by Ellyn, Court
“You misunderstand. I mean to raise an army.” He pinched the tip of her oversized ear. “I’ll start here.” Maliel kept his sword in prime condition. Hard Teeth squealed, and Lothiar showed her half of her ear in his palm. Orange blood streamed down her neck. She nodded.
“Good. Lead the way. And no tricks.”
Hard Teeth led them through the bleak landscape with singular purpose; no hunting hound could have done better. Her long, lumbering stride carried her far ahead of her captors, but even if she escaped, she left a swath of trampled grass and broken ice easy to follow. Her trail aimed for a range of hills, where a fist of rock punched out of the sodden ground. A cave entrance had been cut into the stone. The reek of rot swirled about the place, and bones of various animals littered the trail that climbed the hill.
“I don’t suppose you’ll order me to wait out here,” Maliel said as they peered into the cave. The delving was not deep, but Hard Teeth had disappeared.
“Give me your sword if you do.”
“Hnh,” Maliel replied and ventured in first.
Near the back of the cave, a set of steps dove down into the earth. A faint red glow lit the wide corridor at the bottom. Angry, guttural voices echoed up the steps. “This is far enough,” Lothiar said. “Hard Teeth will bring them to us. Sheathe your sword.”
“With all due respect, Captain—”
Belligerant grunts approached.
“Shit, they’re coming.” Fighting every instinct, Maliel put away his sword. The Elarion retreated toward the cave mouth, giving the naenion plenty of room. A torch emerged from the hole, followed by a head spotted gray and brown like a toad. Small red eyes searched the cave. Backlit by gray daylight, Lothiar’s silhouette must’ve been plain enough, for the red eyes widened, and the ogre bellowed like a bull, then ducked down the passageway.
“Wait!” Lothiar followed, but a second ogre reared up through the hole. This one carried a rusted sword as broad as an ogre’s hand. Lothiar scrambled backward. He and Maliel raised empty hands. “We are not a hunt. We come only to talk.”
The ogre stood head and shoulders over the Elarion. Unlike most of his kind, he boasted a mass of black hair on his head. Matted into thick ropes, it hung to his waist like moss from a tree’s branches. Bits of broken glass, jagged metal, and sharpened bone clacked and jangled at the end of each rope. He snorted at Lothiar’s claim and searched the hillside beyond for signs of an Elaran hunting party.
“You are Korax Elfbane?” Lothiar asked.
The ogre grunted. His yellowed tusks were chipped and scarred from gnashing them in many a battle. “Dis naeni Elfbane. Not talks wid likes of you! We know! Army of ‘Larion comes. Raiders and trickers of naeni. Always. You fill our bellies dis night.”
Half a dozen more ogres emerged from the lower level, armed with clubs of stone.
“You have my vow,” Lothiar said. “This Elari wishes to be your enemy no longer.”
“What ‘Lari vow mean to naeni? Sweet breaths lie foul! Done wid talks.” Korax gestured with the sword. The ogres bellowed and charged.
Maliel raised a hand to enact the Spell of Arrest, but Lothiar seized him by the arm and fled with him into the daylight. Expecting a hunting party outside the cave, the ogres fanned out, clubs raised. Meeting no resistance, they paused, but Korax chased the interlopers. That rusted blade whistled past Lothiar’s right ear. He spun aside and saw Korax swing his head. The heavy ropes lashed like a dozen whips. Maliel shoved Lothiar clear. The glittering shards ripped garments and flesh to the bone. Maliel cried out, falling, and Lothiar snatched him up. They scrambled away into the stinking mud. A hundred yards from the cave, Lothiar dared to look back.
Korax Elfbane and his denmates stood at the base of their hill, braying in triumph.
~~~~
“Well, that was the wrong approach,” Lothiar concluded, pressing ice into the gashes exposing Maliel’s ribs. Laying on his belly, Maliel hid his face in his arms and muffled a cry of agony. They had found a bit of high ground and sheltered in the lee of a few scraggly trees. “We’ll have to try something else.”
Maliel glared up at him. “We almost got killed, sir. That hasn’t changed your mind?”
“Why should it? We learned something, didn’t we? And we’re alive. Once we succeed and live freely under the stars, your scars will be a testament to our struggle and our victory.”
“Right now, they are just an impediment to breathing.” Every breath he took stretched the gashes.
Fearing Maliel’s stolen horse would be too easy to track, they had let it return to Linndun; now, without horse hair, they had no way to sew up the wounds. Nor had Maliel considered bringing salves or medicines. Hiding inside the Veil, Lothiar could slip into a human’s cottage and pilfer the supplies they needed, but they were deep inside the Heath. Until they came across a human settlement, Maliel would just have to heal on his own, though the chances of infection were extreme. ‘Elfbane’ was no misnomer.
“What fighters!” Lothiar exclaimed, sitting back on his heels. “What fierce, terrifying fighters. Ah, to harness them.”
“Aye,” Maliel groaned. “There’s a reason we’ve hunted them all these millennia, sir. If they were to rise up, Linndun might well fall.”
“Now you begin to see, old friend.”
After a moment of pondering, Maliel said, “You have a different tactic in mind, I hope.”
Lothiar glanced at the saddlebags that lay at the base of a tree and grinned. “You know, the naenion have a sigil of their own.”
~~~~
55
Athna tossed back the grog, and soon the diluted liquor seeped into her veins, cutting the chill in her bones and the pain in her arm. The old one-eyed surgeon that served the Aurion could still manage a straight line with his stitches, even if Athna’s skin had been torn to jagged strips where the broken mast had damn near torn her arm off. Wyllan’s brow too had been tended. They now devoured dry bread and fish stew as if they’d never tasted food before. Rygg kept them company. The boatswain’s cabin was tight but tidy.
“You’re not like the others,” Athna observed.
“S’pose not.” The bear-sized man ducked his head in a bashful fashion. “I served the duke’s household for nigh a decade, commanding the ferry twixt the palace and the city. I serve him still, though the Aurion is a far cry from my ferry. ‘Twere the Lady Rhoslyn’s idea. When she told me I was to serve aboard a pirate’s vessel, I feared for my neck. Didn’t exactly fancy stretching from a yardarm at the sport of these men, I assure you.”
“So you’re here to make sure these pirates uphold their end of the bargain?” Wyllan asked.
Athna had to admire the man’s courage.
“Only Rehaan,” said Rygg, “I can’t vouch for the rest.”
“Ah. So he sent you below with us, not to keep us from jumping ship, but to …”
“Aye, lady, to keep the others from tossing you overboard. Or worse. The cap’n has some decency, you see.”
“You’ve come to respect him,” said Wyllan.
“You might say that. The first few weeks after sailing from Windhaven, I worried night and day that the boys would throw me to the sharks. Easy enough to tell Lady Rhoslyn that me, unseasoned as I was, fell overboard or were lost to battle. But he didn’t let nothing happen to me, invited me to dine in his cabin even, and took an interest in my job at the ferry, uninteresting though it is.”
Athna smirked, wise to Rehaan’s tactics. The charismatic pirate knew the art of winning himself a few loyal friends.
“Then during our first engagement, we found that them strange ships outta Zhian weren’t transporting glass or cotton. Them foreign mercenaries fought something fierce. Several swarmed the captain, wanting his red coat we learned later, but I tossed one overboard, broke another’s neck, and, well, used my new cutlass on another. I’d never killed a man before, and I was sick after it was over. But the cap’n rewarded me for it. When our boatswain died from injuries, Cap’n
gave me the job and this cabin, too. And I do my job with all my heart, as if he were the duke hisself. He might not deserve my loyalty, but he’s got it, and you’d do him ill to keep insulting him.”
“He would do well to take us to Graynor. Plant that in his ear, boatswain.”
Rygg took away their bowls and arrived a while later with a change of clothes that smelled surprisingly clean. The reek wafting up from the hold spoke of the long weeks since the Aurion had left port. But these garments carried the smell of soap and … rosemary? Odd. Unfurling the white shirt, Athna found it to be a lovely thing of silk, with lace cuffs and collar, even if it was far too big. She had to belt the black trousers tightly about her waist and roll the legs up to her ankles as well. Nothing felt better than being dry again with a full belly and a warm bed waiting. While Wyllan hung a hammock for himself against the opposite wall, he said, “I must insist that you show some gratitude, Captain. These are dangerous men, and the look in that … Anger’s eye—”
“Angrev.”
“Well, he unnerves me. Got no qualms about mistreating a lady, I’d bet my life on it. So for both our sakes, please, remember tact and courtesy.”
Curling up on the boatswain’s lumpy mattress, Athna replied, “I’ve hunted these men my whole career, since I was eleven, Wyllan, and to find myself indebted to them?”
“Do not let your pride be the end of us.”
Athna slept the sleep of the newly born, dark and dreamless. She woke near noon the next day, when Rygg knocked at the door. Startled, she rolled out of bed. The hammock hung empty. Outside the door, Wyllan said, “I’ll see if she’s awake.”
“I am.”
He entered, looking a bit windblown.
“Where’ve you been?”
“Seeing how this brig sails. Making friends. Protecting our interests. You sleep well?”
“Aye, where are we?”
“Where else? Off the coast of Fiera. South of Stony Point.”
“Damn it. This pirate-king mention when he means to take us home?”
“No, ma’am. But we’re to dine in his cabin in an hour.”
At his guests’ entrance, Rehaan rose from his table and grinned at Athna. “You look good in my clothes, lady.”
She bristled. The most gratitude she could muster dripped with sarcasm: “It’s so important to me that you think so.”
Behind her, Wyllan dealt her a sound thump in the ribs.
“It’s my finest dress shirt,” Rehaan said, trying to convince her of his generosity.
“It might as well be a dress,” she said, fingering the lace. “And what is that smell?”
“Lavender? Keeps the moths at bay. The Pearl Islands are plagued with them.” He smirked. “You don’t believe me.”
“No. I think you’re a fop who has a taste for smuggled perfume.”
Rehaan chuckled. “Indeed. Sure there’s nothing wrong with taking pleasure in the finer things.” He offered her a goblet of wine and invited them to sit at a table laden with food and drink. Their plunder had been rich. In the center of the table, some kind of bird, plucked and roasted, filled a silver tray. It was as large as a goose, but its neck was shorter, its beak dainty and pointed.
“Pea hen,” Rehaan said. “The White Falcon eats well. He was having live birds imported from Ixaka. If the cook’s boys anger them, you’ll hear them calling for help in the galley.”
Though Athna had eaten just before bedding down for the night, she was starving again. She recalled that she hadn’t eaten at all since the night before the battle at Graynor. As enigmatic as this Rehaan was, Athna decided he had good taste. Food, wine, the cabin’s décor, all a delight to the senses. She was picky about the food served on her ship as well. She had spent enough time on one vessel or another to learn that the fare served aboard naval vessels often left much to be desired, and so she kept her galley stocked with jars of herbs and spices, ropes of garlic and peppers. When her father deemed her too thin, nonetheless, he hired a cook for her as a gift upon her new commission. Her cook … rotting in a sea serpent’s belly. All of them. Lost. A bite of bread stuck in her throat.
“Captain?” Wyllan asked, laying a hand to her forearm. Perhaps he’d thought she choked.
She drained her goblet and attempted to make small talk. “So, the Aurion. Quite a name. Get it from a dock whore?”
Rehaan hadn’t eaten a bite but reclined in his high-backed chair, a leg thrown over the arm like an indolent king, content to watch his guests enjoy the bounty he offered. But at her question, he regarded her coolly. “From my grandmother, actually. Surprised?”
Athna felt the deliberate stomp of Wyllan’s heel on her toes, and she raised her chin, damned if she’d apologize. “Her name was Aurion?”
“No, she used to call me that. I don’t know what it means, nor did she. Not sure it’s even a proper word or how to spell it, but she meant it as an endearment. Seemed appropriate for my boat.”
“When you stole it.”
“Exactly.”
Catching Wyllan’s warning glare, she changed the subject. “And what will you do with this pardon of yours, once the fighting is over?”
Rehaan graciously refilled the goblets. “Angrev plans to open a tavern in some backwater town on Rávalin.”
“Admirable. But I asked about you.”
He looked tired all of a sudden. “I have no use for life on land.”
“Evaronna’s navy, then.”
“Not on your life.”
“A whaler? A fisher? A merchant?” she pressed. “A smuggler? Am I getting closer?”
“Maybe I’ll mop the floors of Angrev’s tavern.” Was that a hint of bitterness Athna detected? No, this dandy of a pirate was not reformed because of a piece of paper. Doubtless she would find herself hunting this man and his Aurion one day. If the Lords Admiral agreed to trust her with another ship, that is. “But the fighting goes on,” Rehaan added, “so it’s pleased enough I am.”
“And at present, where are we bound?”
“My orders from the Admiral are to patrol the waters between Stony Point’s lighthouse and Brathnach.” He confirmed Athna’s suspicions. “We were so busy watching Galdan Bay that we missed activity popping up elsewhere. Two weeks ago, we discovered a steady stream of merchanters going in and out of Brathnach harbor. My Aurion and half a dozen galleons were dispatched to put an end to it.”
“Stony Point is close enough to Leania, sir,” Athna said. “If not Graynor, then drop us off at another of our home ports. It need not be more than a day out of your way.”
“Once the opportunity arises, that’s precisely what we’ll do. Until then, relax. Once we reach Brathnach, we’ll turn north again and consider delivering you to Leania.”
“Consider? Captain, Wyllan and I will be presumed dead. Our families will suffer needlessly.”
“And my heart hurts for them. But we are not turning. Make yourself at home.”
“This is your attempt at honor, is it?” Athna snapped. “See to your duty before common courtesy? To the Abyss with your honor and your duty. Lieutenant, say something!”
Wyllan cleared his throat, hiding his thoughts behind stone-faced composure. Rising, he bowed and said, “Captain, pray excuse us. It is an honor to share your table, but we are in no condition to conduct civilized discourse. Perhaps later?”
Athna allowed him to take her by the elbow and escort her out the door, only because she preferred to berate her lieutenant in private. Rygg stood guard outside the door, but his greeting died on his tongue when he saw Athna’s red face and grinding teeth. She freed her elbow and hissed, “Don’t ever presume to handle me, Lieutenant! That is the second time—”
“I will presume when I feel you are putting yourself in danger, and me along with you. I have served many a captain, but none so hotheaded as you. You have no need to prove yourself. I know who you are. So does that brigand in there, even if he will not admit it. Do not rise to his bait and lose face. Not to him.”
Her face burned for another reason entirely. How young and inexperienced she had proved herself to be. “I want to go home, Wyllan.” A long time it had been since she’d wanted to run into her da’s arms, but even if she made it home, she wouldn’t find him there. She hid her face in her hands until she could swallow the urge to scream.
“Take some air, then rest, Captain, please.”
She nodded, and under Rygg’s vigilance, she strolled the captain’s corner of the quarterdeck, breathing the cold salt-laden wind.
~~~~
Dark—cold—can’t breathe—don’t breathe—scream and he’ll come and pull you into the light—open your eyes—don’t—don’t want to see—dead men rising, angry—breathe and drown—breathe!—no!—kick—harder—kick—kick!
Athna kicked the woolen blanket off her legs and sprang up gulping air. Moonlight spilled through the small portal near her head, water rushed past the freeboard, and the beams and planks creaked against the strain of wind and sea. A timeless lullaby and one that ought to bring her comfort, but not tonight. Wyllan swung heavily, soundly in the hammock. She’d shamed herself enough in front of him; she’d not trouble him with her nightmares. Goddess, she couldn’t catch her breath. Fleeing the close darkness of the cabin, she stumbled into Rygg. He’d been stationed outside the door for the night and sat up hastily in his hammock. “Hey, what, lady?”
“I’m sorry, Rygg. I just need air.”
He growled out a bear’s yawn and searched for his stocking cap. Finding it on his head, he rolled out of the hammock.
“You don’t have to go with me.”
He scratched his arse and waved her to the hatchway, clump-clumping up after her. The men on midwatch gave her lingering glances but otherwise didn’t trouble her. She gripped the rail and breathed deeply of the wind and spray. Forath glared red, high over the Fieran horizon, and stars shone like silver dust.
“Nightmares?” Rehaan approached from the quarterdeck. Over his vain red coat, he’d bundled himself in a heavy cloak. Athna had fled in only the shirt, trousers, and bare feet, too desperate to care about the cold. Rehaan noticed her toes with those shameless wandering eyes of his, but kept the cloak to himself.