By Blood Hunted: Kingsblood Chronicles Part Two (The Kingsblood Chronicles Book 2)

by David J. Houpt

  Alan agreed, clapping Snog on the shoulder. “Let’s hope he’s overconfident. It’s not like we have a firebolt thrower at our disposal,” he said, referring to Snog’s final shot in the battle against Belladonna.

  ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

  The four wraiths climbed higher as the stormclouds obscured the last rays of Rula’s hated light that speared over the horizon. Keven’s singing was supported by the other two spellcasters, who droned out a harmonic mantra to give their brother the power needed to conjure a storm of this magnitude. Although Keven’s talent at weather magic was far in excess of his sisters’ capabilities, he was not blessed with as much raw power as either Radiel or Darwyn and needed the help.

  The once-women despised weakness and might have taunted Keven about his shortcomings had their quarry not been so close. Their usual cruelties were notably absent—even toward Alec, other than the minimum required to keep him leashed—as they focused on the preparations they’d planned to make their assault on their brother’s ship the most effective. Instead of complaining about Keven’s lack of Mastery, they poured power generously into the weather magic, warping the weather pattern in the region from relatively calm to a whole gale in a matter of a half of an hour. Alone, Keven would have been able to bring down a localized thunderstorm, but nothing like the storm that now held Indigo Runner in its grasp.

  The temptation to simply sweep down and strike was nearly overpowering, but something had been protecting their youngest brother from the massed power of all of Rishak’s mages and seers. It was possible that the magic that shielded him from the scryers’ eyes could also defend him from attack. Further, he’d had time to hire mercenaries—perhaps even mercenary mages!—to aid in that defense, so the three wraiths had decided that discretion was the better part of valor. How that decision galled them now, however, with Lian so close!

  ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

  Indigo Runner’s crew had finished their work with several minutes to spare, and the merchant ship was back under control, the storm sail holding them on course and into the oncoming waves. Qan’s own hand was on the helm, lending his strength to his best helmsman, a tall man from Esros named Kanzil, who reminded Alan of Arden in his easygoing manner.

  The storm continued to build, creating waves more than twenty-five feet high, many of them rolling over under the wind’s onslaught as they crested. The waves generated white froth that spat foam downwind in a near-continuous spray, making it difficult to see, even with darksight, and before long the merchant ship was plunging bow-first into the trough between the waves, her spar dipping into the water before rising up out of the waves, sluicing water across the foredeck each time.

  “Captain!” yelled the first mate as he struggled up to the stern deck. “The main hatchway’s battened tight, but I don’t know if it’ll hold against the water!” Even a foot of water depth over the twenty foot square cover was literally tons of water weight, and the wooden hatch could give way with disastrous consequences.

  Qan nodded, having felt the mass of water from the last plunge grab his ship and then let it go as the deluge ran off the sides. “Let her come two points port!” he ordered the helmsman, and they broadened their reach more than twenty degrees, setting a course partially diagonal to the wind and waves. This worsened the ship’s pitching, but she slid down the wave faces more smoothly after cresting, throwing less water over the bow and starboard quarter.

  Alan’s heart skipped a beat as he took in the deck, the wind, the ship’s relative heading to the waves, and the waves themselves. He was gripped in a powerful feeling of déjà vu for a brief moment, and then the feeling passed.

  What is it, my boy? Gem asked with concern.

  The prince replied, I’m not sure. It’s like I’ve seen this before somewhere… His thought drifted off as he shook himself. “Lord Grey, if we have to fight, we’re going to go over the side. Is there anything you can do about it?” he asked, knowing that the captain and crewmen would never hear him over the roaring wind and waves.

  Alan’s concern was a real one, for the deck of Indigo Runner was pitching twenty degrees in each direction, fore and aft, port and starboard, and the changes in direction were sudden and often without warning despite the fact that Alan and Snog could see in the dark. Coupled with the wind—now gusting at nearly fifty knots—and waves, it was a recipe for being thrown overboard.

  Lord Grey replied, “Not really, Alan, I am sorry. You’ll have to lash yourselves to the railing to fight, as limiting as that will be.”

  Gem said aloud, “That won’t be necessary if Snog’s a good enough actor to cover my spellsinging and Lord Grey can conceal the glow in my gemstones.” Although her true gilded form was concealed beneath illusion, the glow of the enchanted gemstones in her hilt and crosspiece would emanate from within it and be clearly visible.

  “What do you mean?” Alan said, keeping up the sham of talking to Snog but directing his query at the blade.

  “I have devised a spell to let you and Snog walk on the deck despite the storm,” the sword replied. “I thought such a thing might become necessary after the fight on Searcher when the lizards were leaving that slippery gunk on the deck.”

  Alan’s eyebrows rose, as did Snog’s.

  “You devised a new spell?” the voice of the skull asked, amazement more than evident in his tone. “In truth, Gem, if ever you stop surprising me, my life will become just that much more boring.”

  Alan cut the conversation short. “I don’t know how long we have until the weather witch attacks, so we’d better get to business. Snog, try to sing along with her, or seem that you’re doing so,” he said, “and Lord Grey, if you can cloak the glow of her gemstones, I would appreciate it.”

  The skull gathered power and a cloak of darkness settled around the four of them, cutting them off from the captain, mate, and helmsman. None of them were possessed of any mage talent, and none noticed they couldn’t see Alan and Snog any more; it was pitch black, and the feeble light of the lanterns and the single witchlight didn’t clearly illuminate the afterdeck anyhow. This ability to draw down darkness was one of the enchantments bound into the skull itself, and Lord Grey’s power required no utterance of song.

  In the center of that darkness, Gem began to sing, surprisingly low and well within Snog’s range, although the goblin was no kind of singer even in the range of notes he could reach.

  “What in the name of Vellantis’ hairy ass?” Qan exclaimed in surprise as the spell began. Even in a howling wind, spellsinging had a way of carrying and being heard. It was one of a magician’s few true weaknesses.

  “Don’t be concerned, captain,” shouted Alan to him. “It’s just Snog singing some goblin ward against drowning.” It was close enough to what the spell was doing—which he could feel already—for his purposes.

  “He’s a spellsinger?” Qan asked, a speculative tone in his voice.

  No doubt calculating the value of a spellcasting goblin without a pesky Staikali yeoman in the way, Alan thought before replying aloud. “Just a shaman, not much of a sorcerer.”

  To Alan’s surprise, Qan’s speculation appeared to have been in another vein entirely. The captain shouted, “Pity, he might have been able to calm this sea somewhat. It’s the wrong time of year for this kind of blow, and I have no idea how long it’ll last.” Neither Qan nor his mate were that concerned about the ship coming apart in the storm, for the biggest danger of any gale was running aground, and they were far from any shore.

  As soon as the spell was completed, Alan could feel the deck beneath his feet become somehow more solid, as if it weren’t rain-soaked and pitching heavily. Experimentally letting go of the railing, he found that the ship’s movement didn’t affect his balance or stance at all. At the same time, Lord Grey dropped the darkness shrouding them, and within moments, Alan—who had never really suffered from motion sickness before—felt a sudden vise-like sensation around his head, a symptom of seasickness. His eyes told him that the ship was still pitching hard in the
storm and that the wind was buffeting the men about the deck, but his inner ear was now telling him that the ship wasn’t moving at all, and the discrepancy was making him nauseous.

  He looked at Snog, who was now calmly standing on the deck chewing on the end of a stick of dried meat. The goblin had not taken well to the sea at first and had been severely seasick for a few days when they’d first boarded the Searcher, but there was no sign of it now, and Alan found he envied the goblin now as much as he’d pitied him then. Swallowing down his nausea, Alan tried to ignore the uncomfortable and alien sensations, but was soon forced to lean over the aft rail, vomiting into the spray. He tried to aim toward the lee side as much as possible, as he and Snog were on the weather side of the helm and he really didn’t want to spray the bile into Qan and Kanzil’s faces, or back into their own for that matter.

  He needn’t have worried about that—the wind and rain were so thick, the spew was lost into the darkness, and the rain sluiced the remainder off his face in moments.

  Are you going to be all right? Gem asked, concerned. She hadn’t expected this sudden violent reaction to her spell’s effects.

  I’m fine, he said, feeling a bit more like himself with his stomach voided. I’ll probably puke up my guts again in a little while, though. He called upon all of the self-awareness he’d learned under Elowyn’s tutelage in the elven martial art form known as aythra to force his gorge back down and to ignore the conflict between eye and ear. Focusing only on the ship helped, but it was hard to ignore the sea rising and falling twenty and more feet alongside Indigo Runner. All of the instincts he’d learned in his months at sea were warring with him, but still he fought it down.

  “Last thing I needed right now,” he said weakly to Snog, who was giving him a steadying arm.

  “Aye, and I see how it’s happened,” the goblin replied, experiencing the same thing without the enervating symptoms the other was suffering. “I wish my hangover cure worked on the wave sickness.” He had sympathy for the young prince, but they couldn’t afford Alan to be incapacitated.

  “Gem, even with the sickness, he’s better able to fight this way, but you may have to cancel the spell if it gets worse. He can’t be laid up,” the goblin said. “Just warn me so I can tie off on somethin’ or other.” He didn’t like the idea of being blown out into the water.

  Alan agreed. “I can fight if we need to. So long as I can keep on my feet, this is better than being storm-tossed,” he said, clenching his teeth against another wave of nausea and hoping it wasn’t going to get worse.

  As he gazed forward across the deck, the strong feeling of déjà vu returned, gripping him like an icy hand around his heart. This time, he wasn’t able to look beyond it, as it overwhelmed all of his senses. The nausea was forgotten as he took in the pitching of Indigo Runner, the height and bearing of the waves, the way the wind whipped the wave tops to white foam that sprayed across the water surface. Even the ship’s course as she tried to keep the waves from washing over the bow was part of it, and he realized he’d seen this exact awful situation before. Dear gods, it’s like in the dreams, he realized, turning to Snog in alarm as he felt the alienating sensation of the moment of foresight.

  ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

  Do you sense that? Darwyn asked once the weather had reached the point where Keven could sustain it alone. It’s black magic of some kind. Although her nature was now Undead, the former princess of Dunshor didn’t have any experience with necromancy; none of the spellcasters did.

  Radiel didn’t know what she was feeling, either, and she shook her head, knowing Darwyn could sense the gesture even if they were unable to actually see one another in the thick clouds and rain. It had begun as they’d drifted closer to the merchant ship, inexorably drawn toward their quarry, a sense of something dark and malevolent on the ship below them. It both attracted and repelled them, and it was outside of their experience.

  Do you think Lian would have hired a black-robe? Alec asked, alone among the four having felt necromantic magic before on one of the many campaigns against the Undead when he was alive.

  Choking back her immediate urge to lash magical pain toward her older brother, Radiel forced herself to consider his words. He’d hire one if he thought it would keep him safe somehow, she replied to her elder brother. The damned elf taught him too well for him to leave a tool unused.

  Alec nodded, trying to think. Reasoning of any kind was difficult, but he was trying to please Radiel so she’d let him off the leash to attack. The black-robe needs to be a priority, then. He’ll have magic that can hurt us.

  Radiel would have gnashed her teeth if she had a physical form, for her half-wit of a useless brother was right, and that irritated her. She hissed her exasperation and turned toward the other two, devising a countermeasure that would work on the necromancer their quarry appeared to have retained.

  ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

  “It’s the nightmare happening,” Alan said, his voice sounding strangled in the raging storm. “It wasn’t Searcher, it was Runner, I can see that now! This is the storm in my dream!”

  “That’s no’ good news, milord,” Snog said, drawing forth Fang and squaring his shoulders. “There’re four of ‘em in those dreams, no?”

  Lord Grey’s voice was once again at the perfect volume to carry to Snog and Alan but to go no further. He said, “That’s both good and bad, my friends. It probably means that the weather mage isn’t as formidable as I feared, but it also means he’s got at least one ally who can channel power to him.”

  “We’d best assume all four are spellcasters,” Gem said, “which means I don’t dare hide my abilities. As soon as hostile magics approach, I’ll have to go to work to give you the opportunity to bring them down.”

  Alan agreed. “The captain’s too busy helping Kanzil keep her from rolling over to do much about us revealing ourselves, but it might be hell to pay afterward.” If there is an afterward, he thought grimly. In every dream, he’d died a terrible death.

  The howling wind surrounded the ship as the waves tossed her about, but the rain began to slacken and visibility improved to some extent. The windblown foam and spray still filled the air, but the goblin and man could see much better. To their immense surprise, Olivia Quivell had managed to work her way aft of the main cargo hatch and was dragging herself toward the stern. She looked around as if she could see, and Alan suspected she had some enchanted item in her possession that granted her witchsight. To the wealthy, such trinkets were fairly common.

  “Stay with me,” he said to Snog as he went forward to help her. He didn’t want the goblin far from the protection that Lord Grey and Gem could provide.

  He reached her in moments, his passage not impeded by the wind, rain, and pitching of the ship, and closer to her he could see her face was battered and bleeding from several cuts. “Lady Quivell!” he shouted over the wind, “what are you doing?”

  She grabbed onto him tightly, surprised at how steady he was. “The storm was tossing me from one wall to the other in my cabin, Alan!” she shouted back, her eyes wide in near panic. She’d either chosen not to wear a veil or had lost it to the storm. “I had to get out of there!”

  Nodding grimly, he helped her up to the afterdeck, where the possibility of being washed overboard was less. If she hasn’t secured the forward hatch properly… he thought to Gem, but before he could try to go forward to check, he had to get Olivia secured.

  He looped some of the light line he had coiled beneath his pack around her and lashed her to the railing, leaving her about twenty feet of slack. “You have a blade?” he asked her, and when she nodded, continued, “If Indigo Runner goes down, you cut yourself loose, mind. She’ll pull you under if you let her, and in the sea, you’ll have some chance.”

  “Don’t leave me here!” she pleaded, terror widening her eyes.

  Snog, apparently thinking the same thing about the forward accessway hatch, caught one of the sailors’ attention and sent him forward to check. The man hurried to comply—an
open hatch in seas like this could be disastrous.

  Seeing that the hatch problem was taken care of, Alan shook his head. “I’m not leaving the stern deck, don’t worry!”

  To Gem, he added, She may not know it, but she won’t want me standing next to her if the storm mage tosses a lightning bolt our way. He’d have preferred that she’d stayed out of harm’s way in her cabin, but he understood how terrifying it must have been to be alone in the cabin while the ship was being wave-tossed. Moving away from her, he scanned the skies and seas for any sign of enemies. Snog was situated along the rail nearly dead astern, keeping his own watch.

  Gods help us, Alan prayed, and hoped they were listening.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The five elements can be channeled by those with the power and talent to do so, to be wrought into spells of great utility and deadly force. Fire can be made to heat water, or to burn one’s foes. Earth can be used to raise a wall, or to tear it down. Water can be used to irrigate crops, or to drown one’s enemies. And air can be used to cool, or to freeze.

  But the most powerful element by far is the element of void, what the elves call iari. It is from the void that all thought and creativity arise, but it is also the void from which the Dark Corruptor and his Undead minions draw their power.

  The void lies above, below, and beyond the four elements, and also lies both in complement and in opposition to the others, and that is why each of the four lower elements are effective tools against the Undead in many ways but utterly ineffectual in others.

  -- “The Fifth Element,” by Kirestev, Alchemist-King of Dunshor, 2214 PE

  The strain in Keven’s tone was evident, and even Radiel had to admit he was demonstrating a mastery of weather magic that was more than sufficient to the task at hand.

  I’m holding the rain back, now find the damned black-robe and fry him! Keven said when he reached a momentary pause in the spellsong. It helped that he didn’t need to catch his breath, so he could use the musical rest to communicate instead of inhale. The upper reaches of the storm rang with the echoes of his song, reverberating and reamplifying off the clouds, punctuated by the lightning striking all about them, the thunder crashing in brutal counterpoint to his magical power. Far below, the wraiths could see Indigo Runner still making way against the storm-whipped waves, salt spray whipping across her starboard-to-port, her crew huddling against the wind and lacerating spray as they struggled to fight the storm.