by Exley, A. W.
Table of Contents
Title and blurb
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
About A. W. Exley
Artifact Hunters 1: Nefertiti's Heart
Tales from Darjee 2: Alise
HEART OF THE KRAKEN
Tales from Darjee Book One
By A. W. Exley
Legend says if you consume the heart of a mermaid, you will know all the secrets of men
Ailin doesn't care if the legend is true or not - she's stuck in a crate on her way to feature as the main course at a lavish banquet. Her heart to be served while still beating for a cruel noble while the rest of her is sliced into sashimi. Unless she can escape.
Across the ocean, Fenton longs for a different release. Sold as a child by men who labelled him a mistake, a failed experiment. Except he has one valuable skill, he can summon the dreaded kraken. Bought by a pirate, he has only known life at sea, wielded as a tool by the captain.
Two lives collide when the pirates capture the vessel holding Ailin. The kraken holds the key to Ailin's freedom but in summoning the beast one last time, Fenton must choose between losing his life or his heart…
Heart of the Kraken – copyright © 2015 A. W. Exley
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be used reproduced without the written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
Cover art by Mae I Design
Editing by Laura Kingsley
Authors Note:
This book is written in British English
The poems quoted in this book are THE OCEAN (1833) by Nathaniel Hawthorne and THE KRAKEN (1830) by Alfred Lord Tennyson.
Chapter One
The Razor's Edge drifted with the ebb and flow of the Sanguine Ocean. The light wind crafted small peaks that slapped against the hull with a regular beat. Seagulls circled and dove into the slow wake, looking for scraps thrown from the galley. Not a single cloud obscured the pure blue sky and the harsh sun beat down without any filter. The crew sought what little shade the sides of the vessel offered. There was never any down time on a pirate ship, life revolved around maintenance and a myriad of tasks, occasionally interupted by the jostle of action. Today several crew sat to one side of the deck to perform quiet, mundane duties. Some men mended nets, a few polished the brass fittings until they shone and the mechanic undertook routine maintenance. While the vessel appeared to be lazing in the sun, she was really a predator scanning the horizon. Like a tiger waiting in the jungle for the rustle of vegetation to give away its prey, the crew waited for any sign of another ship.
So they could creep up unseen and unheard on their target the Razor's Edge ran by sail. Their engine slumbered, even the fires were dampened so as not to emit a tell tail puff of smoke. Steam powered merchant vessels plied the oceans, their holds laden with cargos from other lands and provinces. The trick was to find one to plunder before a Regulator airship dropped from above like a vulture. Regulators were lawmen who patrolled sea and land, but they were often little better than sanctioned pirates, stealing in the name of taxes and fines.
Fenton sat at the peripheral edge of the group of sailors. The others swapped crude jokes but he didn't join in, preferring to let the conversation wash over him. With long fingers, he ran a whetstone over his sword, honing the edge to razor sharp. These quiet moments gave him time to contemplate his life. With each day that passed, he loathed his path in life a fraction more. He preferred the chaos of battle with no time to think, only to react. Kill or be killed and each time he wondered why he bothered to raise his sword.
Dying should be easy but he couldn't do it. Was it ego? A tiny desire for his life to have meaning before he threw it away? Once he slipped from the earth, there was no one to mourn him or comment on his passing. Or could he face eternal sleep if he had something worth dying for?
He had no name other than Fenton and didn't know if it was his Christian name or surname. The day the captain purchased him as a lad, he gave him those two syllables and never any more. He had no memory of his life before, only of the captain checking his teeth, looking behind his ears and muttering, I'll take him. Ever since, he lived his life on board and rarely ventured onto land. Fate and his nature separated him from other men and the life on shore that filled their dreams. His dreams were cold and empty, like his soul.
When he trod the earth, his stomach churned with the same nausea that afflicted some men at sea. The fates anchored him to the ocean and the ore-mancers of Darjee chained him to Captain Dragut Reis. His freedom would come with death, there was no other way to break his bond. Except death eluded him even if he had the courage to reach for it. He was too valuable a tool for Captain Reis to ever let misfortune befall him.
He laboured alongside the other men but called none his friends. Their eyes held distrust and fear. Not because he was one of the largest or strongest men of the crew. They feared him because of what he could summon. Circumstance beyond his control made him the captain's pet and the others hated him for it. He raised his sword arm in their service for years and they still whispered about him behind his back. He huffed back a laugh, he would trade his lot for their normal lives in a heartbeat, but none would chose to be shackled to the demon that ruled Fenton's life.
He flicked his gaze up and sheltered his eyes from the harsh sun. High up the in the crow's nest, little Timmy searched as far as his telescopic eye could reach. Back and forth he scanned the ocean, his slight body shadowed by the bright light. Fenton hoped he had an adequate water supply up there. No one wanted to clean up if the poor child succumbed to the heat and fell over the side of his perch. Such an accident would make a damn mess on the freshly swabbed deck.
"Cap'n," Timmy yelled from far above. "Nor east." His arm shot out in the direction of the faint trace he found.
"Raise the sails." Captain Reis gave the order and crossed to the port side of the ship. While not overly tall, men scurried out of his path. Reis held his place as captain for nearly twenty years through strength of character and liberal use of the whip. Men dropped their tasks to jump to the order. Ropes were hauled in as the heavy canvas was stretched taunt to catch the breeze.
The captain unhooked a telescope from his belt and pushed his hat back on his head, revealing grey streaked temples. Then he scanned the horizon before snapping the glass shut and taking his place at the helm. Men obeyed on instinct, trimming the sail as required as the wind caught them and propelled the ship forward. Like a cheetah waiting in long grass, the Razor's Edge leapt into action and made full speed in a few short yards.
Long minutes passed before the naked eye caught sight of what Timmy spied. The dense smoke plume marred the horizon like a giant arrow, marking the exact spot of the vessel chugging underneath the cloud. Like a child clutching the string of a balloon, the little boat was equally visible and vulnerable. With their prey flushed ou
t, adrenaline surged through the crew as they prepared for the oncoming fight. The captain ordered the ship to tack, to catch the breeze and the ship surged forward. With the wind behind them, they gathered speed and bore down on the other vessel.
Duties of the crew were divided into those who were responsible for the ship and holding their position, the boarding patrol and the sailors who would man the cannons. Boarders snapped free the ropes hanging from the rigging, they would use to swing over the ocean to the other vessel. Then they checked their weapons; swords pulled, double checked that they still had a pointy end and then thrust back into scabbards. Those staying took place at the canons, although none would fire unless commanded. The captain preferred to loot a boat without holes in it.
The boy in the crow's nest turned the end of his telescope. His gaze fixated on the small dot that became a 'steaming ship'. "She's called The Endeavor and won't make much of a meal, only a minnow, Cap'n," the lad called to the captain below. With one hand, he pushed the telescope back into his eye socket so only a brass rim protruded. Sunlight rimmed the edge and spun golden slivers over the rat lines.
The captain bought the boy three years ago on a trip to Duo Uisage, the hydro powered sector where the wizards of metallurgy ruled. In soaring glass towers flooded with light, they practised dark arts on sick and injured children, welding metal to skin and matching cables and fibres with tendons and veins. The boy lost the eye to some injury and the ore-mancers constructed a telescope in the empty socket and sold him as a lookout. The child soon became the butt of jokes due to his clumsiness. He tripped and fell often in those early months, earning himself numerous kicks from the other crew members. They took bets on how long before he fell from the crow's nest and splattered on the deck below. Fenton figured out the boy's brain couldn't reconcile the two different types of vision at the same time. He covered Timmy's telescopic eye and the boy found his balance. He learned to rely on one eye at a time, keeping the other covered.
The crew waited as the captain assessed their prey. They could all see the small ship now, chugging over the water unaware of the pirate vessel at her stern.
"Time to release the kraken, Mr Fenton," the captain said without a glance to the man at his side. His hand went to the complex gauntlet on his arm, containing a multitude of dials and switches. Panels displayed wind speed and air temperature but other nobs had no words or give away markings, their purpose known only to one man. A long finger caressed a brass switch.
Fenton stiffened. Amongst the men, he loathed the beast the most and with good reason. All sailors feared when the demon would rise from the darkness far below and tear apart friend and foe alike. Fenton feared the void the kraken created inside him. He had to touch its dark mind to control the monster's path and relay the captain's instructions. Only Fenton could control the kraken, and the captain controlled Fenton and he hated them both for it.
"Are you sure, Cap'n? It's only a small boat with no visible armaments, we probably only have to rattle our swords at them." He tried to swallow but his throat dried up and struggled over the words of vague disobedience. He wanted to say no, to refuse to unleash the monster on an unsuspecting crew but from his inception, he was trained to do as told. Subservience was underscored in his body through Reis' frequent use of the lash.
Silence dropped over the ship like a stone into water. Sharp and sudden. No one questioned the captain. Reis' head turned and despite the three inch height difference, he managed to look down an aristocratic nose at his taller first mate. "I didn't ask your opinion, Mr Fenton, I gave you an order."
Fenton held the captain's black gaze for a moment while the slimmest drop of bravery tried to work its way free of his gullet. A long suppressed part of him longed to break free. To say no and control his own actions. The kraken could smash the other vessel in half and drag its crew to the bottom of the ocean, and they would be powerless to stop it. The ship had no canon and no man was a match for the loathsome beast.
Courage withered and stuck in his throat and he swallowed several times to flush it back down. "Yes, sir." He nodded and walked away.
***
Reis waited until Fenton disappeared below deck and turned his gaze back to his prey. A minnow to be sure, but decades of experience taught him not to judge the value of a ship's cargo by the size of her hold. Silks, carpets and furniture took up valuable space but returned far less profit than a chest full of gems. He wouldn't know if this particular ship would line his pockets until he cracked her open.
He caressed the brass switch in the middle of his gauntlet. The device cost him dearly. Not just in gold, but the time he spent on land among the ore-mancers while they grafted the wires to his nerves. Those men made his skin crawl. At least he went to them as a paying client and by contract they had to meet his expectations. He would loathe to ever be sick or injured and sold to their laboratories like a piece of broken furniture.
Two decades ago, the Edge snuck up the Darjee channel with Regulators noticing and sheltered in Duo Uisage, the coastal region of Darjee. During his time with the ore-mancers, Reis noticed the boy. Spindly and unsteady on his feet, he looked like a landlubber with a bad case of sea sickness. When the ore-mancers told him how they augmented the child before he was born, it piqued his interest. They took him to a windowless laboratory and showed him what the boy could do, and he knew he had to have the lad on his crew.
He lined the wizards' pockets with gold and during a surgical procedure, they added the switch to his gauntlet. It took him two weeks for his body to acclimate to the device merged with his arm. In just two days, he mastered control of boy and beast. Then, he added Fenton to the Razor's Edge family. He flicked the ornate switch now. A tingle of bio-kinetic electricity radiated through his body as the device issued an unseen command.
A crack of thunder ripped across their bow and the crew gave a collective shudder for this noise erupted upward from the depths of the ocean. A shadow marred the azure blue with white frosting as a shape detached itself from the hull of the Razor's Edge, and raced at the other vessel. Reis lost sight of his creature as it closed in on the unaware merchant. Then the smaller boat gave a shudder and lost its forward momentum. Men raced to the railing and looked overboard to identify the reason for their loss of speed. Others noticed the pirate ship bearing down and pointed. Chaos erupted as events overtook the ill-fated men.
The ship lurched backward as enormous black tentacles slithered up the sides of the steel grey hull. Suckers attached to the metal as the beast held the boat in its grip, hugging it around the middle like a child with a stuffed toy, trapping it within its grasp. Another pair of barbed tentacles reached for the propeller at the stern. It grabbed one of the spinning discs and metal screamed as they twisted and locked together. The kraken's elongated head burst through the surface of the ocean. Water dripped and turned its hide mirror-liked, broken only by the black void of its eyes. A sharp beak, half as long as a man, opened and it bellowed as steel sliced through a limb and black blood fouled the water.
As the Razor's Edge closed the distance, they heard the cries and shouts from aboard. Crew ran back and forth, scrabbling to find a weapon, something, anything, to repel the dual assault. Reis flicked the switch on his gauntlet and the electric pulse shot through his body. He shuddered from the pleasurable rush over his nerve endings. The kraken cried and let go of its toy to drop back beneath the water. The pirate ship pulled alongside accompanied by a high pitched screech as steel scratched along steel. His crew fired anchoring lines into their prey's deck and waited. Eyes bright they held the ropes, waiting for their order.
"Let's meet our new friends, men!" he shouted and grabbed a line. The pirates swung over, grinning and jeering as they launched into the fight.
Chapter Two
Fenton had no heart for the fight; he parried but only to turn a blow from striking him. The other men around him hacked and slashed at the limbs of men poorly armed and no match for the hardened pirates. The crew of the little sh
ip offered token resistance, the men were not proven fighters given the variety of objects they tried to defend themselves with. One fenced with a mop, another tried to use a coil of rope as a whip. Soon, only three remained standing and with the blood lust slackened, Reis yelled the order to stand down. The wounded littered the deck and the tang of metal in the air came from blood seeping into porous timbers. Seagulls cried and nested along the cabin's ridge, like ocean going vultures they watched and waited for their chance to peck at the fallen.
Fenton assessed the prone men, none looked mortally wounded although most would need stitches. The pirates escaped with barely a scratch. He bore the worse slice among their crew and he removed his scarf from around his neck to tighten around his upper arm and stem the bleeding.
"Who is your captain?" Captain Reis asked.
One of the remaining vertical men stepped forward. Rectangular in appearance, he had close cropped grey hair and wore the same dark blue seaman's clothing as the rest of his scattered crew. He sported a gash down the side of his face, and he wiped it away with a blue handkerchief with yellow daffodils. "I am James Wyman, Captain of the Endeavour. We are a peaceable scientific vessel and have nothing of value, except the knowledge we have learned on our voyage. The Regulators will hear of this unprovoked attack."
Reis sneered at mention of the lawmen. "The Regulators are busy men, who knows when they might next patrol this stretch of ocean? In the interim, we shall avail ourselves of your hospitality."
A snigger rolled through the pirates. Their version of hospitality was to simply take whatever took their eye. A captured ship was just a market waiting to be picked over. Reis tucked his sabre into its scabbard. "These are lonely seas, a good week or two from shore. What interests a scientific vessel out here?"
"We are specialist marine scholars, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to search for unusual fish, coral and shells." The defeated captain fidgeted as he shoved the blood-stained cloth back in his jacket pocket.