by Barb Hendee
Two more crewmen ran past Leesil for the forecastle and its shoreward side.
“It appears the hkomas made extra preparations for this journey,” Sgäile said and glanced to Osha. “There are also swimmers in the heart-room.”
Osha’s long face went slack as he looked toward the stern.
Before Leesil asked what this meant, both anmaglâhk headed up the forecastle stairs. Leesil grabbed Wynn’s small hand to follow.
Magiere and Chap still hung upon the bow, peering intently out to sea. Chap ceased howling but fidgeted anxiously, and Magiere’s irises were so fully black it was hard to tell if they were focused on anything in the dark. But when Leesil looked ahead, his own gaze locked on the ship.
He’d assumed the other ship was still a good distance off, but its square sails clearly caught the moonlight. The vessel aimed a course to pass on the elven ship’s seaward side—then it veered.
Wynn’s hand tightened on Leesil’s fingers. “They are coming straight at us!”
Chane hauled the two bound elven women onto the deck by their hand shackles. The adult one was as tall as himself, though her slender build seemed as fragile as her younger companion. Neither had struggled when he pulled them from the hidden cell, but both jerked back as they emerged on the dark deck.
Even without light, they saw the feral monks hovering about. The bodies of the two slaughtered sailors were gone, but the curly-haired feral licked at the blood running upon the deck. The younger elf’s voice filled with breathy panic as she said something to the elder.
Chane’s anxiety for Wynn began to grow.
Sailors prepared ballistae under the watchful eyes of the hungry ferals. Men pulled off tarps and cocked back cable strings with cranks on the heavy weapons’ stocks. Each ballista swiveled upon a tall stand mounted to the deck and all pointed forward along the ship’s course. Quarrels the length of Chane’s body were slid into place, their long steel heads wrapped in oil-soaked cloth.
Two more sailors came from below, carrying buckets of glowing coals.
“Keep those covered until we are ready to fire,” Welstiel called, and Klâtäs echoed his command to the crew.
Welstiel trotted along the deck, weaving between the crew and his crouching ferals. He grabbed the shackles of the adult female out of Chane’s grip.
“Bring the other,” he ordered and passed by.
“This is too risky!” Chane hissed, holding his ground with his own captive. “What if Wynn—or your precious Magiere—is hit by a burning sail as it falls?”
Welstiel ignored him and shoved his captive toward the prow. He turned and called out to the helmsman, “How soon can we fire?”
Chane turned as well.
The captain’s body was gone, likely thrown overboard, and Klâtäs held the wheel tightly in both hands. His face was as rigid and white as his knuckles.
“When closer,” the helmsman shouted back. “We first fire at deck side. Cause fear and running. Keep elves busy and slowed.”
“No!” Chane shouted. “You might kill anyone on that side of the ship.”
Again, both Welstiel and the helmsman ignored him, and Chane charged after Welstiel, dragging his young captive.
Welstiel removed his captive’s lower shackles and tied a rope end around her ankles. She struggled only at the last, until he grabbed her by the throat. Welstiel shoved, and the woman toppled over the side. The younger one in Chane’s grip cried out in horror.
“What are you doing?” he snarled.
Welstiel held the rope pulled taut in his hands, and Chane peered over the ship’s side. The elven woman dangled upside down, halfway above the dark water rushing past the hull.
“Take the rope,” Welstiel ordered. “Now!”
Chane grabbed it with his free hand, and Welstiel whirled and slapped the smaller female across her temple.
She fell, and Chane released her manacles to keep control of the rope. The young one hit the deck in a half-conscious flop, eyes rolling. Chane was more concerned with whatever Welstiel had planned and tied the rope off on the bow’s rail. Welstiel grabbed a dangling lantern from its hook and handed it to him.
“When I tell you, open its shutter and hang it over the side, so all can see the woman dangling there. We need an instant of shock on that elven ship to give us an advantage. When I give the order, cut the rope.”
Chane suddenly understood, but it gave him no ease regarding Wynn’s safety.
“Watch the helm,” Welstiel ordered, and then closed his eyes.
He sank cross-legged in the bow and wrapped his left hand over his right, closing it tightly upon the ring on his right middle finger. He began thrumming a soft chant.
Chane crouched behind the rail, feeling lost as he clutched the lantern and rope.
Welstiel focused his will upon the ring.
Klâtäs had implied that they would need to be close for the ballistae’s quarrels to succeed. This meant bringing himself and his followers very near Magiere and Chap. With so many undead aboard, their collective presence would not escape either of those two’s heightened awareness.
The ring’s power hid Welstiel and those he “touched” from anything but mundane senses, but now he required more from it. Once before, he had expanded its influence to smother Ubâd’s spirit-sight, as the old one held Magiere captive. Now he had to hide any undead’s presence on this vessel from Chap and Magiere’s unnatural awareness for as long as possible.
He chanted quietly and felt the ring’s sphere of influence twinge through his flesh—spreading, growing, and enveloping the whole ship.
Chane felt a strange tingle pass over him, as if his skin had gone numb for an instant.
He had no idea what Welstiel was doing. His thoughts wrestled for a way out of this situation before Wynn was placed in danger again. If the helmsman ordered a shot at the deck, Wynn might be killed—unless the elven captain had ordered all passengers below. And then she might be trapped once the ship began to burn.
Welstiel sat with eyes closed, hands clenched together, and a hum in his throat—and a cold notion entered Chane’s panicked thoughts.
All he need do was draw his sword and cleave off Welstiel’s head. The unleashed ferals would ravage the ship, and Chane might jump overboard amid the chaos.
But what if some of the sailors managed to survive? What if the elves attacked, seeing one of their own dangling from the ship’s rail? What if the ferals panicked and fled amid the fire and quarrels, as the Ylladon crew responded in defense?
And no matter what, Wynn was still trapped in the middle.
Welstiel’s interest in keeping Magiere alive, forcing her aground, meant giving the elven crew time to abandon ship—and Wynn along with them.
The half-conscious young elf lying on the deck moaned softly.
Chane held his place, ready to open the lantern.
Magiere locked her eyes on the approaching vessel, its moonlit sails bright in her night sight. It came straight at her, but not quickly enough, and the hunger burning in her belly began to rise into her throat.
Someone shouted, and amid that string of Elvish, Magiere heard Sgäile’s longer elven name.
“The hkomas orders us below,” he said. “I do not think that wise, but we should leave the forecastle, so the crew may function freely.”
Magiere glanced back and saw the hkomas standing near the aftcastle’s steps. When her gaze locked with his, he went still as he studied her. His head cocked suspiciously.
“Magiere . . . ,” Leesil began, and then stopped as Sgäile sighed in resignation.
Magiere’s awareness of them was smothered beneath hunger and the memories of a falchion in her hand and headless corpses at her feet, their black fluids running from her blade.
She had felt this before—but never so strongly. Whatever was coming on that ship, it overwhelmed her and nearly severed her self-control. But the need to hunt was a welcome relief against the pull to go south that plagued her.
She co
uld slaughter what was on that vessel without holding back. She wanted—needed—that release. Her fingernails began to harden, and her teeth ached as they pressed her clenched jaws apart. She tried to force it down, keep it suppressed and hidden until she needed it.
And her hunger suddenly vanished.
Magiere teetered, suddenly faint at its loss.
Chap shifted frantically with a pained yelp.
“What?” Leesil snapped.
The soft light around Magiere vanished, and she looked to the topaz amulet hanging upon Leesil’s chest.
The stone was dead and lifeless.
Magiere’s stomach turned and shriveled at the loss of promised release as she stared back at the oncoming vessel.
Chap’s foreclaws ground upon the rail-wall as he strained to peer more closely at the ship. He had felt the undead—as certain of their presence as of his own breath.
Where had they gone?
Though the ship still came at them, he sensed nothing upon it. This was not possible. He had not been wrong.
But the same thing had happened to him once before, in the streets of Venjètz. He had been running down an undead with Magiere and Leesil, and then his prey suddenly vanished—just like now.
Chap snarled in frustration, and Magiere slammed both her hands on the rail.
“No,” she whispered, her voice pained. “No . . . no . . . no!”
Chap slipped into her thoughts and saw her rising memories of hunting . . . memories with far too much longing, close to lust. Someone shouted in Elvish from the rigging.
“It veers again!”
Light flashed on the waters ahead.
Chap slipped from Magiere’s mind as he saw the oncoming ship. Its prow aimed to pass close on the elven vessel’s seaward side. The light came from one bright spot near its bow.
“What is that?” asked Leesil, pointing out over the rail.
Chap’s eyes adjusted and he saw . . . her.
An open lantern illuminated a tall elven woman dangling inverted over the other ship’s near side. A rope cinched around her ankles suspended her with long hanging hair trailing in the rushing water. Half the elven crew ran to the seaward side as the other vessel began to pass.
“Hard to starboard!” the hkomas shouted. “Do not let them round our stern!”
Chap bolted around the seaward ballista and its crew to stand at the forecastle’s stairs. Below on the deck, several elves began uncoiling rope with grappling hooks. Magiere passed him by, leaping down to the deck as she tried to keep the passing ship in her sightline. Sgäile moved to follow, but Leesil grabbed his arm.
“No, they’re baiting you! They want you to rush in!”
The ships drew so close that Chap heard a voice shouting upon the other vessel. Sgäile jerked free of Leesil’s grip.
“They have one of our people!” Sgäile shouted. “We do not abandon our own.”
Chap’s awareness suddenly sharpened—as if he were surrounded by undead.
All the voices around him muted in his ears. He shook inside with the need to hunt. Before he could search for the source of his returned drive, the rope on the other vessel’s prow went slack.
The elven woman fell into the sea and vanished beneath the water.
Chap barely heard Sgäile’s anguished cry.
Fire arced into the night from the Ylladon ship, rising in trajectories toward the elven vessel’s sails. Magiere lunged for the deck’s rail, shoving elves out of her way.
As the first burning shaft hit, panic flooded Chap’s mind.
All he could do was howl, as he searched frantically for his charges—and some means to get them out of harm’s way.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Magiere rushed the rail-wall, bile rising from her stomach and burning her throat. She barely saw the elven woman strike the water; all her senses were focused upon the presence of undead. Someone behind her cried out in anguish, and Sgäile appeared beside her.
She had to jump, swim, do whatever it took to reach that other ship. She had to hunt.
Chap’s howl rose above the commotion, and a volley of fire arced in the night sky from the other ship.
Magiere’s rage burned hotter at the sight, and she lifted one leg over the rail-wall.
Something snagged her breeches leg and heaved. Her grounded foot slid, and her back slammed flat on the deck. She rolled over wildly, and there was Chap with his ears laid back, blocking her way to the rail-wall. Sgäile looked down at her, his expression unreadable. Someone shouted in Elvish, and he lifted his gaze up and past her.
The voice was vaguely familiar. Was it Osha?
Sgäile locked eyes with Magiere for a breath, and then he dove over the side, vanishing from sight. Magiere lunged up to follow him, to reach that ship . . .
Chap charged straight at her, snapping and snarling. He was one with her, alike in the hunt, yet he turned on her? Magiere snarled back at him.
The sky above ignited with fire and light.
Magiere flinched, shielding her tearing eyes as she raised them. A long metal spear with a flaming head slid down the mainsail, leaving a burning trail in its wake. It slammed point first into the deck.
A cracking impact shuddered through the deck, and Magiere lost her footing, buckling to one knee. Yellow light burned her eyes as fire scattered from the spear’s head. She threw herself toward the aft, rolling away, but when she came up, her rage vanished.
Chap bolted the other way, toward the forecastle. He dodged droplets of flaming oil falling like burning rain.
Magiere tried to scream his name, but it didn’t come clearly through her elongated teeth.
He arced around to the ship’s shoreward side, but with the fire spreading on the deck between them, Magiere wasn’t certain if he’d been burned. She took a breath and coughed as smoke filled her lungs.
What was happening? Where were Leesil and Wynn?
The hkomas shouted loudly over the din. Magiere snapped her head up at the crack of the forward elven ballista. A thrum of bowstrings sounded all around her as a flight of arrows arced toward the other vessel.
Welstiel pulled himself up the rail of the Ylladon ship, worn and drained from widening the influence of his ring. He had barely spread its reach long enough to get close to the elven vessel. When the first volley of burning ballista spears launched, his concentration had snapped, but now it did not matter.
Magiere had more to concentrate on than the presence of undeads.
Two burning lances cut along the shimmering elven sails, instantly spreading fire. The third went long, and its light snuffed in the sea. A fourth hit the hull at the waterline and fizzled out, but it remained embedded.
Welstiel faltered.
Had he gone too far? Had he put Magiere in too much danger, or could she still get clear and make it to shore?
A loud double crack rang out from the other ship.
Welstiel saw two heavy spears with long heads arcing straight toward his vessel. He dashed along the deck but only made midship before one hit—and Klâtäs screamed.