by C. S. Pacat
‘You don’t have Simon’s brand,’ said the boy.
Violet flushed. ‘I could have.’ Fighting down the impulse to grip her own wrist where the brand would be. ‘If I wanted.’ She flushed harder, feeling like she had been tricked. She realised that as she was observing him, he had been observing her.
‘My name’s Will,’ he said. ‘If you helped me, I’d—’
‘I don’t have the key,’ she said. ‘And I wouldn’t help you even if I did. This is Simon’s ship. He wouldn’t have you here unless you crossed him.’
‘He’s going to kill me,’ said Will.
Everything seemed to stop. She could hear the sounds of fighting as she looked at the boy’s bruises, the dried blood on his face and shirt. ‘Simon doesn’t kill people.’ But as she said it, she felt a pit opening up underneath the words, no longer quite certain of anything.
‘You could find the key,’ said Will. ‘I could slip out during the fight. No one would ever know you were the one who—’
‘Check every inch of the hold.’ A man’s voice. They both jerked their heads towards it.
A woman answered him, ‘If Marcus is here, we’ll find him, Justice.’
Will realised at the same moment she did.
‘Hey!’ called Will. ‘Over here!’
‘No—!’ She spun around to shut him up – too late. The two came striding around the corner.
Stewards.
It was her first time seeing them up close, in full armour and white livery with a silver star. Will’s eyes went wide.
The first of them was a tall man who looked like he might be Chinese. He was even more imposing than the others, wearing an expression of purpose and concentration. Justice. Beside him was the woman who had spoken. She was a similar age to Justice, perhaps twenty, her voice containing the hint of a French accent. They both wore the same white surcoat over silver armour. They both had the same cut of hair: shockingly long for a man, half pulled back from their faces with a tie, to then fall loose down their backs.
They both had swords. Not the thin whippy cutlasses that brigands still sometimes used to overrun barges on the river, but two-handed broadswords, the kind that could cut a man in half.
Her thoughts raced to her brother. Tom. She remembered how easily the Stewards had killed Simon’s sailors, cutting through their bodies like butter. If two of them were down here, what was happening above deck?
Violet was grabbing a broom handle and stepping forward to stand in their way before she knew what she was doing.
Her heart was pounding. Facing her, the Steward called Justice was overwhelming, not only handsome but radiating nobility and power. Violet felt small, insignificant. She stayed where she was anyway. Tom was brave, she thought. If she could slow them down, even for a moment, she could buy her brother time above deck. Her eyes met Justice’s.
‘It’s not Marcus,’ said the French Steward, holding Justice back by the arm. ‘Simon’s keeping prisoners down here. A girl and a boy. Look.’
‘If you let me go, I’ll give you anything you want,’ said Will.
Justice looked past Violet towards Will, and back again. ‘We’ll help you,’ said Justice. ‘We’ll help both of you. But right now it’s not safe on deck. You have to stay down here while we clear this place out—’
‘Clear it out?’ said Violet. He thinks I’m a prisoner, like that chained-up boy. Her hand tightened on the broom handle.
‘Justice. There’s something else down here.’ The French Steward had taken a step away from the three of them into the dark of the hold, with a strange expression on her face. ‘Not the prisoners, something—’
Justice frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t know, can’t you feel it? It’s something dark and old, and it feels—’
Violet could feel it. It was the same sensation that she’d had coming down into the hold, like there was something down here that she didn’t want to go near, and she was closer to it now than she had been on the stairs.
She knew that Simon brought artefacts back from the digs he had scattered across the empire. She had even seen some of them, sneaking after Tom on the days he did business on the docks. Pieces of armour in iron caskets. Strange chunks of stone. The broken-off limb of a statue. Simon’s operations were a constant stream of digging and taking. What if the item Tom had procured was here, what if it was what was causing her to feel—
‘It’s the reason for all the guards,’ said Justice grimly. ‘It’s not Marcus they’re protecting, it’s something on this ship—’
A pistol shot rang out from the stairs.
Everything after that happened in a jumble. ‘Get down!’ Justice shouted, throwing himself between her and the pistol. She was enveloped by his warmth, his body curving over hers protectively. She felt him jolt, with a sound of pain through gritted teeth. When he pushed her back a second later, she could see the red stain blossoming on his shoulder.
He’d been shot. He’d been shot protecting her. Violet stumbled backward into a crate, staring.
A Steward had just saved her life.
The French Steward had drawn her sword. ‘They’re coming.’
Justice drew his sword alongside her, ignoring the bullet in his shoulder. ‘We kill Simon’s Lion, then strip the cargo from this ship.’
Tom. She didn’t have time to react. Another pistol shot burst half the wood from the corner of a cargo crate – the fight was suddenly in the hold. Simon’s men were reloading and taking aim at the Stewards, while others struggled on the stairs, a tangle of bodies and the slash of swords. One of the hanging lamps was smashed sideways, a short-lived burning arc that extinguished itself in the water, making visibility harder.
She had to get to her brother. She pushed off the crate and took her first steps, only to look down and find that the water level was now up to her knees. The dark swirl of it was tugging at her legs, swelling in at a disturbing speed.
That isn’t right. There shouldn’t be water in the hold, and it shouldn’t be this deep, knee height and rising.
She looked up at the cargo. She felt that cold sense of dread again, as if there was something dark and terrible down here with her. Her eyes fixed on one crate, chained down the way the others weren’t. As soon as she looked at it, the feeling of aversion became almost overpowering. That crate – that was it.
There’s something else down here. It’s something dark and old, and it feels—
‘You’re not going anywhere, Steward.’
She jerked around to see Tom, standing silhouetted in the entrance to the hold.
Alive. Tom was alive. A rush of relief and pride almost overwhelmed her. His shirt was slashed open, and he was covered in blood, holding the iron bar. But he was her brother, and he was going to win the fight for Simon and her family.
‘Where’s Marcus?’ said Justice.
Tom came down the steps, iron bar at the ready. ‘I’ve killed the others.’
‘You’re going to tell me what you’ve done with Marcus,’ said Justice. ‘Or I’ll cut down everyone on this ship – then find him anyway.’
‘You won’t get past me,’ said Tom.
Tom’s strong, she thought. Tom will show him.
But as the two young men came together, it was immediately clear that if Tom was strong, Justice was stronger.
He came in under Tom’s iron bar, and with a single blow sent Tom flying in an arc across the hold, into the heavy beams of the ship. The impact took out the support struts near the stairs, pulverising the wood, and sent huge beams crashing in a collapse that came smashing down, exploding crates open in the dark depths of the hold.
And that single crate, the one that she had seen and not wanted to go near, was knocked from its stack to crash down onto the planking.
No—
A wave of sick horror rolled over Violet as the crate shattered, a choking, tangible feeling, as if something terrible had been released into the hold. She didn’t want to turn her head and
look at it. One of Simon’s men nearby whitened visibly, as if the wave of sickness from the crate had hit him even more strongly. A moment later, he swayed, his skin mottling. She made herself turn and look.
There’s something else here, and it feels—
She saw people staggering, vomiting, collapsing into the water, then she lifted her eyes further—
—like it’s trying to get out.
It looked plain except for its black hilt, and its long, carved black sheath. It was a sword that had fallen out of a smashed container, and now lay tumbled on the edge of a crate. The fall had exposed a single sliver of its black blade, the rest of the sword still quiescent in its sheath.
The wave of revulsion she felt at that glimpse of black blade was like nothing she had ever felt before. Sheathe it! she wanted to scream, knowing immediately that it was the source of the roiling sickness. In the next moment, she saw arcs of black flame leaping out from the blade, striking the hull and pulverising it, letting in a new rush of water. As she watched, the flame struck one of Simon’s men, and he vomited up black ichor, as though his internal organs had rotted through. Sheathe it! Cover it!
But no one could get to it without risking the black fire.
Around her people were screaming and scrabbling to get to the exit, panicking as the black flame flared like unholy lightning, killing anyone it touched. Others were simply trying to get as far away from the sword as they could, whimpering and hiding behind crates that wouldn’t save them when the black fire struck. All the Stewards were dead.
Only Tom and Justice were still fighting, locked in battle like two titans. In the black light of the flame, Justice hauled Tom up out of the water, silhouetted for a moment, hitting Tom hard enough that he reeled, then hitting him again, and again.
Tom! The water was up to her waist and rising – Violet was wading to reach them, pushing hard through water as the black flame arced nightmarishly. It was very dark, most of the lamps jostled out and much of the cargo now floating, like nighttime icebergs.
She didn’t have a weapon; she just threw herself bodily at Justice, knocking them both backward into the water. There was a ringing crack as the sharp corner of a floating crate hit the base of Justice’s skull. His hands instantly went slack, and he floated, facedown and unmoving.
Violet was already splashing towards her brother.
‘Tom!’ she called out. ‘Tom!’ Tom’s face was white, unconscious – but he was breathing, and she could get him out of here. Alive, she thought, cradling Tom in her arms. But for how long?
She looked up desperately for a way out.
And saw the boy. Will.
He had the sword in his sights and was trying to get to it, rather than cowering back from the flame. He was going to try to sheathe it, she realised as her skin prickled over. The same idea that she had abandoned as impossible. Her first instinct had been to save her brother. Will’s had been to save everyone.
He was making gritty, determined progress. Straining against his chains towards the sword looked like straining against a battering force, and he was injured and weak. He’s going to make it, she thought in stunned disbelief, even as she squirmed at the thought of what it would be like to touch that horrifying weapon. At what might happen to Will. She had seen men collapse and vomit up black blood. What would it do to someone who touched it?
Will’s outstretched hand was six inches from the sword when he hit the limit of his chains.
He can’t reach it.
He couldn’t close the gap, his whole body straining. Unable to get to him, she remembered the moment when he’d begged her to unchain him. She had refused. She had damned them all: Will, Tom, even the captain, she thought. They were all going to die here in this hold.
And then she saw something that shouldn’t have been real. The sword hilt began turning towards Will, rotating until it faced him. Then, from one blink to the next, it was in his hand, as if it had jumped the six inches into his grip. That isn’t possible.
As soon as he had it, he drove it back into its sheath.
Everything stopped; the flame went out. The sickness ended, leaving her gasping. In the new ringing silence, the moans and sobs of the terrified survivors were suddenly audible, along with the rushing sound of water and an ominous groaning from the hull.
Violet was staring at the boy in disbelief. He pulled it to him. He pulled the sword to him with an invisible hand—
The boy was shaking. Curled over the sword, his eyes opened full of agonising struggle, as if it was taking everything he had to keep it sheathed. Just for a moment, he looked right at her.
‘I can’t hold it!’ he said to her. The sword was fighting him. ‘Go!’
‘Throw it!’ she said. ‘Throw it into the river!’
‘I can’t!’ said Will, the words forced out through pain. He looked like he was barely holding on. ‘Get everyone out!’
At the look in his dark eyes, she understood what he was telling her. If she could clear the ship, he would hold the sword here as long as he could. As long as he had to.
She nodded and turned.
‘Go!’ she said, roughly shoving at one of the stupefied men until he stumbled towards the stairs. The hold was a wrecked space rapidly filling with water. The exit was still half-blocked; three of Simon’s men were pulling desperately at the giant wooden beam that jammed it. At least half a dozen others were gasping and coughing, dragging themselves through the water, while several closer to her were clutching on to crates, just staring at the boy, their faces slack and eyes wide.
Others were dead. She had to get everyone out. Had to force her way around the lifeless bodies with Tom, pushing others through the water towards the exit. Some of the bodies were bloated and disfigured, as if the black flame had twisted them. She didn’t want to look at them. She saw a Steward floating facedown, and with a jolt recognised Justice’s black hair, floating in a dark corona around his head.
‘Go, there isn’t time!’ She grabbed another man by the shirt and hauled him forward. She couldn’t bear to be in here another moment, couldn’t stand to be near the repellant sword. Following behind the last of the staggering, drenched men, she took up Tom’s body and heaved its awkward wet weight up the stairs, until she finally emerged out of the hold onto the deck.
The first touch of fresh air on her face was miraculous. It was like the sun breaking out from behind clouds, after the stifling, fetid wetness of the hold. Above her, the wide-open sky. For a moment she just drank it in.
And then she saw the deck. The black flame had penetrated here too, parts of the deck scoured as though burned with lashes of fire, its planking shattered and uneven. There were screams from the riverbank, shouts, people pointing. A terrible groaning of wood behind her, and she spun to see the mast was falling – a second later it smashed onto the deck, sending rope and bits of planking flying, the whole ship starting to tilt.
She ran. Below her feet, the deck was sloping. The Sealgair was going down. Cries of ‘Take the rope!’ and ‘Jump!’ from the foreshore didn’t help her, not with Tom to drag across the deck. And then—
‘Tom!’ Captain Maxwell’s voice was calling her from the railing, and she felt a rush of thankfulness. She stumbled gratefully towards him as his hands took the weight of Tom’s body from her, pulling him down a makeshift gangway towards the pier, with her following, until finally she stepped onto dry land.
Relief, so great she wanted to dig her fingers into the dirt and pebbles of the foreshore, as if to prove to herself that it was real. That she had done it. That she was here.
She sank to her knees, next to where Maxwell had laid her brother.
‘It’s all right, we’ve got him.’ She heard that as if from a distance. ‘Tom, come on, Tom,’ Maxwell was saying, and Tom chose that moment to cough and start to come around. ‘Violet?’ he said in a roughened voice. ‘Violet?’ and Maxwell answered, ‘She’s right here, Tom.’ As if from far away, Violet could hear Maxwell saying to her, ‘You
did well, getting him off the ship. Simon will be pleased when he hears all you’ve done.’
Simon will be pleased. And that was what she had wanted. To impress Simon, to be like Tom.
But she just sat there, wet, exhausted and dripping, on the foreshore next to them.
It should have been finished, but she knew it wasn’t.
The bank was thronged with men and women shouting, crying, crowding around those plucked from the water and staring across at the Sealgair. She heard voices exclaiming I saw it, black flame, the murmurs across the crowd in all the languages of the docks, miracolo, merveille.
‘There was a boy who took up the sword …’ a voice beside her was saying, and with a shock, she recognised the man who had called her a rat as he’d dragged her by the scruff of the neck. He’d been saved, just like all the others. She thought of the boy in the hold, his bruised face. She wondered which of these men had beaten him, whom he had also saved. He had saved everyone on the ship. But not himself.
She stood up.
The Sealgair’s bulk was listing in the water, untethered. Gangplanks had fallen away, and there was a gap of more than ten feet of water between the hull and the pier. The gap was widening.
She knew what she had to do.
For so long all she had wanted was to prove herself – to Tom, to her father, to Simon. But there were some things more important than that.
Violet took the ship in her sights, ran, and jumped.
It was like jumping back into hell, after having made it out the first time. The Sealgair was a deserted wasteland. It groaned dangerously, the mast broken, the deck cracked, planking splintered and protruding. Cargo barrels were smashed and scattered. Half of a ripped sail was hanging across the deck.
She swallowed down horror as she descended the stairs into the hold. Images of black fire played behind her eyelids – she expected it to burst out at her at any moment. But inside, the hold was dark, and almost fully flooded, water pouring in to swirl ice-cold at her chest. She pushed through it, half swimming, past the overturned crates, past the wreckage and signs of the fight.
