Witchbreaker (Dragon Apocalypse)

by James Maxey

  Gale’s face brightened. “And she had an answer?”

  “An answer, yes. A solution, probably not. Blood is ordinarily required to sustain souls. The Freewind had been prepared to house your mother’s soul by having her blood dissolved in wine, which was used to soak the timbers. Unfortunately, while there may be some residue of your mother’s blood in the figurehead, we’d never be able to soak a whole ship with it.”

  “Then there’s no hope?” Gale asked.

  Sorrow sighed. “I don’t... I don’t think so. Mama Knuckle said that it was possible for a family member to supply the blood. But it would require all the blood from an adult. Someone would have to die to restore your mother.”

  Gale shook her head. “A life is too high a price.”

  “Perhaps your mother’s soul can still travel on to the Sea of Wine. You may see her again one day.”

  Gale still looked crestfallen. “I’ve failed.”

  “Grandmother had a good life, and was able to watch her grandchildren grow for many years after her natural death,” said Sage. “You haven’t failed her.”

  “I’ve failed everyone,” said Gale.

  “You’ve never struck me as someone prone to wallowing in self-pity,” said Sorrow.

  “This isn’t self-pity. This is realism. The ship that was my family home has been lost. My family would have been broken up long ago if not for the Freewind’s ability to sail the Sea of Wine. It kept us beyond the reaches of our enemies. Our supernatural speed meant that we could keep clients even as the oceans became increasingly dangerous to sail.”

  “We don’t really need clients now,” said Sage. “Brand’s willing to foot the bills with his dragon-bone money.”

  “That’s charity, not business,” said Gale. She looked at Sorrow. “It’s time to admit the larger truth. Even if the Freewind hadn’t been lost, my family would have been broken apart soon enough. Most Wanderer ships are crewed by forty or fifty people, with the core family supplemented by spouses and cousins and close friends who’ve outgrown the confines of other ships. I’ve extended a hundred offers to other ships to provide homes for excess crew, and been rebuffed each time.”

  “The pirate wars are still fresh in people’s minds,” Sorrow said. “In a few years, things will calm down.”

  Gale nodded. “But the calm won’t lead others to join us. Instead, they’ll accept us, one by one. Levi left our ship and married soon after. Sage, you’ve caught the eye of many a young man. How long before you’re seduced away?”

  “I wouldn’t abandon you,” said Sage.

  “But don’t you see? It wouldn’t be abandonment. It wouldn’t be betrayal. I’ve not created a ship where you can forge a future. I want you to be happy. I want you to know love, to form a family. If I’m honest with myself, I know that means you’ll have to leave me. It breaks my heart, but it hurts more to think that you might not leave to pursue your own happiness.”

  “You certainly didn’t take that attitude with Levi,” Jetsam said, sounding skeptical.

  Gale frowned. “I know I’m bitter. It’s not as if the circumstances of Levi’s departure were simple. He killed a man, then fled, then joined forces with some of our worst enemies.”

  “But only because he fell in love,” said Sage. “And you know he thought he was defending you when he killed our dryman.”

  “You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know,” said Gale. She sighed. “When he left, I still had hope that our friends and relatives would make peace with us. I felt like he left before I could really work things out. Now, I see I’ll never make things right. All I can do is help each of you prepare for the day when you leave this ship to start your life anew.”

  “Is this why you keep making us call you Captain?” Jetsam asked.

  Gale nodded. “I want you to have good habits for the day you serve on another ship.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to happen with me,” said Jetsam.

  “You say that now. But sooner or later, the lure of another ship will be irresistible.”

  “No,” said Jetsam. “I mean, when I go, I don’t think I’m going to live on another ship. The rest of you only see the world from its shorelines. I’ve been lucky enough to explore the landscapes of the islands we visit from above. I’ve got to tell you, the land looks a hell of a lot more interesting than the sea.”

  “Jetsam!” Sage said, sounding shocked.

  “You would betray your culture?” Gale asked, her voice trembling.

  “What’s so special about our culture?” Jetsam asked. “I’ve been told since I was a toddler that Wanderers value individuality and freedom, but it seems to me like most of the other Wanderers look down on us because we’re different. There’s more than one way to live a life.”

  “If you feel that way, then go,” Gale said. “Be like Levi. What’s keeping you here?”

  “Love,” said Jetsam. “You mean the world to me. Everyone in this messed up family of ours is more important to me than all the stuff I’ve seen on land. Maybe one day our family will be scattered over a half dozen ships, pursuing different lives. But until that day comes, as long as the Romers man a ship, I plan to be part of that crew. That’s just the way I feel, Captain.”

  He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around his mother. Gale hugged him back, tears in her eyes. “Ma,” she said.

  “Captain Ma,” said Sage, as she wrapped her arms around the both of them.

  Sorrow turned away, wiping her eyes. For some reason they were watering. At least, her right eye was. Her left eye was clenched into a contemptuous little slit, and despite all of her willpower she was unable to open it.

  AFTER SLEEPING MUCH of the day, she went above deck in mid-afternoon. She knew that a winged woman walking around in plain sight might draw unwelcome attention to the Circus, but she and Jetsam had flown onto the ship together that morning, when the docks had been bustling with fishermen. By now, word that the Circus held monsters had to have spread to the far ends of the town.

  What she didn’t expect was to climb out of the hold and find the air cloying with the aroma of flowers and incense. Mako stood at the gangplank, arms crossed, looking annoyed as he stared at her.

  “What?” she asked.

  He nodded for her to look down the gangplank. The whole of the dock below was filled with vases of flowers, baskets of bright fruit, and hundreds of lit candles. Smoke wafted from incense burners scattered amid the colorful clutter.

  “You’ve made an impression on the locals,” said Mako. “They’ve been leaving offerings all day. A few have tried to get on the ship, but turn tail when I show my teeth.”

  “Offerings?” she asked, not sure she’d heard him correctly.

  “Another name for Podredumbre is the Decaying Isles. Before he stopped manifesting bodily in the material world, Rott used to make his home here. Most of the locals publicly worship the Church of the Book, but in private they still live as if Rott is the lord of this place. Did you know that every year on the winter solstice, they dig up the bodies of their departed relatives and bring them back inside to sit at the table for a feast?”

  “I’ve heard that,” Sorrow said.

  “Nice wings,” said Mako.

  Sorrow shrugged. “I haven’t really had much of a chance to look at them.” She walked down the gangplank. Some of the vases were made of blown glass, and a few of the incense burners were silver. She grabbed them and returned to the deck to make mirrors.

  “You never struck me as the vain type,” Mako said as he watched her turn to study herself in the looking glasses.

  “This isn’t vanity. It’s curiosity.” She ran her fingers along the inner folds of her wings. The scaleless flesh was smooth and soft as her inner thighs. “You’d understand if you ever grew a new body part over night.”

  Mako opened his massive jaws, his head tilting back so that his face effectively disappeared, leaving nothing but a gaping maw filled with rows of arrowhead teeth perched upon hi
s shoulders. He closed his mouth and said, “I wasn’t born like this, you know.”

  “You can’t pretend you didn’t spend a great deal of time studying your new mouth in the mirror,” she said, as she stretched her wings to their fullest extent. Light seeped through the flesh at its thinnest points, revealing dark veins.

  “I don’t need to pretend,” said Mako. “I don’t look at myself in the mirror. Ever. The others may have gotten rewards from the Mer-King, but I’ve been given a curse.”

  “It can’t all be bad,” said Sorrow. “You seem to be a lot stronger than a normal man. I’m under the impression you can stay underwater a long time as well.”

  Mako shrugged. “Being strong and a good swimmer are normally things that girls find attractive. But girls stay far away from me. The few that do talk to me never stop staring at my teeth.”

  “I’m not a good person to talk to about romantic frustrations,” said Sorrow, looking over her shoulder to study her back in the mirror. “I find the subject entirely uninteresting.”

  “You aren’t interested in children?”

  “In what way?” As she said this, the image of the head they’d found on the butcher block flashed into her mind.

  “In having them.”

  “Oh. No. I think not.”

  “But you’re estranged from your father,” said Mako. “Don’t you want a family of your own?”

  She chuckled. “For now, I’ll just keep borrowing yours.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  STORMCALLER

  BY MIDNIGHT, THE dock next to the Circus glowed as bright as noon from all the candles. Along the waterfront, crowds had gathered, singing in a language Sorrow didn’t understand.

  At this point, all the Romers were awake and on deck. Mako seemed especially highly strung as he paced along the railing.

  “Calm down,” Sage said as she stared into her spyglass. “There’s no point in getting worked up. I’ll see if anyone tries to board, but I don’t think anyone’s going to bother us. Listen to the music. This isn’t some battle anthem. It’s a hymn. They aren’t here to hurt us.”

  “It’s still spooky,” Cinnamon said from her perch in the rigging. “Look at all the coffins.”

  Sorrow had made note of them herself. The local mausoleums had apparently been emptied out. For all the living people in the crowd, there were just as many coffins, lids open, their skeletal contents lifted for a better view of the ship.

  Poppy was balanced on the rail near the gangplank, steadying herself with a hand on the rigging. “If anyone tries to bring a coffin on board, I’m popping it to the moon.”

  “This might be a good time to talk about Slate,” Jetsam said to Sorrow.

  “Right,” said Sorrow. Then, addressing the rest of the Romers, “Slate and the others are bringing back a coffin.”

  “I know,” said Sage. “They’re almost here. The crowds are slowing them down.”

  “I see them too!” Jetsam cried out.

  Sorrow’s eyes followed Jetsam’s pointing finger. She couldn’t make much sense of the jumble of humanity before her. Finally, she saw a coffin held higher than the others. She recognized the coffin she’d made, and watched as Slate and Brand pushed their way through the crowd to the dock. Each was holding up one end of the casket. Bigsby walked between them. He broke free as they neared the gangplank and rushed back aboard the ship.

  “I thought I was going to be trampled to death,” he said, gasping.

  Slate and Brand marched up the gangplank and laid the closed coffin carefully onto the deck. Brand glanced at Sorrow. “So,” he said. “You seem... popular.”

  “How can you be sure they’re here to see me?”

  “Because street venders are selling little winged dolls woven from marsh grass and cornhusks.” He produced one of the dolls from his pocket. The cornhusk wings had been dyed black with squid ink. “They’re saying the Death Angel has come to free them from their oppressors.”

  Sorrow eyed the spires of the nearest church.

  “Don’t,” said Brand.

  “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t,” said Sorrow.

  “Because if you lead this mob on a church-burning rampage, you’ll only be setting the stage for tragedy.”

  “I’ll be helping to lift the colonial boot from their neck,” said Sorrow.

  “Let’s say you spark a rebellion. Once news reaches the Silver City, the king will simply launch his navy to retake this town. Or maybe the Isle of Storm will hear about the rebellion and decide that now’s a good time to stage an invasion. Maybe you’ll get a thrill from watching these churches burn. Will you get an equal thrill when tens of thousands of people die from the war you trigger?”

  Sorrow clenched her fists. “How am I at fault if there’s war? The blame falls upon the king who claimed land not his own in the first place! For too long in this world, we’ve accepted that might makes right. Is it not better to die free than to live in fear?”

  “That philosophy is the foundation of my life,” said Gale. “But if these people long for freedom, they must seize it themselves. They have the power to set fire to a church or a jail. Instead, they light candles beseeching you to save them.”

  “If I have the power to save them, shouldn’t I?”

  “If you lead them to war tonight, are you willing to remain here for years to come to lead them into peace?” Gale asked. “Are you a builder? Or only a destroyer?”

  Sorrow turned her back to the crowd. Her body felt like a spring that had been wound for fifteen years. Now was the time to release a lifetime of tension and achieve her first important victory against the church.

  She took a deep breath, opening her hands, staring into them. She knew Brand had a point. The king would only send his navy. With all the wealth and worshippers commanded by the Church of the Book, any church she watched burn tonight would be rebuilt within a year. Leading these people might win a fleeting battle, but would do nothing toward winning her war.

  “You’re right,” she said, tersely. “It’s not worth the price. Let’s depart for Raitingu before I change my mind.”

  “Raitingu?” Rigger asked. “Why, exactly, are we going to the Isle of Storm?”

  Slate answered. “This coffin holds the mortal remains of Lord Stark Tower. I feel it’s my duty to deliver them to the Temple of the Book.”

  “Stark Tower?” Rigger asked. “The Witchbreaker? Are you sure?”

  Slate drew the ebony sword from the scabbard on his back. The howls of the damned gibbered around him. “I’m reasonably sure.”

  “That is so windswept!” Poppy said, jumping down and running up to stare at the blade.

  “Windswept?” asked Slate.

  “It means amazing, or wonderful,” said Jetsam.

  “Can I hold it?” Poppy asked.

  “I don’t think that’s wise,” said Slate as he slid the blade back into the scabbard. “Carrying the sword is a great responsibility. For now, its burden must be mine alone.”

  “Still, wow, we’ve got a magic sword and a quest to travel to a legendary temple,” said Poppy. “This is just like the stories!”

  Rigger cleared his throat. “Excuse me, but may I be the voice of reason and point out that Raitingu is an insanely dangerous place for us to visit?”

  “When has that ever stopped us?” asked Jetsam.

  “Our biggest advantage at sea is Ma’s ability to control winds,” said Rigger. “Maybe you’re unaware the priestesses who serve Tempest are known as stormcallers? They not only control wind, they also command rain and lightning.”

  “And we control kicking butts,” said Jetsam. “Let them try to mess with us.”

  “What about Levi?” Rigger asked.

  That brought looks of concern to the faces of all the Romers.

  “What about Levi?” asked Sorrow. “He was helpful when his hurricane came to our rescue north of Skell.”

  “If we meet him near Raitingu, he’ll be defending the island,” said Rigger
. “Are we really going to go there and possibly fight our own brother?”

  Gale walked toward the wheel. “If we face Levi in battle, it’s because of choices he made, not us.” She took the wheel in hand. “In the meantime, we’re sailors. We go where the owner of the ship commands. So, Brand, what say you?”

  “Sorry, Rigger,” said Brand. “Going to Raitingu makes sense to me as well.”

  “Why? To bury some dead knight?”

  “No. Because my father had business contacts there. I know several of them from a trip I took with my father when I was a teenager. Going there gives me a chance to make my case to them that my father’s economic empire should belong to me and Bigsby, not that gold-digger living in his mansion.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to run your father’s business,” said Sorrow. “I thought you were happy to start a new life where you could make your own fame and fortune.”

  “I am,” said Brand. “But that doesn’t mean I want some woman I don’t even know to enjoy the fruits of my father’s labor. She can’t do what she’s done to me and not expect to face the most horrible revenge I can dream of.”

  “You’re going to kill her?” asked Sorrow.

  “I’m going to sue her,” said Brand. “There are hundreds of lawyers in the Silver City who would like a piece of the Cooper fortune. With a few letters and the testimony of my father’s business partners, I’m going to wage a legal battle against my stepmother that will strip her of every last moon. She wants to use the law against me? Two people can play at this game.”

  “I didn’t know you had a vengeful streak,” said Sorrow. “I like it.”

  WEEKS LATER, EIGHTY miles out from Raitingu, the sea grew rough and choppy. Jetsam had been training Sorrow with daily practice flights since they left port, but the winds were so strong this morning that she kept being forced back into the rigging.

  Jetsam stood in the ropes next her. She shouted, “It’s getting too dangerous. We should just go back down.”

  “Oh?” He grinned. “You only want to fly in good weather?”

  “Could you fly in this?”