by Barb Hendee
He stepped down the passage to the hatch stairs, and when he reached the deck, he headed for the aftcastle stairwell. As he passed under the lanterns hanging there, his gaze caught on the dagger glinting in the light. He noticed a crack down the blade's center.
No, a seam.
It ran perfectly straight, ending well short of the tip and the cross-guard. Sgaile studied it more closely.
The black-filled seam was so thin he could barely run a fingernail along it, and the char-colored material that filled it was as hard as the blade itself. He lifted it closer to his face and caught a whiff of cinders-or perhaps it was just the lingering smell of the heated cavern.
Sgaile headed onward for the one place a proper hilt could be made. When he reached the center of three doors in the ship's aft, he knocked gently upon it.
"Enter… Sgailsheilleache," a deep voice answered from within.
Sgaile had not met the ship's hkoeda, yet the man called him by name. He grasped the latch, peering around the door's edge.
Inside the ship's heart-room chamber was a tall elf dressed in plain canvas tunic and breeches. His feet were bare, and he stood beside the large bulge in the floor that was the root-tail of the vessel, this living Pairvanean.
By the lantern's light, he appeared gaunt but young. With his own hands, he massaged the root-tail's base with fresh seawater. Sgaile smelled the strong aroma of herbal oil permeating the chamber.
"What do you need?" the hkoeda asked.
But Sgaile was looking beyond him.
Below the side walls' higher ledges, two long tanks stretched the full length of the heart-room. From forewall to the stern, their shorter walls flowed out of the floor, and each was filled with seawater. Within those two containers, something moved beneath the water's surface.
Like the ship's own tawny root, yet ending in roundly pointed heads, their tails undulated and flexed, making the tanks' waters ripple gently.
"You have 'swimmers'?" Sgaile asked, distracted from his purpose.
"Yes." The hkoeda's soft smile faded. "I once served on a military Pairvanean and grew accustomed to their company."
Sgaile hesitated. Hkoeda lived out their lives on the Pairvanean with which they bonded. If this one had once served another vessel, then he had suffered a great loss-no less than one suffered in the loss of a life-mate, and not all survived such a loss. But Sgaile had never seen "swimmers" except on vessels guarding the open waters of his people.
Perhaps they were an added blessing, but he hoped there would be no need of such on this journey.
"I would ask you to grow wood for a hilt," he said, and held up the long dagger.
The hkoeda's melancholy faded. He stepped closer, bare feet slapping wetly across the floor, and took the blade, raising one eyebrow slyly at Sgaile.
"Well… this is unusual." His smirk only rankled Sgaile more. "Not a typical blade for an anmaglahk."
Sgaile had never cared for the inappropriate joviality of hkoeda.
"Just the same," he said shortly, "please treat it as such in preparation. And when the wood is fitted, wrap it thoroughly in gut-hide, so the wood is not exposed."
The hkoeda nodded and turned away. He placed a hand on the bulge in the floor, still shimmering wet with seawater, and laid the blade atop the root-tail's center.
"We have something new to do," he whispered to it, and then, seeing Sgaile still in the doorway, he flipped a hand in dismissal. "Off with you. We will let you know when your new toy is ready."
Sgaile shook his head as he left. And perhaps he closed the door a little too hard.
This had been a very, very long day.
CHAPTER NINE
Magiere stood on deck with her companions as the crew loaded boxes and barrels into two skiffs. After three days, their ship had reached its next layover.
The cargo grate was still open, and she looked down to see the hold was nearly empty. She turned back to the wild coastline where one dock served a small settlement upon the rocky shore. Leesil stepped up beside her, and everything seemed peaceful.
But it wasn't. She could feel it.
The crew stole furtive glances at them. They were far too quiet, even considering the presence of humans on their ship.
Sgaile, Osha, Chap, and Wynn joined Magiere at the rail-wall.
"What's wrong?" she asked quietly.
Wynn kept her eyes down.
"Last stop," she whispered. "We have reached the end of an'Croan waters. If not for us, the ship and crew would turn back north for Ghoivne Ajhajhe. Because of us, they cannot go home."
Magiere didn't doubt Wynn-as her explanation made sense-but sometimes the sage's interpretations weren't completely on the mark.
"Is that true?" she asked Sgaile.
His thick hair hung loose today, blowing around his face in coarse, white-blond strands. The effect made him look less proper and civilized. Before he answered, the hkomas closed on all of them, speaking short, clipped Elvish. His leathery skin looked rough next to Sgaile's, and the two conversed in careful tones.
Chap stood near Wynn, watching them.
"What's this about?" Leesil asked.
Sgaile glanced at him and then Magiere. "It is true-we have completed the last stop. The hkomas agreed to take you wherever you asked, but now he… requests a more specific destination. He has sailed out of our waters a few times, but the southern coastline is perilous for his ship and crew."
"Is the weather more severe beyond your waters?" Wynn asked.
"No," Sgaile answered slowly. "It is a matter of protecting this vessel, as it is not military."
"So you have other ships guarding your people?" Leesil suggested.
"We have vessels which patrol," Sgaile confirmed and returned his attention to Magiere. "I must tell the hkomas something. Willing or not, he expects to know how far he is to go and where he leads his crew and this ship."
Helplessness made Magiere almost as angry as did fear. She studied the hkomas, who stared back with hard eyes. He looked about fifty in human years-which meant he was much older for an elf. He crossed his sinewy arms in stiff challenge, and for all Magiere's frustration, she couldn't blame him. She'd have felt the same in his place.
"I don't know," she finally answered. "I wish I did. We need to keep heading south, until I get a sense of when to stop."
"That is not specific enough," Sgaile countered.
"What about a time frame?" Leesil suggested. "Ask the captain to carry us south for seven more days. If Magiere hasn't found the right place by then, he can let us off, and we'll go on foot. Either way, we'll get there in the end."
He touched Magiere's arm with a knowing nod. "And well before anyone else."
Magiere only cared that they kept going but shouldn't have felt so urgent. Her half-brother, Welstiel, couldn't know where she was or that she had a lead on what he was after. But sometimes she forgot Leesil's way of cutting cleanly to the quickest solution.
"Yes, tell the captain," she said to Sgaile. "See if he'll agree to that."
Sgaile conversed with the hkomas, but the man shook his head and snapped something back. They fell into another sharp debate, and all Magiere picked out was "Aoishenis-Ahare."
At those words, the hkomas wavered. He nodded curtly and walked off.
Magiere winced. "You asked him in the name of Most Aged Father?"
"You have your seven days," Sgaile answered coldly.
Magiere was even more unsettled by this. Most Aged Father's influence could be dangerous.
Well before midday, the skiffs returned from their last trip ashore, and the ship set sail, heading south.
Chane walked out of one hell to sit and rot in another.
A few nights had passed since they'd boarded, and the Ylladon ship ran south at full sail. The vessel was barely as large as a schooner, and its hull was made of double-thick planks overlapped upon each other. It was reasonably swift, but he had learned little since the night they had boarded- when he was ushered below de
ck with Welstiel and the ferals to their "accommodations."
Chane stood in the rocking ship's dank, dark, half-filled hold.
Sabel crouched nearby, rocking on her haunches as she hummed a tune Chane did not recognize. Her eyes had turned glassy and lost again. All the monks were starving.
So far, the crew had been staying clear of the hold, although upon boarding, both the captain and the helmsman, Klatas, had studied Sabel the same way the captain had first eyed Welstiel's globe of lights.
Chane expected the crew to attack at any time. Each dawn he fought off dormancy as long as possible, still gripping his sword when he finally succumbed.
Upon rising tonight, Welstiel had gone off on his own, leaving Chane to watch over their tattered and pathetic group. The two younger males and the silver-haired one curled unmoving upon the hold's floor. Sabel and the fierce curly-headed man crouched in place as if vaguely aware of their surroundings.
If Welstiel intended to use these monks in acquiring his treasure, they needed to be fed tonight or risk incapacitation-and Chane wasn't far behind. Should the crew move against them, even these mad undead might not all survive the fight.
Chane held up a hand to Sabel as he headed for the door. "Wait here. I will return."
The hold was in the stern, but crew quarters were located near the bow. Leaving the hold and finding himself alone, Chane crossed over to a port-side stairwell up to the deck. At its top, he cracked the squat door and waited.
He smelled life on deck. Each time he saw someone moving, he restrained himself from lunging out. He waited for the right sailor to come near, ignoring a thin, middle-aged man and one less than twenty years old. He could only risk taking one and needed someone large and healthy.
A portly sailor in a rust-colored shirt and open vest turned around the mid mast, and as he strolled within reach, Chane lashed out with one hand.
His fingers clamped across padded jowls and thick lips. He jerked the sailor into the stairwell. The sailor bucked and thrashed.
Chane slammed his fist into the back of the man's skull, stunning him limp. He dragged his prey halfway down the stairs. A pulse still pounded just below the man's stubbled jawline, and Chane could not hold back any longer. He bit hard into the sailor's throat, drinking in gulps.
He hardly even tasted the blood, and sagged in relief at life's heat filling him. Then he snapped his head up as if someone had jerked a chain around his neck. He had taken enough to sustain himself, but oh how he wanted more.
The man began to rouse, struggling weakly, and grunted beneath Chane's hand.
If anyone heard and came to check, Chane might find himself quickly outnumbered.
He dragged the sailor along the cross hall and down the passage to the hold's lower door. He kept fierce pressure on the man's mouth and throat, only letting go long enough to flip the latch and shoulder the door open. He did not notice the change in the hold until he had the sailor halfway inside.
All the ferals were on their feet or crouched in waiting. Wide eyes fixed on Chane's prey, as if they knew he was coming and what he brought.
Sabel began shaking. Between her parted lips, her canines had already elongated. The curly-headed monk sniffed through both his nose and open mouth as if he could taste the blood in the air.
"Quietly," Chane warned. "If you wish to survive."
The curly-headed one rushed in.
Chane shoved the sailor forward, shut the door, and backed against it.
The sailor sprawled across the hold floor as the two younger monks rounded to both sides. The man tried to shout but only managed a gurgling gag. He backhanded one feral and reached for his cutlass. The curly-headed one slammed his iron cudgel down on the sailor's head.
The sailor flopped limply, and the monks fell upon him, ripping into his skin and suckling his spilled blood like dogs. Sabel was the last to join in.
She bit into the man's thigh, shredding canvas breeches to get at his flesh. Her head lifted with a squeal, and the gray-haired male slammed his palm into her face, knocking her back. He dove for the wound she had opened. Chane almost stepped in, but Sabel snarled at the elder monk and slashed his face with her fingernails.
Her attack launched a frenzy, and all of them began fighting each other as they tore the sailor apart.
Chane began to panic.
A loud ripping of heavy cloth came from somewhere above on deck.
Chane heard men shouting wildly to each other, and then running feet as voices calmed. Whatever had happened above, it did not sound critical, and he was thankful for anything that might mask the raucous sounds filling the hold.
He turned his head away, pressing an ear to the door to listen and hoping the feeding frenzy would not last long. But inside him, the beast pulled on its chains and howled to join in the slaughter.
The sailor had fallen silent beneath the grunts and gibbering, the wet sucking, and the tearing of flesh. When the noise finally waned, Chane was panting-another succulent meal denied the beast inside of him.
He looked back and stared at… it.
One arm and an opposite leg were torn off at the sockets. The head was nearly severed, and only the vertebrae held it in place. A younger male still sucked upon the raw half of a hand he'd bitten off. The curly-haired one licked at the red-drenched floor.
Chane could barely believe the mess on the floor had been a man only moments ago.
Sabel lifted her smeared face from the thigh stump of the severed leg. Below colorless eyes, her smile broadened, exposing crimson-coated teeth.
"Thank…," she stammered at Chane. "Thank."
Chane clenched his jaws against his churning hunger. He did not want their gratitude-only their continued survival, until Welstiel needed them.
All that Sabel had once been was lost. He had to accept that and try not to think of anything beyond this moment.
"Clean this up," he hissed at Sabel, and gestured toward the dismembered body.
He circled round the feast's remains, searching for spare canvas to soak up the gore, and then spotted a hatch high up in the hull wall. Climbing onto a crate, he pulled the iron slide bolt and pushed it open. Sea wind hit his face and cleared the aroma of blood from his head. When he looked back, Sabel was the only one on her feet, watching him as the rest gnawed at the remains.
"Bring the pieces," he told her.
Chane dealt with what followed in cold fashion, from severing the head and remaining limbs to gutting and dividing the torso with his sword so the pieces would fit through the small opening. Sabel hauled these up to him as he returned to the high hatch. But when he reached down to her once more, she just stood there and cowered under his gaze, as if he, like Welstiel, had issued a command she could not fulfill. Then she glanced back at the others.
The other monks were still sucking on their scavenged bits and pieces, like beggars at a noble's back door when the meal's remains were tossed out. The older man's face was slashed from temple to chin from Sabel's fingernails.
Chane climbed down, closing on them.
"Drop it!" he ordered.
The old man merely wrinkled his nose.
Chane whipped his sword around and blade's flat side thudded hard against the old one's back. The elderly monk dropped his morsel and spun away, locking his eyes on Chane. All the ferals froze in place.
"Stay down!" he hissed. "And drop the pieces."
As much as Chane had no wish for Welstiel to walk in on this mess, his presence would have made this far easier. The curly-headed monk inched forward a step. Chane swung the sword tip directly in line with his face.
One by one, the ferals relinquished their morsels. Chane kept his eyes on them as he kicked the pieces across the floor toward the hatch. He backed away, gathering the bits and throwing them out the hatch. But the floor was hopelessly soaked in blood.
Even if he had a way to drain water off after rinsing it, the stain had already soaked into the wood. In the end, he could only goad the ferals into wipin
g it down with a spare tarp, and then he tried to cover it up. The ordeal was over, and the monks looked more alert.
Chane longed to be away from here and from these mad creatures. Sabel peered at the older man's face and the scratches she had made, and then looked to Chane.
"He will heal," Chane said. "The life he has consumed will do the work." Sabel tilted her head with a frown, and Chane did not know if she understood. A few strands of her wavy dark hair were glued to the drying blood on her cheeks. She pointed to the older man.
"Jakeb."
Chane paused, for it sounded like she recalled some part of the man's name.
"Jakeb," she repeated, and then pointed toward the curly-haired one. "Sethe."
She squinted at the younger pair of men, and twisted her head like an owl, huffing in frustration.
Chane found the sight tragic.
He backed into the hold's far corner and slouched upon a canvas-covered bulk.
Welstiel walked the deck, pretending to take the night air while carefully examining the lay of the ship.
Even the sailors not on duty were still up on deck and sat playing cards as they passed around a clay jug. Clearly, they were unaccustomed to having passengers walking among them, and they stared at him openly. Klatas and his captain watched from the ship's stern.
Welstiel felt relatively safe, though he knew it was temporary. And then this crew would get its own final shock. He counted a total of only fourteen men, but they handled the ship with the relaxed efficiency of a long-term crew.
He strolled casually toward the bow and, with a rapid flick of his hand, peeked under a tarp covering something large up on the rail. Underneath, he found a ballista-a large mounted crossbow that fired quarrels heavier than a footman's lance. He had already spotted three other such covered bulks positioned around the deck. The ship was armed for fighting.
A voice called out above, and Welstiel looked up. One sailor was watching him from a crow's nest. He barely had time to lower his gaze before Klatas was halfway to him.