by Shae Ford
“What’s taking so long?” Crevan growled.
“Perhaps the little whelp is dead.” Ulric’s eyes shifted to the sky above the island. “See? The carrion birds have already begun to circle.”
D’Mere’s lips were tight and she kept her arms crossed over her chest. She hardly glanced where Ulric pointed. “That’s a hawk.”
Blackbeak — who’d been inspecting the bald patches between his feathers for quite some time — suddenly leapt to his taloned feet. “Hawk? Hawk! Kill her! Blast her from the sky!”
Ulric raised his hand eagerly, but Crevan stopped him with a word. “No! You might strike the boy.”
Blackbeak leapt up and down, stirring clods of dirt with desperate flaps of his wings. “But Your Majesty — not what she seems! She’s one of the great shamans! Kill her, kill her n —!”
A thundering roar cut over the top of his words and a great black bear lumbered out of the woods. It stood on its hindquarters and curled its lips over its massive teeth. Crevan’s men lowered their spears, forming a protective arch around him. D’Mere’s guards drew their swords. Ulric stretched out his hand and a dangerous red light bloomed along the links of his chained impetus.
A cry from the island stopped them all short.
Devin had awakened. He writhed upon the ground, his chest bowed against the force moving inside his body. His back arched and his hands snapped into fists. His limbs trembled dangerously, and Crevan knew what would happen next.
He grabbed Ulric around the robes and shoved through the soldiers — running for the river. They’d only just reached the shore when Devin’s body transformed.
His skin split open and black spots burst from the wounds — joining together until they covered him. His cries grew strangled around a set of enormous fangs. His voice deepened, rattling Crevan’s innards. He watched as horns burst from his dark crop of hair and the blades of his shoulders stretched into wings. At last, the change was finished.
Devin crumpled to the ground — his body now that of a great black dragon.
“Chain him, Ulric! Do it now!” Crevan roared.
The archmage’s face had gone ashen at the power of Devin’s voice, but Crevan’s command burned too hotly. The spell had nearly formed in Ulric’s hand when Devin tried to lift himself from the ground. The great wind that came from his mighty wings knocked them all backwards.
Ulric tumbled over and Crevan struck the ground hard. He ripped at the stringy grass, trying to pull himself to his feet. He’d only just managed to roll over when a voice broke through the air:
“The time has come, Blackbeak — the shamans will purge the earth of your Abomination!”
A gangly man with sunken features had appeared from the swamps. He stood between a man with far-set eyes, and a woman whose eyes glowed a dangerous yellow. The bear lumbered to join them, becoming a hairy man in mid-gallop. When all four were aligned, they raised the talismans from their chests.
“It’s time you answered, Blackbeak,” the gangly barbarian said again. “It’s time to cleanse your Abominable soul.”
Blackbeak took to the skies with a squawk and a shower of feathers, but the light from their talismans brought him crashing back down. He squirmed under their chants, the light from his own talisman pulsing desperately against the shamans’ attack. He screamed for help, but Crevan didn’t answer.
His eyes were on Devin.
The great black dragon had collapsed upon the island. He was a beast far greater than the Dragongirl: each scale across his enormous chest was a large as a man’s palm, his wings stretched to the island’s ends. Even from a distance, Crevan could feel the terrible heat in his ragged breaths — it seared the skin across his brow and nose.
While he watched, the hawk fell from the sky and took a woman’s shape. She grabbed Devin by his horns and shook him fiercely. “Fly! You must fly, sky-hunter!”
His stark blue eyes snapped open, lighting on her. The shaman raised her arms, Devin raised his wings — and Crevan let out a roar. He leapt to his feet and ripped Ulric from the ground. “Bind him now, you worthless mage! Stop him!”
With a blast of his mighty wings, Devin shot into the sky. His limbs curled beneath him as he turned for the northern seas. A few beats more, and he likely would’ve been free. But Ulric’s spell got there first.
A red-hot strip of light burst from his hand as the archmage fell back from the blast of Devin’s wings. It roared through the open sky and struck him in his scaly throat. His great voice made the earth tremble. His wings shivered as he tried to force himself on.
“I am your master, beast,” Crevan thundered. “Kneel at my feet!”
The collar grew red-hot under the force of Crevan’s command. Devin fought against the burning spell. He roared and slung his head about. For half a breath, he spun towards them. His blue eyes snapped shut and the scales around his lids squinched together tightly. When they opened, Crevan took a startled step backwards.
The cool blue was gone — replaced by a horrible, fiery yellow. A black, slitted pupil cut down each eye, guarded on both sides by a raging wall of flame. These eyes met Crevan’s without fear. It was the defiance in each slit that gave the fires their light. This time when Devin roared, his voice shook the trees and flattened the river’s waves.
Finally, he seemed to break through Ulric’s hold. His wings stopped their trembling and beat all the more furiously for the seas.
“Stop him! Bring him down!”
Ulric looked as if he held onto Devin by no more than a thread. His arm shook violently, his face turned purple. Words flew from his lips in a maddened scream as Devin winged further out to sea. The chained impetus writhed across his arm, squirming as it struggled to control its newest link.
Crevan couldn’t even hear the furious words that tore from his throat. His life, his Kingdom — everything he’d worked for was tied to the clawed feet of that dragon. If Devin escaped, it would all be for naught. He roared for Ulric to stop his flight, to drag him in by his horns.
Their fates depended on it.
All at once, the collar around Devin’s neck burst into flame. He roared and twisted against the pain, but Ulric had him. The archmage grinned as he pulled his hand towards the shore. Devin followed the line of his arm helplessly, as if there was a rope tied to his back.
The spell dragged him into the swamps and brought him crashing down. His body slid until his great, horned head came to rest a stone’s throw from Crevan’s boots.
“Your Majesty — the shaman!” D’Mere gasped.
Crevan looked up in time to see that the barbarians had given up their fight. They burst into their animal forms and scattered among the drooping trees, fleeing out of the reach of D’Mere’s twin guards.
Blackbeak — or rather, what was left of him — lay in a deflated mass of skin and feathers upon the ground.
Crevan laughed. “What about the shaman? He served his purpose. I’ve no longer got a use for him — this is the last beast I’ll ever need.”
D’Mere’s careful steps froze at his side. Her breath seemed trapped behind her lips; the ice in her gaze melted as she took in the sight of Devin’s enormous, panting body upon the ground.
Crevan smirked. Very rarely was D’Mere ever stricken speechless. “What do you think of my newest slave?”
“Fate help us,” she whispered.
He brought his lips to her ear and growled: “She already has, Countess … she already has.”
Chapter 44
Under the Stars
At long last, the sun dawned upon the day Kael had been waiting for: the day his army would march for the summit.
Gwen had said they were only three days’ journey from Thanehold. “Though it’ll feel more like a week, with all this snow in the way,” she’d added with a glare.
Winter had finally opened its gullet and the mountains belched snow upon them in a near-constant stream. When they left the frozen lands, the drifts were up to their knees. A day later, they’d
risen to just below their waists. Kael knew if they wanted any chance of reaching the summit, he’d have to think of a way to make the journey easier.
He told the craftsmen to use the heat of the forge to melt the snows. He showed them how to imagine the fires consumed their skin, how to hold the image of white-hot flesh inside their heads. Then he’d stepped into the middle of one of the thickest drifts and it’d melted with a hiss.
The problem was that the snow turned to water, and water froze quickly. Kael looked behind him shortly after they’d started walking and groaned to see the giants sliding helplessly at the end of the line. Once they lost their footing, they didn’t stop: a few managed to dig their scythes in, but most slid quite a ways before they finally crashed into a large drift at one of the bends.
The wildmen laughed uproariously.
“Instead of chuckling, why don’t you clodded well help us?” Declan bellowed. He’d managed to dig the tip of his scythe in between two frozen rocks, stopping himself from sliding to the bottom. But the weapon’s shaft creaked dangerously under his weight.
Gwen strode to the edge of the icy slope, rolling a large clump of snow in her hands. “How long do you think you can hold on, giant?”
“Long enough to clobber you, if you throw that,” he said with a glare.
She rolled the snow down, where it got wedged against his arm. “How long, now?”
“Stop that, you paint-faced —”
Another ball rolled it into his mouth. He tried to spit it away and very nearly lost his grip. Soon Gwen had Declan so piled with snow clumps that they could hardly see his face. Though the shaft groaned in protest, he still didn’t budge. When she made the mistake of trying to pack the snow in with her boot, he snatched her around the ankle and slung her behind him.
Gwen howled the whole way down. She slid on her rump and steered with her heels. She popped onto her feet at the bend and flipped, headfirst, over the scattered giants and into a large drift of snow.
A moment later she erupted from the bank, arms raised high. She let out a triumphant howl that the warriors rushed to answer — and it all very quickly dissolved into chaos.
The warriors crowded onto the icy slope. They slid on their backs and chests, trying to see who could go the fastest. They scraped the giants out of their holds, knocked them off their feet, and wound up in such a fantastic tangle of bodies at the bottom that Kael expected there to be at least a dozen broken bones. But there weren’t any — at least not until Jonathan tried skating down on the back of one of the wildmen’s rounded shields.
Then there were four.
“Do you see what comes of your nonsense?” Kael grumbled as he patched up Jonathan’s ribs.
Gwen shrugged. “I didn’t force him to do anything.”
“I’d do it again!” Jonathan said groggily, swinging his fist.
Kael put him to sleep. Then he scooped the fiddler up and held his lanky body out to Gwen. “Here. You carry him.”
She made a face. “Why?”
“Because I’m angry with you. And perhaps it’ll teach you that not everyone in our army can take a beating like a wildman. Some of them are fragile — no!” he barked, when he saw a clump of warriors gathering at the top of the slope. “Nobody’s having another go. If you slide down here again I swear I’ll hurl you over the edge.”
They slumped away, grumbling magnificently as they went.
The moment they were gone, he turned back to Gwen. “Carry him until he wakes — and think carefully about how you ought to behave, Thane.”
Her grin was sharp as she took Jonathan. “All right … mutt.”
He didn’t like the way her words slid across his ears. And he liked her smile even less. But there wasn’t any time to worry about Gwen. He had more important problems to solve.
In order to keep the slopes from freezing behind them, he split the craftsmen into three groups. They walked in Vs: one at the head of the line, another in the middle, and the last towards the end. The heat coming off their skin kept the snows melted and the ice from forming back.
When they finally stopped to make camp that evening, Kael put the final few bits of his plan together. He gathered the craftsmen in a circle and had them show him everything they could remember about their fortress.
Between all of their memories, he got a pretty good image of Thanehold and the stone village surrounding it. Then he tried to see it all through Titus’s eyes, tried to guess how the Earl would use it to his advantage. He played the battle over inside his head, combing through every possible scenario — knowing full well that the Earl would adapt quickly to anything the wildmen threw at him.
All the while he thought, Morris’s words rang inside his head: The thing about Titus is you’ve got to get him quick, lad … you’ve got to get him before he gets you.
Kael realized that there would be no days-long battle with Titus. In fact, he might only get one chance to strike. So he would have to plan his steps carefully; he could afford to hold nothing back. He would craft a blade and fit it perfectly against Titus’s neck … and the first blow he dealt would end him.
Once his plan lay unraveled, Kael went after his companions.
He’d expected some resistance from the pirates, but Lysander only nodded somberly at his part in the plan. “We’ll do whatever you ask of us, Sir Wright.”
The good captain’s eyes had become considerably clouded in the days following Morris’s death. He spent a large amount of time walking with his hand gripped around the Lass’s whittled hilt, his customary grin lost far behind him.
Kael’s heart stung miserably at the sight. “You don’t have to drag the pirates into battle. I won’t —”
“No. I’ve made a bargain, and I’ll keep my word.” His wavy hair stood on end as he passed a hand through it. “I miss Aerilyn. That’s all it is.”
“Are you certain?”
He sighed heavily. “I suppose … if I’m honest, I do miss Morris. Uncle Martin told me to keep an eye on him, to keep him hidden from the Kingdom but always in my sight. He never trusted him. Yet, when Morris had the chance to ruin me, he didn’t. He stayed loyal to me even while I was cursed.” A faint smile bent Lysander’s mouth as his eyes looked back. “He proved himself to me during those years. I’d actually forgotten that I was supposed to keep an eye on him. In fact, I think Morris wound up keeping an eye on me. I’ll miss him as dearly as I miss any other pirate … but we must march on, mustn’t we?”
Kael forced himself to smile as he said: “Aye, Captain.”
That brought the grin back to Lysander’s face.
Though the pirates were willing to do their part, Declan was much less enthusiastic about the giants’ role. “I brought my army here to battle — not stomp about and make a great lot of noise!”
Kael tried to be patient. “If everything goes well, there won’t be much fighting. All you have to do is make sure Titus keeps his eyes on you and away from the craftsmen. And you can’t go … mad, all right? Things are likely to get pretty thick on that side. You’ll be killed if you charge right in.”
Declan nodded slowly. “Yeh, I think I’ve figured out a way to keep from losing my head. But it’ll involve a good amount of pirate grog.”
“Of course it will,” Kael muttered.
He’d gone to turn away when Declan’s thick hand thudded onto his shoulder. “I want the wee sandbeater on my side of things.”
Kael followed the shadowed cleft of Declan’s eyes across camp, to where Nadine and Elena stood. They’d exchanged weapons and were locked in a rather precarious battle beside the fire. Nadine swung the black daggers in clumsy arcs while Elena tried to knock them out of her hands with the butt of the silver spear.
Jake, who’d recently doused his fur robes in a fresh helping of skunk oil, seemed to be trying to chronicle their attacks in his journal. “Given the superior weight of the hilt, what’s the likelihood that a dagger disarmed would land point down?” he called.
Elena resp
onded by kicking one of the daggers from Nadine’s hand. She swatted it with the butt of the spear and it shot towards Jake — thudding point-first into the skin of the mangy shrub beside him.
He gaped at it for a moment before he scribbled into his journal: “Rather … likely …”
It had come as no great surprise to Kael when he discovered Elena was a whisperer. She certainly had a warrior’s strength, and she seemed capable of disappearing whenever she pleased. The wildmen had been so entranced by her ability to meld into the shadows that she’d begun to teach them some of her tricks.
Consequently, Kael now had to assume that every darkened patch around camp was actually a wildman waiting to caddoc the skin off him.
No, he could understand Elena being a whisperer. What he couldn’t understand for the absolute life of him was the way Declan smiled at Nadine.
He didn’t even seem to realize he was doing it. The giant’s mouth was bent at such an unusual angle that Kael felt as if his stern friend had vanished — only to be replaced by a man who hadn’t frowned once his whole life.
Declan quickly stuffed his smile away when he saw Kael staring. “She’s a wee terror, is all. There’s no reasoning with her. She’ll be a harm to herself if she’s not looked after.”
“Is that the problem?”
Declan grabbed him roughly by the front of his jerkin. “As far as you know, yeh — it is.”
Kael managed to hold his smile back until after Declan had stomped away.
With the pirates and the giants ready to do battle, it was time to talk to Jake. Kael was still several yards away when the tang of skunk oil hit him. The stench was at least as much taste as smell: the oil’s reek seemed to bypass his nose and drop straight down his throat.
“I’ve gone numb to it,” Jake said when he saw Kael gagging. “A remarkable orifice, the nose — it’s capable of adapting to nearly any amount of reek in a surprisingly short time.”
Kael thought he would’ve preferred his nose to have simply fallen off and been done with it. “I need to talk to you about our attack on Titus.”