Shadowfall g-1

by James Clemens

Delia reached to the plunger that controlled the flow. Her eyes glanced at Tylar, questioning. One last chance to change their minds.

  He gave her a nod.

  She pulled the plunger.

  The blood- his blood-drained down the bottom of the sphere, feeding into the mekanicals. The effect was immediate. As the fresh flow met the residual alchemies, the mica tubes flared to a brilliance that blinded, white hot and searing.

  “Oh, no…” Delia mumbled, slamming the plunger home again with the heel of her hand.

  White fire exploded outward, tracing the rib cage of mica tubing, passing over their heads, under their feet, sweeping back toward the stern. Tylar tasted the power on the back of his tongue, felt its heat on his skin.

  “Hold tight!” he choked out.

  The lines of fire converged upon the tapering stern and slammed together. The Fin reacted as if kicked. It bucked forward, throwing them all back.

  Half-turned, Tylar’s neck jolted. He used his handhold on the Fin’s wheel to pull himself around. His ears rang. He stared through the window.

  The blood-fired craft had taken flight-or so it seemed. It skimmed the surface of the black sea, riding atop the twin fins that ran along the belly of the craft. The Fin struck each shallow wave with a shuddering impact, rattling teeth. Tylar tried to slow them, to eke out some measure of control with the wheel.

  No response.

  Like a bolt from a crossbow, they shot across the seas, as straight as a marksman’s aim.

  The target loomed ahead.

  The lead corsair.

  Its bulk swelled into a planked wall before them, filling the world.

  Tylar yanked the wheel to the right and left. It made no difference. They were headed for a deadly crash.

  Rogger grumbled behind him, “Now this is much better…”

  “Forget the wheel!” Delia cried out. “You have no rudder. The Fin’s tail is out of the water!”

  Her words awakened Tylar to his mistake. He had only been thinking port and starboard, right and left. In the ocean, there was also up and down. He shifted his feet to the floor pedals.

  Ahead, the flank of the corsair rushed toward them, ready to slam them from this world.

  Tylar shoved both pedals down to the floor. The Fin dipped its nose and dove down into the waves. The waters, lit by the moon and the fire lamps, swallowed them away, shining a deep aquamarine. Bubbles blew past as the craft sailed deep, descending toward the darker waters.

  But escape still eluded them. A monster blocked their path, a black behemoth. It was the submerged keel of the corsair.

  The Fin dove steeply, but their speed and proximity blurred their chances of ducking cleanly under it.

  The view went murky. Tylar held white-knuckled to the wheel.

  The wheel! He had forgotten! Now submerged, the rudder was back in the water.

  With a sharp twist, he rolled the vessel to starboard, swinging low the fin protruding from the top of the craft.

  And not a moment too soon.

  The port side struck a glancing blow against the keel as it passed beneath the corsair. But they cleared it. If the Fin had remained upright, the ironwood keel would’ve cleaved the top fin as surely as any ax, shattering open the tinier vessel.

  Free now, they swooped deeper into the darkening waters.

  No one made any joyous sounds, too raw with their fright.

  Tylar used the moment to test their controls. Wheel and pedals responded with the lightest touch, whetted by their speed. He stopped their descent. “We’ll have to turn around, sweep back,” he mumbled, more to himself than to his companions. “We’re heading south. We need to go north.”

  Delia rolled out of her seat and checked the glowing tubing. The white-fire brightness had already faded. She ran a finger cautiously along one of the mica channels. “Cracks. Everywhere. The pure blood is too raw, too volatile. It sheds its Grace violently, burning up quickly.”

  Tylar noted the controls growing sluggish.

  “But will the mekanicals last long enough for us to reach safe haven?” Rogger asked. “Somewhere solid enough to plant our feet upon?”

  “We must let the tubes cool,” Delia said, “then proceed more slowly from here. Only leach blood in drop by drop. I wasn’t sure how much would be necessary to fuel the Fin. Now I have some idea.”

  Tylar swung the Fin around, gliding upward into the moonlit waters. Ahead pools of brighter water marked the corsair’s lamps. He aimed for them.

  Rogger noted his course. “Are you daft, man? Where are you going? Circle around them.”

  Tylar ignored him and continued toward the fleet. He aimed for one ship. It lay ahead of the others. He owed someone a debt. He wouldn’t leave these seas without settling the matter.

  He sailed the Fin up to the pool of light surrounding the lead ship, then ducked into its shadow. He raced under the keel to the bow. Once there, he kept pace with the ship and gently guided the Fin upward, surfacing just under the prow.

  “Take the controls,” he ordered Delia. “Just keep us steady.”

  He climbed past Rogger-but not before relieving the man of his dagger. He crossed to the Fin’s stern and unhinged the hatch. He opened it enough to pop his head and one arm out.

  Death scented the salt air, gagging him with its immediacy. His target hung overhead, limned in lamplight. Close enough to touch one of the dangling feet. Grayl’s boots were missing, most likely stolen by one of Darjon’s crew. His body appeared sorely used.

  Tylar cocked his arm and threw the dagger with all the skill of his training. The blade flew true, slicing cleanly through the rope holding the captain aloft.

  The captain had died because of him. He would not leave the man to be picked at by seabirds and to bloat in the sun. Tylar owed him at least this. A burial in the salt of the sea. An honorable resting place for one of the plowers of the Deep.

  The body fell heavily into the waves, sinking rapidly away.

  The missing body would not go long unnoticed.

  Tylar dropped down, reaching out to slam the hatch.

  The arrow pierced his outstretched wrist, striking completely through and into the Fin, pinning his arm down. The shock struck him before the pain.

  Over the rail, a ragged scrap of darkness swept over the stars, skirting the risen moon. It swooped toward him.

  Darjon ser Hightower.

  A trap.

  The Shadowknight landed on the back of the Fin, cloak swirling, his eyes aglow with Grace. He seemed more ghost than man, fraying at the edges as the night ate the lines of his form.

  He spoke no words, had no hesitation. As soon as he landed, his sword swept for Tylar’s throat.

  Tylar ducked as low as he could, but his arm remained pinned outside, keeping him from escaping below. His shoulder wrenched. He moved too slowly. A whispered edge of the blade sliced across the crown of his scalp, leaving a line of fire behind.

  Below, in the cabin, he found Rogger staring up at him, unable to help.

  “Go!” Tylar shouted. Hot blood ran through his hair, past his ear, along his throat.

  Delia responded. The Fin jolted forward.

  Tylar hoped the sudden movement would unsteady the Shadowknight. Using this moment, Tylar leaped straight up and rolled out of the hatch.

  At the stern, Darjon had fallen to one knee, but he was already rising, a surge of shadow.

  Tylar focused on wrenching his arm free. Luckily, his own flesh had slowed the bolt. It had not struck the pod with much impact. He yanked his wrist free, taking the arrow with it.

  Agony blackened the edges of his vision. But Tylar had lived with the daily tortures of a broken body. The pain focused him, reminded him of his fury.

  The pair rose as one atop the back of the vessel: Darjon on one side of the tall central maneuvering fin, Tylar on the other. Darjon’s sword stabbed with Grace-borne speed, but Tylar anticipated it. He danced forward, using the fin as cover.

  Only then did he realize his m
istake.

  Darjon had intended only to drive him away from the open hatch. The Shadowknight stepped around. He stood now between Tylar and escape.

  It was a foolish slip, one Tylar would never have made before. He may be hale of body, but he was far from his former sharpness of mind and reflex. But he knew enough to cast aside the mistake. It was done. A knight had to stay focused on the moment.

  The pod bounced regularly as it sped across hummocked waves. Footing was tricky on the wet surface of the craft.

  Tylar eyed the open hatch. If he could get below and seal the hatch, the pod could sink away. Darjon would be washed from its surface, forced to swim for his ship.

  The Shadowknight read the intent in Tylar’s gaze. With a sweep of cloak, he kicked the hatch closed and positioned himself atop it. “Where is your daemon now?” he taunted.

  Tylar did not parry words. With his good arm, he slid free his sheathed sword, letting moonlight trace its length in molten silver.

  A hiss of recognition greeted its appearance.

  Tylar held Darjon’s own blood-sworn sword, stolen in the Summering Isles.

  Tylar stepped around the maneuvering fin. He cradled his wrist, still impaled by the crossbow’s bolt, to his belly. He noted movement through the Fin’s window below. Delia leaned forward, a hand pressed to her cheek, her eyes bright with concern as they met his. She reached from her face to the glass, laying her hand on it.

  He turned away. It wasn’t good-bye yet.

  He studied Darjon. Tylar knew it would be impossible to lure the knight away from the hatch. He’d have to go to him, meet him.

  Darjon kept his sword low, waiting, ready.

  Tylar edged along the Fin, keeping his balance as the waves rattled the craft. Past Darjon’s shoulder, the fleet of corsairs continued their pursuit, lamps aglow. Tylar recalled the ebbing power in the Fin. They did not have time to spare.

  He stepped past the end of the maneuvering fin, facing Darjon.

  They were beyond quips or barbs. A dead stillness lay upon them both. As in a match of kings and queens, the opening move was the most important. Feint or attack. Advance or retreat. Guard up or down.

  The matter was settled in a flash of silver, lightning strikes in the night. Neither could tell who attacked first. Both moved swiftly, speed borne of Grace, fury, and desperation.

  Tylar turned his wrist, blocking a thrust to his heart. The knight’s sword slid down his blade and struck his hilt’s steel guard with a resounding blow. Tylar felt the impact all the way to the shoulder. Darjon was damnably strong.

  Forced back a step, Tylar shoved the knight’s sword up and away. Bringing his own point low, he sliced through a fold of shadowcloak. If there was any flesh beneath it, Tylar did not find it.

  Darjon knocked the blade down with a slamming blow from his hilt, then spun on a heel to slip inside Tylar’s guard. An elbow struck Tylar in the center of the chest, knocking air from his lungs.

  Another misstep in this dance.

  With Darjon atop him, Tylar swung out with the only weapon available: the dart impaled through his wrist. He felt the tip graze more than cloth.

  Darjon hissed, confirming the strike, and fell back.

  With space now, Tylar brought his sword to bear.

  An arm’s length away, Darjon hunched. The wild lash of the sharp arrow had cut through the masklin hiding his features. For the first time, Tylar saw the face of his adversary.

  The knight’s paleness struck him first-not a snowy white, but more an absence of any color, bloodless. Had it ever been touched by sunlight? Even the glimpse of hair was too starkly white, brittle in the moonlight. His other features were as sharp as his eyes: thin lips curled in fury, a narrow nose pinched in distaste. A ghost cloaked in shadow.

  But it was not his paleness that gave Tylar pause. A more disturbing revelation was exposed. It was not the presence of something, but the absence. The fish-belly whiteness of Darjon’s features was unmarred by mark or blemish.

  He bore no triple stripe of knighthood.

  Darjon read the realization in his opponent’s eyes.

  Angered and shocked, Tylar missed the flash of silver until it was too late. A dagger, thrown from the hip.

  “I believe you left this behind,” the false knight spat.

  Tylar twisted. The blade shot beneath his raised arm, carving a path along the underside of his limb, slicing tunic, skin, and muscle as it passed. It impaled into the tall fin behind him. Tylar recognized its quivering hilt. It was the same dagger he had used to pinion Darjon outside the gates to Meeryn’s keep.

  Darjon followed the attack with a savage thrust of his sword. Tylar, off balance, parried the blade poorly. He managed only to deflect. He had no footing to counter.

  Panic slowed everything, like a nightmare. Darjon expertly trapped Tylar’s sword with his own. Tylar, weak from the dagger’s cut, could not stop the blade from being ripped from his grip.

  His sword flew and struck the curved back of the Fin.

  It slid toward the waiting sea.

  Tylar lunged for it, desperate-only to see its black diamond pommel slip beyond his fingertips and plunge away. Weaponless, wounded, he rolled around to his back.

  Darjon stood a step away, death promised in his eyes as he raised his sword.

  Tylar felt the hot trickle of blood down the inside of his arm, pooling around his hand. He tried to scramble backward, but the footing was slick from the slosh of waves. His back struck the end of the Fin.

  If he could snatch the dagger…

  But a fast glance showed it was beyond his reach.

  Darjon closed, his sword point scribing a sigil of finality in the air.

  Tylar, wiping cold sweat and blood from his eyes, flashed back to Delia, pressing her palm against the glass. He realized it had not been a good-bye, but a warning.

  He looked at his fingers. Sweat and blood. As his yellow bile had charmed the miiodon, his perspiration could do the same to the nonliving.

  Such as a wooden craft in the middle of the Deep.

  Tylar brought his hand down upon the Fin’s surface. As before, he willed the world to ice, touching his memories of frozen tundras, snowstorms, and frost fogs.

  From his fingertips, runnels of ice shot outward. In a heartbeat, the damp surface of the Fin froze over, sheeted with planes of ice, crystalline and scintillating in the starlight.

  Tylar felt the frigid bite through the damp seat of his breeches, freezing him to the deck.

  Darjon had hesitated as the Grace flowed. He now took a cautious step backward, confusion plain on his face. His inattention betrayed the heel of his boot on the slick ice. He skated for balance, lost it, arms pinwheeling.

  With a distinct lack of dignity, the man’s legs flew out from under him. He landed on the slippery surface and continued his slide. Hands scrambled for purchase. But burdened by the sword he refused to abandon, he failed and soon slid over the edge and splashed into the sea.

  Tylar ripped himself free of the frozen clutch of the Fin’s surface and crawled on hands and knees. He spotted Darjon a few lengths away, fighting the waves and the weight of his waterlogged cloak.

  Shivering, Tylar crossed to the hatch. He fought to lift it, but a coating of ice locked it tight. He pounded a fist on the door, trying to break through the crust. He was too weak, left with only a child’s strength.

  Across the sea, the fleet of corsairs swept toward them, filling the starry world with firelit sails.

  A muffled call sounded below. He could not answer.

  Then with a crack that sounded like splintering wood, the hatch banged open, coming within a hairbreadth of smashing Tylar’s nose. Rogger popped his head out, scanned the immediate area, then settled on Tylar.

  “Figured the chill had to be more ’n a sudden change of seasons,” he said, his eyes drawn to the nearby splashing as Darjon swam toward the sweep of ships. “Looks like you shook loose that black-robed barnacle.”

  “For now,”
Tylar said hoarsely, picturing the murder in the false knight’s eyes. “For now…”

  Rogger finally seemed to note Tylar’s bloody state. He helped Tylar below. Tylar bit back a groan when the arrow in his wrist jarred against the frame of the Fin’s hatch.

  “Ay, take a care there,” Rogger said with his usual late concern.

  They fell together the rest of the way into the cabin. Out of the sea breeze, the cabin was as warm as a hot bath, heated by the blaze of mica tubings. Rogger reached up and slammed the hatch.

  Across the cabin, Delia dove the Fin deep.

  Rogger helped Tylar sit up. “You took a foolish risk back there.”

  Tylar shivered and coughed. “I had no choice but to fight the bastard.” He again pictured the unmarked face of the man, a false knight. For the moment, he kept silent, needing time to mull over this newest mystery.

  “I meant,” Rogger continued, “it was daft going back to free the captain.”

  Tylar shook his head. “Captain Grayl deserved the effort. My blood was a small price against his life.”

  “Dead is dead. Debts end with one’s last breath.”

  “Honor does not.”

  “Spoken like a true knight. I thought you had given up on that.”

  Tylar let his scowl answer for him. When he’d been a broken scabber in the alleys of Punt, his life had been without responsibility, even to himself. Now hale again, burdened at every turn, he found the need once more to acknowledge honor… even in death. Grayl would not have wanted to end his presence here by rotting at the end of a rope. If Tylar could grant him nothing else, he could acknowledge that and act upon it.

  Rogger shook his head.

  Delia called back. “Rogger, man the wheel. I’ve taken us under the waves. Just keep us moving straight. I’ll ministrate his wounds.”

  “Ministrate away,” Rogger said as they switched places. “But do something about that stubborn streak of righteousness. It’ll kill him faster than any sword.”

  Delia waved him off. Tylar allowed her to free his coat’s laces. Blood flowed from scalp, right wrist, and left upper arm. He read the concern bright in her eyes. “I’ll heal,” he insisted.

  “Of course you will. Firebalm will mend the worst.” Delia expressed her true concern as she parted his sodden coat and saw his soaked linen tunic, more red than white now. “But you’ve lost so much blood.”