Volleys of light flashed toward the larger of the caravel's remaining masts. Dante drew shadows from all sides, dissipating the attacks in a blizzard of sparks. A vest-clad sailor skipped toward the port railing, twirling a many-fluked hook over his head. He let loose. It arced between the two boats and held fast within the railing of the South.
Blays vaulted onto the railing, arms windmilling. He steadied himself, stepped onto the rope, and vanished.
Dante was too preoccupied by another flurry of ether to concern himself with trying to cover Blays. On the South's deck, a sailor ran toward the grappling hook, sword in hand. Naran yelled at his archers. Arrows pounded into the other ship, knocking the sailor down.
Sunlight flashed on steel. Blays materialized behind a monk, thrusting both swords into the man's back. The monk screeched and tumbled forward. A second monk stood from behind a bench. Dante splayed his palm, reaching into the nether within the man's heart. The man jumped back, gesturing furiously, severing the cord Dante had sunk into his chest.
While the monk was still flailing, Blays turned, wheeling his swords. The man gestured more, scrabbling back. Blays blinked out of being. The man spun side to side. Blays sputtered in and out. Ether flared past him. The next time he appeared, his right-hand sword was already mid-swing. It cleaved through the monk's neck. The head hit the deck, tumbling toward the railing with the roll of the ship. It caromed into a baluster and splashed into the sea.
Naran's crew threw grapples across the gap, snarling the rigging and the rails. As archers exchanged fire from both sides, the sailors heaved, pulling the ropes tight.
Another bolt of ether winged toward the larger remaining mast. Dante flung a hasty counter and the bolt clipped the mast a third of the way up, spraying bits of wood. He pointed to the monk hidden behind the Sword of the South's mainmast. Blays nodded and sprinted forward, leaping off the aftercastle and rolling across the deck. He sprung to his feet, swords in hand, blinking out of sight.
Ether plowed from the monk's hands. Blays winked back into being, driven backwards by the raw strength of the attack. He hit the railing and toppled over. With a vexed look on his face, he plunged into the churning sea.
14
Blays hit the water with a spume of bubbles. Dante watched helplessly as the two crippled boats continued forward. At last, Blays broke the surface behind them, pawing at the water.
At the railings, Naran's sailors pulled hard on their ropes, drawing the two ships nearer. It would be impossible to untangle them now. Blays was being swept further away by the moment. On the deck of the South, the remaining ethermancer dropped his hands to his side, summoning pure light from the air.
Lacking the finesse to brush the opponents' attacks aside, Dante had been clubbing them down with sheer force. His control of the nether was beginning to waver. If he expended any more, he would be vulnerable to the monk.
Yet if he waited another moment, Blays would be lost amidst the churn of the waves.
Shadows gushed toward him, coating his arms. He channeled them into a ball of kelp floating just beyond Blays. Arms shot forth from the mass, spraying foam into the air. Dante was a piss-poor Harvester, so he made up for this in the only way he knew how: by pouring as much nether into his work as he could summon. Within a blink, a rubbery raft grew beneath Blays, lifting him above the surface. As the two boats cleaved closer, drawn by the sailors' grapnels, Blays raised his arm and waved.
Dante staggered, collapsing onto his rear. His vision went gray, blackening at the edges. Motes of light squiggled across his eyes. On the deck of the South, the enemy monk shaped the ether into a spear and swept up his hands.
A barrage of arrows flew from Naran's archers. Distracted by his opportunity to kill Dante, the monk didn't see them coming until the missiles were buried in his body. He dropped to the deck, trying to patch the bleeding with the light, but the ether dispersed into the air, returning whence it had been summoned.
The boats clashed together, rocking Dante's head back. With a roar, Naran led the charge onto the Sword of the South. Before the captain landed his first blow, Dante's eyes went dark.
~
Water dashed his face. He sputtered, pawing madly to get his head above the sea—unconscious, he must have slid over the edge—but his hands waved through empty air. Blays stood over him, laughing. Dante cocked his fist and punched him in the ribs.
Blays rubbed his side. "If that's how you're going to celebrate our victories, remind me to throw the next battle."
Dante lay in a familiar bunk. He was in a cabin on the Sword of the South. He wiped water from his face with his blanket. "We won? And you're alive?"
"Quick thinking with the kelp-raft. Naran's retaken the South. They came around for me once the melee relented. If you're feeling up to it, Naran's people are sporting a few injuries which I'm sure they'd appreciate being magically erased."
Dante sat up, taking stock of himself. He felt hollow, with a tingling that verged on pain, like a burned finger in the moments after it's removed from the water that's been cooling it. He brought the nether from the corner of the dim cabin. As it neared him, it began to sizzle. He jerked his hand, dispersing it.
"I'm a little thin at the moment," he said. "They're going to have to rely on traditional treatment until tomorrow."
"I'll let them know. Oh, more good news: Naran left some of his crew to patch up the caravel, but we're underway. He expects to reach Kandak within the week." Blays patted him on the shoulder. "So try not to die before then, all right?"
Dante fell back asleep. When he woke, it was still light out—or rather, it was light again. He'd slept for an entire day. He felt much better, but the dark specks within him signifying the sickness' progression had doubled in size. He only had a few days before the symptoms began again in earnest.
Outside the cabin, stretches of railing had been smashed, temporarily replaced with ropes. The rigging had been mended with far greater care. Large, wine-dark spots stained the decks. A young man scrubbed at the blood, but judging by his expression, he knew it was futile. Where life was extinguished, you couldn't erase the stain.
It was a sunny day with a strong northerly wind, propelling the ship through the waves at a steady clip. Dante didn't see Naran anywhere, so he headed belowdecks.
Jona swung out of a hammock. A bandage swathed his left arm. "Look at that. The Shipwrecker's up and out of his cave."
He was grinning. But some of the men recruited from the caravel were watching Dante the way they would if a crated bear had escaped its cage to wander about the hold.
"The Shipwrecker?" Dante said. "All I did was cut a few sails. Taim's priests were the ones who knocked down our mast."
He kept an eye on the strangers as he said this. One of the men softened his expression, but the others remained leery. Dante knew the Mallish had always been hostile toward Arawn and anything connected to him, including the use of the nether, but he'd been away from his home nation for so long that he'd forgotten how deep the prejudice ran.
He had shrugged it off like a sheer robe, but that didn't speak to his broad-mindedness so much as the fact that pursuing the nether had allowed him to rise from nothing to a position of great power. In Mallon, worship of Arawn was banned outright. Now, it seemed as though nethermancers were being hunted down like rabid dogs. Dispelling the crew's ingrained suspicion would take some work.
"I wouldn't discard a nickname as fine as that so easily," Jona replied. "Most people wind up with ones that are far worse." He glanced toward an older man. "Isn't that right, Toothsome Jim?"
The older man sucked in his wooden dentures, scowling.
Dante chuckled. "I didn't come down here to argue nicknames. I heard some of our people were hurt. If they'll allow it, I'll tend to them."
Jona gestured him on. The rear of the sleeping quarters had been cleared out to serve as a makeshift medical station. It smelled like sweat and bandages. Men lay in hammocks, eyes shut tight, brows furrowed in pain. Ther
e were seven casualties in total, with wounds ranging from deep cuts, to a broken leg, to two severed fingers.
As he approached the sailor with the broken leg, the man's eyes opened. Seeing Dante, his hands tightened on the hem of his blanket.
"I'm here to fix your leg," Dante said. "Unless you think that would be unnatural."
The man sat up. The movement made him go rigid with pain. Sweat popped up along his greasy hairline, but he forced himself not to make a sound. "You think you can patch it up?"
"In less than a minute, I can make it as good as new. But if you have a problem with what I do, please let me know so I can save my abilities for your peers."
A fat bead of sweat slipped down the man's sun-cracked face. His nose was crooked from an old break and he had heavy, protruding brow ridges, giving him the thoughtful, wary look of a large bird. His eyes hopped skeptically between Dante's. As the man hesitated, Dante's resentment swelled. He said nothing. The only way to change his mind was to show him that the nether could bring good as well as pain.
Besides, they'd had to split the crew between two ships. If Dante was going to make it back to the Plagued Islands, he was going to need every able-bodied crewman they could get.
"Will it hurt?" the sailor said.
"For a moment. Then it will be as if nothing had ever happened."
His eyes lowered to Dante's right thumb, which was still stained black by the time he'd summoned so many shadows it had nearly killed him. "And when the darkness comes…will it leave a mark?"
Dante smiled thinly. "Don't worry. No one will know that I helped you."
The sailor pressed his hand over his mouth, then nodded sharply. "Do it."
He moved to expose his leg, but Dante stopped him. "I have no need for my eyes."
Hearing this, the man's expression grew warier than ever. Dante laughed inwardly and sucked the shadows from the wood of the hull. A dark mist hung over the sailor's extended leg. Eyes bulging at the manifestation, he began to hyperventilate. Dante let the mist linger another moment, then sank it into the man's leg.
The bone came first. It was shattered, but the nether remembered the shape of how it wished to be. As the shards fit together, the sailor screamed, head lolling. Bone knit to bone.
The man straightened his neck, blinking hard. "The pain. It's…"
"I told you it would leave," Dante said. "Now hold still. One wrong move, and I might accidentally merge your legs together. I'm not sure you'd enjoy life as the world's ugliest mermaid."
The suggestion ran counter to Dante's goal of knocking some sense into the man, but the aghast look on his face was worth it. Dante moved the nether through veins and flesh, tying each strand back together. The man's leg jerked. Seconds later, Dante stepped back from the eagle-browed sailor.
"You're finished?" Gently, the man pulled the blanket free from his leg. "I don't feel a thing."
"That's the point. If you'd prefer, I can re-break it for you even faster than I put it back together."
The sailor stared at him long enough to conclude he was joking. He unwrapped blood-caked rags from his splint, revealing smooth tan skin and a straight shin. He swung his legs off the side of the hammock and slowly extended his leg. He pressed the ball of his foot to the floor, then laughed in disbelief. The other wounded men watched in awed silence as he stood and reeled across the bunk room.
"I'm—" He clapped a hand to his mouth and burst into sobs.
Dante rushed toward him, sprawling forward as the ship pitched down a wave. "What's the matter? Does it hurt?"
The sailor shook his head, tears streaming down his cheeks. "A break like that would never have healed right. Climbing rigging with a warped leg, why, you might as well have asked me to leap over the moon. I've been with the Sword of the South for fifteen years—and I thought this voyage was to be my last."
Before Dante could respond, the man hugged him hard. After the battle, the injury, and his subsequent time in the hammock, the sailor smelled gamier than a sack of badgers. Then again, Dante was sure he didn't smell much better.
"Anything I can do for you," the sailor said, withdrawing. "You have only to name it."
"I'll take you up on that," Dante said. "But let me see to your friends first."
After the display put on by the healed man, whose name was Benny, all but one of the other wounded enthusiastically accepted Dante's aid. The single holdout was a young blond man with a deep cut on his forearm. Dante was afraid he'd suffered ligament damage, but the boy shook his head, muttering something about witchcraft.
Dante didn't press him. With his work concluded, he ascended abovedecks with Benny. Compared to the hold, the air was chilly, but much cleaner.
Somewhat sheepishly, Benny grinned, gripping the railing and gazing out to the blue-gray sea. "Now that the moment's passed, I'm not sure what a man like me can do for a fellow like you. But my offer remains."
"You said you'd been with this ship for fifteen years?"
The sailor nodded proudly. "Since Captain Dackers. He's the one who showed Twill—smooth seas for her soul—the passage to the Plagued Islands."
"Has Mallon had a presence there all this time?"
"Not hardly. Now and then you'd see a ship flying the king's colors, but back in those days, they feared the sickness too much. It was mostly outfits like us."
"What changed?"
Benny chuckled darkly. "What else? The Shadow Rebellion."
"The Shadow Rebellion? What was that?"
"The Chainbreakers' War." Blays appeared behind them, speaking around a mouthful of springapple. "That's what they call it down here." He frowned at the sea, then waved to the stern, northward toward Mallon. "I mean, up there. Pretty cool, eh?"
Dante grabbed the apple and took a bite. "What, you knew about this?"
"The giant war that almost killed us on twenty different occasions? If I think very hard, I can recall a detail or two. Now unhand my apple."
"I'm starving. And I mean the timeline. Mallon only started plundering the islands after the war."
"I don't know anything about that. I spent some time in Whetton afterwards, but I didn't hear of the Plagued Islands until you did."
"Then maybe you can quit interrupting the person who does know what he's talking about." He turned back to Benny. "Do you know why the crown suddenly took an interest in the islands after the war?"
Benny shrugged one shoulder. "They haven't exactly been champing at the bit to explain. Sorting through the tangled nets of rumor, though, I'd say they were looking to strengthen their fleet. And leverage it to dump a new stream of silver into the coffers."
"I see. Well, if you remember anything more concrete, I'd very much like to hear it."
"What is it that brought you to the islands, anyway?"
"A man named Larsin Galand. Do you know him?"
"Name rings a bell. But I'd bet a week's rum rations that my pal Juleson knows him." Benny gestured up at the rigging. "He's on duty at the moment. Want me to bring him around once he's done?"
"Please."
The sailor smiled, flexed his leg, and did a little jig. "Thanks again for what you've done for me. I won't forget."
He bobbed his head and jogged down the deck, presumably in search of Captain Naran. Blays smirked.
"What?" Dante said.
"I'd accuse you of growing an interest in philanthropy, but I think you just enjoy showing off what you can do."
"How dare you. I would never abuse my powers for anything as petty as vanity. This was for the morally righteous goal of extracting information from people who wouldn't otherwise give it."
Blays' amusement dwindled. "The Chainbreakers' War is the reason Mallon is interfering with the islands, isn't it?"
"It must have scared them. Showed them what a resurgent Narashtovik looks like. They must have feared they were next."
"And moved to secure a supply of shaden to fight us with."
"The timeline fits. They're more fanatical than ever, too.
I doubt it took much to convince King Charles of the necessity of a southern expedition."
"In a way, then, we're to blame for what's happening on the islands. The Mallish wouldn't be backing the Tauren if not for what we did in Gask."
Spray wafted over the railing, leaving the hairs of Dante's arms bright with tiny droplets. "We freed the norren. We did what we had to do."
"Sometimes I have to vomit. I have no choice in the matter, but that doesn't change the fact it makes an awful mess."
"We can't control what the idiots in Mallon do."
Blays leaned over the rails, eyeing a grayish, indistinct lump breaking the surface a hundred feet to starboard. "We're from Mallon. We know what they're like. We could have guessed there'd be a response to their ancestral enemy kicking up dust again."
"So what should we have done? Left the norren in chains because Mallish fearmongers might use their freedom as an excuse to go crush an island we didn't know existed?"
"I'm not saying we shouldn't have done what we did. But we could have been more mindful of the consequences. Sent people south to keep an eye on the place. Or you might have traveled to assure the court you had no designs on their land."
"I was rather busy ensuring our land wasn't retaken by the Gaskan Empire."
"So was I, believe it or not." Blays brushed crystallized salt from the backs of his hands. "It's too easy to forget about everything except what's right in front of you. To think you're isolated from anything that's too far away to see with your own eyes. But we're all a part of everything. We can't escape it. And if we ignore it, then we share responsibility for any wrong that comes after."
"It's not that easy. Leading a city or a nation, the weight of history is always dragging you down. There's no way out of the morass. You can't let the fear of how others might respond stop you from doing what's right. Otherwise, the world will stay wrong forever."
The Cycle of Galand Box Set Page 20
