios’s corpse, the stench so strong now, he thought he’d gag. Serina, without the slightest care in the world for her beautiful gown, knelt down in the filth opposite the rotting corpse and held Taios’s head in her lap, her palms against his ravaged cheeks. His eyes and ears were bloody pits now, chewed away by the crabs.
“What is his full name?” she asked, her red eyes closed, as if in prayer.
“Taios Oak-Heart.”
She began to chant in a foreign tongue, the words sounding… foul somehow to Galas. The air became heavier, darker. A throbbing began in his head and then spread, coursing through his entire being. His legs abruptly gave out, and he fell, breathless, to his knees, watching her in abject horror as her chanting increased in volume. When his uncle’s dead legs kicked feebly at the air, Galas moaned in terror. Not possible. Dead is dead. Dead is dead. Dead is—
Serina’s red eyes snapped open. “You will speak to me, Taios Oak-Heart,” she commanded. “You must obey He whom I serve, the Dark Shark.”
His uncle’s lips quivered and then opened, revealing a tongue that was swollen and black. When his dead uncle spoke, his voice was raspy and dry, barely recognizable as the powerful man he had been in life. “No. Send me back!”
“You will make no demands, spirit,” Serina said, still holding his head between her palms. “Where is Sight-Bringer?”
“You,” his uncle said in horror. “This is blasphemy, even for you.”
“You will never see Wodor’s Feast Hall again, spirit, not unless you tell me what I wish to know. For not only can I pull you from the afterlife, I can bar you from it forever. I can make you draugr—without form, cursed to wander this world as a shadow.”
“Send me back, witch. I cannot see Sight-Bringer. I am dead.”
The Vampire Queen Saga: Books 1-3: (The Vampire Queen Saga Boxset) Page 41