The Bloodheart

by Steve Rzasa

  “What? Of all the times… Lad, they would have killed us first given the chance.”

  “But you struck first, not they.” He stares at me with those eyes, sorrowful and maddeningly earnest all at once, doing their best to fill me with guilt.

  “I’ll not apologize for defending my crew or you from the likes of those savages. If we’d let them aboard we’d all be dead, and they’d have the Bloodheart. Would that be to your liking?”

  Luc frowns. He touches my knuckles. “You could have made them cold. Like the golem.”

  “No.” I brush him off. “I will not do this now. You find somewhere to secure yourself and stay close to Gridley.”

  Ice prickles my hand. I grit my teeth but don’t shake it off. No need to show him how deeply the sensation bothers me.

  For a moment I fret I’ve hurt Luc. But his stance remains defiant. “You got rid of the bodies, but not the blood.” He walks off with Gridley trotting in his wake.

  He’s right. I wipe water from my face. There are dark stains in several places on the deck, but no other trace of the corsairs. Niall saw to that. One shove and each body went over the edge.

  Cannon fire booms.

  “Captain! Bow chasers!” Ariya takes wing, crossbow at the ready. “Let me have at them.”

  “I said no! Stay with us!” The corsair ship is close enough now I can plainly see the dark cannon ports open beneath the bowsprit. It’s as if the ship has eyes, and it’s glaring down at us. A flash of fire and puff of smoke issues from one. The sound catches up to us a moment later. The ball blasts by to port. A miss. But close.

  I bank Sleet to starboard, and up, turning in to the midst of eight islets packed like sheep huddled for warmth against the squal.

  Sleet obeys, ever nimble. She slips by one islet and drops down under another that’s so close I cringe waiting for a spar to snap. None do, thank heaven. We move in such accord I cannot tell whether my hands guide my ship or she steers me.

  The corsairs, unfortunately, are just as agile. Their ship slides between the rocks without a care in the world. I scowl. So their captain is not all boasts. He can fly well.

  That hardly proves him the best.

  Rain pelts us. Visibility worsens with every passing moment. The smell of wet hempen rope, wet cotton sail, wet everything permeates the air. Even the sharp cold of the wind is not enough to banish it.

  Niall shouts a warning. I give the rise-wheel a spin and Sleet drops fifty feet so swiftly my stomach heaves. The hull groans and the ropes hiss in their mounts. Our mast scrapes by the rocky tip of the underside of an islet tenfold greater in size than my ship. Pebbles join the pelting rain.

  Ariya swoops overhead. “You had best not put too much strain on the aethershard, Captain, lest the cannons be the least of your worries.”

  “I’m well aware!” Twin cannon blasts boom behind us. One whistles by, the sound dying out. The second explodes a nearby peak, throwing up a spray of rock shards and dirt clumps.

  “Keep wasting your balls!” Niall shouts until he’s hoarse. “You couldn’t hit the broad side of a dragon’s arse!”

  “Niall! I appreciate your fervor but can you lend your talents to something more productive? Say, lookout?”

  “Fair point.” Niall turns about. “Ah, good idea on your part. Hard a lee and up!”

  The winds shove us along, with no sign of slowing. I follow Niall’s direction, for I have no desire to impale us on the peak rising from the fog like a whale breeching. There comes a great bump and the screech of rock dragging on wood. Sleet shudders.

  Damnation. I’ve gone and clipped a mountaintop.

  The fog suddenly rolls in around us, thick as a wool blanket. Too much sail. We’re too fast. But we’re almost to the summit.

  Two more cannon blasts come. One snaps a handful of lines to port, and a sail slackens. The second tears six feet of the starboard rail clean off, leaving stumps of wood and showering the deck in splints. Niall finds cover under his cloak.

  Ariya drags rope from the deck and flings herself aloft once more. I don’t look to see how many lines she’s able to rig up in this mess, but it doesn’t take her long to bring the sail back under rein.

  Luc watches it all impassively. He’s not belowdecks, as I thought he would go. He’s come right back to my side, by the wheels. Gridley whines, and sticks close to us. I feel his frustration as if it were my own. “They can still see us. We’re too close.”

  “The fog is thick,” Luc says.

  “Not thick enough to hide us.” The peaks and islets are terribly close here, like a monster’s teeth bared.

  “Can you make it worse?” Luc tilts his head to one side.

  The fog? Can I make it worse? I blink, rather stupidly I suspect.

  It is water, after all, Bowen.

  But it means summoning the ice again. I cannot.

  “Bowen! If you have a plan inside that stone skull of yours, this is when we need it!”

  Niall is right. This is the only way we can evade the corsairs. I hate it.

  I reach out toward our pursuers with my left hand, rain-slicked and cold even before I begin the summoning. Steady on the wheel. I make for the nearest pair of islet and peak. “Niall! Full sail!”

  “Aye, but you’re a madman!” He yanks on the lines nonetheless.

  I hear nothing else but the word I need: Glacii.

  My hand ices. Blue light throbs. I put the barest will behind the words. No blast of frigid ice needed here. Just a subtle crystallizing of water into ice.

  The blue glow unfurls a sheet of white that sparkles and shines. It lances out, dead on to our pursuers. Blue streaks spread out among the rain and fog, sharp to the eye. Fog thickens, becomes a white mass as dense as any blanket.

  I get a glimpse of the corsair’s sails before they disappear. An islet the shape of a lounging cow and five times our size looms out of the clouds directly ahead.

  Now!

  I crank the wheels hard. Too fast and the aethershard with fracture. Not fast enough and we will die. My left hand is numb and frosty, but I grimace and force it to move. The hull scrapes against the peak, ever so slightly. Niall is thrown to the deck. Gridley barks in alarm. We brush under the islet, with the barest of touches.

  We’re through.

  The corsair ship’s prow cuts the cloud like a knife. They stay in pursuit. The twin cannon ports glare at us.

  There’s no time to fire, or adjust their course.

  The hull dips suddenly and banks to port but it is far too late. The mast drags long the bottom of the islet until it snaps. Sails buckle and tear. The impact drops the corsair ship hard toward the peak below. If their captain is worth his aethershard he’ll avoid another collision and give time for the shard to bring them further aloft. But he’s not fast enough, I see.

  A tremendous thunder accompanies the crack of wood and cries of the men as the hull slams into the mountain. There’s a flash, a spark—doubtless from their powder magazine. For a moment I can see the black silhouettes of bodies scrambling for the ship’s rails. Then the whole works blows apart in a searing fireball. Even from this distance I feel the heat. The explosion echoes far and wide. Shockwave rumbles deep in my chest.

  There’s silence as we sail on. And silence from below. No cries for help. Only the crackle of fire and the hiss of rain turning to steam.

  My head spins around faster than the wheels. I’m gone over the edge. Or am I standing firm on the deck?

  “Steady, Captain.” Ariya takes the wheels from me.

  Niall grabs my shoulders. “Hold fast. You’re staggering worse than if you’d downed a whole bottle of whiskey, and I’ve seen you do just that.”

  I shake my head. Terrible mistake. The spinning churns my stomach. I have to sit. My arse thumps onto the deck. The whirling subsides.

  Slowly. “It worked.”

  Luc wipes tears from his eyes. “They’re gone.”

  “Yes. And we’re alive. Take solace in that.”

&nb
sp; “No. I won’t be glad they’re dead.” Luc glares down at me. “Like you are.”

  He’s off to belowdecks, finally. Gridley stays, licks my face. He has that puzzled expression plain as day. What is it with you?

  Never mind me. What of him?

  Ariya has us turned back on course for Zadar. Niall gives a wave from further up the deck: the sails are set.

  Blast that boy. Worst of it is, he’s right. By fire or not, I’m glad they’re dead.

  I hate the magic inside me all the more.

  THE FOURTEENTH CHAPTER

  ~

  Zadar.

  Its name calms my nerves without uttering it aloud. White beaches spread out along a squat peninsula, facing deep blue waters of the Adriaticus. The city itself is a huge cluster of thirteen islets, each no more than a quarter mile across, floating a hundred feet over the water. The glow of aethershards shimmers in the shadows between the bottom of the island and the waves. White buildings with terracotta roofs sprawl across the isles and the shoreline below, some towering edifices of three floors home to the wealthy no doubt, others one room hovels with crumbling sides. The beaches are lined with groves of glistening palms that wave dark green fronds at us as we arrive.

  Ships. Ships everywhere, of every size and of every flag. Turks and Arabs, Ceylonese, Chinamen and Slavs. Cloudships and the old reliable seagoing vessels. The latter crowd together between the curve of the peninsula and the mainland, sheltered in a wide bay flanked by long, rolling hills. I choose us one of the two dozen berths linked to the island, floating above the seaborne crowd.

  Niall shouts a greeting to an Irish merchant vessel. Its crew gives a boisterous welcome. I laugh. It’s good to be back.

  The sun has dried the rain from our decks, and baked the blood into permanent stains.

  We spend little time on provisions, and arrange for a pair of trusted carpenters to mend the broken rail. It’s off to Kolovare’s inn, by way of a huge staircase hewn from chalky gray stone, a ribbon of traffic between the floating isles and the anchored lands. Men, women, dwarves, reptiloids, and all manner of creatures who have the spark of intelligence walk up and down the ancient, weathered steps. Hundreds of feet create an endless rumble.

  One cannot visit Zadar and skip Kolovare’s. It sits a few steps off the beach, a long, low motley collection of buildings made of stucco and wood, brick and sandstone. Hideous. Yet there’s such laughter and ribaldry echoing from its doors that it cannot be avoided.

  Niall and I are greeted by familiar faces, captains with whom we’ve had long-standing acquaintances—and of course, rivalries. Gridley deigns to let a flurry of hands pet him and soaks up the praises in good humor.

  Their boasts and tales do not interest me, but I listen anyway. My ears are keen for any word about the Bloodheart, or its accompanying relics.

  Niall, however, soon has a woman for each arm and a tankard of ale for each hand. He’s in the midst of a dozen men and women, bragging of our encounter with the corsairs and by all appearances completely oblivious to his bandaged wounds. By my hearing there’s at least two more ships and a hundredfold more men than we fought. The young lady with the golden curls at his side is enraptured by this tale, but the brunette is decidedly less enthralled. She takes the ale from his left hand and downs it. Niall doesn’t notice.

  Ariya will have none of this. Likely than not she’s perched atop Sleet’s mast, legs crossed, meditating or somesuch. The Aevorn are not a particularly social folk. Especially not with humans. Besides, she thought it best if Luc remained out of sight and under secure watch. I agreed.

  “Isn’t this a welcome sight: Bowen Cord come down from the clouds.”

  The voice is smooth, playful and delightfully female. Vesna Juric stands against the bar. There’s nothing I can do to restrain my smile. She and I have not seen each other for a year, but she hasn’t changed in any way I can notice. Her hair is still the same lustrous black, falling well past bare shoulders. Eyes as blue as the sea itself watch me as I walk toward her. She wears a pale green dress and a white apron smeared with stains of food and drink.

  “Vesna, how I have missed you.” I take her hand and press her knuckles to my lips. “You radiate beauty as nothing else in this world or the skies above it.”

  She smiles back. Ruby red lips threaten me with distraction. “Such a charmer. I have missed you, too, that is certain. But your visits here are hardly pleasure stops. Am I correct?”

  “As always.”

  “Come, let us find some privacy.”

  She snaps her fingers and orders a young man to keep watch at the bar. We find a small room around the back, down a hallway that is cramped and dark. There’s scarce room for two people to walk beside each other. A fine excuse to stay as close as possible to Vesna, and drink in the flowery perfume from her hair.

  We walk a long way to the back of Kolovare’s before Vesna opens the door to a staircase. We climb to the second floor, and she leads me through a familiar door to a familiar room. There’re two windows looking out over the sea. Two wooden chairs, a small table, and a long bed with a deep blue cover and bright white sheets. There’s also a cabinet in one corner, made of a heavy pine and inlaid with hypnotic designs, and a dresser off to the other side.

  I brush a hand across her shoulders.

  “So forward of you, Captain.”

  “My apologies.” I sweep past her into the room and settle into the nearest chair.

  “Liar.” She crosses to the cabinet. The sway of her hips is something to be admired. Vesna glances back, catches me looking. I simply widen my grin. She rolls her eyes, but does not banish the smirk from her lips.

  “So what have you brought to me from afar, Bowen? A lovely tapestry? I still have the one from Nigeria, with the gold tassels.” She opens the cabinet doors and removes a bottle of wine. Deep red. She pops the cork and the most delightful aroma fills the air. Two glasses clink together as she pours.

  “No, no furnishings this time.”

  “Weapons, then. Those daggers from Malay fetched a fine price. We both made a handsome sum from their sale to the mercenaries up north.” Vesna sits, offers me a glass. The wine has a heady bite to it.

  “You’ll have to guess far better than that.” I swirl the wine in its glass. “This is something… special.”

  Vesna laughs. The sound sets my heart racing. Memories of softer laughter, this very room… “They’re all special, to you.” She crosses her legs.

  Should never have accepted the wine. Not right off in our discussions. When it comes to negotiating a price she has far better…assets to bring to the table. “How special is a soulmage relic, would you say?”

  Vesna’s eyes go wide. She takes a long drink from the glass, draining half. “Soulmage relic. Don’t toy with a woman’s affections, Bowen.”

  “Never, Vesna. It is a soulmage relic, of that I have no doubt.”

  “Your proof?”

  “We slew a golem to secure it.”

  “Dragon’s flame!”

  “Indeed.” I drink more wine. Very pleasant, this vintage. “The relic is made of platinum.”

  “How large?”

  I show her with my fists.

  “That could bring enough wealth to buy this place free and clear.” Vesna sighs. “The Kasun family still owns the lion’s share. Four years since Hector died, Bowen, and they still don’t think I’m capable enough to take charge. Why, I’ve had more profit in five seasons than Hector did in his whole ownership!”

  Hector died of the same fever that took Cassia and countless others that harsh winter. A sea breeze wafts through the windows. “Maybe they think you need a new man to partner with.”

  She kicks me under the table, right in the shin. I laugh, despite the sharp pain. “You always did know how to get my goat,” she says, eyes narrowing.

  “Only fair, given that you often prevail in our negotiations.”

  “Yes. That is true. So let’s continue. There’s a man I know. Mirko. He know
s the right people with whom precious metals will be highly valued.” Vesna finishes her wine. “So I will take it to him—”

  “No, I think not. You can bring this Mirko here.” The idea of letting the Bloodheart go still fills me with unease. Yet I must be rid of it.

  But if there are more relics…if there is something to Evan’s tales of the powerful light…

  Vesna leaves her seat. She brushes her hand along the tabletop. I cannot help but watch her hands, long and slender, as they slide along the wood grain. “He’s a great deal distance away. It may take a week, by the time a message reaches him and he can make the journey.”

  “If he’s willing to shell out silver for this relic, he can certainly stand the hardship.”

  “Certainly.” She leans against the table, her leg pressed to mine. “So we can share the proceeds, seventy-thirty.”

  “Ah, no thank you. I need at least fifty percent.” I reach my hand behind her knee. She laughs and slaps my hand away.

  “Sixty-five thirty-five.”

  “Don’t toy with me Vesna.”

  She sits astride my lap and puts her arms on my shoulders, her fingers intertwining with the hair at the nape of my neck. “Ah, but I do it so well.”

  “Fifty-five forty-five.” My hands may be tingling with ice but the rest of me is on fire.

  Vesna’s lips tease mine. “I accept your terms.”

  We melt together into a kiss.

  ~

  It’s dark but for the glitter of stars overhead, diamonds on velvet. Shadows of ship’s hulls block the magnificent display, heaving at their moorings as truculent hounds on the leash. The black hulks of nearby isles stand still, with specks of soft green light glowing from the aethershards that hold them aloft. The breeze is cool, prickling my skin. We lay atop Kolovare’s roof, hidden from all below and above yet observant of the world.

  “You’re uneasy.” Vesna props her head up on her arm. With her other hand she caresses my tunic. “You’re never this pensive.”

  “Aren’t I?”

  “Your memory’s fading if you cannot remember the last time we shared this roof.”