Child of a Dead God

by Barb Hendee

  The ballista spear slammed through the wheel, and the helmsman vanished amid shattering wood. Welstiel skidded to halt and looked back to the prow.

  The younger elven female tried to push herself up, staring dumbly about. Sailors at the ballistae abandoned their stations, running for cover. Two leaped over the seaward rail and disappeared. And then Chane raced past Welstiel toward the stern.

  What was that fool doing now?

  Chane was almost to the aft when another ballista spear struck. It shattered the rail two steps behind him. He stumbled and fell, sliding along the deck amid scattering wood shards. The ferals went mad, screaming as they raced wildly about.

  One pair of Ylladon crewmen kept their wits and fired the shoreward ballistae again. Another blaze of fire arced toward the elven ship. Then the pair crouched and took up oil-filled glass balls on long leather cords.

  Welstiel had not noticed these before. The crewmen lit rags tied to the globes and began whirling them to sling toward their enemies. Welstiel charged them, panicked over Magiere’s safety.

  The engagement was not playing out how he had envisioned. But he was not quick enough, and the crewmen released their whirling glass balls.

  Welstiel watched their small flames rise and then fall through the night air. The deck shuddered hard beneath his feet as another elven quarrel struck the hull somewhere below the rail. He ducked in against the rail as a rain of arrows fell around him, and he never saw the oil globes strike.

  Running and shouting and screaming surrounded him as everything fell into chaos.

  Sabel rushed by toward the bow, almost scrambling on all fours, and Welstiel snatched her by the arm.

  “Get the others,” he commanded. “Go below for our gear. Hurry!”

  The terror did not leave her eyes, but she scrambled for the aft hatch.

  They had to abandon ship, and Welstiel hoped Magiere would do the same.

  Salt water closed over Sgäile’s head, and icy cold spread through his muscles. He kicked for the surface, still doubting his actions.

  He had sworn guardianship to Léshil and his companions. His first duty was to protect them, and the ship was on fire. But when he saw the elven woman vanish into the sea, his heart seemed to stop.

  He was Anmaglâhk, sworn to protect his people. He could not let her die.

  Sgäile broke the sea’s rolling surface and gasped for air, but in his mind, he kept seeing Magiere’s face up on the deck.

  Eyes black, lost in vicious madness—the same monster that had attacked his caste in Cuirin’nên’a’s glade. Even though he had sworn guardianship, his first instinct had been to kill her. Then he saw Wynn and Léshil on the deck’s far side, dodging falling pieces of the burning sails.

  Osha ran for them, shouting. “Go! I will protect them!”

  And Sgäile had jumped.

  The sea swells made it hard to search. Everything was beyond his control but the woman who had been dropped to her death. He only hoped she had stayed calm enough to flatten herself and float until he could find her.

  Wynn gasped for air and coughed amid the growing smoke. Terrifying sights and sounds drove away reason, and all she could see was the horror of the burning ship.

  A living ship.

  Some of the crew tried to douse the fire with buckets of seawater, but spattered oil and falling sails kept feeding the flames.

  And then Sgäile jumped overboard.

  Wynn looked frantically about. Magiere knelt on the deck’s far side beyond the cargo grate, but she couldn’t see Chap anywhere. Elven crew ran about amid the flames, and a sizzling crackle sounded from up in the rigging.

  And Leesil’s shout carried to Wynn over the noise. “Magiere! Get out of there!”

  He bolted toward Magiere, and Wynn saw the burning foremast crack midway up. It began to topple.

  “Leesil, stop!” she screamed out.

  He leaped the cargo gate. Rigging and shredded sails tore away under the falling mast as it slammed down on the deck’s center—and Leesil vanished from sight.

  “Leesil!” Wynn cried out.

  Two sudden impacts, like shattering glass, struck somewhere on the deck, and a wall of flame erupted around the fallen mast. Droplets of ignited oil splashed up like fiery fountains and scattered everywhere.

  Wynn twisted away, swatting at burning oil spots on her cloak. In one flailing spin, she saw Osha.

  He ran along the shoreside rail-wall, the glint of a stiletto in his hand. Before Wynn knew what was happening, he ducked and drove his shoulder into her chest. His arm coiled around her as the breath was crushed from her lungs.

  Wynn gasped for air as her feet left the deck. Over Osha’s back, she saw a long pillar of fire rolling from the deck’s center toward the rail-wall— toward her.

  The whole ship swirled away as she slammed down hard, sliding across the deck beneath Osha. She felt him roll, curling himself around her, until they slid to a stop.

  And that rolling column of fire—the fallen foremast—crashed against the rail-wall where she and Osha had been an instant before.

  Osha lurched up on his knees and slashed down at her with his stiletto. She barely flinched before the blade split the side of her cloak’s collar. He ripped it off of her, nearly flipping her over on her face, and grabbed her by the arm. As he pulled her up, they both looked frantically about.

  The crew had abandoned any attempt to control the flames. A visceral scream, like a great cat in anger, broke over the fire’s crackle. Before it had even faded, Osha shouted.

  “Léshil!”

  Wynn saw Leesil half-crouched on the cargo grate’s far side, surrounded by fire. Magiere clawed at the flames, trying to reach him. Her eyes were black disks as tears ran down her snarling face. The grate burned too wildly around Leesil, as did the forecastle and deck between him and the aft. Even the far rail-wall was ablaze. He ducked low, shielding his face and eyes as he twisted about.

  Wynn rushed for Magiere, looking for any way to get to Leesil. Then her feet left the deck again.

  Osha swung her back with his arm around her waist.

  “Put me down!” Wynn shouted. “Leesil cannot see. He needs help!”

  “Bith-na!” Osha shouted in her face, then shoved her into the corner between the aftcastle and rail-wall.

  “No” to what? Wynn struggled against him. What did he mean?

  Another bright red-yellow light grew in the air. Gasping, she saw the burning mainsail sagging toward the deck.

  “Magiere, look up! Get back!” Wynn called, choking on her words.

  Cargo hold. Now!

  Chap’s voice erupted in Wynn’s head.

  She saw him racing along the far rail-wall from the forecastle . . . running on top of the rail. His shimmering fur glinted with red and yellow firelight.

  Wynn writhed in Osha’s grip. “Come on! Below . . . we meet Chap below!”

  Osha released her, shaking his head, and she grabbed his wrist, pulling him. She stopped at the hatch stairwell and shouted as loudly as she could.

  “Magiere, come on! Chap says to go to the cargo hold!”

  But Magiere either did not hear her or would not leave. The burning mainsail writhed in the wind, like a living thing of fire that coiled down to snatch her in its grip.

  Magiere cried out like an animal, reaching through the flames for Leesil. Her gloved hand began to smoke, and she snatched it back. She let hunger fill her and shut her eyes against the fire’s brightness. She tried stepping into it.

  Heat instantly seared her face and hands, and she leaped back.

  Wynn shouted over the roar—something about a cargo hold—but Magiere couldn’t take her eyes from Leesil’s blurred shape amid the blaze.

  Another flickering blur raced toward him from the ship’s far end. It loped along the burning rail-wall, and then brightened by firelight into a silvery canine form.

  Chap leaped high through the flames.

  His forepaws struck Leesil’s shoulder. Both topp
led upon the burning cargo grate, and it shattered beneath their sudden weight.

  Firelight surged around Magiere as she screamed.

  Leesil was gone. And Chap with him.

  More light descended from above her.

  She saw the first whipping corner of the burning sail coil around the mid mast. She threw herself backward, rolling away as the descending inferno swallowed the midship.

  Wynn had shouted something about the cargo hold.

  Magiere turned on all fours, knocking aside a deckhand as she lunged toward the hatchway. A blur of gray-green cloak disappeared down the stairs, and she rushed in behind it, nearly falling over the first step.

  Osha turned with wide eyes, and Wynn stood below the last step.

  “Chap said we must get to the cargo hold!” she shouted.

  Magiere understood now.

  “No!” she growled back. “You . . . get off the ship! I’ll . . . get to Leesil and Chap.”

  Wynn opened her mouth to argue.

  “Take her!” Magiere shouted into Osha’s face.

  She shoved him against the stairwell wall, grabbed Wynn by her shift’s shoulder, and nearly threw her at the young elf. Without waiting to see if they obeyed, Magiere ran down through the ship’s passages. At the bottom, she followed the only narrow corridor that headed toward midship. There was a door at the end.

  Magiere didn’t even slow. She hit it with her shoulder at full speed, and the door crashed open, dangling in pieces from its hinges.

  “Leesil!”

  Water sloshed knee-deep around her legs as she slogged in. The hold was filling with seawater through a hole torn in the hull’s far side. And then she heard splashing that didn’t come from her own steps.

  Leesil broke the water’s surface, rising up, and Chap half-waded and half-paddled toward him.

  Magiere struggled forward, her boots already heavy with water. She was breathing too fast and couldn’t say anything as she pawed frantically at Leesil, searching for injuries.

  Runnels of water left soot-smudged streaks on his face, but his expression melted in equal relief at the sight of her. His was still holding on to his one winged blade, and he grabbed her wrist with his other hand.

  “I’m all right,” he said and then looked down. “Your hands!”

  Her gloves were charred and blackened. She hadn’t even noticed the sting in her hands.

  Fire around the grateless cargo hatch above filled the hold with flickering light, and seams of flame began spreading along the ceiling.

  “We have to get out of here,” she said.

  “We won’t survive onshore without our gear,” Leesil argued, and headed for the shattered door.

  Magiere almost grabbed him from behind, ready to throw him over her shoulder and flee—but she knew he was right. He led the way with Chap right behind as they all trudged through the water in the outer passage.

  They hurried to their quarters, grabbing what they could—weapons first. Leesil found their coats, and then hesitated for breath. He took up his new winged blades, but Magiere’s dagger was still missing. Sgäile had not brought it back yet.

  “Forget it!” Magiere snapped, and jerked him toward the door.

  They slogged back for the stairs, and then an elf they’d never seen before came through the passage’s other end. He was dressed in a plain canvas tunic and breeches, and his feet were bare. He carried a large barkless root almost too heavy to hoist, smooth and round and dully pointed.

  Magiere froze. The root’s long tail trailing behind the man moved on its own—like the ship’s tail that Wynn had spotted so many days past.

  The elf stopped at the sight of Magiere, and then crouched to set down the strange squirming bulk. He glared up sternly at Magiere and then Leesil, and spoke quickly in Elvish. It sounded like a question.

  Magiere could only shake her head and point toward the hatch stairs.

  “We have to get off,” she said. “So should you.”

  She had no idea if he understood.

  He lowered his head, muttering in Elvish, and reached around his back to fling something toward her. The long white-metal dagger fell in the shallow water near Magiere’s boot.

  She reached down and picked it up. Its hilt was now thick and wrapped tightly with leather. By the time she looked up, the elf was gone, then she spotted the tail of his wooden burden whip as it slid up the hatchway stairs.

  “Put it away and let’s move!” Leesil growled.

  Magiere shoved the blade in the back of her belt. They emerged to find the deck engulfed in flames feeding upon remnants of sails, rigging, and crumpled masts. Magiere looked about for the tall, barefooted elf.

  He stood at the seaward rail-wall just below the aftcastle, the only place on that side not blocked by fire. Magiere saw no sign of the moving root he’d been carrying.

  “Come on!” she shouted. “Get to a skiff!”

  He never even turned around. The tall, barefoot elf just stood there. Beneath the crackle of fire and splitting wood, Magiere heard a low rolling hum, like a song without words. He slowly lifted his head, as if watching something moving in the open water.

  The deck creaked beneath Magiere’s feet.

  Chap barked sharply as he scrambled toward the shoreward rail-wall.

  Magiere had no choice but to follow him.

  Sgäile’s arms grew heavy in the cold water, and despair began to mount.

  Where was the woman?

  He swam back along the Ylladon ship’s course, but through one swell after another he found nothing. And both ships had drifted onward behind him. Then he saw something swirling upon the surface.

  It was too light to be kelp or debris. Then it sank again, gone from sight.

  Sgäile thrashed forward. When he reached the spot where it had gone down, he dove under.

  Beneath the surface, the water was so dark that all he could do was hold his breath and grasp about. His hand struck something rough and thin—a rope. He grabbed hold, winding it around his hand and wrist, and kicked for the surface.

  Sgäile’s head broke through. Before he even sucked in a breath, he pulled. Twice he sank under, reaching down, hand over hand along the rope. Until his grip closed on soft, cold fingers. He grabbed hold and kicked back up to the surface.

  She came up, gasped for air over and over, panic-stricken.

  “Float,” he managed to say. “Relax yourself.”

  He kept an arm under the middle of her back as they both rolled over the crest of another swell. The woman tried to turn her head, blinking water from her eyes so she could see him.

  “Sister,” she choked. “My sister . . . is on the ship.”

  Sgäile grew even colder.

  Another of his people was on that human vessel? Still holding her atop the waves, he looked back. The elven ship—the Päirvänean—was burning in the night.