by Ben Galley
‘I warned you of the consequences.’
‘—and you will pay for that one day. Now, however, you will do as I command.’
The god took his time searching his pockets. The emperor inched closer, almost falling again before Loki showed him a blue vial stained dark purple by what sloshed inside. He held onto it while he watched Malvus grow more irate.
‘Give it to me, Loki!’
‘There is another way to win your empire back.’
‘Enough games!’
‘Farden.’
‘Don’t you say his name!’ Malvus felt the sweat running down his cheeks. He wiped it away, and left a palm print on his trews. He loathed the glint of mischief in Loki’s unblinking gaze. ‘What of the bastard?’ he relented.
Loki tapped the vial with a long nail, his voice set to the rhythm. ‘If Krauslung has abandoned Farden because of the chaos he wrought in the north, perhaps the Forever King’s head on a spike might just win you back Krauslung’s hearts and minds.’
Malvus hated how much sense the god made. ‘And just how, exactly, do you propose we kill a man like him? I saw that mage wield an entire volcano against me.’
‘All sparks die out eventually.’ Loki pressed the vial into Malvus’ palm and then patted his ashen coat as if a precious treasure hid within. ‘You regain your strength, Emperor, trust in me, and then I promise you, we will see about the death of a mage.’
Malvus needed no encouragement. The thirst had become unbearable. He drank every drop the vial had to offer, and, when the shadows began to rise from the floor, when the needles started to pierce his insides, Malvus had no choice but to submit to the fire blazing behind his eyes. He sank into the spinning void that yawned before him, grinning.
The death of a mage.
He liked the sound of that.
CHAPTER 4
OF HIGH SEAS & LOW HOPES
They say a fire burns in the west. A great rift blown open in the world, burning with an endless flame, whose winds and ash fall upon our lands. A sickness spreads with its touch. A plague has crept from the ice of the north, infecting us with raw magick.
FROM A REPORT TO KING BARREIN IV OF THE LUNDISH
Uncertainty was a slow wound, bleeding life and patience. Unlike the Jörmunn Sea, which had thrashed the Rogue’s Armada from the moment they had broken free of Chaos Sound, the survivors of the war were silent and stoic. Even the sailors toiled automatically, their shouts as cold as their calloused hands.
Hereni stood defiantly at the bow of the Autumn’s Vanguard, cupping a flame between her hands. She stared vacantly at the rush of black sea beyond her fingers. The hurried snowflakes that dared to land on her melted to drips, snatched away by southerly winds.
The lad must have thought himself sly, but she could feel Bull inching ever closer every few moments. Despite his size and bulk, he was swaddled in two fur cloaks and still looked cold.
‘There’s been no word of Mithrid or Farden, Bull,’ Hereni sighed. ‘Still nothing.’
Bull nodded solemnly. ‘I know. I asked Kinsprite already. I’m just here to watch.’
The dragons and Ilios had exhausted themselves flying ever longer sorties to Scalussen and back. Half of the armada still held their breath for the Forever King’s return. The other half had seemingly resigned themselves to grieving, or staring blankly into space as if the volcano’s fire still surged towards them. Stubborn, Bull and Hereni belonged to the former.
Hereni expanded her orb of fire, making the lad recoil. ‘We’ll find them. Don’t you worry,’ she reassured him. Beneath her boots, she felt the bookship hammer through a wave as the Vanguard gathered even more speed. The mage raised an arm to deflect the ensuing spray. Bull was not so quick and spat seawater. She kept her eyes to the east, where above the formidable Hâlorn coasts, a scrap of sky had been painted with faint streaks of purple and green, like the First Dragon’s Wake. It was a peculiar omen. Bull stared long and hard, no doubt trying to spot what was left of his home.
‘You miss your home?’ Hereni asked. She had done the same the evening past, as the armada had passed Dromfangar’s Spit.
‘No,’ he admitted. ‘Yes. It might sound cruel, but Scalussen was my home. I became… something there. I was different. I liked it. At least before the fighting started.’
She smiled. ‘It’s called growing, not that you notice until you’ve already changed. War ages you quicker than most. Loss does the same thing, too. Ever since the night my family was taken, I’ve felt ten winters older than I am.’
Bull ground his knuckles against the bulwark. ‘All I can think about is Mith and the others.’
Hereni knew the feeling. Mithrid had barely left her thoughts since the fire had filled the sky. ‘Me too.’
There were shreds of hope to grip onto besides the possibility Farden and the others had perished: Durnus was also lost, and either he or Farden could use the Weight. The dragon could have already flown them south. Perhaps they found shelter in Scalussen’s forges. There was even an optimistic suspicion making its way around the ships that Farden was actually waiting for them in Krauslung, and would already be lounging on the Blazing Throne.
And yet every hope, like a coin, always had the reverse: the pervasive doubt that Farden and Mithrid had died in Irminsul’s inferno. Speculation without proof was painfully cyclical. The race to Krauslung was for answers as well as securing Scalussen victory.
Hereni clapped her hands around the fire and folded the magick back into her bones. After spitting over the railing, she pointed ahead to the Arka warship trying with all its might to outpace the armada.
‘Think they’ll try us, Bull? After what Farden did?’
He gripped the haft of his stout longbow, lashed across one shoulder. ‘Is it bad I want them to try?’
Hereni looked across the armada spread in a tight arrowhead around the Vanguard. At her side, the two identical and colossal bulks of the Summer’s Fury and Winter’s Revenge. Each of the bookships had piled every scrap of black sail onto their masts. Despite the added weight of extra souls aboard, the gales were snapping at their heels and the wind-mages were hard at work. Their iron bows crashed through the Jörmunn rollers with defiant ease. Beyond them, a dozen warships, carracks, and barques fitted for battle. Even a Siren warship, too: the Jaws of Nelska, scaled with plates of bronze and green copper like a dragon. Fifteen vessels carried all that was left of Scalussen: thirty-thousand souls in all.
They held tight to the railing as a particularly large wave shook the Vanguard. ‘It’s time to find out,’ she hissed.
Letting Bull trail behind, Hereni marched across the crowded decks. Sand-scrubbed wood rasped beneath her boots as she weaved between mages and climbed the enormous aftcastle.
Eyrum and Admiral Lerel stood with their arms crossed several paces behind the ship’s wheel, hoods and cloaks littered with snow and spray. Their expressions were ones the entire armada shared: abject boredom and a brow furrowed with worry. Hereni spent a brief while gazing at the dozen dragons that hung aloft behind the ship, enjoying the wind chasing their wings. Their scales shone dully in the grey weather. Ilios was perched on the very edge of the ship, eyes closed, feathers and fur drenched. From the low hang of his head, and the way his claws sprawled on the deck, the gryphon looked spent.
‘Has she come out yet?’ yelled Hereni.
Lerel shook her head. The woman’s piercing, feline eyes were rimmed with red. Her greying hair was slick to her forehead and skull. Even the tan shade of her Paraian-born skin looked pale from the cold. Yet she had determinedly battled the wheel for days now.
‘Still in her cabin, mage,’ said Eyrum, deep voice almost inaudible over the waves and wind. He had foregone his usual bulky armour for a Siren robe over leather scales.
Hereni ground her fist into the railing. ‘Well, it’s high time we changed that!’
‘Hereni!’ Lerel called after her.
Ducking into the aft stairwell, Hereni passed the dragon nests a
nd pushed her way through the crowded Siren survivors to where the officer cabins resided. Guards only stood at one door: the cabin where the general had sequestered herself for almost a week now. At first, the two lumps of armour stiffened at Hereni’s appearance. One even tried to wave her along.
‘Oh please, Sergeant,’ Hereni scoffed. ‘Don’t make me put you flat on your arse again like I used to in the training yards. Repeatedly, if I remember right.’
‘Captain, I—’
‘I need to see her. Open the door. That’s an order.’ Hereni’s tone was loud and sharp. Bull cleared his throat menacingly for good measure.
The older guard sighed. ‘She said no admittance to anyone, and her orders matter more than yours do.’
‘There’s an Arka ship out there that I think she’ll want to know about. And within another day we’ll be in Krauslung.’ Hereni barged past the soldiers and rapped on the door. There was no reply.
‘Back up, Captain!’ the sergeant barked.
Concentrating, Hereni let a fire spell trail around her hands. The heat of her magick spread fast through the narrow corridor. It made the guards lean backwards as she pointed a fiery finger at them. At her side, Bull cracked his knuckles.
‘Move, or we will move you.’
‘Bloody Hel! This is mutiny,’ accused the other guard. His armour scraped on the bulkhead as Bull muscled them out of the way.
‘This is for your own good, man,’ warned Hereni as she knocked again. ‘General!’
Still no answer.
Hereni found the door locked. She had come this far, she thought. Might as well press forwards, as Farden had always taught her. Gods, did she feel uneasy without the mage around.
The fire spell melted the handle into a sad lump of metal. It took a stout shove from both her and Bull, but within moments, they were standing in the cabin’s doorway.
‘General?’
The cabin was a temple to gloom. Shutters clad the windows. Aside from the stench of burned wood and metal, the scent of spoiling food was strong. Clothes and broken objects lay strewn across the floor. Hereni and Bull carefully stepped around them as they walked deeper.
‘Elessi?’
Hereni’s gaze roamed from a torn mattress with a dagger protruding from it, to the rear of the cabin, where a desk piled with scrolls and nautical objects cast a silhouette against the scant light. A figure was huddled in furs, hunched over a book of green pages.
‘What do you want?’ it asked.
‘It’s been almost a week since we’ve seen you, General. The admiral and others are asking after you.’
There was a rustle of cloth as the silhouette hunched over further. ‘I’m busy.’
‘We’re a day from Krauslung.’
‘Are we, indeed?’ Elessi’s question needed no answer. Instead, Hereni stepped closer to the desk. Her vision was still adjusting to the dark. She could make out shining eyes beneath a fringe of untamed, ashen hair. Half a dozen blankets and furs must have been wrapped around her.
‘Any news of Farden or the others?’ Elessi asked.
‘None yet.’
The laugh was cold as a snowball to the face ‘Yet.’
‘Anything in the inkweld?’ Hereni asked, nodding to the thick green book on Elessi’s desk. She held onto it with white knuckles. The inkweld looked as blank as Hereni had last seen it, a day after they left Chaos Sound.
‘Nothing.’
‘I know you’re grieving. But you are still in command, General.’
‘So it would seem. But you’ve got several admirals and another general up there, all of them more used to leadin’ than I am. Put them in charge.’
‘Eyrum has declined, and so has Queen Nerilan. You’re the highest ranking out of Farden’s council. After Durnus, you were closer to Farden’s dream of freedom than any of us. You’ve been at his side for decades. Helped him build Scalussen into a city, not just a fortress. It was you that led us to the ships—’
‘And for what? My dream of freedom had my husband in it. Alive and well, not ash on the breeze! Why bother to fight for that dream now?’
‘Elessi, you can’t mean that.’
‘Stop telling me what to think! Leave me be!’
Hereni lit the gloom with a flame. Elessi shrank from it blinking. ‘And for how long? Are you going to stay in this cabin forever? Hope didn’t burn with Scalussen, you said. Where’s your hope gone now?’
‘Everything I had vanished along with Modren. I have nothing left. No place here.’
‘You’d give up on Scalussen that easily?’
Elessi didn’t answer.
Hereni shook her head. ‘Then Modren died for nothing.’
‘He died to save us!’ Elessi snapped. She reared from the desk, furs falling in clumps.
Hereni held up a hand. ‘That he did. To save the idea of Scalussen. To keep Emaneska from darkness. You’re still a part of that, Elessi. Why bother to fight on? Because we need you, that’s why. We believe in you. And because he would have wanted anything else for you than succumbing to grief. To give up means he died in vain.’
‘Stop!’ Elessi screeched. Her long nails clawed splinters from the wood as she took breath. ‘Stop saying it. How dare you use my husband against me.’
Hereni found Bull’s hand on her shoulder. The big lump came to stand by her side. He looked at Hereni with his forlorn eyes wrapped in a frown. The meaning of his look was a wise and simple, “shut up”.
Hereni bowed her head. ‘I’m sorry, Elessi. I didn’t mean to. I’ve always dealt with my grief by doing. Never stopping to think. I’m still learning we aren’t all the same.’
‘No, we ain’t.’ Elessi sighed, dejected. She poked a finger through the shutters, half-blinding herself with daylight. Despite its overcast nature, the light was startling compared to the gloom.
‘There’s just one more task,’ Hereni encouraged her, seeing hope in her movements. ‘Then, we can have peace that we’ve all fought so long for.’
Elessi made her way around the desk. She took a moment to collect herself. But when she spoke through gritted teeth, halfway to sobbing, Hereni knew it was useless.
‘Leave me be,’ she ordered.
Hereni nodded slowly and backed away from the desk with Bull at her side.
‘Grief isn’t something you can just turn your back on like a bad town. It’s a journey,’ Lerel intoned as Hereni joined her and Eyrum at the wheel. ‘You should know that as well as we do. Elessi is in the middle of her journey, mage. Don’t worry yourself that you didn’t manage to get her on deck. She needs time is all.’
‘Time we’re running out of,’ Hereni told her. A light rain had sprung up in place of the snow, mixing with the spray to create a constant downpour. ‘She’s the one Farden would want to lead.’
‘But if she doesn’t want the command, then we have to do this without her,’ Lerel looked to Eyrum, but the Siren was trying his hardest to stare out to sea. He was never comfortable with the kind of confrontation that required words and emotions. Not unless there was some mörd around. He preferred to settle most of his arguments with an axe.
Lerel continued. ‘Whatever happens, we have to finish what Farden, Durnus, and the Hâlorn girl—’
‘Mithrid,’ Hereni interrupted, beating Bull to it. ‘Her name is Mithrid.’
The admiral sighed. ‘Finish the job they, and Mithrid, started no matter what. Even if they’re gone for good.’
Hereni wondered if it was that notion or the salt waves that had reddened the admiral’s eyes. She knew faintly of a past between Lerel and the Forever King.
‘Eyrum? What say you of taking charge now?’ Lerel nudged the huge man with her elbow.
The Siren crossed his arms. ‘No. I still would not,’ he said openly. ‘It was never my calling to lead. I cannot presume to give orders to the Old Dragon or Queen Nerilan any more than I would to Farden.’
‘It would be easier if Towerdawn and Nerilan took charge, but they will only speak for
the Sirens.’
Hereni looked to the dragons. If she peered into the haze of rain, she could just about make out the great dragon high above, shimmering gold in the light that didn’t reach the sea. ‘Same can be said of Ko-Tergo for the snowmads and Wyved for the witches,’ she said. ‘Besides, they’re too worried about being too far south as it is. All they know is the north.’
‘We can all go back to our homes when this is over,’ Lerel sighed. ‘What about you, Bull? Want to be in charge?’
Bull visibly shuddered.
‘Looks like it’s you, Admiral,’ suggested Hereni with a shrug. ‘You’ll have to speak for us in Krauslung.’
‘Gods,’ Lerel hissed.
‘No need, Lerel,’ proclaimed a voice. Elessi stood upon the deck, swaddled in a giant cloak, face puckered in the rain. Her guards stood beside her. Eyrum offered an arm but she shook her head.
‘Though she could learn some tact, Hereni’s right,’ Elessi said. ‘As much as I want to crawl into a dark hole and forget you all exist, there’s not the time for it. I can’t just sit in the dark. Modren would be chiding me if he were here. Yellin’ at me to get up off my arse, and he would be right.’ She found the faintest of smiles. ‘We don’t owe this just to Modren, we owe it to all those who died for us to be here. Like Inwick. Even if that means Farden, and Durnus, and Mithrid. Even if that means the Arka too. There’s been too much death to fail now. If it’s left to me then fine, I’ll lead. At least I won’t ’ave any guilt in my heart. It’s already too full of sorrow as it is.’
Elessi took Eyrum’s arm then and leaned heavily on it. ‘So what this I ’ear about an Arka ship?’
Lerel pointed along the Vanguard’s expansive deck. ‘Single warship. No dragons, no daemons. A straggler that must have bolted the war early. She’s coming up fast with all our wind mages on deck and a southerly gale. What do we want to do?’
