Plague Arcanist (Frith Chronicles Book 4)

by Shami Stovall

  Calisto attacked so fast that Redbeard didn’t have time to block. Again, the cutlass drove deep into Redbeard, and this time I was close enough to hear the wet grunt of pain from the reaper arcanist.

  In that moment, I wondered why Calisto didn’t unleash a series of fervent attacks. He was stronger and faster—why did he hold back? It was as if he were trying to incapacitate, rather than kill. I couldn’t fathom why.

  Redbeard reached out with a callus-covered hand and touched Calisto’s stomach injury. I couldn’t see what happened, but Calisto leapt away with a scream, his injury weeping more blood than ever before. The crimson soaked his black shirt and pants and cascaded down his inky-black boots.

  Free of Calisto’s hold, Redbeard disappeared into the blood and emerged a hundred feet away. He willed the blood to attack again, practically sending dozens of knives flying around the deck of the ship. One cut through Luthair’s cape, and my panic increased tenfold. I was paralyzed—unable to move or defend—and if Redbeard ever turned his attacks on me, I’d be done for.

  Hellion ran for Redbeard and struck with his scorpion tail. He missed with his stinger, and the strength of his attack caused it to smash into the deck of the ship.

  Redbeard blood-stepped away, emerging out of another crimson puddle, still capable of moving. He fought without looking the beast in the face, but his diverted attention cost him.

  If I could’ve gasped, I would’ve. Calisto had shadow-stepped from one side of the deck to an area behind Redbeard. It was obvious from the way Redbeard turned his hooded head from side to side that he hadn’t seen where Calisto had gone, and I didn’t blame him. Manticore arcanists didn’t have the capability to step into the shadows. As far as I knew, only knightmare arcanists could.

  The boots my father had had me make…

  Was Calisto wearing them?

  With unrivaled speed, Calisto wrapped his arm around Redbeard’s neck and torqued the man’s head back. The hood fell off, and that was all it took. Redbeard locked up from paralysis, his eyes on Hellion’s twisted, weathered face.

  Redbeard, unable to move, was at the mercy of Calisto—the fight was over.

  I figured Calisto would kill him, but instead, he threw down his cutlass and grabbed the reaper by its robe-like body and pulled.

  Luthair and I lived and died as a single being when we were merged, but Luthair wasn’t an object, per se. He was shadows infused with magic and given physical form—but he could also return to darkness. When merged, it was as if the coldness of shadows seeped into my blood, linking us together.

  Reapers, as I understood them, were always corporeal, which meant it probably didn’t fuse into its arcanist’s bloodstream. Could Calisto rip it off and force Redbeard to unmerge with his eldrin?

  Apparently.

  With all his strength, Calisto tore the reaper from Redbeard. Threads from the robes ripped out of Redbeard’s body, as though they had been woven into the skin at certain locations. Redbeard didn’t scream—he couldn’t—and the scene played out more like a hunter skinning a dead animal than two arcanists concluding a duel.

  Once Calisto had Redbeard held in one hand and the reaper held in the other, he exhaled. With a chuckle on his breath, he tossed the ebony-robed reaper onto the deck of the ship. Hellion pounced on the mystical creature, his massive paws pinning the frayed fabric and scythe. Although reapers couldn’t bleed, it had still taken damage, and the tattered holes in its body were plain to see.

  The reaper’s terrors lifted.

  Hellion refitted his mask over his face. The flesh attached to the edges of the accessory, fixing it in place in the most permanent of methods. Once his face was hidden, I—and the rest of the crew—regained control. The paralysis fled me, and I gulped down breaths.

  Calisto slammed Redbeard’s body onto the deck and stood over him. With a demented smile, Calisto slid a finger along the edge of his cutlass, both cutting himself and coating his hand in Redbeard’s blood. He licked the crimson off his finger, and I shuddered.

  Still bleeding, Calisto wrapped an arm around his stomach, holding his gut.

  “You’ll… you’ll anger the Autarch,” Redbeard said, his voice still clear, even if pained and breathless. “You’ll interfere with his plans!”

  The gunpowder on the air, mixed with the copper tang of blood, permeated my nose and mouth. I hadn’t even noticed until I saw the crew gathering close. The King’s Revenge had half-disappeared beneath the waves, its hull cracked in half and the wood above water burning from the oil of its broken lanterns.

  “The Autarch,” Calisto said, strained. “He would be upset if you died.”

  Redbeard trembled, his body losing blood at a steady pace. “Let me go, and this reckless attempt on my life… can be forgiven.” He took breaths at odd moments, ragged and tired.

  “Only if you give me your word that you’ll never sail your ships on my tides again.”

  “Of course. You’ll never see my flags on these tides again.”

  To my surprise, Calisto took a hesitant step away from Redbeard.

  Was the Autarch that intimidating? I figured nothing would stop Calisto from brutalizing the reaper arcanist, but perhaps this other mysterious man was just too much.

  That’s not what’s happening, Luthair said, his telepathy drawing me back to the spectacle.

  Calisto must have delighted in the false hope he had given the other man because he laughed as he grabbed Redbeard by the back of the neck. He then proceeded to slam Redbeard’s head into the deck, cracking the ghostwood. Once the deck was coated with blood, bone, and teeth, Calisto picked up the pirate captain and continued his reckless pulverizing by smashing the man’s face into the railing.

  Redbeard’s reaper screeched and flailed, but it was too injured—too frayed and worn and weak—to escape from Hellion’s clutches. Even when it tried to manipulate blood, the crimson barely moved an inch.

  I looked away, uncomfortable with the gore. I had to remind myself that Redbeard had harmed Biyu. Even then, the sound of flesh being ground down into a fine paste wasn’t one I enjoyed.

  A part of me thought back to Zelfree’s dream-memories. Calisto had mentioned—on several occasions—how he had loathed his previous captain. He had said Redbeard was a sadist who had harmed his own crew. But Calisto had never given specifics, and I had never seen the torture for myself.

  I glanced back up, and Calisto was still slamming Redbeard against the ship. That part of the deck was broken, splinters everywhere. Redbeard was dead, but it didn’t seem to matter to Calisto. He continued his berserker assault, his manticore magic giving him stamina enough to continue, even when normal men would’ve grown tired.

  I didn’t need to witness Redbeard’s heinous acts—Calisto’s fury was enough to tell me that I never wanted to know the gruesome details.

  “Calisto!”

  Spider ran across the deck, her clothing soaked in sea water. Unafraid of being a target of his rage, she ran straight to his side and grabbed his shoulder.

  “He’s dead,” Spider stated. “And The King’s Revenge is sinkin’ to the bottom of the sea. You won.”

  Calisto took a deep breath and then released the corpse of Redbeard.

  Calisto didn’t look well. His skin had paled, his eyes had sunken in, and he staggered away from the bloodbath.

  “We should be on our way,” Spider said. “Just give the order.”

  “Let’s go, then,” Calisto growled, his voice low.

  Two deckhands stepped forward. “Capt’n, that was amazin’,” one said.

  “What should we do with the men who surrendered?” the other asked.

  Calisto gritted his teeth. “Slit their throats and then throw them to the waves.”

  I hadn’t done anything when Calisto had pretended to give Redbeard mercy, but this seemed too much. I stepped forward, the clink of my shadow-plate drowned out by the evening winds.

  “Wait,” I said, my double-voice garnering attention from everyone on
board.

  Calisto turned around, his brow furrowed in visible confusion. Then he relaxed, and I suspected that he finally realized who I was.

  “I’ve heard tales of Redbeard,” I said, confident. “If men from his crew surrendered, they’re probably looking for an escape, not to betray you.”

  I didn’t owe a group of pirates anything. They probably didn’t even deserve to live, not after the crimes they had likely committed. But I had seen enough death for ten lifetimes, and I didn’t want the memory of bodies hurtling toward the waters added to the experience.

  Calisto swayed on his feet, but he caught himself and then stood tall. “Throw Redbeard’s crew in the brig. I’ll deal with them later.” He gripped his stomach injury tighter, slowing the flow of blood. “Where did the ghoul arcanist get to?” he demanded.

  “I gutted the arcanist, but his eldrin fled to the water,” Spider said. “It got away.”

  “And what about the wendigo arcanist?”

  “I killed them both,” I said.

  Again, the crew turned to me, no doubt fascinated by my odd double voice.

  “Where’s the wendigo?” Calisto asked.

  For a moment, I didn’t know why he cared. “I left it on The King’s Revenge.”

  “Tsk.”

  While the crew scrambled through the fog to get the Third Abyss ready for sailing, another figure joined us on deck. It was the lanky man I had seen with Spider earlier—Malaki, the carcolh arcanist. His eldrin, the carcolh, slithered out with him.

  I had never seen a carcolh in person, and I wasn’t impressed. It had the body of a snake and the spiral shell of a snail. Its mouth had tentacles, like an octopus, with a beak instead of fangs. The green and black coloration of its scales was menacing, but the carcolh was an adolescent—young and smaller, perhaps only a few hundred pounds and fifteen feet long.

  Had Malaki hidden during the fight because he was a newer arcanist?

  “Calisto,” Malaki called out, his sun-cracked lips twitching into a sneer. “Where’re my mystical creature parts? You said you’d have ’em after this fight.”

  Calisto said nothing. He rubbed at his temple, his breath rough.

  “Well?” Malaki pushed past deckhands and strode over. His carcolh kept pace, its tentacle-face reminding me of Adelgis’s whelk.

  “We didn’t get any mystical creatures,” Calisto drawled, his tone a mix of sarcasm and cold anger.

  “This is the third ship in a row you didn’t get any. I think it’s time you pay up.”

  “Tough luck,” Spider growled. She stepped close to Malaki, her fingers hardening into claws. “You’ll just have to wait, louse.”

  Malaki pointed to the reaper under Hellion’s paws. “There’s one right there, wretch. I deserve my payment! It’s not my fault Calisto keeps letting all those mystical creatures get away. I could be makin’ trinkets and artifacts, yet you—”

  “We’re letting the reaper go,” Calisto said.

  That shocked me.

  Why?

  But no one asked. No one said anything. Even the rest of the crew seemed stunned into silence as they watched from a good twenty feet away. Redbeard had done substantial damage to the ship, and it needed to be repaired, but the men moved as though they were avoiding drawing attention to themselves, slinking through the shadows.

  “You can’t let a reaper go,” Malaki spat. “I’ve never even seen a reaper trinket before. They’ll fetch good prices. I demand you give it to me. I deserve it.”

  His carcolh “hissed” as though coughing up water at the same time. It half-puked liquid onto the deck.

  “It’s not up for debate,” Calisto said. “We’re letting it go.”

  “Oh, yeah? Cheatin’ me out of my payments, just like that? Why would you ever let this reaper go? Huh? Some sort of farewell for Redbeard? Don’t want to hurt his image too much, that it?”

  Malaki’s petty taunting almost made me laugh. Even in his injured state, I was certain Calisto could kill this man. Why was Malaki provoking him?

  Calisto stumbled a step, steadied himself, and then laughed once. “Fine. You want the reaper? Take it.”

  “My arcanist,” Hellion said, turning his face to the side, his neutral mask twisting into a frown.

  “Didn’t you hear Malaki? He deserves it.”

  Hellion made no other protests. He stepped off the injured reaper and then bowed his head, allowing for Malaki to take his prize.

  The ominous way they offered the reaper didn’t sit right with me. Malaki didn’t seem to care, however. He sauntered over to the downed reaper, withdrew his cutlass, and then stabbed into the robe. The reaper tried to attack with its scythe, but the carcolh used its serpentine body to grab the weapon and knock it away.

  Malaki stabbed again, and the robe crumpled. Dead.

  To my surprise, the robes of the reaper disappeared as though unraveling into nothing. The beast’s scythe, on the other hand, remained on the deck.

  Then, as though also stabbed, Malaki grabbed his shirt, shock in his eyes. His fingers twisted into the fabric as he fell backward. His carcolh jerked its head to face his arcanist’s; its snake-eyes were wide with confusion.

  Malaki hit the deck, twitching and kicking. Then nothing.

  Dead.

  Calisto smiled as he headed for Malaki’s body. “Get the ship going,” he called out to his crew. He picked up the scythe, hefted it over one shoulder, and then made his way for the quarterdeck.

  The carcolh whipped around and coiled, on the verge of lunging. Hellion pounced before the carcolh could act. With claws as long as daggers, the manticore vivisected the young carcolh into ribbons of meat—no hesitation. Hellion couldn’t tear up the shell, however, but that didn’t matter. The carcolh was dead.

  “What happened to Malaki?” I whispered.

  “Reapers are frightening mystical creatures,” Adelgis telepathically said, catching me by surprise. He wasn’t on deck, but he still knew what was going on? “They’re monsters of death. Anyone who kills a reaper is killed in return. They call this magical defense the king’s revenge.”

  Like Redbeard’s ship? Now I understood the name.

  “No one else knows about this?” I asked. But then I shook my head. Obviously, Calisto had known. That was why he hadn’t killed Redbeard straight away, and why he had unmerged them before dealing the final blow.

  “Reapers are rare, and no one knows how they come into existence. Little information is known amongst pirates and thieves.”

  Would I have died if I had killed Jevel? According to Adelgis, that was the case.

  Calisto walked past me, his injury worse up close.

  Although I was curious about the reaper’s revenge, this opportunity struck me. With Retribution, I might be able to kill Calisto right here and now. All it would take was one precise strike.

  But if I missed…

  Calisto stopped at the door to the quarterdeck and glanced over. “Next time, bring back the bodies of any mystical creatures you slay.”

  I gripped the hilt of my sword. “There won’t ever be a next time.”

  “Aren’t you plague-ridden?”

  I said nothing. He knew the answer.

  “You’d make for the perfect pirate,” Calisto said, chuckling. “Give it a thought once you realize what kind of monster you’ve become.”

  39

  Admiration

  It took the crew several hours to fix the Third Abyss. Once the rigging and spare sails were secured, the ship resumed course. For an entire day, I was too restless and disturbed to either eat or sleep. Adelgis and Fain remained with me in the cabin, both consumed in their own thoughts. No one spoke as we sailed the waves of the Shard Sea.

  Adelgis turned the page of his book, intent on reading. His ethereal whelk, Felicity, hovered around his shoulders, performing slow-motion acrobatics from time to time.

  In an attempt to ease my anxiety, I circled the center table and took a seat across from him. “What’re you rea
ding, Adelgis?”

  “I’m trying to find more information regarding the Mother of Shapeshifters. I want to know why my father is obsessed with it and why he originally wanted a mimic arcanist.”

  “And those books are about the previous god-creatures that spawned?” I asked.

  Adelgis nodded, though he didn’t take his eyes off the page. “You might find the text on the world serpent interesting.” He pushed a smaller book in my direction—one that resembled a journal.

  I pulled it close and flipped to the first page. The writing had faded. I couldn’t make out the words. I went to the next page, then the third. At that point, the ink seemed preserved, and the writing was legible.

  The warlord made alliances with the monarchs of the land. Those who continued their warring, or challenged the warlord, had their territories rearranged. The magic of the world serpent could move mountains, rivers, and valleys. Enemy nations once lush with grass became deserts. Allies of the warlord knew years of plentiful harvests, their weather perfect, no disasters to speak of.

  “Who is the warlord?” I asked.

  “All of the arcanists who bonded to god-creatures were referred to by their title,” Adelgis said. He flipped another page. “The man who bonded to the world serpent was given the title of warlord due to his ability to crush entire armies.”

  “All of the god-arcanists were given titles?”

  “Yes. The woman who bonded to the soul forge was known as the scholar, the man who bonded with the fenris wolf was known as the hunter, the woman who bonded with the sky titan was—”

  I held up a hand. “It’s okay. I was confused at first, but I understand now.”

  “The warlord became the one who ruled over the majority of nations,” Adelgis continued. “The world serpent’s magic is perfect for a ruler of territory. No wars and bountiful harvests make for safe and secure kingdoms. All the books I’ve read said he was one of the most powerful and influential god-arcanists.”

  “I can see why the Second Ascension wanted the world serpent so badly.”

  Adelgis stopped reading. He glanced up at me, his eyebrows knitted. Why did he look so concerned? Was it because I had mentioned the Second Ascension?