Snake Heart

by Lindsay Buroker

  “Halfway there,” Dak said, his rowing never faltering. He would never be distracted by longing.

  “Is the underwater boat utterly destroyed?” Yanko asked.

  “Utterly,” Dak said. “The Kyattese finance department will probably find out and have a bill sent to the Turgonian embassy before I return.”

  “How could they know?” Arayevo waved at the sea. “Unless the pirates tell them.”

  Dak’s lips compressed in displeasure or maybe acknowledgment of the possibility. Did he know that Pey Lu might have been hired by the Kyattese?

  The cannonballs grew less frequent as Dak rowed the dinghy out of range. Oddly, none of the ships were chasing after them. Perhaps Pey Lu realized that recapturing her wayward son would be inevitable—how could he escape from an island? Maybe she planned to let him assume the risk of finding the lodestone first and then take it from him later.

  “Who’s that?” Arayevo pointed toward a figure swimming away from the ships and toward the island.

  Yanko recognized the white clothes, the long black hair streaming behind as powerful strokes moved her through the waves. She was a strong swimmer and ought to make the island if nothing befell her. He didn’t spot any sharks following in her wake.

  “Sun Dragon’s assassin,” Yanko said, wondering if he had done the right thing in freeing her. No, it had definitely been the right thing—he believed that. He just wasn’t sure if it had been the smart thing. “She tried to kill me.”

  “And failed?” Dak asked.

  “I’ll try not to find it disheartening that you sound surprised by that.” He scratched his jaw. “We never figured out how she got on Pey Lu’s ship.”

  “The ironclad.”

  “What?” Yanko asked before remembering what he referenced. The ship that had rammed the Prey Stalker before Pey Lu had moved away and it had exploded. Had it delivered a passenger before blowing up? “Oh.”

  “Does that mean Sun Dragon is on his way then?” Lakeo asked.

  And that he would distract Pey Lu by attacking her fleet again? Wishful thinking, Yanko decided. Sun Dragon’s ships had been destroyed in the last confrontation, and unless he’d had a few more hiding on the far side of that island, he couldn’t have followed them here, even if he did have a way of tracking his assassin.

  “If you want to kill her,” Dak said, tilting his chin toward the swimming figure, “this would be the time.”

  “Kill her?” Arayevo protested. “After she’s survived so far?”

  “You don’t make it far in life if you don’t kill the assassins that are after you.” Dak said the words as if reciting some common Turgonian phrase. Maybe it was one. His people weren’t reputed to employ assassins often, but their emperors and military leaders had certainly been the targets of assassins—even Nurian mage hunters—over the centuries.

  “She owes me her life,” Yanko said. “I’m hoping she’ll decide to thank me by not killing me.”

  “Wouldn’t Nurian honor demand that she fulfill her mission no matter what the extenuating circumstances?” Dak asked.

  “Yes,” Arayevo and Lakeo sighed together. Lakeo added a comment of, “Jellyfish brain,” and smacked Yanko again.

  Yanko held back a sigh of his own, though he did not disagree. Jellyfish brain, indeed.

  Chapter 18

  Dak led the way up a rocky incline that climbed steeply from the beach area. This island had a tree-covered butte in the middle, the remains of a volcano that had blown its top during some past century. Yanko hoped it was a dormant volcano and that hunting for the lodestone wouldn’t involve any trips through lava tubes. He’d had enough of that.

  A desire to get to the artifact propelled Yanko up the slope with alacrity, and he and Dak outpaced the women. Of course, part of that was Yanko’s desire to avoid being smacked by Lakeo again. She kept glaring at him and calling him a fool for letting the mage hunter escape. Fortunately, with Dak’s powerful rowing, their group had reached the island first. The pirates hadn’t yet sent a team to land, either, though Yanko suspected that would change soon, and that the beaches would be besieged with his mother’s people by noon.

  “Thank you for coming after me, Dak,” Yanko said quietly as they scrambled up bare lava rock. They had already risen five hundred feet or more above the beach, leaving the ocean and the pirate fleet within clear view. The morning sun rose behind the volcano, burning down through the stunted vegetation. This island was dryer than the last, and the trees were not as dense, the leaves not as thick.

  “Thank the women. I wanted to go directly to the island. The journal identified this as a staging area for the bandit.”

  “Ah. They overpowered you, did they?”

  “With nagging, yes. Even the strongest warrior would succumb to that.”

  “Some warriors might simply have locked them in that closet. You’re stronger than both of them put together. Don’t tell Lakeo I said that.”

  Dak snorted. “I will tell her, so she can switch her nagging to you.”

  “That’s already happened.” Yanko glanced back, not at Arayevo and Lakeo, but at the beach, fearing he would glimpse the mage hunter. He could not see anyone, but that did not mean much. The assassin had probably reached the island by now and disappeared into the interior. “Also, I don’t think you’re supposed to call it nagging when a woman argues with you. It’s derogatory. They prefer the term discussing forcibly.”

  “Your mother tell you that?”

  “My brother. He was catnip to the ladies in our village.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Almost twenty-one.”

  Dak stopped his climb and frowned down. Yanko thought he would offer his opinion on the worth of getting advice on women from someone half his age, but he pointed at something. Yanko picked his way up the slope, which had become nearly vertical. To Dak’s right, a human skull sat wedged into a fissure, looking out onto the sea below.

  “The remains of someone who discussed forcibly with the wrong woman?” Yanko asked, attempting levity, though those empty eye sockets were an unwelcome reminder that his last attempt to get to Heanolik Tomokosis’s stashed goods had not gone well. The yellowed and wind-worn skull had been there for years, if not decades, but it remained an effective warning.

  Dak continued climbing. “I chose this route, figuring it would be less likely to be booby-trapped than the gentler slope on the other side, but keep an eye out.”

  Yanko waited on his rocky perch, so he could share Dak’s warning with the others.

  “This is fabulous,” Arayevo announced when she drew even with him, gazing out upon the sea and the tiny ships below. “Such an amazing view.”

  Yanko pointed to the skull.

  Arayevo blinked, but then shrugged. “You don’t think he agrees?”

  “I didn’t ask.”

  “That someone who met your assassin?” Lakeo asked when Yanko pointed the skull out to her.

  “Doubtful. That skull has been here a long time, and the mage hunter didn’t look much older than me.”

  “Maybe she’s inexperienced then.”

  Yanko remembered the kills the woman had claimed, twenty-seven mages. “Let’s not assume that.”

  He scrambled after Dak, accidentally kicking rocks free as he ascended. He was relieved when the slope grew less vertical, since he did not trust his ability to manipulate air to save himself from a deadly fall. Dak might have climbing gear in his pack—he was the only one who had retained all of his belongings—but he had not pulled it out. What was a near-vertical slope to a Turgonian? A warm-up climb, no doubt.

  They reached the top of the butte, but Dak did not head into the trees. He helped Yanko over the edge and waited so he could do the same for the women. Or maybe he was waiting because of the sight of what lay ahead.

  The trees at the top of the butte were stunted and skeletal, only a few sparse leaves adorning their branches. The trunks of some of them twisted, as if affected by some vortex. As the breeze
swept across tufts of grass and lichen-covered rocks, clanks and thuds came from the skeletal forest. It took Yanko a moment to find the source of the noise, and then he wished he hadn’t. More skulls. They danced on old, frayed ropes, swaying in the wind and bumping against each other and against the tree trunks. There had to be hundreds of them.

  “Did the journal mention this?” Yanko asked.

  Where had Tomokosis found so many human skulls?

  “No, but another book I researched called this island the Fate of the Fallen, a name the natives of this archipelago gave it. It said nobody lived here, that it was reserved for burials.”

  “Unless people were buried in trees, it looks like Tomokosis dug them up to, ah...”

  “Scare people away would be my guess,” Dak said. “According to the map in the journal, his cache is supposed to be at the highest point on the island, under a skull-shaped outcropping of rock.”

  “Do you know anything else?” Yanko asked. “You mentioned traps. Did the journal speak of them?”

  “Not specifically.”

  “Vaguely?”

  “A message in the front warned that anyone who found his records and attempted to pilfer his belongings would meet a painful and horrible death.”

  “Pey Lu’s pirates haven’t sent boats to the beach yet,” Yanko said. He could see the sea all around the island from the top of the butte. “Do you think they want us to find the lodestone and then steal it?” Yanko offered Arayevo a hand up, which she ignored, in favor of rolling herself over the edge on her own.

  “It’s crossed my mind,” Dak said. “They also know we don’t have a way off the island, so they don’t have a reason to hurry. They’re likely doing some repositioning of personnel and trying to recover supplies and equipment from their wrecked ship too.”

  “I understand that completely,” Lakeo said, heaving herself over the side to join them. “Much of the treasure I recovered from the last island went down with the underwater boat.”

  “Much but not all,” Dak said. “You clank when you climb.”

  “I recovered a few coins.”

  “Enough to weigh down our boat, so that taking on Yanko almost sank us.”

  “Yes, it’s clear Yanko was better fed than we expected during his time imprisoned on his mother’s boat. Did you feast at the captain’s table, Yanko?”

  “Not exactly,” he murmured. He stretched his senses into the forest of dangling skulls, searching for the telltale energy of a Made item.

  To his surprise, he sensed something ahead of them, beyond the trees and possibly in the ground. It was hard to tell.

  “I feel something,” he said, meeting Dak’s eyes.

  “The artifact?”

  “I can’t tell. Something Made.”

  “Lead the way.” Dak pulled out a machete. “I’ll follow.”

  “It feels close, but we need to watch our step and stay alert for traps.”

  Though Yanko was tired after the morning’s events and after being up most of the night, excitement burned away much of that weariness. Even if he had no idea how they would get off the island, knowing they might be nearing the culmination of his quest made him believe that anything could be possible. Maybe they could steal one of Pey Lu’s ships and slip away, or maybe he could negotiate with his mother somehow.

  His senses led him along the edge of the butte rather than into the forest, and he eyed the steep cliff that fell away to the side, hoping they wouldn’t end up climbing back down it to some cave or lava tube. The earth under their feet was mostly rock, what soil had been made over the eons scraped free by the wind. The stunted trees seemed to grow straight out of the rock, gaining their meager nutrition from that.

  Yanko watched each step he took, expecting a trap at any moment. Dak walked behind his shoulder, his weapon at the ready, and Arayevo and Lakeo followed after him.

  “It’s under us somewhere,” Yanko said, slowing as they approached a cairn of rocks. It rose above his head, and he tried to see a skull shape in its jumbled assembly. It would take an imagination. He did find it distinctive that the cairn appeared to be built using pieces of granite when the rest of the rocks on the island were dark and volcanic. The clacking of the real skulls rattled his nerves as the wind picked up again. He wished to run through the forest, cutting them down and arranging for a re-burial.

  “Maybe Dak can figure out if there’s a trapdoor or secret switch,” Arayevo said. “He’s good at pushing buttons and levers.”

  Dak’s eyebrows rose.

  Arayevo placed a hand on Yanko’s forearm. “While he’s doing that, I need to talk to you about things.”

  “Things?” Yanko had dreamed of talking about things with her for most of his life, but this seemed an odd time for it. Besides, he highly doubted she was thinking of the same types of things he always was.

  Dak’s single eye closed to a slit as he continued to regard Arayevo.

  “It took Minark leaving me behind and almost losing you to realize how important some things were,” Arayevo said firmly and nodded toward some scrubby bushes farther along the butte. “Can I steal you for a moment?”

  Lakeo propped her fists on her hips, a surprisingly fierce scowl on her face.

  “I’ll see what I can find,” Dak said, turning to consider the cairn. “Don’t go far.”

  Arayevo pulled Yanko toward the bushes. She didn’t have to pull hard. Even if he had been mulling over the lodestone, his feet would still follow her wherever she wanted to lead. Her words echoed in his mind. Was it possible that she had come to realize that she cared about him? As more than a friend?

  “What is it?” Yanko asked quietly when she stopped. He kept his voice casual, not wanting to sound too hopeful, not wanting to let her know that his arm tingled when she touched it like that.

  “Badger goddess’s furry hide, he sticks close, doesn’t he?” Arayevo glanced back at Dak.

  “Bodyguards are supposed to.”

  “Come on, Yanko. You know he’s your spy, not your bodyguard.”

  Yanko spread his hands. “He’s been effective at the latter while doing the former.”

  “Well, he’s definitely not on our side.” Arayevo grimaced.

  “He didn’t... do anything to you, did he?” Yanko had a hard time imagining Dak acting dishonorably, but her grimace made him wonder what had gone on during those three days she and Lakeo had been alone with him.

  “What? No, nothing like that. To Lakeo’s lament maybe. But listen, in case you’re wondering why he’s not too worried about the underwater boat being destroyed, it’s because he’s got company coming.”

  “What kind of company?” Yanko shifted so his back was toward Dak, even though the Turgonian seemed to be busy examining the rocks. “And when did he get a chance to invite it to come?”

  “The underwater boat had a communications orb tucked away in a little cubby in the engine room. You didn’t sense it?”

  “I sensed that the engine itself was powered by something magical, but I didn’t get much of a chance to explore the ship.”

  Arayevo acknowledged that with a flick of her fingers. “I didn’t know it was there, either, until I heard him talking to someone in the middle of the night when he thought Lakeo and I were sleeping. My Turgonian isn’t great, but I’ve picked up a few words—we visited one of their ports while I was with Minark, and we had Turgonians in our crew.”

  Yanko nodded for her to go on, though dread had settled in his stomach, and he worried he didn’t want to hear what else she had to say.

  “I’m not sure who he was talking to, but he asked to have a message delivered to an Admiral Markcrest. He held up the journal, the page with the map on it. Yanko, a Turgonian fleet could be on its way here right now.” Arayevo looked toward the sea.

  From this side of the butte, the pirate vessels were not in view, and Yanko realized he ought to have left one of his teammates by the cliff to monitor them. Of course, Pey Lu’s ships might not matter if Dak’s peop
le truly showed up with a fleet. As powerful as his mother was, Yanko doubted she would take on the Turgonian military, especially not after losing her ship to a single underwater boat. He remembered what she had told him, that the pilot was quite experienced with the craft and naval warfare. At this point, Yanko hadn’t found much that Dak wasn’t experienced with.

  “Just because he requested a fleet doesn’t mean he’ll get it,” Yanko said slowly, though he wasn’t that convinced. Whatever Dak was exactly, he clearly had connections to high-ranking Turgonians. Markcrest. Yanko had never heard the surname, but he knew “-crest” was the designation for their warrior-caste families and that those families had controlled their government and the military until the empire had shaken up their internal structure in favor of a republic. He wagered the powerful warrior-caste families were still powerful, similar to honored clans in his world. “Are you sure he actually asked for a fleet?”

  Just how good was Arayevo’s Turgonian?

  “No, it might have been a ship, but if this artifact is as important as you’ve been saying, wouldn’t the Turgonians want it?”

  “It depends on whether they believe it can deliver what Prince Zirabo believes it can deliver. A lot of Turgonians don’t even think magic exists.”

  Not that Dak had ever blinked in surprise at its use.

  “He’s looking over here.” Arayevo smiled and laid an arm around Yanko’s shoulders.

  He held still, though he longed to wrap an arm around her in return, to feel the curve of her waist against his side. Perhaps other curves, as well. Heat flushed his face, and he forced himself to concentrate on the conversation.

  “You think he’ll do something if he finds out what you’re telling me?” Yanko asked quietly.

  “I don’t know, but he wasn’t happy with Lakeo and me when we insisted on rescuing you. He said we’d get ourselves killed, and it would be better to find the artifact first and then deal with the pirates when we could get more help. Yanko, he must think his people are coming soon.”