by Ellyn, Court
“Captain?”
“He’s not going to board us. He’s going to ram us.”
Wyllan squinted hard at the oncoming Shadow, her bowsprit like a saber leading the charge toward the Bane’s broadside. “What? But that—”
“My orders, Wyllan!”
He jumped to obey. Men shimmied down from the rigging, water buckets fixed to their belts.
The sailing master spun the wheel, hoping to shift the Bane free of the Shadow’s path. She turned slow, so slowly, five degrees, ten. But it was too little too late. Athna could only watch as the Shadow’s prow plowed through the larboard bulwarks. The ships shuddered, planks splintered. The Bane rolled on her belly, throwing men from the deck into the sea. Athna lost her footing, slid on her back and a ballista tumbled after her, a deadweight that would crush her like a beetle underfoot. But the Bane teetered back the other direction, grating against the Shadow’s broken prow, and the ballista rolled away from her, crashed through the bulwarks, and toppled into the waves.
Men aboard the flagship raised a shout and swarmed to board the Bane. Athna scrambled to her feet, scooped up a crossbow, but the slot was empty, and there was no bloody quiver in sight. She unsheathed her saber instead.
An officer in a green and gold coat hurried ahead of the boarding party and stopped them with arms thrown wide. “These Leanian sheep are shark fodder. Abandon ship. To the Storm. Move it!” The Fieran sailors didn’t sound too happy about it, but neither did they like the look of water rushing into their vessel. They lowered the jolly boats and began piling into them.
The Fieran officer found Athna near the helm and said, “You may be a bane to pirates, Captain. But you’re no threat to Fierans. You should’ve stayed home and raised more sheep for the sharks.” He unlatched a flask from his hip and raised it twice, in salute to each of the dying ships, then hurried into a jolly boat. Madon, the Shadow of the Seas, stood in the jolly’s prow as it whisked him off to the Storm, whose silence now made sense.
“Wyllan, lower the boats—quickly,” Athna said in a monotone, fear and rage so large inside her that she could barely speak.
“We lost some in the collision,” he said quietly. Blood dripped from a deep gash in his forehead.
“How many?”
Wyllan called to the boatswain who was taking the tally. The man called back, “Nearly half.”
Not everyone was going to get off the ship. Beyond the length of the Shadow, a strip of land glowed golden in the late afternoon light. Maybe a league and half away. Not too far to swim if one had a beam or barrel to hold onto. She nodded. “Fill the jollies to capacity plus one, and make certain two of the boats carry the tell-tale from my cabin and the compass from the helm. Night will be upon us soon, and we don’t want anyone getting turned around in the dark.” Overhead, the blazing mizzenmast creaked, the waist of the Bane groaned, and the nose of the flagship dipped. The two halves of the Bane began to tilt inward. The boatswain shouted orders to get the jolly boats lowered before they were all sucked to the seafloor. Boats splashed into the water, and men scrambled down ladders and ropes or leapt clear of the wreckage. Civility and brotherhood deteriorated; comrades struck and choked one another, desperate to claim a seat in one of the boats. “Stop this at once!” Athna bellowed. Officers and crew peered up at her where she stood at the helm, the burning mizzenmast behind her. “If you would live as men tomorrow, then you must not become animals ravaging one another now. Load the boats to capacity plus two. The rest will stay with me. We’ll meet the Goddess together, with our heads held high.”
The crew resumed climbing into the boats in silence. A few who lacked families resigned to make the sacrifice and stay behind. Wyllan pulled himself up to the helm. “We can fit you aboard one of those jollies, Captain.”
She shook her head and clenched the spokes of the wheel.
“You don’t weigh much,” he argued.
“No, sir. I’m staying here.”
Wyllan set his jaw stubbornly. “Then I’m staying with you. You’ll need a friend.”
Athna called to Rannil, who argued over the matter with the other officers. “Lieutentant, take the boat with the compass. You are in command now. When you land in Fiera, likely you’ll be taken prisoner. Speak for the men and don’t let their courage flag.”
Looking as though he was having trouble swallowing a bite too large, Rannil said, “I’ll deliver the men in my boat and come back for you myself.”
Athna gripped his shoulder. “See to your men first, sailor. Go.”
In boats bursting at the seams, the crew rowed around the bulk of the wreckage, the turned eastward, toward a hostile shore.
One of the men left behind began to panic. “Oh, Goddess! Goddess!” he cried. Another jumped into the sea and began swimming after the jollies. Athna clenched the wheel so hard, her fingers went numb.
Wyllan touched her fist. “Let go, Cap’n. We need to get free before—”
The Bane gave one last groan, then buckled. Masts crumpled and splintered. Ropes whizzed past, flinging blocks as deadly as stones hurled by catapults. The heaving deck tossed sailors high. Their screams were brief. Athna found herself lying flat across the wheel. Where was Wyllan? Pockets of air hissed from the portals and hatchways as the sea rushed higher, devouring the deck. Athna sucked down an enormous breath just as the Bane plunged into darkness.
So cold. Athna gasped, breathed in a mouthful of the sea and panicked, releasing the wheel. For an instant she watched it plummet away from her into the blackness.
The splintered trunk of the mizzenmast swept past, snagged her sleeve, wrenching her back to her senses. Blood billowed in a cloud from her arm. Swim! Get out of the way! With all her strength she fought the downward tug of the sea. Bubbles rushed past. Strangling ropes and blankets of canvas. And bodies. Such a burning in her chest. Don’t breathe! She kicked free of the wreck just as the taffrail swept by, dragging deadly nets of sailcloth.
Something tangled in her hair, clinging to her scalp. She reached up to free herself of the snare, but felt fingers, a hand. She kicked hard and rose. The water above became a paler blue and finally the gray of twilight. Athna surged from the sea with a screaming gulp of air.
“Captain, here!” Wyllan shoved a square of wooden grating beneath her. “You know,” he gasped, pressing salt water from his eyes, “it’s not necessary for the captain to follow the ship all the way down.”
Athna managed a raspy laugh and hugged her mate’s neck.
Balancing carefully on the grate, they watched the Storm sail south, abandoning them to the cold winter sea. In the distance, they made out the bobbing shapes of the jolly boats. Oars raised and lowered like wings skimming over the water. “We better get started, Captain.”
“Yes, I think Rannil will appreciate us saving him a few yards of rowing at least.”
Wyllan selected a plank from the flotsam floating by and started paddling after the boats.
A rumble of thunder shook the water and vibrated through Athna’s chest. Wyllan stopped paddling. He’d felt it, too.
Athna had heard that gut-deep rumbling only once before, when she served aboard the king’s flagship as a cabin girl. A merchanter had gone down after hitting a sea stack in a storm, and the serpents had kept the rescue parties from reclaiming the bodies. Elusive they were, but aggressive.
“Oh, shit,” Wyllan breathed, glancing about for fins breaking the surface. “We can paddle fast, but chances are, the splashing will entice them as much as the blood that’s drawn them.”
“So we sit tight, hoping they don’t smell us?” Athna cried. “We’re both bleeding, Lieutenant.” Her arm throbbed inside her torn coat; Wyllan smashed a palm over his gashed brow.
Another rumble shook the grate. Athna felt for her saber. Yes, still in its scabbard. Not that it would do much good against a pod of sea serpents. Twenty yards past the swirling flotsam, the water stirred. A dorsal fin as tall as a man cut the waves and dove down again. Moments later, a mouth
full of teeth and a pair of fangs yawned opened beneath a sailor’s body. The long neck shook violently to tear the flesh, then splashed down with its prize. The slender head was small when compared to the sinuous length of its body. Metallic gray scales shimmered in the last of the daylight, and blood-colored gill fins fanned out behind its jaw. The towering dorsal fin topped a plump body, and the tail seemed endless, finally ending in vertical flukes that sent up a tidal wave of water. Athna gasped against the splash and steadied the grate against the wave.
The serpent breached again, this time taking to the air, it pectoral fins like stunted wings, and plunged downward onto its next morsel. The number of bodies would barely begin to satisfy its hunger. In wider and wider circles it swam, seeking another prize. Across the water Athna heard the shouts of men. The crewmen in the jolly boats had seen the danger.
“Stop rowing,” she muttered, praying Rannil knew enough about the creatures to order the men to still their oars. The great beast reared its head and plunged down again. Men screamed, wood splintered, and Athna tried to stand on the grate and draw the serpent’s attention.
Wyllan dragged her back down. “That won’t save them, Captain.”
Athna broke into sobs. One after another, the serpent crushed the jollies racing for shore and devoured the helpless sailors. Athna covered her ears against the screams of the men and roar of the beast.
Night came fast, so did the silence. Did they dare take to paddling again? Forath’s half circle throbbed dull red overhead, and Thyrra was a bright beacon in the east, almost at the full. The water rippled, a dorsal fin surfaced, a pale ghost in the moonlight.
“It’s coming back, Captain,” Wyllan observed. “Do you have your saber?”
“Yes.” Her heart had turned to wood. She felt neither fear nor sorrow nor anger, nothing at all.
“Finish me.”
“What?”
Wyllan said it so calmly. With a disgruntled expression, he watching the serpent circle back toward them, as if he held some minor grudge against the beast. “Then yourself. Do it.”
“You’re a good man, Wyllan,” she said and drew her saber.
The serpent’s head rose; its slitted eyes found the two sailors huddling on the grate and hissed. Its fangs were almost as long as a jolly boat, and its snout was slashed and bloodied. The men of the Pirate’s Bane had made the serpent pay for its meal, Athna was sure of it.
With a single sweep of its tail, the serpent bore down on its prey, making a show of the soft white flesh deep in its throat and the purple forked tongue like a trickle of blood in its mouth. It roared, rearing for the lunge. Athna shoved Wyllan off the grate, steadied herself on her knees, saber poised, ready to make the beast hurt for its trouble.
A bolt of fire fell from the sky and struck the serpent in the gills. The serpent roared a deafening thunder, splashed, and writhed, tossing Athna from the grate. Surfacing, she flailed free of the serpent’s throes. A garrot smoked, deep in its skull. At last it rolled onto its back, food for gulls and more of its kind.
A bell dinged, and a ship slid out of the night, her lanterns blazing. No, not a ship. One of the two-masted brigs. “Ahoy!” cried a voice from the deck.
“Here!” Athna called. The sight of the ladder unrolling to receive them was the most welcome she’d ever seen. Wyllan paddled around the serpent’s bobbing head, and together they swam for it. Passing under the bowsprit, Athna read Aurion painted on her prow. Men clustered at the rail as she shimmied up the ladder. Near the top, a bear-sized hand seized her by the scruff and lifted her to the deck. “Close call, that, eh, lady?” said the vast barrel of a man from behind a magnificent black moustache. A red stocking cap was pulled snugly over a bush of black curls. None of the men were in uniform. Indeed, they wore ragged doublets and coats over mismatched shirts and baggy canvas trousers. Despite the dark red Evaronnan banners flying from the mastheads, Athna realized this was the pirate ship. Of all the damnable luck!
“Maybe the serpent feasted on her tongue, Rygg.” A man in a red coat swung down from the helm, examining her from head to foot. Her sea-sodden clothes clung to all the right places. Athna hugged her arms over her chest. The rest of the crew was as shameless. Only the great bear of a man called Rygg regarded her with an interest other than lust.
None paid heed to poor Wyllan who heaved himself on board, dripping and shivering. He was not blind to the stares and discreetly edged in between Athna and the raking eyes. “Who have we to thank for our rescue?”
The man in the red coat bowed with a flourish. “Rehaan, at your service. Welcome aboard my boat.” Though he spoke amiably, his glance flicked between his guests as if he had trouble piecing together some puzzle, and settled on Athna at last. The scar across her cheek twitched. Why should she feel conscious of her old badge under this pirate’s gaze? As cold as she was, it likely glared bright red against her half-frozen skin.
He smirked. “You are the captain of that vessel?”
Typical, she thought, sighing, and raised her chin. “I am Athna, eldest daughter of Lord Wyramor and grand-niece to King Bano’en.”
“Sure it’s a true-born lady we have among us, men.”
They whistled and jeered.
“ ‘Tisn’t rare,” Athna said. “Most of the officers aboard legitimate vessels are highborn. It’s only aboard the others that the lowborn command.” She let her eyes do a bit of raking from one man to the next.
“And that’s where the highborn’s superiority fails him,” Rehaan said, hardly daunted by her insults. “A captain is a king aboard his vessel, and all these good men? Lords of the sea.”
His crew hollered in agreement.
Athna was not impressed. The hunger in the crewmen’s faces was little different from that of the sea serpent. They pressed in closer. Athna’s hand drifted up to rest on the haft of her saber. “Take us to port. Now.”
“Sure you wouldn’t be ordering Bano’en around in such a manner,” Rehaan said.
“Toss the ungrateful wench back in, Captain,” said a man in a green coat. Once, the garment had been a fine thing, but the brocade was faded, the gold ribbon frayed or missing.
“Do you hear that, lady?” asked Rehaan. “What Angrev means is that he’s astonished that rude manners are to be found in one of your gentle breeding.”
“Aye. Nor does a pardon a gentleman make,” she retorted.
“Captain!” Wyllan hissed.
Rehaan laughed, and so did all the crew. Only the bear-like Rygg pled with her. “Please, lady, ‘tis a rotten plank you walk.”
“Our boatswain speaks wisely,” Rehaan said. “You and your lieutenant will be our guests for a time.”
“Hostages, you mean.”
“No, no, we have no need for hostages, thanks. We are well compensated.”
She gave a scoffing sniff. “So I’ve heard.”
He ignored her comment. “We’re unable, at present, to deliver you where you want to go.”
“Want—?”
“Rygg, take them below. See that their wounds are tended to, and do not let them be alone.”
As if he were about to sail into heavy weather, Rygg tugged his stocking cap down over his ears and said, “Aye, Cap’n.”
When Athna didn’t budge, Wyllan said to the pirate-king, “Pray pardon, sir. Little has gone well for us in the last couple of days, as you can well imagine. Cap’n’s ship lost, and all her crew, save me. A poor gleaning to be snatched from the seamaid’s arms.”
“For your sake, Lieutenant, pardon granted. Alas, a pardon does not a lady make.”
~~~~
54
The carrion stench of ogres permeated the cave. The earthen walls had been shored up with fat tree branches dragged in from outside and coiling roots that dug deep into the ground. The ogres hadn’t delved very far into the hillside, only fifty yards or so, before the Guardians of the Southern Wood had found them and slaughtered them. Iryan Wingfleet had ordered the side rooms and corridors to be collapsed o
r walled off, but there was still a tunnel fifty feet deep for Lothiar to take shelter in.
He didn’t risk a fire. Passing Guardians might see the glow in the night and discover him. The mouth faced southeast, which kept the snow from blowing in, but the cold air invaded the tunnel as stealthily as old memories on sleepless nights. Lothiar huddled against the back wall, waiting. The gouges on the ragged root nearby indicated he’d been waiting nearly a full Thyrran month. He was patient, but he had begun to doubt Maliel would come. They had laid their plain in such a hurry after the guards fell to Maliel’s blade that perhaps he had become confused about where Lothiar said he would be hiding. Or perhaps he’d been discovered.
Regardless, hiding in these caves any longer posed too great a risk. Another day or so and Lothiar would leave the Wood at last, but he had no intention of wandering aimlessly, a victim of exile.
His ear twitched. The crunch of old snow. The creak of leather as someone dismounted a horse. Light from a lantern splashed eerie shapes across the cave wall. “Captain?” whispered Maliel, lifting the lantern high. The feeble light bled along the edge of the sword in his hand. Either he feared ogres might still live in the tunnel, or someone had convinced him to carry out Lothiar’s sentence.
Maliel hedged around the pile of ash and bone, all that remained of the cave’s denizens, and crept into the mouth. “Captain, is that you?”
Lothiar’s dagger, the only weapon he’d escaped Linndun with, slid across Maliel’s throat. “You don’t need that sword, comrade.”
Violet eyes wide, Maliel dropped his weapon.
“Put out the light,” Lothiar ordered, withdrawing the dagger. “She could be watching.” It wouldn’t do for someone peering into Aerdria’s pool to recognize his whereabouts. “Did anyone follow you?”