by K J Taylor
Over on the deck of the pirate ship, the crew stopped their jeering. Laela saw their faces slacken with dismay as they saw the giant griffin.
Arenadd went to the railings and held his arms out, his hair blowing in the wind. “You fools!” he roared. “You think you can stand against me? You dare to challenge the Dark Lord? Look on your deaths and shudder!” and he laughed like a madman.
Behind him, Skandar spread his wings and screeched.
The pirates had already realised their mistake. They dropped their weapons and scattered, desperately trying to turn their ship around. Laela saw them tug on ropes to adjust the sails, shouting at each other in panic.
A handful of them were more collected. They leapt onto the railings, balancing there with incredible ease, and aimed their bows.
The captain of the Seabreath shouted a warning, and everyone, including Laela, dropped flat.
Everyone except for Arenadd and Skandar.
Laela heard Arenadd grunt as an arrow buried itself in his hip. As she stood up, he yanked it out and hurled it into the sea with a contemptuous laugh. Skandar hadn’t been hit at all, and Laela suddenly realised that the arrow had been aimed at the giant griffin’s chest.
Arenadd had put himself in the way.
That was the final straw for Skandar. He stumbled forward and launched himself clumsily into the air. For a moment, it looked as if he were going to go after the pirate ship alone, but once he had gathered momentum he came swooping back and scooped Arenadd up in his talons. Laela stood up and watched, open-mouthed, as the giant griffin flew straight for the fleeing bandits. He paused to deposit Arenadd on the deck, and then landed himself.
Arenadd had already attacked.
On the Seabreath, sailors and griffiners alike ran to the railings to watch, expressions of disbelief slowly spreading over their faces.
For Laela, it was beyond imagining
Skandar rushed over the decks like a massive wave, all claws and talons and enormous beak. Men fell in front of him like blades of grass. Most of the time, the dark griffin didn’t even bother to kill them—he simply knocked them over and then crushed them under his paws as he charged on, straight at the wheel and the man holding it. The man in question made a run for it the instant he saw Skandar coming, but there was nowhere near enough room to dodge, and for his size, the griffin was astonishingly fast. He caught up with the fleeing Amorani and his beak snapped shut around the man’s chest.
Laela heard the sound of breaking bones from all the way over on the deck of the Seabreath.
But Skandar didn’t have the fight all to himself. Arenadd was at the other end of the ship, apparently oblivious to his partner’s slaughter. A gang of pirates had rushed him, obviously hoping to overwhelm him by sheer weight of numbers. For a moment Arenadd disappeared among the press of bodies, and Laela feared the worst.
Then she saw the pirates begin to fall. Arenadd appeared, standing on a dead man’s chest, his sickle scattering drops of blood as he flicked it expertly at another man’s throat. He fought with unbelievable speed, but methodically, like a man who was immune to excitement or fear. He took several blows but didn’t react to them at all.
The ship, listing crazily as Skandar unbalanced it, drifted closer to the Seabreath, and Laela could hear the screams.
Then, as quickly as it had begun, the fight was over. The surviving pirates dropped their weapons and fell to their knees, holding up their hands in surrender.
Laela relaxed. “My gods,” she said. “He’s done it. He’s . . .”
Her voice faded away. Arenadd stepped off the dead man and walked slowly toward the cowering pirates. Skandar, bloodied but apparently unhurt, came to join him. Arenadd spoke to him, pointing at his prisoners. Skandar rasped back.
Arenadd nodded, and with a quick, graceful blow, slashed a man’s throat from ear to ear.
“No!”
Laela’s shout was drowned out by the screams and yells.
The defenceless Amoranis were trying in vain to escape, screaming what had to be pleas for mercy. Arenadd chased them and cut them down one by one, pausing occasionally to torment one with the point of his sickle before finally slitting his throat.
Laela realised that he was laughing.
Skandar joined in the sadistic game, lolloping after the victims like an oversized kitten chasing butterflies.
When it was over, and not one single man was left alive on deck, Arenadd went into the cabin and then belowdecks. Left to his own devices, Skandar settled down and began to eat the corpses—tearing at them as if they were no different than the goats and sheep Laela had seen him dismember back at Malvern.
Afterward, when Arenadd returned to the Seabreath, Laela didn’t recognise him at all. His hair was matted with blood, and more blood had stained his bare torso. It dripped from his sickle onto the deck. And from his fingers.
But it wasn’t the blood she noticed. It wasn’t the blood that made him unrecognisable.
His eyes, normally so cold and calm, were burning. The impassive face was locked into a fierce and terrible smile. He looked alive in a way that he never had before. But he didn’t look like a man any more, either.
Laela backed away from him, her inner voice locked into an endless nonsensical loop. By mistake she kissed a snake, by mistake she kissed a snake . . .
Arenadd didn’t seem to notice her. “The ship’s ours,” he said to Lord Vander, quite casually. “Mostly intact, too, along with its supplies. They’ve got a lot of valuable loot in the hold. Consider it a gift for the Emperor from me.”
Vander’s expression was guarded. “Thank you, Sire. We had better send men over to clear away the bodies and attach the ship to ours.”
“Of course.” Arenadd nodded. “Now I’m going to go and clean myself up.” He walked off.
Laela couldn’t help it—she went over to the other ship once the sailors had pulled it closer with ropes and made a makeshift walkway between the two vessels.
Once there, she walked around the deck as if in a dream.
In many places, it was slippery with blood.
Belowdecks, she saw far worse. There had been other people down there—wounded men and others unable to fight. Some of them looked as if they had been prisoners of the pirates.
Arenadd had killed them all.
Laela’s numbed mind managed to note that no-one around her looked particularly bothered. Only some of the younger men showed signs of unease. The older ones—the ones she knew must be veterans of the war—acted as if nothing unusual had happened.
They must have seen this kind of thing before.
Laela couldn’t bear to see any more, and went back up onto the deck, where Oeka was idly grooming.
The green-eyed griffin gave her the keen look she had come to know so well. “You are pale. Did you see things you did not like?”
Laela strained to understand her. “Everyone . . . is . . . killed . . .” She gave up, and reverted to Cymrian. “Everyone down there’s dead. Even the people locked up in the little prison thing. He killed ’em all.”
Oeka flicked her tail in displeasure. “I have told you to use griffish when you speak to me.”
Laela ignored her. She noticed the cabin—its door hanging open as Arenadd had left it. Nobody had gone in there yet.
She knew it was a bad idea, but once again she couldn’t help herself. She walked toward it, bracing herself for what she might find inside.
The inside of the cabin wasn’t that much different from her own quarters back on the Seabreath. Somehow, that made the sight of it so much worse. She took in the furniture and the decorations—all made in unfamiliar styles that she knew must be Amorani. They were strange, but beautiful.
She wondered what colour the rug had been, before it had been dyed with blood.
There were two bodies there, one lying near the door and the other slumped over the table. Both of them had had their throats cut.
They died quickly, Laela thought distantly. He killed them quickly. He didn’t . . .
Her inner voice died away as she saw the lumpy object by the fireplace, covered in blood.
There was more blood nearby, leaking out of what looked like a wooden cage.
Laela never knew why she looked closer, or where she found the will, but she looked.
She never looked more closely at the thing by the fireplace. Not once she had seen the wisp of hair and the tiny ear showing through the blood.
She left the body of the child and investigated the cradle.
The baby inside had been cut almost in half.
• • •
When Laela returned to her cabin she found Arenadd there. He had cleaned the blood off himself and put on fresh clothes, and was sitting by the empty fireplace and peacefully reading a book.
“Hullo!” he said, in cheerful tones. “Have you looked at the treasure yet? If you see anything you like, feel free to take it—I’ve told them you’re allowed to.”
Whatever she’d meant to say fell out of her brain when she saw him, looking so normal and happy. “I . . . ain’t looked yet.”
“Well, go ahead if you want to.” He paused. “Something you want to talk about?”
Laela found her voice again. “Why did yeh kill the baby?” she said. “An’ the child?”
Arenadd looked blank. “What?”
“I went on the ship,” said Laela. “I saw it.” Her face twisted with anguish. “I know they was gonna attack us an’ that, an’ it was amazin’ how yeh killed all them bandits, but . . . why did yeh have t’kill the rest, too? The prisoners down in the hold? The children? Why did yeh have t’kill the children? The baby? They weren’t no harm.”
Arenadd’s face fell. “You shouldn’t have gone on that ship.”
“Well, I did,” said Laela, her voice cracking. “An’ I saw what yeh did. I saw it all. I saw the dead baby. Why did yeh do it? Why?”
He put down the book. “Laela, you don’t understand—”
“Yeah, I do.” Laela felt fear twist inside her and become anger. “I understand just fine.” She took a step closer to him. “I never understood before, but now I do. This is why they call yeh the Dark Lord. This is why they’re afraid of yeh. This is why they say yeh ain’t got no heart. It’s because of this. Yeh did things like this in the war.”
“Yes,” Arenadd said quietly. “I did things exactly like this in the war.”
“But why?” said Laela. “Why the baby? Why kill a baby, an’ a child? Why kill people who didn’t have no weapons, people who wanted . . .”
Arenadd sighed. “Oh, gods. I knew I should have kept you away from this. Laela . . .”
“What? Tell me. Tell me why.”
“Your foster father,” said Arenadd.
“What?” Laela started. “What about him?”
“You told me he drank himself to death, yes?”
“Yeah, I did. So what?”
“He couldn’t stay away from it,” said Arenadd. “He knew it was hurting him, but he kept on drinking.”
Painful memories came back to her. “Yeah . . . he knew it. I told him, too. I begged him t’stop. But he never could stop.”
Arenadd nodded. “He couldn’t live without it. Couldn’t live without that feeling that drink gave him. And I . . .” He sighed. “I’m the same as him. I kill, Laela. I love to kill. It gives me a feeling . . . I can’t describe it. When I fight, a madness takes hold of me, and then all I can do is kill. Kill as many people as I can, it doesn’t matter who. I didn’t even know I killed a baby. I swear.”
Laela couldn’t think of anything to say.
Arenadd closed his eyes and sighed. “Gods, it’s been such a long time since I’ve had a reason to fight. You can’t imagine how wonderful it felt to do it again.”
There was a long silence, while Laela stood and looked at him. Arenadd looked back, with a hint of uncertainty.
“I thought I knew yeh,” Laela said at last. “But I don’t, do I?”
“I am what the Night God made me,” said Arenadd.
“Yer a monster,” said Laela.
He stared at his broken fingers. “I know.”
• • •
Laela couldn’t eat anything for the rest of that day even though the sailors had brought over enough new supplies for an impromptu feast. She managed to get her hands on the carcass of one of the live goats that had been on board, and gave the choicest part to Oeka. Once the griffin was satisfied, Laela spent the evening skulking in the shadows, avoiding Arenadd and drinking spiced Amorani wine.
She put off returning to the cabin as long as she could, but eventually everyone else had gone to bed except for the sailors who were on watch, and Oeka was becoming impatient.
Drunk and exhausted, Laela stumbled back into the cabin. Arenadd was in his hammock, apparently asleep, and she pulled her boots off and flopped onto the bed, her head spinning. Oeka curled up beside her as usual, and went to sleep.
Laela couldn’t sleep.
She lay awake for most of the night, not wanting to close her eyes. Whenever she did, images of dead children would flash behind her eyelids, and her addled brain convinced her that if she went to sleep, they would follow her.
Her head flopped sideways on the pillow, and she stared at the vague shape that was Arenadd. He wasn’t moving at all, and she imagined him sleeping peacefully, without any nightmares. How could anyone rest that well when he’d done what he had—and liked it?
The memory rose up again. “Pretty maid, dressed in yellow, went upstairs to kiss a fellow. By mistake she kissed a snake . . .” Laela murmured the words to herself several times, trying to remember how the rhyme ended.
She couldn’t remember.
Arenadd stirred and sighed in his sleep.
By mistake she kissed a snake, Laela thought, and rolled over.
She had been lying like that for some time before she realised she was hearing something strange. She stilled and concentrated, her heart beating faster.
It sounded like a voice.
Laela rolled over again and sat up, tense now. The voice was coming from somewhere to her right, and she relaxed very slightly when she realised what it was—it was Arenadd, talking in his sleep. The words were mumbled and difficult to make out, but Laela listened intently, wondering what someone like him would say in his sleep.
When she finally did realise just what he was saying, she flinched and put a hand to her mouth.
“. . . help me . . .”
Laela shivered.
“Help me,” Arenadd repeated. “Please, someone let me out, please . . . help . . .”
Laela put her head under the pillow and fought to make herself sleep.
22
Amoran
Two days after the slaughter of the pirates, the Seabreath came within sight of Amoran. Arenadd, to the silent horror of everyone on board, put his robe back on before spending half a day grooming in his cabin. Laela, still trying to stay out of his way, found herself hustled back into their quarters shortly before they were due to reach land.
“What do yeh want?” she asked, unable to hide her unease around him.
Whatever new energy Arenadd had gained from his killing frenzy had worn off by now, and he looked grim and solemn, but businesslike. “We’re going to follow the river from here, and we should dock in Instabahn tonight.”
“So?”
Arenadd rolled his eyes. “Laela, can you just for one moment forget your utter inability to stand on ceremony and take it into your head that the Emperor and his entire court are going to be waiting for us there?”
>
Laela blanched. “What’m I gonna have to do?”
“Look respectable for once,” Arenadd said shortly. “I’ve got an outfit picked out for you. But first we’re going to do something about that hair.”
Instinctively, she clutched at it. “What’s wrong with . . . ?”
Arenadd prodded her curls. “What’s wrong with them? They’re a tangled mess, that’s what’s wrong with them. When was the last time you even combed? Dear gods, girl, curly hair takes looking after! Take it from someone who spends most of his private time trying to stop his from turning into a rat’s nest! Now come here, and I’ll show you a few things that can help . . .”
Laela trundled after him and listened with vague hopelessness as he showed her various bottles of lotion and different combs and brushes, and explained how they should be used and in what order. Outwardly, she looked bored and irritated, but inwardly she was fighting against her own confusion. He killed so many people yesterday, she told herself. He cut a baby to pieces. He looked me in the eye an’ told me he loved doin’ it. He . . .
But she couldn’t keep reminding herself of that while that same man was waving a bottle of softening conditioner in her face and proudly extolling its detangling virtues.
All of a sudden, she had to stop herself from laughing. This was insane.
“. . . have you got all of that?”
Laela pulled herself together. “Er, yeah, I think so . . .”
“Good, then I’ll leave this by the tub for you—there’s already plenty of water in there. Now, time to show you your outfit. I think you’ll like it.”
Laela had expected a new dress. What she found instead was something she recognised but had never thought she would wear herself.
“Dear gods, is that . . . ?”
“Of course,” said Arenadd. “I had my tailors make it. You’re entitled to wear it.”
It was a griffiner’s ceremonial outfit. It looked as if the tailor who’d made it had started with a fairly ordinary gown made from a rich brown-gold fabric, before they’d added a patch of brown fur attached to a long “tail” that reached almost to the ground, and had sewn hundreds of small feathers onto the bodice until it was as fluffy as a bird’s chest. The shoulders and sleeves had been decorated with more feathers, but these were definitely griffin feathers—huge, long, strong wing feathers that formed a kind of cape. They were brown, too.