Harbinger

by Shae Ford

  He was about to get an arrow ready when Kyleigh stopped him. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  Every instinct in his body was screaming for him to get ready for a fight. His heart was thumping so vigorously against his ribs that it made his hair stand on end.

  “Listen to me.” The shadow of her hood dulled the color of her eyes, but made them no less serious. “This isn’t our fight — but if you draw your bow, it will become ours. And I promise we won’t win. Whatever happens, you must stay back with the others. You must protect them. Will you swear it?”

  He’d already failed once, and he wouldn’t do it again. So against all reasoning, he ignored his instincts and dropped the arrow back in its quiver. “I swear it.”

  She smiled. “Good man. Now get behind me.”

  They waited several long moments before someone on deck cried out: “I hear it! It’s on the port side!” And a whole company of soldiers abandoned their posts to run across.

  “I don’t hear anything,” someone said after a moment.

  “I swear I heard it,” the man insisted. “It was a strange, creaking sort of noise.”

  “Seas help us,” another man gasped. “It’s the ghost of the leviathan, I know it is! The great, bloody monster is opening his jaws to swallow us!”

  Someone smacked him, and he yelped.

  Then a hollow, groaning sound, almost like the final gasp of a rotted tree tipping over, came unmistakably from the starboard side. Swords hissed as they flew out of their scabbards and a horde of feet pounded for it.

  They stopped their charge just as the whole boat began to shake. There was a clap of thunder — ear splitting and sharp. The world turned on its side as the deck rocked violently. Bodies tumbled overboard; screams were cut short as the waves sucked hapless men to their deaths.

  Aerilyn rolled into Kael with a squeal, pinning him against a crate. While he fought to right himself, the boat groaned and stayed tilted at a dangerous angle. The ropes the sailors used to tie down the cargo trembled as the weight of gold and silver pushed them to their limits. One rope finally gave out.

  It snapped, and the large crate it held broke free. It flew towards them, urged on by the slant of the boat. Panic gave him the strength to put his hands under Aerilyn and shove her out of the way, but he was too late to save himself.

  He’d prepared to be crushed when Kyleigh slid into him. She knocked him aside and caught the crate under her boots, using her legs as a wedge to hold it at bay. When the boat finally rocked back with a shudder, the crate slid forward.

  She ignored his astonished look and glanced behind him. “Is everyone all right back there?”

  Aerilyn’s hair was piled up in a knot and her skirt was ripped down the side, but other than that she seemed fine. Jonathan was stuck in a tangle at the back of the canopy. A crate full of silk had fallen on him and he was trying to dig himself out from under a mountain of brightly-colored scarves.

  Panicked shouts rang out across the deck, and Kael nearly jumped out of his skin when a roar of voices answered them. Shadows slid in and out of the fog, grappling with one another. The shriek of metal striking metal cut over the top of everything, it stabbed at them from all sides.

  “What’s happening?” Jonathan said as he crawled towards them, kicking free of the last scarf.

  “I told you this would happen!” Aerilyn wailed. “I told you we should have gotten off this boat. But you didn’t listen, and now we’re being attacked by pirates!”

  Kael’s mouth went dry. The sounds of battle were growing steadily weaker, trailing away as one side won out over the other. He hoped the soldiers held their ground. At least the Duke had laws: there was no telling what pirates did with their prisoners. But it probably involved sharks and a good amount of flogging.

  “How will we know if they’re pirates or not?” Kael said.

  Jonathan snorted. “You’ll know. They’ll be the ones with gold teeth and bones weaved into their beards!”

  “Who cares what they look like? We’re all going to be murdered —!”

  “Shhh!” Kael clamped a hand over Aerilyn’s mouth. They were talking too loudly on a ship that had suddenly gone deathly quiet. If there was anyone still onboard, they would’ve heard.

  He had an arrow nocked and ready. Blast what Kyleigh said — if man or beast came charging out of that fog, he’d bring it down. He watched the fog, searching desperately for any signs of movement. For a long moment, all he could hear were the quick breaths of his companions and the thudding of his own heart. Then, something creaked.

  It was a careful sound, a practiced one. A noise caused by a man who was used to hushing his footsteps. He probably cursed when he stepped on that plank, because it might as well have been a battle horn: now Kael knew he was coming.

  A shadow moved behind the wall of white, and then a dozen others joined it. They began to take shape, swaying slowly back and forth as they inched closer. The first man stepped out of the fog and blinked, as if he hadn’t been expecting to see them so clearly.

  He wore a long black cloak that fell to his knees and had a red, upside down V painted on the front of his white tunic — a mark that stood out even in the fog. In one hand, he held a slender cutlass. His face was clean-shaven, his jaw set tight. He had the eyes of a man who’d lived for a thousand years.

  And the mouth of a man who hadn’t learned to smile in any of them.

  He waited until his cloaked companions formed a half circle around him before he spoke. “A pox on the Duke,” he said, and the others leaned forward and collectively spat. “You’re under the rule of pirates, now. And you’ll answer our questions.” He pointed his sword at them. “Which of you is the mage?”

  “None of us practice magic. We’re simple travelers,” Kyleigh said.

  The serious pirate frowned. “You don’t work for the Duke?”

  She spread her arms wide. “Do you see an emblem on my chest?”

  “A tunic is easy to change,” he countered, his voice every bit as flinty as his stare. “You could be a liar.”

  “True. Or I could be on my way to help your captain.”

  His face hardened, his eyes narrowed. “You know nothing of my captain, landscab. And if you aren’t careful, I’ll gut the lot of you.”

  Kyleigh stepped out from the shelter, watching him from under her hood. “I know all about your captain. I know about his trouble with the Witch,” she said quietly, and the pirates stiffened. “I know that he’s at his wit’s end — that he’s poured over every tome in his ridiculous library and still hasn’t found an answer. And I happen to know what he needs.”

  The other pirates shifted, their hooded heads turned in the direction of their leader, waiting for his answer. He finally sheathed his sword and mirrored her, crossing his arms. “What’s this information going to cost me?”

  She shrugged. “Our lives, for now. I’ll discuss the rest of my terms with Captain Lysander.”

  A round of anxious whispering broke out among the pirates. The serious one took an involuntary step forward. “Where did you hear that name, landscab?” he growled.

  “I have my sources,” she replied coolly.

  He looked on the verge of hitting her, but instead his mouth bent in a smirk. “Well, I hope your sources weren’t wrong — for your sake. Come with me.” He marched back into the fog, and Kyleigh followed.

  Kael didn’t know if they were allowed to come or not, but he certainly wasn’t going to stay: the pirates were trying to roast him alive with their glares.

  He slung his pack over his shoulder and hurried past them. Aerilyn latched onto his shirt and he could hear Jonathan stumbling along behind her. Once again, he found that if he swung his arms the fog cleared enough for him to see where he was going — which came in handy on a ship littered with crates and bodies.

  The first soldier they came across was the one who’d taken their coin. There was a bloody hole in the middle of his chest. His face was frozen in shock. Kyleigh knelt beside h
im to retrieve the purse from his belt.

  “And that’s the cheapest way to travel on the High Seas,” the serious pirate said approvingly. He looked over her shoulder and his eyes found Kael. “I know you’re not a mage, but since flapping your wings is magically clearing out this fog, how about you get up to the front?”

  There was a large dose of sarcasm in his voice, and absolutely no nonsense on his face. So Kael dragged his line of followers up even with him. He felt stupid waving his arms, now. And he thought that might have been the pirate’s point. But it was too dangerous to worry about feeling stupid.

  More than once, he had to tell Aerilyn not to look down because the scene at their boots was beyond gruesome. Several times they had to walk over bodies and through dark, sticky puddles. At one point, he heard Jonathan gag and lose his breakfast — which made the pirate chuckle.

  When they reached the far side of the boat, he saw immediately what had caused them to nearly tip over. The noise he’d heard wasn’t a thunderclap, but the sound of their boat being struck by another. Now the starboard side was all splinters, its railings were cracked and fallen over on the floor.

  A large ramp dropped out into the middle of the wreckage and led directly upwards, to the deck of a monstrous ship.

  It perched on the ocean like it had every right to be there — easily thrice the height of the merchant vessel. There were four levels, and whoever built it must have used the tallest tree in the Grandforest for its mast. Waves slapped against it, but couldn’t so much as shift the massive planks of deep red wood that made up its side.

  “Welcome aboard Anchorgloam,” the pirate said as they reached to top of the ramp. “She’s the toughest vessel to ever sail the High Seas. No tempest can take her.”

  Kael seriously doubted that. He’d seen drawings of tempests in the Atlas, of waves the height of castle towers and swirling pits of water with no bottom. The meetings rarely turned out well for the ships.

  The fog was, if possible, even thicker aboard Anchorgloam. He had to swing his arms twice as much and they still managed to run into people. “Sorry about that, miss,” a pirate said after he nearly knocked Aerilyn flat. “It’s hard for a fellow to see in this blasted stuff.”

  They followed the serious pirate to the back of the ship, where a small cabin sat on top of the deck. The pirate went to rap on the door and cursed when it swung open. “Steady, lad!” he barked.

  A sandy-haired boy looked sheepishly out from behind it. “Sorry, Thelred. I was just coming to get you.”

  “Why? Is there something wrong with the captain?” Thelred asked, a surprising amount of concern in his voice.

  “Not yet, but we’ve run out of wine and now he’s turning sour.”

  “Perfect,” Kael heard Aerilyn grumble. “We wouldn’t want a sober man deciding our fate.”

  A rumble of thunder trailed her words, and Thelred glared up at the sky. “Get in, all of you. Pick your feet up,” he snapped as he pushed them through the door. “You follow at the rear, Noah.”

  The sandy-haired boy nodded and took the place behind Jonathan.

  When they stepped through the door, it was like they fell through a portal and wound up in the middle of some wealthy man’s hallway. The walls were made of dark red wood and every square inch was polished to a shine. Glass-covered cases were built into the walls, each one holding a different treasure or trinket.

  There were coins dating back to the time of the first King, tarnished and green with age. One case was full of gold-spined books, opened to pages written in strange, curling symbols. A pearl the size of Kael’s fist sat on top of that case, and it was so polished that he could actually see his reflection on its ivory surface. The plaque beneath it read Seeing Eye of Argus Yar.

  Kael nearly gasped. No one knew what happened to the eye of Argus Yar — a Seer so powerful that legend told he could travel into the future. Though Kael thought he’d believe in the legend before he believed the eye had wound up in the hands of pirates.

  He came to the next case, one that held a simple broadsword — badly chinked and rusted from use. He read the plaque that claimed it was the Arm of Vindicus the Broken, and he snorted.

  Thelred turned around. “Is something funny?”

  He wanted to say that something was funny; that he thought Thelred’s face looked as if he had a barnacle stuck somewhere highly uncomfortable. But since he probably could’ve drawn his cutlass faster than Kael could draw his bow, he didn’t.

  “This isn’t the real Arm of Vindicus,” Kael explained. “Everyone knows that the King keeps the real one locked in a case over the door of his armory.”

  Thelred smirked, and the gesture didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Everyone does think that — which is why no one comes looking for this one. And if you’d like to keep them, I suggest you put them away,” he added, without taking his eyes off Kael.

  Behind him, Jonathan had been reaching out to touch the pearl. But after Thelred’s warning, he stuffed his hands hastily back into his pockets.

  At the end of the hallway was a solid wooden door. Two twisting sea serpents were carved into it. Their mouths were open — revealing two rows of needle teeth. The one coiled around the handle seemed to snarl at Thelred as he turned it.

  The door opened up to a large room. Two of its walls were covered in shelves of books, stretching from the ceiling, over the doorway, and down to the floor. It only took Kael a second to realize they were all arranged alphabetically. He scanned their titles and itched to read through them. One in particular caught his eye: Travels with Shapechangers.

  It was a thin volume, but exciting nonetheless. He didn’t know there were any books at all devoted entirely to shapechangers.

  A small bed folded out of the third wall, neatly made up with cream-colored sheets and fluffy white pillows. The space was decorated, inexplicably, with a pair of striped knickers framed like a painting.

  In the very center of the room, a large desk squatted on stubby legs. There was a quill and parchment tucked neatly to one side of its shiny top, and a rolled map on the other. Behind the desk were three clear, floor-length windows that overlooked the foggy sea.

  There was only one thing in the room that didn’t quite fit, and that was the man sitting at the desk. Well, perhaps slouching was a better word for it.

  While Thelred and Noah had been a bit of a disappointment, this man looked exactly the way a pirate ought to. His shoulders sloped downward and his head lolled from side to side, as if they were making him seasick just standing there. His mouth gaped open through a ratty tangle of a beard that stretched down past his collarbone. His brown hair stuck out like the frayed edges of a rug.

  He blinked his bloodshot eyes. “’Ow man’ we loss, Red?” he mumbled.

  Thelred clamped his hands behind his back and frowned. “None, Captain.”

  “Goo’,” the captain said. An empty decanter sat by his elbow. He slung his arm out and knocked it onto the floor, where it shattered. “Don’ een usa glass do I?” He let out a scornful laugh, then dropped his hairy head. “Can’ do ‘is no more, Red. Is jus too ‘ard.”

  A quiet, tinkling noise drew Kael’s attention to the windows. Soft drops of rain pattered against them, sliding down in uneven lines while the captain shook his head and moaned. Kael thought he could have done with a slap around the ears.

  Thelred deepened his frown. “I know. But I’ve brought some people who might be able to help us.” He took Kyleigh by the arm and led her up to the desk. “This one knows your name. She says she has your answer.”

  The captain belched loudly and flicked his hand at her without even looking up. “Snake oil ands ‘moke! I nee ‘em —”

  “Like I need a broken sword,” Kyleigh finished.

  His mouth fell open. He slung his head back and squinted at her. “Yous ‘peak our lang’ed?”

  She pulled her hood back and planted both of her hands on the table. “Hello, Lysander. I’d heard things weren’t going well, but I m
ust say that I didn’t expect to find you in such a state.”

  Finally, realization seemed to dawn upon the befuddled captain. “Loo, Red!” He jabbed an unsteady finger in Kyleigh’s direction, grinning like a fool. “Is the Draggurl! I’ms ‘aved!”

  Chapter 20

  A Bargain

  That time, even Thelred didn’t catch what the captain gurgled. “The what, exactly?” he said with a frown.

  Lysander slapped both of his hands on the desk top. “Th’ Draggurl! Y’know.” He curled his fingers and made a high-pitched noise. It sounded a bit like a cat stuck under a cartwheel.

  When Thelred just shook his head, Lysander stood. He swayed and rocked dangerously back on his heels. “Abouf ‘ace! To Wendegorim!” he barked. Then he spun, lost his balance, and fell headlong into the nearest bookshelf.

  Several large tomes rained down upon him, including one on philosophy that conked him smartly on the head. He said a few words that made Aerilyn gasp before he hurled it across the room, demanding that it be locked up in the brig immediately.

  “Sit tight, Captain,” Thelred said as he hauled him up by the front of his shirt. “Try not to move —”

  “Th’ Draggurl!” He grabbed a fistful of Thelred’s hair and wrenched his head to the side. “Drag — un — gurl.”

  That did it. When Thelred finally saw her without her hood up, his mouth dropped open. He lost his grip on Lysander — who flopped back on the ground with a moan.

  Thelred stepped closer to Kyleigh, lightly, as if he was now suddenly afraid of her. He looked over her once before his mouth went tight. “My apologies, Dragongirl. I didn’t recognize you. Had I known —”

  “Things would have been a lot less interesting,” she said with a smirk. “And stop with the titles, Red. You know my name.”

  Thelred shook her hand, and Noah rushed forward to be next in line.

  Realization struck Kael like a blow to the shin. Good lord, her friends were pirates. These were the men who were mad enough to help them: this lot of drunken thieves with their magic fog. He could’ve kicked himself for trusting her.