Dead Stars - Part Two (The Emaneska Series)

by Ben Galley

  ‘You?’ Modren couldn’t help but snort.

  Farden frowned. ‘Would you have said that fifteen ?’

  ‘Fifteen years is a long time.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘You know exactly what I mean, Farden.’

  ‘Well, pardon me for being the only one here with a solution.’

  ‘You aren’t a solution, Farden. You’re the bloody opposite.’

  ‘Am I now?’

  ‘Modren…’ Tyrfing warned.

  ‘No, no, let him carry on, Uncle. I know what he’s going to say.’

  Modren let his angry words loose like snarling dogs. Every accusation was a sharp prod of a finger in Farden’s chest. Farden took it all without flinching. ‘You are the reason that bitch of an abomination exists. You are the reason she attacked today. You are the reason those daemons fell from the sky, and you are the reason that Elessi, my wife, is lying in that bed right now! You’re the poisonous root of all that’s happened here today! You’re a fuck-up, not a knight in shining armour. You’re… you’re nothing but a curse, Farden! You hear me?!’

  For a long moment, nobody spoke. Modren’s finger remained firmly entrenched in Farden’s chest. The two mages simply stared at each other, almost nose to nose, while Tyrfing and Durnus waited, holding their breath. They all expected Farden to explode like a raging volcano, or at the very least storm off down the hallway.

  He was full of surprises today.

  ‘Are you finished?’ he asked, after a time. There was an annoyingly confident shine to his face. Only Farden knew where it stemmed from; that unwavering, unflinching clarity… Modren wanted to slap it off.

  ‘Yes,’ spat the Undermage.

  ‘Good,’ began Farden. ‘You’re right. This is all my fault.’ He spared a moment to look at Tyrfing and Durnus, whose expressions were nothing short of bewildered. That alone made him surge on. He turned back to face Modren, and pushed his jabbing finger off of his chest. ‘But you’re also wrong, and for one astoundingly simple reason. I can fix this, and even better, I will.’

  ‘How?’ asked Durnus.

  Farden crossed his arms. Proving them wrong was almost as gratifying as proving them right. Unflinching clarity. ‘First off, Elessi needs saving. If those useless healers in there are out of options, then I vote we go somewhere better, somewhere with healers that managed to fix me when I was banging on death’s door, half-dead from a shipwreck. Healers who have access to a lot more ancient lore than we could ever dream of.’

  ‘The Sirens?’

  ‘The Sirens.’

  ‘We haven’t heard from them in months.’

  ‘Then we’ll go to them.’ The others looked unconvinced. Farden ploughed on. ‘Unless of course you want to consult the Arfell scholars, and have them spend the next three months trawling through their libraries?’

  Durnus nodded. It made sense. ‘Fine. What about the daemons?’

  Farden clanged his wrists together, grinning. ‘They wouldn’t come near me once they saw I was wearing this armour. You all saw it happen. I challenged him and he slunk off. It must be the Nine. We find the rest of this armour, and we’ve got ourselves a deterrent. Or a weapon. Or both.’

  Modren couldn’t help but laugh. ‘That simple, is it?’

  ‘Godblood,’ Farden retorted.

  ‘Godwhat?’

  ‘Godblood,’ repeated Farden. ‘It’s what that daemon whispered before he disappeared.’

  ‘And what is it supposed to mean?’ asked Tyrfing. ‘Besides the obvious?’

  Farden shrugged. ‘How am I to know? But what I do know is that we happen to have two gods in this very Arkathedral who just might. I say we ask them.’

  Tyrfing held up his hands. ‘Say you do all this. Say the Sirens can save Elessi and you can fight the daemons. What about your daughter? And the rest of the daemons? I would bet my Book that Ragnarök was never just three daemons. There will be more soon. And lots of them too. More importantly, Farden, what about you? How are you, in your current state, going to fight them all off?’

  Farden turned to face his uncle. He smiled wryly. ‘I guess we’ll have to see, won’t we? After, all, I didn’t say I’d fix this alone, did I?’

  The others shook their heads.

  ‘So?’

  Durnus shrugged. ‘Well, it’s rough. And simple. And I have no idea how you’re going to pull it off, but there we have it.’

  ‘Sounds a shite plan to me.’ This from Modren.

  Farden stared at each of them in turn. ‘Anybody got any better ideas?’

  Tyrfing sighed. ‘No.’ He found it odd that it was so difficult to admit that. He should have been practically prancing with joy at Farden attempting to take the reins, but instead, he couldn’t help but doubt him and his perforated plan. He felt a trickle of guilt run through him. He looked at the floor.

  ‘Be sure to let me know when they pop into your head,’ Farden replied, almost sensing his uncle’s doubt. He looked to Modren. ‘And you? She’s your wife. Nelska could save her.’

  Modren looked back at the door, and thought of his wife on the narrow bed, as grey as stone and as cold as a winter morning. He thought of the healers bumbling around her, mopping up sweat and blood. Useless.

  When he finally spoke, his voice was small and cracking at the edges. He prodded Farden once more in the chest, but this time there was no anger behind it. ‘You bring her back to me, Farden. I don’t care how, just bring her back,’ he said, small, and cracked.

  Farden met Modren’s eyes, and the look they shared was as hard and as binding as steel. He didn’t reply, he simply nodded.

  ‘Well,’ said Durnus. ‘If you are intent on going to Nelska, I suppose you will need a ship.’

  Farden turned so fast his neck almost snapped. ‘A what?’

  ‘A ship, Farden,’ replied Durnus, breathing in the sharps sea air of the port. ‘A sea-going vessel. Usually propelled by sails or by oars, and normally fashioned of stout wood. Or, in this case, wood and iron.’

  ‘I know what a bloody ship is, Durn… Wait. Iron?’ Farden sputtered. He could feel sweat under the collar of his fresh tunic. ‘Last time I checked, old friend, iron sank in water.’

  Durnus winked with a misty eye. ‘Not on this ship, it doesn’t. She is rather special indeed.’

  Farden eyed the ship as a farmer might eye a sabre-cat he’d just that moment found snoozing on his doormat. Fondness wasn’t a word that sprang to mind when ships were mentioned, especially in the dubious context of stepping aboard one.

  ‘Examine her all you want, Farden,’ Durnus said, a hint of pride in his voice. He didn’t need his eyes to know the ship was a masterpiece, he’d run his hands over it enough, had every line and rivet described to him countless times. ‘She is the first in a long line of warships that we will build. The Arka need to rule the sea again. She is no Sarunn. Tyrfing and the shipsmiths have seen to that.’

  That she was not.

  The ship was a monster. In every angle the eye could take. Tall, long, and wide, it towered into the cloud-painted sky with deep red masts the colour of bleeding mahogany. It stretched along the wharf-side like a sleeping giant, barging the choppy, oily waters of the port aside with its swollen sides, bristling with circular shields of iron and arrow-slits. Yet despite its size, it looked as nimble as a pike, as though it had been forged, no, born, in the stormiest of seas. Stout, sharp, and deadly. It lounged in the waters like a smug king on his throne. Farden’s misgivings started to fade.

  The ship was stern-on to the city, nuzzling up against the fender-lined arc of the busy, rime-encrusted wharf. It had been invaded by big crates and yelling workmen. Farden slowly traversed its well-trodden planks, feeling drowned by the bustling bodies. Seagulls and rimelings filled the air above, whining and harassing each other in the meanwhile.

  The mage examined the tall flanks of the ship. They were made of stout oak beams, Hâlorn timber by the pale shade of it. Obsidian pitch seeped from where t
he joins overlapped. And there, as Durnus had said, the higher planks were clad in riveted iron, dull in colour but polished to an inch of its life. It glittered with sea spray.

  Farden waded through the crowds to the bow. There, splayed across an iron flank in white paint and steel letters, was the monster’s name: Waveblade. What a blade it was. The bow looked like it would slice rock in two, never mind the rolling waves. It arched out of the water like the curve of a Paraian scimitar. Every inch of that bow was clad in the same dull metal. Thick, riveted plates of iron. Barnacles dared to cling to a few of them, but they were swiftly being evicted by a gang of sailors dangling from ropes, brandishing chisels.

  At the very front of the Waveblade, just beneath the sharp bowsprit, a figurehead sprouted from the metal. She was a twisted mermaid, tail slapped against the iron. She held a huge broadsword aloft. Farden stared at her, half-expecting her gemstone eyes to stare right back. His eyes wandered down her naked body. Her tail and Siren-like scales had been painted a dark orange and sulphurous yellow, so perfect and bright that they too looked as if they would shiver into life at any moment. Her silver sword ran along the underside of the long bowsprit, like a spear aimed at the distant blue-green sea. Mermaids were vicious creatures. A fitting figurehead, for a warship like this.

  Farden reached out to touch the armoured bow. The iron was cold, even in the morning sun. It felt rough to the touch, despite its polish. Salt-bitten, but without the faintest hint of rust. Tyrfing had put something special into it, he could tell. Farden ran his thumbs over the rivets that pinned the metal to the oak beams. Runes and spells hid here and there between the overlaps, whispering of shipsmith’s spells; sealing charms, strength runes, and whatever else his uncle had seen fit to include. Had Farden looked down into the dark waters trapped between the ship and the salty fenders, he might have seen more runes, glowing dimly in the half-light. Script battered onto the iron keel, like the ink of a Written’s book. The ship was a monster, indeed.

  Farden slowly made his way back to Durnus through the crowds of servants, sailors, and general gawpers. The Arkmage hadn’t moved. He stood alone, yet surrounded. Narrow-eyed guards stood in a circle around him, wary of the shouts and calls coming from the boardwalks not too far behind, where the crowds were.

  ‘Remind me again why we can’t use the quickdoors,’ asked Farden, hands thrust firmly into his pockets once again. He threw the ship one last dubious scowl.

  Durnus shook his head. ‘Aside from the quite obvious fact that you in your current state would fail to handle the journey, the magick has made them unpredictable, dangerous. The last mage we sent through came out bent double,’ he said.

  ‘That doesn’t sound too bad.’

  ‘Bent double. Backwards. Spine snapped like a twig. I am still trying to forget the screams.’

  Farden winced. ‘Point taken.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Durnus replied.

  ‘And Ilios?’

  ‘After his encounter with Samara, he is lucky to have any wings left. The fall nearly broke both. He has only managed a few short flights since, if hopping and fluttering can be called flights,’ Durnus replied. Farden frowned. A shout rang out from the boardwalk then, from somewhere in the depths of a cowardly crowd. The guards murmured. Durnus closed his eyes and let his ears drown in the noise of the dissenters. ‘It is getting worse.’

  Farden glared at the busy boardwalks. Peaceful for the most part, but, like the morning embers of a campfire, they were an inch away from igniting. ‘Ungrateful bastards. The lot of them,’ he said.

  ‘No, Farden, they are the misled masses. Coerced by coin and religious talk. Blindfolded and conquered by cheap notions. It is people like Malvus, and the rest of the Marble Copse dissenters in the council, that are the ungrateful bastards, the greedy whores, and the power-drunk liars.’

  ‘What are we going to do about them while we’re gone?’

  ‘We? No, Farden. I am staying to hold the fort.’

  Farden was genuinely disappointed. ‘Alone?’

  ‘Better alone than abandon this city altogether. Though I suspect that Modren will stay also, given the circumstances. The people have been given enough to complain about without absent Arkmages and Undermages. He and I will remain, to fight Malvus in the great hall, and to show the people that we are not as inept as they have been told. Truth is a blunter dagger than lies, but it is of a stronger steel.’

  Farden found himself smiling. He watched his old friend’s face as it creased into a frown, like bleached paper crumpling. It was a face that had seen several thousand years waltz by, and yet now there was a a depth of life underneath it that could never be understood. ‘Gods, I’ve missed your pearls of wisdom,’ Farden mused.

  The Arkmage shrugged. ‘Hmm, they have been rather scarce of late. Scarce and dun.’

  ‘So have a lot of things.’

  ‘Speaking of scarce, your crew has finally arrived,’ Durnus changed the subject.

  Farden looked around. ‘Where?’

  ‘In the streets. Behind us.’

  Farden looked over the Arkmage’s shoulder, bewildered. ‘How did you…?’

  Durnus tapped the corner of his eye with a finger. ‘You’ll get used to it.’

  As predicted, a long file of people emerged from the crowded boardwalk, flanked by a phalanx of spear-waggling soldiers and mages bedecked in light, sea-blue armour. They were silent, stoically ignoring the insults and shouts, the spit and the glares. One bystander had the audacity to fling what looked to be a rotten orange. Luckily for him, the timid little missile missed.

  The group descended a wide set of stairs and strode across the lower boardwalk, weaving through mountains of crates and barrels like a lazy eel. Farden counted their faces. Tyrfing and Modren, both grim-faced and stern; Jeasin was there too, led, by a mage he didn’t recognise. Loki and Heimdall walked behind them. They were as blank as virgin parchments. Behind them, bringing up the middle and the rear, were the Written. They were in full armour, straight from the battlefield, visors down, hoods up. Every single one of them had a bow and quiver strapped to their back, a sword dangling from their hip, and a weapon of choice balanced in their steel palms. Nobody dared fling anything, never mind an innocuous orange, at these men and women. Not a thing.

  As the line drew alongside Durnus and Farden, the Written, the soldiers, and the sailors peeled off and headed straight to the gangplanks of the Waveblade. The others lingered behind, silent, pensive. Modren most of all.

  ‘What a fine day for a sail,’ remarked Farden, as they all stood in a rough circle. He looked up at the towering stern of the ship, built like the swollen turret of a castle. ‘And what a fine vessel,’ he muttered.

  ‘Something wrong, Farden?’ asked Tyrfing.

  ‘Ships and Farden don’t get on, if you’ll remember.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  Farden turned to Modren. ‘I hear you’re staying?’

  ‘I am,’ grunted the Undermage, absent-eyed and distant.

  Farden nodded. ‘That makes sense, considering Malvus.’

  Jeasin piped up. ‘And it looks like I’m staying too,’ she said. Farden had guessed as much. It was probably for the best. He had dragged her around enough. She crossed her arms. ‘I don’t suppose I’ll be of much use to you on a ship.’ Then she put a finger to her chin. ‘Then again…’

  There was a pregnant pause. A few eyes swivelled to Farden. They knew the manner of woman Farden had brought back. ‘Er…’ he attempted.

  But Jeasin didn’t wait for his answer. ‘Don’t like ships anyway. Don’t even like boats. Make me sick. Besides, I’ve ‘ad enough of followin’ you ‘round, mage. What’s one more whore in Krauslung, anyway?’ sighed Jeasin. She couldn’t help but sound very alone. ‘And there ain’t point in goin’ for the sightseeing, either.’

  ‘That there is not, madam,’ interjected Durnus. ‘Perhaps the two of us should pool our resources. Two blind people are better than one, after all.’

  Jeasin loo
ked a little shocked by that. She hadn’t realised she wasn’t the only blind person in the group. She found herself curtseyeing in Durnus’ direction, and said no more.

  ‘We are wasting time,’ said Heimdall, his voice like rolling boulders.

  Modren nodded and waved his hands toward the Waveblade. ‘That you are.’

  ‘All aboard then,’ said Tyrfing, pointing the way. Farden stood by his side, and waited to catch Loki’s arm.

  ‘You and I have unfinished business, god,’ he hissed in his ear.

  ‘Which side of this face would you like to hit this time? The right, for a change, or the left again?’ Loki tapped each of his cheeks with his finger.

  ‘I’m not going to hit you, despite how much I would like to see the colour of a god’s blood.’

  Loki chuckled quietly. ‘I invite you to try, mage. You’ll be sorely disappointed.’

  ‘I bet it’s gold, perhaps with a dash of red.’ Farden squinted at the god, trying to glean some smidgeon of truth from his reaction. But Loki’s face was utterly blank. In fact, his expression actually bordered on confused.

  ‘Are you attempting to bludgeon me with riddles now, mage? Or is there something you wanted to ask me?’

  Farden sniffed. Perhaps he had the wrong god. His eyes flicked to the stern of the ship, where a taller, darker god now stood against the railing. He met the mage’s eyes and then turned away. Farden slowly released Loki’s arm. ‘Lie to me again, and I’ll bury you in those neverending pockets of yours,’ he whispered darkly in his ear, but, annoyingly, Loki departed chuckling. Farden turned back to those who had stayed behind.

  Durnus was wide-eyed, fuming like a forge. ‘I trust that Loki was joking about you hitting him?’ he hissed.

  ‘Oh,’ Jeasin smirked. ‘He weren’t.’

  Farden thought about glaring at her but shrugged instead. ‘Gods don’t know how to joke, old friend,’ he replied. Durnus barely fought off the urge to give the mage a piece of his mind. Lectures could wait. ‘Anyway, has Ilios or Heimdall had any luck in hunting her down?’

  ‘Ilios is clouded by her. He always has been. Heimdall has better luck. A faint trail,’ he said, ‘leading north into the mountains. It was all he could see. She’s shielded herself again.’