King Tides Curse

by C J Timms

  Red ran a fingertip down the Slagblade. ‘Such an ugly blade. Suits you really.’ Overhead the airships plating creaked. Red looked up and laughed. She dragged Swan into position and hot liquid metal dripped onto Swan’s head. Swan cried out in pain, the metal burned into her scalp.

  ‘Come back and fight me.’ Gale yelled, pushing to one knee.

  ‘Oh Gale,’ Red said and turned back to face him. ‘Such a brave knight. I wonder, does your little friend even know what you are? I need the King Tide’s script to open the nine Floodgates? Canute was the last King Tide…but you know who the new one is don’t you.’

  Red reached down and cupped Gale’s head in her hands. Swan heaved in a breath through her bruised windpipe. In the corner of her eye, something metallic flitted in the broken stain glass windows. Multiple somethings, shining in the window.

  Gale shook his head. Red’s eyes flared. ‘I have ways of making you into what you need to be. Let's start by killing the dainty swan.’

  Swan death approached in elegant boots.

  Clack.

  Clack.

  Clack.

  A measured pace, an orderly pace, a monotonous process automated into dullness.

  Something flashed again in the stained glass windows, not a reflection, something coming through the glass.

  ‘This is between you and me Red, come back and face me.’ Gale yelled.

  Swan struggled to a kneeling position but could move no further. Her muscles locked in place by the crushing weight. She brought her head upwards, and Red approached in the corner of her vision. Red raised her trident. The wicked points flashed in the light of the ship burning overhead as the ship’s metal reached a breaking point.

  She tried to stand, and her limbs failed her. She’d taken on too much, the poison of the skyfish, the overuse of script and the weight of the brimstone. Her limbs were too heavy, the weight too much. She couldn’t bear it. She could stand no longer.

  A metallic blur flashed forwards, and Larc hit Red right between the eyes.

 

  Red cursed and tried to swat Larc away. Larc darted close to Red’s face, pecking madly. Red’s trident was ineffective that close in and she staggered around, trying to headbutt Larc away.

 

  Lark pecked at one of Red’s eyes. Red swatted her away.

 

  Red spun her trident and swatted at Larc again. Swan clenched her fist and rolled over. She pushed one arm under her. She would not lose, she was the strongest, and she would not let Larc have all the fun.

 

  With an impossible shot, the edge of the trident hit Larc, cleaving the new wing from her body. Red swatted Larc down to the pedestal with a horrible squawk.

  ‘Frak!’ Swan cursed.

  Blush brought her boot up to crush Larc. Larc’s head turned to look straight at Swan. Larc’s platinum eyes bored into hers.

 

  Blush’s boot came down on Larc. Metal cracked, and shards blasted out across the stone. Larc’s wings fell motionless. Her voice silenced.

  'No more.' Swan growled.

  Another friend broken, her fault, her burden. Too many people trying to break the other. No more, she would stop the breaking. Heavy burdens broke people, but she would reforge the broken. She would be the strongest, so that others could heal. She would take the weight.

  First, though, Red was going to pay.

  ‘You mother-frakker!’ Swan said.

  ‘Swan,’ yelled Sterling, staggering into the amphitheatre. ‘Swear jar!’

  Sterling threw her swear jar toward her. The jar shattered on the ground in front of her. It erupted with all of the condensed script she had been putting in there for a full year. It flooded her system with script. Energy thrummed in her, the weight of the Deep pushed back. Her muscles coursed with magic, her wounds healing over, poison driven from her system.

  She was strong.

  She smashed Blush in the chest. Blush’s armour bent inwards, and she flew back across the walkway. Swan bent down to scoop up Larc. The crumpled mess of Larc melted in her hands. Liquid platinum ran onto the walkway beneath her and formed a circle. Symbols flitted around the circle, runes written in metal.

  Sterling collapsed at the entrance to the amphitheatre. He looked like shit warmed up. His blade though, glowed silver.

  Blush turned back to Swan and spat to the side. She bared her fangs. The weight of brimstone came crashing back down on Swan. She glimpsed the weight leaving Gale. She bent down to one knee under the renewed weight. She felt the script from the swear jar chewed through at a rapid pace.

  ‘Stronger.’ She spat through gritted teeth.

  Something descended from the heavens. She couldn’t look up to see, her head bowed by the weight. A flitting school of flying creatures, the skyfish returning?

  Larc's voice came to her. Words came to her tongue as though she had always known them.

  ‘Kneel, to know the weight on your shoulders.’

  She looked up, Blush raised her trident, time slowed down and the wicked points of the red weapon rose in the air, dripping wet.

  The burning ship overhead dripped hot metal onto her shoulder, and in a circle on her head. Yet Swan felt no pain as she continued to speak, Larc’s voice filling her head.

  ‘Be the symbol, that makes the people strong.’

  Larc screamed in her head.

  Swan cast through her mind for something that was both beautiful and strong. She saw the forge in Locomotyr. She saw her brother fleeing with the Unbroken. She saw a younger Swan bent over a horseshoe.

  She smiled. ‘Stand and be crowned in platinum.’

  The metal on her scalp took form.

  A crown.

  ‘Royalforged,’ cursed Red.

  Red swung down with her crimson trident. The Slagblade liquefied in an explosion of heated metal. The metal of the statues in the cathedral, the ancient warrior kings and queens, flowed towards her. Dozens of metallic larcs descended from the sky, shredding through a pack of skyfish. They spun around her, forming a swirling barrier. The Larcs streaked through the liquid metal on the floor, sheets of it streaking behind their tails like ribbons. They drew the ribbons of liquid metal about Swan like she was Snow frakking White in a metallic forest. They clad her, not in fabric, but in armour. Armour of shining platinum, silvery white, formed around her.

  The weight of the Deep was lighter than a feather.

  Red’s eyes widened, Red snarled and ran back towards the fractured rift with the House Cup.

  Sterling was still collapsed at the entrance, and Gale was still struggling to his feet. Swan held out a hand beside her, slowly, deliberately. She had been asked for both beautiful and strong. She would deliver.

  A Swan’s word was good as gold.

  ‘Sparkles.’

  Hoofbeats echoed down the corridor, beating a metallic staccato. A shining steed charged into the amphitheatre, a winged pegasus made of platinum, a pegasus with a familiar resemblance. The pegasus galloped towards her, and she grabbed its saddle on the way past. Swan swung herself onto its back and called a lance from the pool of liquid metal flowing around her. Swan charged down the walkway over the desalination lake, racing Blush towards the reality fracture.

  Yip/Spur - Duty

  ‘What are we doing, Yip?’ Titus said.

  Yip pointed to Adam. A faint golden light surrounded Adam, expanding in incremental inches. His face grimaced, trying to fight the spell. They rushed through the students towards Adam.

  A fathomless claw emerged from the water.

  ‘Titus hold off the fathomless.’ Yip said. He ripped one of the communicators from his ear and slammed it in Adam’s ear. The siren song swelled in Y
ip’s ear, and Yip bit his lip to distract himself. The song was discordant and chaotic to him. He found no rhyme or reason to it. The inner beast inside him stirred. It loved the chaos, thrived on it. It hated the box Yip kept it in.

  Yip cursed and slapped Adam’s face. Adam twitched, but the single communicator hadn’t helped. Yip put a hand to the final communicator on his other ear. He could probably get it on Adam before the song took him. Frak that, he wasn’t sacrificing himself so some knight in shining armour could save them.

  From Adam’s back, frozen halfway through emerging, Yip could finally see what Gale had captured on his hydrolens. The image from the fight with Sterling. A golden-winged figure was stuck halfway out of Adam’s back, the torso from the chest up had emerged. The figure was angelic with a perfect visage. Its eyes flicked to Yip, and its head turned towards him.

  ‘Free….Adam…’ it spoke.

  Yips books began sketching it. Yip reached out with a pair of forceps and poked it. They passed straight through.

  ‘Burn…the sky…’ Then it shuddered and faded.

  ‘Frak it all,’ cursed Yip.

  Titus cried out behind him. Three fathomless snapped at Titus, cornering him. Titus grabbed two of them by the neck, holding their snapping jaws at bay. Two more came at Yip as another came in with a swinging claw at Titus’s exposed back.

  It collided with a golden arm.

  ‘Rule four of the student contract. ‘You may not exit the contract by any means until you pay off your debt.’ Shackleton said, his voice a metallic reverberating echo.

  Huh, guess death was technically an escape from debt.

  Titus and Shackleton hammered the fathomless into the ground. Shackleton’s fists imbued with Script broke bones and kicked ass. Together they fought, back to back. Titus grabbed a fathomless by its tail and swung it straight into one Shackleton had kicked in the air.

  They broke the pack and sent them running back to the sea.

  Shackleton became stationary again. Titus tried to high five him, but Shackleton just stared straight ahead. Had their debt golem gotten more intelligent as Gale ploughed them deeper into the red? Was that a hint of a smile Yip saw on Shackleton’s face?

  The ground rocked again. Water was still rising over the Island Turtle’s edges. The students and teachers still held in place by sirensong, the phyton swarm pulling them deeper into the water. Another crack in the air and the Vrachos kept pushing its bulk through the fracture.

  Yip stared at the debt golem who had defended Titus.

  ‘Okay new plan,’ Yip said.

  Yip scanned the water and seeing no other fathomless breaking through he charged back towards the university.

  ‘Titus guard the students.’

  ‘Sure thing Yip…she’ll be right.’ Titus called back trying to teach Shackleton to bump fists.

  Yip dashed back to stand in front of the golden statue of Canute on the island. The symbol of the dead king who first held back the tide and birthed a religion. The best of them.

  ‘Oy, dingleberry.’ Yip yelled, kicking the statue with his foot. ‘This university is about to be wrecked without paying its debt. Are you going to let them get away with that.’

  Silence answered him.

  ‘Hey, I know you’re the university’s debt golem. You’re under contract just the same as Shackleton. Now answer me.’

  With an almighty creak, a golden head slowly turned to regard Yip. Yip gulped, it was quite a large statue.

  The statue took a step forward, drawing its blade from its scabbard and pointed it at the Vrachos Gorgona.

  On the portal screen of the Chisel, Spur watched the reefwall fall.

  There were certain parts of life that were supposed to be, well, certainties. Firm walls to set your back against. Certainties that made life manageable. Spur knew that his first cup of coffee in the morning would wake him up and make him need to piss. Spur knew that a 6.0 longnail would keep a single break pinned. Spur knew that the College would never miss a single membership fee.

  Just like he’d known that the reefwall was unbreakable.

  The titans burst into giant bonfires in the sky. They all fell and slammed into the beacons beneath them. The lights went out one by one. The wall unknit and broke into fragments.

  Spur watched certainty fracture.

  Wait, no, two of the Titans still remained. Two beacons gave off a faint light, not enough to sustain the wall but perhaps enough to rebuild it.

  The first Titan, the Hyperion, flew over the city till it came to the burning spectre of Gristlelock prison. It hovered over the prison, and large cables fired into the ground, creating a sky bridge. Spur threw his loupes on and saw the prisoners scrambling up the cables. He recognised a one-armed rogue being pulled upwards by cable.

  The second remaining Titan, was unstarted, hovering over its beacon. Someone with good sense perhaps? Or just slow and lazy? He knew how it would be spun if they survived this.

  He watched a fracture rip open over the membranous cathedral, a ship he recognised all too well.

  ‘Ghosts of the past.’ Spur muttered running a hand through his hair. Hair that had been so much more vibrant and lush last time he’d seen that ship. He was so much less than he had been. What could he possibly do in the face of all this?

  Frak, Grace was on one of the Titans. Still aboard the command ship. He zoomed in on the still floating ship, hoping, praying.

  It was the Oceanus. Silent, unmoving and beautifully intact. Grace would be on that ship. He could rescue her, perhaps retrieve the crew and double his numbers. With more men aboard the Chisel he could take the fight to the other Titan.

  They were outmatched badly in a gunfight, the Chisel at least ten years old and showing its wear and tear. The Hyperion would bring them down, but not before they got close enough to board. If they snagged the Hyperion they could then take the fight whatever was trying to invade the harbour.

  ‘All hands to stations.’ Spur called over the comms system. Red alarms blared all over the ship, screaming for attention. His soldiers readied themselves, veterans of his last campaign.

  The comms operator tapped him on the shoulder and held out a mike to him. Head office, he thought. They were always trying to micromanage.

  He brought the mike up and caught them midsentence. ‘…do you hear me Spur you are not to bring the fleet into contact with the sirens until you have backup to counter their spell. You are to wait damnit! Those are your orders.’

  Spur looked out to the horizon at the world fracture. He turned to see lights flashing from the membranous cathedral and police forming a barricade around it, trying to contain whatever was happening inside. The reefwall burned, and his people told him to wait. Not a bad plan really, there was no point him falling prey to sirens. He had been ordered to hold.

  The crew turned to him, awaiting orders. All of them had served with him for years, some since the War of Brothers. They would suffer the consequences of his decisions.

  His message pad dinged. He saw a single line of text from Grace.

  Let me at em

  He picked up the horn to the comms relay and took a deep breath.

  ‘There is a fracture. I need to fix it.’

  Gale - Temptation

  Sterling crashed into Red and locked her in place. Swan charged forward, and her lance drove towards Red’s chest. Red twisted away at the last moment, and it glanced off. Swan crashed to the ground.

  ‘Check it out, I’m the hero of this story.’ Sterling yelled.

  ‘Focus, pretty boy.’ Swan said.

  Red screamed and brimstone roiled out of her. The black-tide knocked Sterling and Swan back. Sterling’s feets scrabbled at the hard stone floor, and he leaned into his sword. Dark brimstone infused water pushed and Swan planted her feet. Her armour gave her weight. Her burden gave her footing. She held her ground.

  She was strong.

  ‘A Royalforged and a Wytchhunter, this is just my frakking luck.’ Red screamed, her hair whir
ling around her in the black current. ‘Drofn just strolled in and snagged his relic, and I’ve got to deal with two wannabe heroes.’

  ‘Make that three wannabe heroes.’ Gale said and grappled Red. Freed from the immobilising pressure, Gale grabbed onto the House Cup trying to wrest it back from her. At a stalemate, Gale glanced up. High overhead, the pyre crept toward Ash.

  ‘Don’t fight it, Gale. Deep breaks through. You are one of us.’

  ‘What’s she talking about Gale?’ yelled Sterling, pushing forwards against the tide of brimstone.

  ‘Hah’ laughed Blush, ‘Your friend here, your precious champion, has never been honest with you.’

  ‘What are you waiting for, finish her’ Swan yelled, the stone under her cracking.

  ‘You know the truth though Gale…now see!’ Red roared and grabbed his shoulder. Pain erupted in his tattoo.

  Gale’s vision split. He saw reality, and he saw a murky shade world, a world of Deep currents far from the light. He saw a mark on Red’s cheek. He could read it. “Bloodswell”. Read forced his head down to look at his shoulder. The tattoo on his shoulder, the one he could never remember getting in Thailand, blurred before his eyes.

  He understood the shapes in the tattoo. At a gut level, he knew what the markings meant. The symbol that had exploded into the walls of the cathedral earlier was now clear as day. Carved into the rock of the cathedral, over the fallen statue of King Canute read two words

  King Tide.

  ‘No…its not true…’ Gale said.

  ‘We’ve been calling to you. The nine waves call for you, Gale.’ Red said, advancing on him.

  ‘Me…why do you frakking want me?’ Gale said.

  ‘We need you for your blood, for your bloodline. Canute’s blood runs thick in your veins.’

  ‘You know my bloodline? You know my parents?’ Gale asked.

  ‘Oh aye, they were tracked very closely.’ Red licked her lips.

  ‘Tell me who they were. Tell me what happened to them.’ Gale said.