King Tides Curse
Page 66
Perhaps he'd even write a chapter on heroic last stands. Not really within the protocols that. Best avoided.
'Grace, good job commandeering that Titan and refuelling. With two lighthouses intact and the Oceanus, we can keep the city safe for now until the full Reefwall is rebuilt.’ Spur said over the comms pack.
‘Yes, sir.’ Grace responded.
‘Any sign of Tangerinous?’
'Negative sir.' Grace responded. The world’s greatest entrepreneur was nowhere to be found.
Spur found Gale sitting beside his friend. Scales had erupted over the Canuteian markings. A single scale had grown on Gale’s hand that rested on Titus's shoulder.
‘You must have questions.’ Spur asked.
Gale nodded, his attention staying on Titus.
‘Look kid…I’d recognise your face anywhere. I used to know your dad. You’re the spitting image of him.’
Spur hesitated then pulled out a picture from his pocket. A photo, it showed six people in a band, Gale recognised a younger Spur, with three other men and a couple. The couple looked familiar, a man who looked like him and a woman with haunting eyes. The man who looked like him had a classic mullet, business up front and party down the back.
A scribble down the bottom read, ‘The Heretics: Grimace, Blunder, Flux, Spur, Pipes and Mullet.’
‘I knew your dad back when we were trainees. His name was Adelphus, Adelphus Knott. He was a good person even if he did have a dumb haircut. A haircut that went against tradition. Your mum, Laureli, we called her Pipes. We weren’t much good as a band, but it brought us together.’
Gale nodded again, unsure what to say.
‘Do you know where they are?’ Gale asked finally.
Spur shook his head. ‘I wasn’t there at Volkstorm when Mullet, that is Adelphus, when he crashed the Arghost. He captained the ship to rescue you and your brother. That's all I know. The others, well that not my story to tell. That's our business, and we settled it a long time ago.’
‘Brother?’ Gale asked.
‘His name is Concord. I had him hidden, but someone got to him.’
‘How do I find them.’
‘No-one’s seen Adelphus since the Arghost broke over Volkstorm. His first mate said he used it to seal the breach. He’s presumed missing in action. Laureli disappeared shortly before that. The official report says it's simple as that. Me though, well, let's say I think you should keep digging.'
‘What about these bone coral pendants, who were the Dredgers.’ Gale asked.
Spur leaned on his war hammer and looked side to side. ‘The Dredgers were a covert ops group, meant to be the dregs, expendable. Like cockroaches, we somehow kept surviving, and your dad had no small part in that. Zasterix used them in the war of Brothers for any mission involving the Deep. We were the scraps from the bottom of the barrel, sent to clear out the seafloor. When the war finished we were disbanded, the records stripped, at least that was meant to be what happened.
He paused. ‘There are gaps in my memory. Those Dredgers I’ve found know even less. Something preserved part of my memory, who knows maybe I’m just too stubborn.’ He grinned. ‘I don’t know what took my memories, but I have an idea where to keep digging.
‘Where, who knows what happened to the Dredgers.’
‘Start looking with the one who always gave us our mission, look at the Emperor. Look at Charlemagne.
Look at the Arghost in Volkstorm, dig through the records. Charlemagne covered it up to prevent mass panic. The truth is in there somewhere. Adelphus sacrificed himself at Volkstorm to bring you back from the Deep. I don’t know who stole you from him, but I have my guesses.’
Gale paused, ‘The Rust Knight?’
‘Perhaps, if not him, then he would know who.’
‘Who knows,’ Gale said. ‘Who knows what I am.’
‘A select few. Some friends of you dad’s from the wars. Most have forgotten but might retain a scrap of instinct to help you.’ Spur showed Gale the white coral pendant around his neck. ‘I wouldn’t go spreading the truth around. Time is coming when you’ll be needed, but you aren’t ready yet.’
‘Find the University…become a fracturesmith.’ Gale responded.
Spur placed a hand on Gale’s shoulder. ‘The Rust Knight is still out there, and there are nine waves Gale. Be ready, and maybe work on your resume.’
Spur removed his hand from Gale’s shoulder and left him to his thoughts. Spur strode through the wreckage and looked up at the back half of the Chisel which remained in the air. The bow already had faded, the pylons fixed through the outline of the fracture. Professor Urms came to stand beside him and stared up silently.
‘That was their opening salvo, and we just got our ass’s handed to us’. Spur said.
Urms just stared at the wreckage, the looming presence in the sky. Spur looked back down to earth and stood in front of Urms.
‘You’ve seen what is waiting for us in the depths. Damnit Urms, you know what’s coming. When the tide turns, we aren’t enough. I understand why you put down the tools, but we need every fracturesmith we can get. This was only one of the nine abyssals, and then there is…Corrosyv.’
Urms said nothing staring back at Spur. Then he looked away. ‘All the kings horses, and all the kings men, couldn’t put me back together again.’
A rope dropped from the waiting airship Alignment.
‘Eighteen years ago, Adelphus sacrificed himself to take two siren sons back for humanity. He gave his life to seal the way behind him. He gave them time to grow. Grimace still rots in a cell because of our choices.’ Spur said and jabbed his finger into Urms’s chest. Urms remained stoic, unmoving, like a statue.
Spur sighed and took the rope. He began climbing up to the Alignment.
Urms reached into his shirt as Spur ascended. Urms hummed under his breath to himself.
‘Dredge the depths.’
He pulled two sets of white coral dog tag from his shirt, he turned them over in the sunlight.
‘Stir things up.’
He placed them both back inside his shirt and looked over to Gale. The kid was barely standing, his friends fallen beside him.
‘Make the path.’
Script gathered to his arm and a weapon formed, a long wooden barrelled blunderbuss with a harpoon loaded.
‘And clear the muck.’
Red washed up on the shore. Script spent, she could barely roll over in the sand. She gazed up at a grey sky filled with orbiting rocks the size of skyscrapers. The air smelt sterile.
Red dragged herself to hands and knees. She cupped the water and let it run through her hands. She spat, this was a freshwater ocean. She’d made the fracture wrong.
She wasn’t back in the Deep.
A strange reflection stared back at her. A face covered in scale with demonic horns. She reached for her tempest, and there was nothing. It was gone. She was burnt out. Hollow.
Red struggled to her feet. The shore led to a wooded forest. She had no brimstone left, but if she could reach cover, she could rebuild her strength. She could start feeding off new victims. Her stomach rumbled.
She struggled across the open beach towards the tree line. A loaf of bread, fresh and golden, sat atop a flat rock. Red paused her head jerking from side to side. Nothing but open beach and quiet forest around her. She sank to her knees and ripped into the bread.
‘It is wrong to steal a loaf of bread.’ Spoke a man beside her.
A nondescript man in grey robes, sat atop another rock. In his hands, he spun something metallic. Red devoured the rest of the loaf.
‘Even if you are starving?’ Red asked.
‘Even if you are starving.’ The man in grey said.
‘What if you steal it to feed your starving family?’ Red said, around mouthfuls of bread. The more this fool pontificated, the more food and strength she recovered. ‘Can you help me? I’m injured and in need of shelter.’
The man paused, cocked his head.
‘I c
an do this thing…’ He nodded. Red smiled and then noticed what spun in his hands.
A collar.
‘For I have quorum…’ said a new voice to her left. Red spun to face two more grey-robed figures approaching. Each moving in perfect synchronous.
‘...and we are many.’
Blush stumbled backwards and fell onto the sand. A grey-eyed swarm surrounded her. The man atop the rock lifted the collar in the air. The collar spun on his finger, slowly, lazily. Each finger bore a different coloured ring. Ten rings with the final one grey.
‘Everyone asks, is it wrong to steal a loaf of bread to feed your family?’
He caught the collar with his fist.
‘But no one asks the bread what it thinks...’
‘It has been many years since you hunted us...’
‘Fed us to the monsters...’
‘Drove us from our homes.’
‘…and oh, how we will repay your debts.’
‘Makos?’ Red screamed. There was no answer.
A collar snapped closed on her neck.
One week after the attack, Gale sat on the headland at Bondi Beach at sunset. Gale held a greasy cardboard box crammed with fried, salted chips from Bondi Big Burger. He chewed a golden wedge, beautiful crunch to it, and stared out at the ocean. The wound at his side still ached. The scales on his arm were slowly receding. He hadn’t burnt out, but he had come to the edge.
The ocean was still, the wind, the waves, in perfect balance. Until the headwinds swung around again, all was peaceful. Ash was out there somewhere. Those dark eyes. The eyes of a siren.
‘Well, they waived our fees, all things considered’ Swan said. She stepped up beside him and pinched a chip. Her sword was the slag blade once again. Swan’s crown and armour had disappeared.
Swan tossed a chip to a suspenseful audience of seagulls. The seagulls charged forward with piercing shrieks. From a tattoo on Swan's inner arm, Larc materialised. Erupting from the flat image like she had flown through a portal. Larc chased the seagulls, platinum wing flashing in the sunset. A battle was fought and the Queenspark victorious.
‘You shouldn’t feed them Swan.’ Sterling said. Sterlings silvered blade remained hidden in its scabbard. A silvered collar remained on his neck. ‘Unless you want to pay for the shopping bill. Our debt’s been deferred not paid. We have an instalment plan, and we have to help rebuild the University.’
‘She calls herself a Queenspark.’ Swan said as Larc returned with a chip.
‘Huntspark.’ Sterling said, and pointed to Calumny who kept a vigil on his head.
‘We change history's course without ever being seen. We are the whispered hunt, the hidden pyre.’ Calumny said. Larc offered a chip to her. Calumny hesitated, then speared it with a dagger and took a bite.
‘We all have some secrets we’d like to keep’ Gale said. For now, they had kept their secrets within the lighthouse. They had no idea how the world would react to the re-emergence of the Knights of Noble Metal. No idea what the King Tide would stir up.
‘There were nine orders,’ Sterling said. ‘There may be others out there.’
‘It’s a bit of a gee-up.’ Titus interrupted. ‘I’m the only one who doesn’t get a secret.’
Titus’s grin cracked through the scales which covered half his face. More scales covered the upper half of his right shoulder, chest and arm. The scaled skin had obliterated the Canuteian markings. Unlike Gale’s, Titus’s scales had not retreated since they appeared.
Shackleton stuck his head out of Titus’s shirt pocket, then jumped off to land on Pancakes back.
‘The blood coma victims are making full recoveries. They all started to wake up after we drove off Blush, Red, whatever we want to call her.’ Gale said. ‘Her magic seems to have been feeding off them like a parasite, keeping them just alive. Until they became thralls anyway.’
‘Ironchurch need a beer?’ Titus asked.
‘A few,’ Gale said. ‘Got something for you all, fresh from Ironchurch himself.’
Gale held out four tickets. Bold silver lettering proclaimed an all-expenses-paid trial membership to the Iron Church. The large font proclaimed self-improvement at no cost. An asterisk and several paragraphs of fine text, told a different story. Each of them took a ticket which left one unclaimed. Gale hadn’t had the heart to tell Ironchurch everything yet.
‘This year was a real balls-up, wasn’t it?’ Gale asked. They all nodded.
Titus grabbed a handful of chips and jammed them in his mouth. ‘So…arrr…we…goin…afer our mate?’
They all stared out into the calmed ocean, a false serenity to its surface.
‘Rule number one.’ Swan said. Sterling nodded. Titus grabbed some more chips.
Gale stood and looked out to sea.‘Frak yeah we are, and we’re claiming it on overtime.’
THE END OF
Book one of
KNIGHTS OF NOBLE METAL
Afterword
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Acknowledgement
Cover design done by Andrew Hoare, The Illustrators "www.theillustrators.com.au". I would highly recommend his services.
About The Author
Christopher James Timms
Chris grew up in country Australia and now works as a practicing GP. He enjoys writing fantasy novels in his downtime.