Sorcery of a Queen

by Brian Naslund

  He pointed to the headless body of a warden about twenty strides away.

  “Speaking of, you found his head and given him the shell, Willem?”

  “Yeah, yeah. He’ll get to the sea. No problem, boss.”

  Cumberland nodded. “Even if Timult wasn’t heading down the river as we speak, if he’d been running the show, all this with my ribs would have involved a far larger portion of screaming and cursing. You got a treasure trove in that pack and head of yours, boy. I aim to keep both nearby for the foreseeable future. There’s a lot more injury-prone work to be done before this deal with Linkon Pommol is finished.”

  Jolan looked at Cumberland’s stern face, then the other wardens. They’d all stopped dicing and were now glaring at him. Jolan became very aware of the rather large number of weapons these men carried among them.

  “I suppose my travel plans could be somewhat flexible.”

  “Good!” Cumberland said, as if he’d given Jolan a choice. “Quick introductions, then. You already know the cock-rot-ridden Willem. The one to his right with the frying pan for a face is Sten.”

  “I take offense to that,” Sten said. Although once Jolan took a look at the man’s round, pock-scarred face, the comparison made pretty good sense.

  “Uh-huh.” Cumberland continued, “Last one’s Oromir. Take off your fucking mask, will you, Oro?”

  The warden in question had been staring up at the sky, watching a hawk. But he jerked to attention at Cumberland’s bark. He pulled off his mask.

  Oromir couldn’t have been older than sixteen. He had black hair and sharp features. Pale blue eyes. “I like my mask.”

  “That’s ’cause you’ve only had it for two moons,” Sten said. “Wait’ll the thing’s got a decade of sweat and blood soaked into it. You’ll pull the bitch off soon as the fighting’s done.”

  Oromir shrugged. “It’s good to meet you, Jolan.”

  Cumberland gave a nod. “All right, we all know each other, then. Great. Loot the bodies. Fill every mouth with a seashell. Then we move. Need to get to Umbrik’s Glade in four days.”

  “What’s the rush?” Willem asked. “If Linkon Pommol’s navy got toasted by dragons like that traveling merchant told us the other day, the skinny king can’t have much fight left in him.”

  “The merchant didn’t say it was dragons,” Oromir said. “He said it was flying ships made from dragon bones and gray metal.”

  “Well, that’s obviously impossible. But some stray dragons from the Great Migration deciding a navy didn’t need to exist so much? I can see that happening. I mean, this is Almira. Our dragons can tell when a navy belongs to a bastard.”

  “Only morons believe the stories of traveling merchants,” Cumberland said. “Their lies are just grease meant to open and then empty purses. Till my eyes prove otherwise, there aren’t any flying ships, Linkon Pommol’s fleet is strangling the coast, and we got a damn war to win. Now let’s move out.”

  Jolan started packing up his supplies, then noticed that Willem was standing over him. He scratched his crotch once. Gave a sheepish look. “Little help before we get to walking?”

  “Oh, right.” Jolan reached into his pack to get a salve. “Drop your pants. Let’s get a look at that cock rot.”

  3

  BERSHAD

  Realm of Terra, the Soul Sea

  “So, you promised me a fish,” Felgor said, holding a piece of hardtack in one hand. He tapped it unhappily with a finger. “You were all confident and dismissive, which is the way you always get when there’s something to do that everyone thinks is impossible, like kill a dragon or regrow your own foot. But here we are, the next morning, and there is no fish for Felgor.”

  “I never promised anything.”

  “You did though. It was an implied guarantee.”

  Bershad gave Ashlyn a look.

  “There was a bit of an implication,” she admitted.

  “Thanks for the loyalty, Queen.”

  “Blind loyalty hurts everyone, dragonslayer.”

  “I could give a shit about loyalty,” Felgor said. “I want a fish! At this rate, we’ll sail across the whole of the Soul Sea and I won’t have dropped a single bowel movement. It’s extremely uncomfortable to go this long without—”

  “Quiet,” Jaku hissed. “We got bigger problems than your shit schedule.”

  He pointed south. There were three green-sailed Papyrian war frigates hauling their way up the coast with full sails and dropped oars.

  “Black skies,” Hayden cursed. “Not again.”

  The captain started barking orders to his crew, who flew into a frenzy of activity—climbing up masts and dropping sails, tying lines, and cranking shafts. Jaku adjusted their course with a grim look.

  And Felgor, without orders, decided to cut a heavy barrel of hardtack free from its spot on the deck and roll it overboard.

  “What the fuck are you doing, Balarian?” Jaku growled.

  “Reducing weight, obviously. We gotta slim down and increase speed to escape.”

  “Can you restrain your idiot friend?” Jaku said to Bershad. “They have the better wind. And do you see the dozen oars popping out each side of their frigates? There’s a full crew of rowers in the belly of those ships. Dropping our food in the sea’ll do about as much good as pissing in the harbor in an attempt to raise the tide.”

  “Well, let’s get Silas working our oars. He’s strong.”

  “Nobody’s that strong,” Bershad replied.

  “And we don’t have any fucking oars,” Jaku added.

  Everyone looked back at the ships. They were still three or four leagues away, but closing the distance with a noticeable and alarming alacrity.

  “How’re they moving so much faster than we are?” Bershad asked.

  “I told you, they have the wind.” Jaku scanned the coast. “No coves. No good channels into the Broken Peninsula where we might lose ’em. Shit. They’re gonna catch up with us, and if they have a full crew of wardens to go with their oarsmen, we are going to be in a particularly tight spot.”

  Hayden and her widows had already drawn their slings and blades. “We are used to fighting Almirans under poor odds.”

  Bershad eyed the ships, which were breaking into an attack formation—two in the lead, one trailing a few hundred strides behind. He could see the outlines of wardens on the decks. Swords and spears gleaming.

  “Think we’re gonna need some more of your demoncraft, Ashlyn.”

  But instead of unwinding the thread at her wrist, Ashlyn pointed to a cloudy stretch of sky above the frigate.

  “What is that?”

  Everyone followed her gaze. There was a dark mark in front of a white cloud—flying high but shedding altitude.

  “Another dragon?” Jaku asked.

  “No, its wings aren’t moving,” Bershad said. He squinted as the object got closer and the details clarified. His stomach dropped.

  “That’s a ship made from dragon bones,” Ashlyn said, seeing the same thing as Bershad.

  What Jaku had mistaken for wings were actually long struts jutting out from the ship’s hull. Leather sails were lashed to the bottoms of the struts and filling with wind. Instead of a proper mast and sails, there was a massive, bloated sack strung above the deck. Hundreds of cords and wires connected it to the hull, which was made from a strange union of steel and dragon bones.

  “Impossible,” Jaku muttered. “Ships ain’t sparrows.”

  “If a ten-ton Red Skull can fly, so can a ship,” Ashlyn said.

  “Seems like faulty logic,” Felgor said, trying to cut another barrel of hardtack off the deck despite what Jaku had said.

  “It’s a simple transitive property,” Ashlyn said.

  “Transa-what?”

  “Leave the logic of it alone,” Bershad said, watching the ship. “I’m more concerned with what it’s going to do, not the particulars of how it does it.”

  They all watched. The wind died down, causing an eerie quiet and calm. Their s
ail flapped listlessly against the mast. One of the Papyrian sailors was clicking the safety catch of his crossbow on and off in nervous succession.

  The flying ship lined up with the trailing frigate. As it passed, it dropped an orb.

  “Did it just take a shit?” Felgor asked.

  A heartbeat later, the frigate exploded. Splinters and sail scraps and flaming bodies were blown across the surf like a handful of pebbles thrown into a lake. There was a flurry of desperate hand paddling from the wardens who’d survived the blast, but they’d been wearing armor in anticipation of a violent boarding. Nobody stayed above the water for very long.

  The two remaining frigates veered in separate directions, but they might as well have been actual turtles running from a hungry Naga Soul Strider. The flying ship descended, then flew directly between the two frigates, raining arrows onto both of them as it passed between. Another torrent of flames erupted from the ships—not as powerful an explosion as the orb, but plenty of damage to sink both frigates.

  “Explosive arrows,” Ashlyn muttered. The smell of burning dragon oil wafted across the open sea.

  The flying ship rose again. Adjusted course so that it was cutting a line directly through their wake.

  “Ashlyn, you need to—”

  “I’m aware.” She was already rolling up her sleeve and moving to the stern. “All of you need to step back. Way back.”

  The flying ship was about two leagues away. Ashlyn ripped her hand down the thread in a practiced and slick motion. She winced as the crackles of lightning swarmed around her hand, then settled in her palm. Snapping and hissing with power. She waited until the ship was about a league away, then raised her palm and released the charge.

  The current sawed through the sky and connected with the prow of the bone ship, but it was absorbed into the hull. No damage. And no change to its course.

  “Black skies,” she hissed, turning around. “I need Gods Moss to strengthen the charge.”

  “None left,” Bershad said. “Ate the last of it dealing with those Red Skulls.”

  They all watched the sky for a few heartbeats.

  “Make the dragon attack it!” Felgor said, pointing to the Nomad, who was shadowing the flying ship from the coastline.

  “What?” Bershad asked.

  “We all know it’s following you, Silas. Tell it to attack or something.”

  “It’s not my fucking pet, Felgor.”

  “Well, you got dragon blood in your veins or whatever. You could at least try it,” Felgor muttered.

  Dragon blood. That wasn’t right, but it wasn’t entirely wrong.

  He motioned to Hayden, who was gripping her short sword as if she planned to throw it at the flying ship when it got in range. “Give me that.”

  Bershad snatched the offered blade and ran it across his palm.

  “What are you doing?” Ashlyn asked.

  “Transitive property, Queen,” Bershad said, letting the blood pool in his hand. “That thread of yours lays waste to armies when you throw some Gods Moss on it. And my blood has a relationship with the moss that we all know about.”

  “Regrows your fucking feet,” Felgor muttered.

  “So, let’s find out what happens when we mix my blood with your thread.”

  He held his palm up. Saw the doubt in Ashlyn’s eyes.

  “Or we can all die in the next minute.”

  “All right,” Ashlyn said, holding up her wrist. “Do it.”

  Bershad crossed the deck and spread his blood down the length of Ashlyn’s forearm. As soon as he made contact, a quiver of energy ran through his body—made his blood and bones hum.

  Ashlyn’s hand crackled with a new, stronger spark. But it didn’t stop there. The charge cascaded up her arm and encircled her body, making her hair writhe.

  “Gods,” she whispered as the power enveloped her.

  Bershad stepped back. Watched as the thread on Ashlyn’s wrist turned white hot, like a piece of steel that had been left at the bottom of a blacksmith’s furnace for hours. The skin around her thread sizzled and burned. He could smell her flesh cooking.

  “Ashlyn?” Bershad asked.

  She ignored him. Mouth open in a mixture of pain and ecstasy. Eyes glassy and far away.

  The ship was two hundred strides away.

  “Ashlyn!”

  Her eyes snapped back into focus and she raised her palm again. Pointed it at the ship. Released.

  There was a flash and a thundering boom. Bershad’s vision went white.

  Then there was a great, echoing snap—as if the entire world was made of wood, and someone had broken it in half.

  When Bershad’s vision returned, the flying ship was engulfed in flames and plummeting toward the sea.

  The lightning that had radiated from Ashlyn’s body disappeared like a snuffed candle. She collapsed. Bershad caught her as the burning ship crashed into the surf. A moment later, a massive wave hurtled over their gunwale, soaking everyone on the deck.

  “Ashlyn.” Bershad touched her face. Watched as the cold sea-water evaporated off her sweltering skin. “You all right?”

  She opened her eyes. Swallowed. Winced. Touched her throat. “I’m fine. Throat just hurts.”

  Bershad motioned to Hayden, who produced a canteen and passed it over. Ashlyn drank, greedy and long.

  “Did I get it?” she said when she was done.

  Bershad glanced to his left, where an enormous hunk of blackened dragon bone was smoking as it sank.

  “You got it.”

  “Any others?”

  Everyone searched the sky. Empty except for the Nomad, which was still following them, and seemed unperturbed by the lightning from Ashlyn’s arm and the destruction of the flying ship.

  “We’re clear.”

  Ashlyn pushed herself up and looked out over the steaming wreckage. Eyes narrowing as her mind churned. Bershad looked at her arm. The thread had sunk into her skin and was charred black like a piece of burned meat.

  “We need to get that off you.”

  “I’m not sure that’s possible, and even if it was, there’s no time.” Ashlyn touched the charred skin near the edge of the ruined thread. Winced. “Just get me a bandage. We need to salvage that wreck before it sinks.”

  “Why?” Jaku asked. “It’s destroyed.”

  “I seriously doubt that was the only flying ship filling the skies of Terra right now,” she said. “But that was the last time I’ll be able to destroy one with this thread. I need to learn more about them.”

  By the time Jaku and his crew had fished out enough scrap from the skyship to satisfy Ashlyn, it was nearly dark. She carefully selected certain pieces from the pile and took them down to their private cabin. Spent almost two hours examining them in silence.

  “This is Balarian made, but the complexity goes far beyond their clocks and pulleys and plumbing machinery,” she said to Bershad, running her hand down a slat of carved Thundertail rib with steel bolts running through it. Next to that piece, there was a hollowed-out skull that was covered in scorch marks and attached to scores of small gears and pistons. “Far beyond anything Mercer Domitian ever designed. Who could have done it?”

  “If I had to guess, I’d say it was the same asshole who made the ballistas for him, and cut off both my legs in that dungeon.”

  “Osyrus Ward.” She nodded. “That makes sense.”

  Bershad wasn’t eager to dredge up that experience. “What else can you tell about the machinery?” he asked.

  “Well, the apparatus is powered by dragon oil,” she said. “These pipes here and here, they’re conduits that must have been connected to an engine—you can see the dragon-oil residue on the interior of this one, then steam damage on the other. The system is doing an incredible amount of work to keep those ships airborne. And the propulsion seems to burn a huge amount of dragon oil. But that’s not my biggest concern.”

  “What is?”

  She turned back to the bones. “He’s using dragon bones
for the structural elements of the skyship because they’re probably the only material in Terra that is light enough to fly, but can also handle the stress that the engine puts on it in the air. But I have no idea how he preserved them on such a massive scale. The only example of preserved dragon bone I’ve seen is that dagger you used to carry.” She looked at him. “How did you really forge it?”

  Ashlyn had asked him that same question last spring, before he’d left Almira to kill the emperor of Balaria. He’d lied to her then because he didn’t want to tell her what he really was, or what he could do. But there was no point holding on to that secret anymore.

  “I used my blood,” he said. “A Gray-Winged Nomad bit me in the stomach. Tooth got stuck in my belly. Rowan pulled it out and threw it in a sack while he dealt with the wound. The tooth soaked in my blood for a few days. When I took it out, I saw it had softened, but hadn’t gone to rot. So, I cleaned the blood off and sharpened it. It hardened after that and hasn’t taken a scratch since.”

  He paused, thinking of Rowan, and then, inevitably, of the bastard who’d killed him, Vallen Vergun. The same bastard who had the dagger now.

  “Your blood preserved a Nomad’s bones. And now you’ve got one following you across the Soul Sea.”

  “Always did like the Nomads,” Bershad said. “Guess they like me, too.”

  Ashlyn didn’t laugh. Just frowned a little more. “Blood explains the method, but not the volume.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look at all this.” Ashlyn motioned to the bones. “I can’t imagine that Osyrus Ward stabbed someone like you through the stomach each time he needed another dragon bone for his ship.”

  Bershad shrugged. “I wouldn’t put it past the crazy bastard. He’s not afraid of hurting people. And he did say there were others like me. Called us Seeds.”

  “But there can’t be many, otherwise the impact of Gods Moss on your body would be more common knowledge. If almost nobody knows about the phenomenon, then it must be extremely rare. But from the looks of it, he’s preserved dozens of dragons. Maybe hundreds.” She paused. Put her head down. Closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. “It doesn’t seem possible.”