by E. S. Bell
“Us? You are not of these men.” Cat nodded at the crew. “You’re just as much imposter as me. You used them to keep Vaas’s secret while pretending to be charitable. Giving mute men gainful employment. Make them feel useful.” She snorted indelicately.
Marcus looked nervously at the three crewmen who shifted on their feet and exchanged glances.
“No,” he said. “Sebastian hired them for their silence, that is true. But he cared for them as a captain does.” The old man stood up straight. “And they know it.”
There was a pause and then Spit and Cur nodded, but Whistle, tears in his eyes, made angry, slashing signs.
“He would never hurt her, lad,” Marcus told the boy. “I promise you.”
Whistle hesitated and then nodded, tears coursing down his cheeks. Cur slung an arm around his shoulders.
Cat snorted again and Ilior looked ready to kill.
“Paladin Koren told me you’d had your tongue cut out,” Niven said to Cat. “That Jul—that Sebastian saw it happen. You were attacked by men on Nanokar, by crewmen who learned you were a woman posing as a boy on their ship. Obviously, that wasn’t entirely…genuine.”
“Obviously,” Cat said with a laugh. She regarded her audience as if deciding on how much to say. “I’m a bounty-hunter,” she said finally, with obvious pride. “I’ve been tracking Sebastian Vaas for three years.”
“The Raven,” Marcus said, twisting his cap around and around. “You’re the Raven, aren’t you?”
“Heard of me?” The bounty hunter smiled. “Aye, some call me the Raven. Some, the Lady of Faces. My marks call me various other names, none befitting a lady.” She laughed and ran a hand through her cropped hair. “Ah, but that’s why I’m the best.” She leaned on the wheel and gave Marcus an arch look. “Vaas has many names too, doesn’t he? Appropriate that Lunos’s most notorious assassin should be caught by its best bounty-hunter, don’t you think?”
“You know nothing, lass.”
“I know plenty. I’ve been tracking you and Vaas since you wintered on Juskara three years past.”
“He hasn’t taken a job in four years,” Marcus said. “He’d already quit his bloody business when you started after him.”
“The Justarch on Isle Parish doesn’t care that Bloody Bastian took time off. And neither,” Cat said dryly, “do the families of his victims.” Marcus said nothing; she waved a hand. “I was on Juskara, having just finished a tough job—my toughest up until then—and heard about a captain who carried an entirely mute crew. Odd thing, that, given how difficult it is to sail a ship without a proper relay of commands. My curiosity was piqued. Something that strange…it sends up red flags to someone in my business. Who would hire a mute crew? Someone with secrets. Obviously.” She winked at Niven. “My suspicions paid off.
“I followed you to Isle Kabak where my suspicions were confirmed. Then on to Uago. I almost had him there, playing the damsel in distress. He killed three of my men and I was brutally reminded of whom I was dealing with. I thought I’d learned my lesson. On Nanokar I set four men against him, two hidden to ambush. I set the trap so carefully and still…” She shook her head. “Bloody Bastian does not go down easily.”
Niven frowned. “So…your losing your tongue? Why…?”
“Because although I underestimated his capacity for violence—again—I was smart enough to have a back-up plan. The pretended rape was to get his blood up, to get him so enraged he’d make a mistake. Everyone knows Sebastian has little mercy for rapists.”
“His sister,” Marcus said sadly.
Cat shrugged. “That part was easy. But if my attempt to capture him went to shit—which it did—I damn well wasn’t going to lose him again. He’d never buy that a mute sailor girl just happened to be waiting around Isle Nanokar for a captain to come around and give her a bunk. A boar’s tongue worked for my purpose, though it tasted bloody awful.” She laughed sourly.
“Helm and Cook?” Marcus asked quietly.
Cat’s laughter died. “I had to create a need for me. I made sure you were stuck short-handed.”
“You killed them?” Niven asked.
The bounty-hunter’s eyes flared as she swiveled to him. “I lost three men on Uago to Vaas. Three good men. I lost four more on Nanokar. Pate and Sam, Ulren…” She shook her head, her jaw working. “Consider it payback.” She quickly mastered her emotions, all cool confidence again. “So that’s my story. I’m going to Calinda, I’m going to capture Sebastian Vaas, and I’m going to take him to the Stoneyard Prison on Isle Parish and collect my bounty.”
“Not on this ship,” Marcus vowed. “You’re outnumbered.” He glanced up at Ilior. “Both of you.”
Cat snorted. “You think me stupid? My men—what’s left of them—have been following us since Uago. When I learned Isle Saliz was the goal, I ordered them to meet me on Huerta. And after Calinda, that’s where we’ll go.”
“I say again, not on this ship,” Marcus said.
Cat raised a dark brow. The raven black color was seeping through the orange of her hair too. “Where else are we going to go? This ship needs repairs. Getting this far was a miracle. Huerta is the only option.” She squared her shoulders and put her hands on her hips to glare at Marcus. “He murdered your family. How can you defend him? Defend him, shit, how can you stand to be in his presence without opening his godsdamn throat?”
Niven shifted. “Cat…”
But the old man only smiled sadly and shrugged. “What else can I do? He’s my son, now. As close to as can be, I reckon. Does it matter if we share the same blood or not?”
Cat shook her head. “That’s sick. I should take the both of you to Parish. Let the Justarchs decide if aiding a known assassin instead of turning him in merits your own time at the Stoneyard.”
There was a silence that was long and deep, and Niven realized Ilior had stopped pacing, deep in thought. His stillness was almost worse.
“Too much talk,” the Vai’Ensai said finally, his voice low and grim and full of stones. “When we get to the island, I will kill him.”
“The bounty is double if he’s alive,” Cat said. “Let me take him. I’ll give you a cut if you help me subdue him. I admit I could use the help.”
Niven held up his hands. “Now wait. Let’s think this through. We have so many other obstacles to contend with…”
“I care not for any bounty,” Ilior told Cat. “He was there to kill her. I will kill him.”
“The Stoneyard Prison will kill him,” Cat said. “I promise you.”
“Listen to yourselves!” Marcus said. “You barter with a man’s life as if it were nothing. A pile of gold,” he said to Cat, “or vengeance,” he told Ilior. “Tell them, lad,” he said, turning to Niven. “Tell them about the Aluren, about forgiveness. About leading poor souls out of the darkness.”
Niven bit his lip, thinking of the Aluren catechism, the Fourth Principle in particular. But Sebastian Vaas? “He never hurt Selena,” he told Ilior. “He had hundreds of chances. Thousands. And he never took them. He made a blood oath with Svoz, to save her.”
“To steal the sirrak away from her, you mean,” Cat said. “Svoz protected her and Vaas took away that protection. How convenient.”
“That makes no sense!” Niven said. “He could have just let her drown!”
Cat shrugged. “Maybe he needed to get her closer to Calinda. To Accora.”
Marcus hung his head. The crew looked fearful, watching and waiting.
Niven was out of arguments. “But…Julian—”
Cat sighed irritably and turned her gaze to the horizon. “There is no Julian,” she said. “There never was. He’s Sebastian Vaas. That’s all we need to know.”
And what of Selena? What of the Bazira and Bacchus? Niven wanted to shout but realized it was useless. They don’t know the Bazira like I do, he thought, watching as Marcus Bailey and the crew slunk off the quarterdeck. They silently welcomed him back into their fold; years of companionship and the mutual de
sire to save their captain breeding forgiveness, Niven guessed. He was left on the quarterdeck with Ilior and Cat. Ilior nodded and Cat nodded back. They’d reached no accord save one: Sebastian would leave Calinda a prisoner or a corpse.
Niven turned away, to stare at the sea passing beneath the ship.
If Bacchus is as dangerous as Accora says, all of us will leave Calinda as prisoners or corpses. All of us.
Night fell and Cat ordered the anchor up.
“Slowly, now,” she commanded the crew, and readied them to sail. Short-handed, she commanded the men and helped to carry out those commands at the same time. Ori did not keep idle. She was no sailor, but her ability to navigate the ship while blind was uncanny. When Cat ordered the fore and mainsails to be unfurled and Ori, who’d remained belowdecks nearly the entire voyage, appeared and shimmied up the foremast to untie the sheets with quick efficiency.
The storm thickened overhead and obscured the moon now and then, but had yet to unleash itself over Isle Calinda. As they sailed closer, they saw the Bazira ships, like dark smudges, anchored close to shore.
“We’ll sail to the other side of the island,” Cat said, “and give those frigates a wide berth.”
“That will take hours,” Ilior said. “The other side might be just as bad or worse. Let’s just take our chances—”
“Absolutely not. We’re short-handed enough as it is. We can’t outmaneuver any threat with so few hands. And once on land, we’re without Svoz or Selena or even that Bazira witch and her magic.”
“Or Sebastian and his swords,” Niven put in.
Cat gave him a tired look. “The best we can hope for is an empty stretch of water to anchor down and an empty beach to land on. We have no numbers; we need stealth. And it won’t take hours. Calinda is small.” She gave the Bazira ships another look. “We sail on.”
Ilior didn’t argue but then he had no choice.
They sailed an easterly route parallel to Calinda until Cat commanded the crew to head the ship north, toward the island. The storm clouds were thicker now and Niven thought they’d open at any moment and the rain would come down. The wind had picked up, and the Black Storm plowed through swells bearded in white.
Cat peered into her glass. “Now what in the bloody Deeps…?” Niven watched her frown, lower the glass to watch the island with her naked eye, and then raise the glass again.
“What is it?”
“I thought they were logs or some other kind of flotsam,” Cat murmured. “But now…”
“What?”
Cat’s eyes looked haunted. “You’ll see soon enough.”
A deep silence fell over the crew as the ship sailed closer to Calinda and the first corpses thudded against the hull. Niven felt his stomach roil to see the water littered with hundreds of them—merkind and men, both—bobbing obscenely on the choppy sea.
“The god have mercy,” Niven breathed. “This is where the sickened merkind have come to die.”
“No, it’s where the sickness is born,” Ori said in a quiet voice. “The poison of the darkpool.”
“The darkpool?” Niven asked. “The water Accora gave us?”
“Yes,” Ori said, inclining her head in Ilior’s direction ever so slightly. “Dangerous and deadly. Especially in the hands of the Bazira.”
“Bacchus will use that foul water on Selena,” Ilior said. His voice was low—none dared to speak too loudly as if they feared to disturb the dead—but a bright anger burned behind it. Bright like fever. “Your witch lied to Selena, didn’t she? She sent her to her death…to die like these…” he waved his hands at the corpses surrounding the ship. “It was a plot all along, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, a plot,” Ori said. “I do not deny it. And I’m certain that Accora hasn’t denied it either. But the plot was not for Selena’s death, but Bacchus’s.”
“But what of Selena? Does her wound remain?”
Say no, Niven thought. Say no! His heart plummeted when Ori only shrugged and said, “Impossible for me to say.”
Ilior curled his lip. “She’s been lied to by everyone around her since the beginning.”
Ori cocked her head. “Including you.”
The Vai’Ensai fanned out his lone wing and Niven thought for sure he would throw the Haru overboard.
“Something’s happening on shore,” Marcus called from the main deck. “Big commotion.”
Cat put her glass to her eye. “Looks like someone kicked over an anthill. I see ice and steel flashing. A battle.” She snapped the glass shut. “Someone is fighting the Bazira.”
“So…what does that mean? What do we do?”
She smiled. “We help.”
Cat barked orders at the crew to speed their arrival on Calinda, but there weren’t enough hands to sail the Black Storm efficiently. She was tossed on the choppy seas and fought the wind at every turn. By the time the ship neared Isle Calinda, the battle was ending. They heard the clang of steel and even the calls by the Bazira for ice, and then the storm broke. The sky tore open and rain fell in sheets. Between flashes of lightning, they saw the beach was empty but for the dead.
Cat ordered the anchor dropped and the skiff lowered.
“You will not leave us here,” Marcus told her. Rain streamed down his face and dripped off his salt-and-pepper beard. “We must be permitted to come. To fight for Selena…and for Sebastian.”
Ilior rounded on him. “I should rip your throat out, old man, for all the lies between you and Vaas.”
Marcus smiled sadly at the dragonman. “Such hatred is not in your nature. You fear for the girl. That fear is speaking, not you.”
“You deserve my hate,” Ilior loomed over the man. “You and Vaas both.”
Marcus shook his head. “He needs her in a way you can’t understand…”
Ilior roared, his voice as loud as the thunder that boomed in the sky. Marcus cowered. “He needs her? To the Deeps with him!” He raised his sword and Niven thought he would slice the old man to ribbons.
“There’s no time for this!” Cat pushed between them, shouting to be heard above the storm and Ilior both. “Ori will come with us but no one else. We’ll need her light weaving and healing. You, Spit,Whistle, and Cur, you need to stay with the ship. Ilior’s right,” she said. “You knew who he was. We can’t trust you.”
“Aye, but you can trust us with the Black Storm if it suits you?” Marcus countered.
“If the four of you can sail her by yourselves with only one voice and a storming sea, then you deserve her.” She jabbed her finger at Marcus when he started to protest again. “You made me captain when you were desperate and needed me. So now I’m the captain and I’m giving you an order. You will stay here and man the ship until we return, savvy?”
She didn’t wait for a reply but snapped at Spit and Cur to ready the skiff. Marcus fell back into the silence he’d adopted for so long. Niven patted his shoulder.
“It will be all right,” he said. “I think.”
Marcus’s eyes shone under his bushy brows. “I’m beginning to think it doesn’t matter, lad. If our girl has learned the truth about Sebastian from the Bazira instead of from him, it’s too late for him.” He patted Niven’s cheek with a calloused hand. “Best get on now, and bring Selena back safe. If you can.”
Ilior rowed the skiff ashore as fast as the choppy waters would allow. Niven winced every time the boat or an oar struck a dead body but the Vai’Ensai paid no mind. He pulled hard and when it ran aground, he jumped out and hauled it onto the beach. The foul water lapped at his boots but he didn’t seem to notice or care. The others were careful not to let it touch them as they leapt out of the skiff and ran up the beach. The rain no longer came down in sheets but showed no signs of abating either. The sliver of a moon hid behind the storm and the beach was cloaked in darkness but for the occasional tear of lightning across the sky.
“Ori,” Cat said, “light.”
“Are you sure that’s safe?” Niven glanced about. The bodies of the dead
were dark lumps amid the stands of dried grass, while the merkind corpses tumbled and rolled against the shore with the tide.
“No one is safe here,” Cat answered. “Can’t you feel it? There’s a heaviness to the air. Like the stench of the dead, only something…more. It makes my hair stand on end.”
Niven had to agree. Hatred, pain, and fear. The Bazira triumvirate. This place is poisoned with all three.
Ori moved to sand beside Cat and murmured, “Luxari.” A small globe of light materialized in her hand. Cat knelt beside one of the dead men.
“He wears the Bazira cloth.” She turned over his palm that was gray with cold. “Aye, more proof.”
Niven knelt with Ilior over another corpse. The man’s arm had been severed and he also wore the red and black.
“A Zak’reth blade did this.” Ilior nudged the man’s arm that ended above his elbow. “Look at the burnt flesh. Only Zak’reth blades burn as they cut.” He stood up and scanned the area, his sword in his hand.
Cat, with Ori as her lantern, inspected a few more bodies. “There are no Zak’reth warships in the water, and there are no Zak’reth dead here.”
“Where did they go?” Niven asked.
“Inland?” Cat wiped orange-tinted rainwater from her face with the sleeve of her shirt. “And just because they slew the Bazira doesn’t make them our chums. They kill for the sport of it. We’ll have to be on the watch for those bloody bastards now too.”
Niven pulled the collar of a coat Marcus had given him around his neck while Ilior sniffed the air. For a few moments, the rain pattering on gritty sand was the only sound.
“I can’t scent the Zak’reth on the wind,” Ilior said. “They’re gone. Or maybe the rain washed their stench away. But Selena…She went into the forest.” He gestured with his sword at the line of birch trees that stood like slender white sentries along the beach’s northeastern edge.
The trees are like ghosts, Niven thought and wondered if Selena was a haunted by this place as he. She must be. This is where it all began for her.