The Devil's Library: The Windhaven Chronicles

by Watson Davis

  She took a deep breath and turned to peer up at Tethan, crossing her arms over her chest. “What do we get out of it if we do?”

  Tethan smiled, the smile transforming his face into something impish and boyish, something lighthearted and playful. “You mean, besides keeping your ship?”

  “We are simple working folk.” Kalo shrugged. “I’ve heard there is quite a bit of treasure there.”

  “So have we.”

  Dyuh Mon hissed, “Say yes.”

  # # #

  “What about all this shit?” Gartan said, raising his arms to a pile of boxes and crates full of flour, dried meats, and bread.

  Tethan’s brow furrowed. He glanced back at Makal and shrugged his shoulders, gesturing toward the crates. “This is the stuff for the Blue Barracuda? Right?”

  A cool breeze blew off the sea, the puffy clouds overhead moving quickly through the blue sky, darker clouds behind them, growing closer.

  Makal walked up next to Tethan, nodding. “Yeah, I think so.”

  Gartan turned to them, his arms still raised. “Yeah? So why the fuck is it here instead of in the hold of the Blue Barracuda?”

  “I don’t know.” Tethan’s heart thudded, his lips suddenly dry. “That was Mitta’s crew, right?”

  Makal cleared his throat. “Yeah. I think that’s right.”

  “If you two don’t know where the hell this stuff is supposed to go, how the hell should anyone else?” Gartan slapped the side of Tethan’s head, knocking him several steps to the right.

  Tethan glared at Makal, who clasped his hands behind his back and averted his eyes.

  Gartan stormed past the two of them, stomping down the wharf, Tethan and Makal jogging to catch up.

  Mitta stood at the junction of the fifth pier, overseeing her Brightfox clansmen carrying chests, with Leedy of the Icefangs standing next to her.

  “Mitta?” Gartan asked, striding toward her with his arms spread. “Do you know about these crates of foodstuffs sitting over here in the sun spoiling?”

  Mitta, not tall for an Onei woman, put her fists on her hips, her head tilting back, her eyes narrowing to slits, nostrils flaring. “What is your problem now, old man?”

  Gartan walked beside two Brightfox warriors, Angrid and Kilil, carrying a chest with a colorful silk rug draped over it. He studied the rug, picking it up and lifting the lid of the chest below, revealing the golden coins and gemstones inside. He dropped the lid and the rug, letting the chest slam shut. He stopped before Mitta, crossing his arms over his chest, with Tethan at his right elbow, Makal at his left. “So Tethan told you to load that stuff and you decided not to?”

  “I don’t take orders from anyone, especially Skybears,” Mitta said.

  “We need to have enough food to feed everyone all the way to the Nayen coast,” Gartan said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and back again, his chest rising and falling more rapidly.

  “Yeah?” Mitta grinned. “We had second thoughts about that.”

  Gartan nodded. “Second thoughts, is it?”

  “This is an awfully large city right here,” Leedy of the Icefangs said, waving back to the city behind them. “We could load up all the ships here and still not get everything. You want to risk going across the sea? Why do we need more than what’s right here?”

  “Did I ask you leeches to come along?” Gartan’s voice rose and his eyes grew wide and wild. “No. You told me you were coming. I never wanted you to come along, but if you back out, that leaves me and my plans in the lurch.”

  “Dad,” Tethan said, his voice soft, reaching out to touch his father’s forearm. “Let them go. Like you said, we were going to go without them anyway. Besides, like I said last night, this is already the greatest raid ever. We can go home now and be remembered by the bards forever.”

  “Shut up!” Gartan twisted Tethan’s arm around, forcing his son to his knees and then kicking him away. He turned back to Mitta and Leedy, rising up on his toes. “Go ahead and go, you fucking cowards, you fucking lying parasite lickers.”

  Tethan leapt up, reaching out and grabbing his father, pulling him back, with Makal on the other side holding Gartan’s left arm.

  “Let me go, you gods-be-damned traitors!” Gartan screamed, squirming in Tethan’s and Makal’s grip, giving ground as they half-carried him back. He pointed at Mitta and Leedy. “I’ll beat those smiles off your fucking faces.”

  Brightfox and Icefang warriors surrounded them, hands on their axes, their eyes watching Mitta for a command, but they backed away, clearing a path for Tethan and Makal, with Tethan whispering, “Calm down, Dad. We don’t need them.”

  When they passed pier four, Tethan let go of his father, with Makal following his lead. Tethan held his hands out toward Gartan and said, “It’s fine. Everything’s fine.”

  Gartan growled and swung his arm, striking Tethan on the side of his jaw with the back of his fist, sending Tethan stumbling to his knees, blood streaming from his lips. Gartan grabbed his son by his shoulders, lifting him from the ground, saying, “If you ever take anyone’s side over mine in an argument ever again, I will spank you before all the clans like the spoiled fucking child you are. Do you hear me?”

  Tethan squinted. A fireball appeared from nowhere out past the mouth of the harbor and was flying up through the air. “Dad?”

  Gartan shook him. “Do you fucking hear me?”

  Tethan swept his foot across his father’s ankles, pushing at his father’s shoulders, dumping Gartan onto the deck. Backing away, Tethan freed his axes from his belt and pointed to the mouth of the harbor. “Is that a fireball coming down at us? Are we under attack?”

  Gartan sprang to his feet and stared. “Well. Fuck.”

  The Shrian Counter

  General Agidius stood on the deck of his flagship, The Pride of Ujosh, clasping his hands behind his back, his chin out, projecting strength and confidence to his men.

  The ships in the harbor of Shria bobbed in the water, unnaturally still: no flurry of activity, no sailors climbing through the rigging, no ships moving in or out; only three queues of workers lugging chests and crates to select ships like a stream of ants.

  General Agidius turned to his support staff on the bridge: his executive officers, the ship’s captain, his four fire mages, and two wind mages. He nodded to his chief fire mage, saying, “You may begin the bombardment.”

  The fire mage nodded and began chanting beside his brazier, the smoldering embers igniting, bursting into a thick flame, the other fire mages joining the chief mage, waving their arms, their bodies rocking from side to side.

  Agidius tilted his head to his first executive officer and said, “Signal the transports to begin their landings.”

  The man bowed, saying, “They’ll be leaving the visibility shields rather quickly unless we move closer.”

  “We’re fighting undisciplined, subhuman barbarians,” Agidius replied. “The ones who aren’t passed out in a drunken stupor will flee as soon as they see our might. Send the signal.”

  The executive officer bowed and gave orders to an ensign, who scurried down the steps to the main deck.

  A fireball burst up into the air from the brazier, sending a hot gust across the bridge; the non-mages flinched, even Agidius. The fireball expanded as it rose, arching high up over the harbor.

  Agidius motioned to his executive officer, and the man rushed to his side. “Order the forces hiding in the city to attack.”

  “Yes, sir.” He bowed. “Should we order them away from the docks?”

  “No.”

  The officer turned, motioning to the wharfs and quays. “But the fireballs?”

  The fireball struck, ripping into a ship moored near the wharf, ripping through the masts. Another fireball rushed up from their deck, along with two more from his other two warships.

  The Onei on the wharf scattered, dropping the chests, their movements jerky with fear and confusion.

  “Give the order,” Agidius said, a smile s
preading across his face as fast as the plans to claim the Shrian throne spread through his thoughts.

  The man bowed his head, marched across the deck to the stairs to the main deck, and spoke to the ensigns there.

  Agidius resumed his position on the deck, his eyes glazing over, thinking on his next moves: who would back his play? How could he blame the Onei for both the king’s death and the assassination of the heir? He blinked. The Onei, their longboats; they were boarding their longboats and daring to attack his ships.

  Agidius laughed.

  # # #

  “Skybears!” Gartan shouted, raising his axe high. “To me!”

  A Shrian horn sounded, bellowing across the harbor.

  The doors to several warehouses facing the docks swung open and Shrian soldiers poured out, shouting their battle cries, sending civilians scurrying out of their way. A Shrian sailor threw himself at Gartan, babbling in his stupid language, snarling with rage as he waved a cutlass. Gartan beheaded him with a swing of his axe.

  Another fireball arched into the air, coming from just inside the harbor gates, and a Shrian ship—black, with green sails painted with a circle surrounded by wavy lines—appeared for a moment. Two more fireballs rose up from two other spots, one inside the harbor, one just outside, the ships both invisible.

  “Tethan!” Gartan yelled, spinning to search for his son, to see an unarmed merchant charge toward his son, his arms windmilling, swinging his fists wildly, but Tethan tossed him aside without even looking directly at him.

  “Sir!” Tethan answered, Makal and Nohel behind him, more of the Skybear clan gathering around them.

  Gartan spoke, his voice loud enough to carry over the din of battle. “Looks like the damned Shrians have summoned up enough courage to try to take their city back. We’re getting attacked by both the townsmen and a bunch of ships out in the bay.”

  A fireball crashed into a building across from where Gartan and Tethan stood, the fire racing up the wooden frame of the building, consuming the wooden beams around the windows. Thick smoke billowed up, and bits of stone and wood rained down.

  Gartan crouched, motioning for the men to move forward, moving Tethan to the side. He said, “Skybears! Come with me, we’ll go down this pier here. To the longboats, so we can take the fight to those cowardly buggers!” He clapped his son on the back. “Tethan?”

  “Yes?” Tethan stared into his father’s eyes.

  “Gather up any warriors with their thumbs up their asses.” Gartan gestured to mixed groups of Onei wandering in their direction. “Take those, gather up any more you can find, and keep the docks in our control.”

  Tethan nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Come on, Skybears!” Gartan yelled, swinging his axe over his head, pointing to the pier next to where he’d been talking to Mitta a few minutes before, and then he ran, taking the Skybears with him, all of them screaming.

  Gartan leapt from the pier onto the deck of an empty Icefang longboat, his Skybear kinsmen following him, the boat dipping under the weight of each of them as they landed. Gartan scrabbled to the back, screaming, “Row! Your souls depend on it!”

  The men and women, working together after years of drills, after years of discipline, found empty seats and pulled the oars down into place. Pohmuk Virtansson pushed the longboat away from the wharf, Gartan using the rudder to help him and the rowers on the starboard side of the ship pressing against the docks with their oars. The longboat slid into the choppy water, the draft of the boat low, much lower than the Shrian ships.

  Gartan snapped the rudder into place, guiding the ship around. “Give me all you’ve got!”

  With Pohmuk pounding the drum with his thick fists at a brisk tempo, the ship bounded over the waves, skipping over them. Gartan stretched up onto his toes to view the waves, to find a bow wave with no bow in it and, finding it, he yelled, “Brace yourselves!”

  He headed directly toward the empty spot where a ship should be, coming up into that emptiness, able to hear the waves on the hull, the voices of Shrian men speaking.

  Like a veil lifting, the prow of the ship appeared right before Gartan and his longboat. The back end of the Shrian ship’s deck sparkled with the casting of magics, flickering with the flames of braziers set along the rail. The ship’s sails hung loose now, the strong wind that had blown these ships in with such speed now dead and calm, the wind having come from mages on the deck, mages beckoning the Air spirits to fill and unfill their sails, to direct the ship with more speed and maneuverability than a normal ship could muster. The Shrian sailors skittered along the masts, swinging from the rigging, furling sails the Shrian shipmasters decided they no longer needed.

  One of the mages on the back of that deck flung her hands out, a fiery ball rising up from them and flying out over the water, up into the sky, falling back down and smashing into an Onei longboat, breaking the ship in two. Onei leapt out of the boat, some not soon enough.

  “Kill that wench!” Gartan pointed at the mage. “Is there a harpoon on this piece-of-shit barge?”

  The rowers locked their oars into place, the paddles in the water so they would slow their longboat now hurtling past the side of the Shrian ship.

  Makal yelled back, “No harpoons, just plunder.”

  “Get your grapnels ready!” Gartan cried out.

  Gartan’s Skybears pushed aside boxes full of gold and treasure, tossed rolled-up paintings and scrolls over the side, and pulled out the ropes and grappling hooks beneath their benches.

  The longboat slid up next to the Shrian ship, Gartan’s insistent working of the rudder closing the distance to a hand’s breadth. His Onei threw their grapnels up, catching onto the railings along the ship’s sides, and they climbed, their axes dangling from their belts or from their necks. Gartan leapt up, grabbing another man’s rope, and he scuttled up the side of the ship; an arrow flashed by his head, and the man climbing the rope above him fell back down past Gartan, bellowing, clawing at the arrow in his eye socket as his back parted the water.

  Gartan climbed up, clearing the railing, landing on the deck with his axe in his hand; the deck was slick with blood, the bodies of Shrian sailors littering it, and more coming to join them with clubs and spears and shortswords. A few archers hid on the foredeck, retreating from the advancing Skybears. Sturdier Shrian warriors guarded the rear deck, where stairs framing a shattered door led up to a large wheel, and behind that Gartan spied a cadre of gesticulating magicians and chanting clerics with their smoking braziers and whirling charms.

  Gartan grinned, and he sprinted toward that rear deck, the Shrian warriors surging toward him too slow. His axe ripping out one man’s guts, slicing off another’s arm, slashing another’s throat, he cleared a path through the Shrians, up the stairs, ignoring the nicks and cuts of attacks that scored against him.

  The first mage pirouetted toward him, and Gartan’s axe smashed down into the woman’s surprised face, splitting her down to her dainty breasts. The other mages and clerics spun toward him. Gartan yanked his axe, but the woman’s whole body dragged his arm with it as she fell, twisting the handle from his hand with his axe lodged firmly in the bone of her spine.

  Two magicians raised their hands toward Gartan, their mouths forming words of magic and power.

  From behind, a swordsman stabbed at Gartan, the sword point slicing through his light armor, the edge cutting into Gartan’s side. He whirled around, grabbed the man by the neck and belt, and hurled him into the brazier.

  The first magician’s spell ignited, sending a fireball blasting toward Gartan. Gartan dropped to the deck, the fireball passing over his head, the heat of it searing his back. He intended to roll closer into the middle of the magic users, but his foot slipped in the mage’s blood. The fireball smashed through Shrian sailors, destroying the ship’s wheel and splintering the railing, until it struck the mainmast and snapped it, the bottom skipping to the side, crushing a screaming sailor. Ropes snapped, and the mast toppled into the bay, dragging sailors wi
th it and tipping the ship to the side.

  The other mage lost his footing, his hands reaching out to grab onto something to regain his balance, but bolts of lightning blasted away the very balusters for which he reached, the energy propelling him up into the air and over the side of the ship.

  The swordsman Gartan had thrown hit the brazier, knocking it askew, disrupting the cleric’s spells. With everything listing to the port side, embers and flames scattered and the clerics slid across the deck, flipping over the rails, their robes billowing in the air before they splashed into the sea.

  Gartan slid, stopping himself by landing with his feet on the balusters, grabbing at his side with his left hand. He gasped for breath, snarling at the pain, seeing across the water one of the other Shrian ships, now visible, with a man in an elaborate uniform on the rear deck, directing his men. He was obviously an important commander.

  Gartan grinned. That man must die.

  With the ship he was on twisting in its last dying convulsions, Gartan leaned forward and dove into the sea.

  # # #

  Tethan looked around, searching the docks for warriors he knew. Peira Icefang stood on the prow of a Shrian merchant ship. She whipped an arrow onto her bow, shooting it with a smooth motion. Brivat of the Greathouse stood beside her, pitching a Shrian sailor from the deck, tossing him into the churning waters between the boat and the pier.

  “Peira! Brivat! Onei!” Tethan yelled, raising his axes. “To me!”

  Brivat looked around and found Tethan. He tapped Peira on the arm and, jumping to the dock, ran toward Tethan. Peira loosed another arrow and leapt down to the dock herself, sprinting behind Brivat as she nocked yet another arrow, her head swiveling left and right.

  Tethan turned to the sweating, grinning Onei left, a few of them limping toward the road leading deeper into the city. “Now listen to me. We’re going to keep this area under our control. We’re going to clear it of anyone not Onei.”

  “Die, barbarian!” A large Shrian nobleman with a fierce mustache and long thin blade charged at Tethan, but an arrow from Peira pierced his throat.