The Black Coast

by Mike Brooks

  Sattistutar grimaced as she missed a note. No, Daimon reflected, not all Tjakorshi could sing perfectly.

  The song droned on, and Daimon found his attention wandering a little. He looked up at the sky again and found the two dots he’d seen previously, now spiralling down towards them. He unconsciously loosened his longblade in its scabbard, for there was always the possibility he’d misjudged distance and scale, and these were a pair of kingdrakes far afield from a nest in the Catseye Mountains. However, as they circled lower he realised his initial assumption had been correct; it was merely two gulls, coming to investigate. The birds glided by with barely a wingbeat, but when one of them gave voice to a raucous cry it had a startling effect on the Tjakorshi.

  The group looked up as one. They kept singing, but as the gulls came back for another pass they began to sing faster, and more urgently. Ristjaan’s sister pulled out an earthen flask and uncorked it, then handed it around. Each Tjakorshi paused in their song to take a swig. To Daimon’s surprise, when Sattistutar had knocked hers back she stepped across the benches to bring it to him.

  “Drink,” she instructed when he didn’t immediately take it. Daimon sniffed it, and recoiled involuntarily at the acrid smell of shorat.

  “Why—”

  “You are here, you must drink,” the Tjakorshi ordered urgently, looking up at the gulls. Daimon took as small a mouthful as he thought he could get away with and handed the flask back before swallowing cautiously. The cursed stuff still burned its way down his throat, but he managed to avoid choking.

  “Why the hurry?” he wheezed when his voice would obey him once more, but Sattistutar had already turned away.

  There was no doubt the rites were being concluded. The song drew to a close in what appeared to Daimon to be almost unseemly haste, then Ristjaan’s body was lifted off its bier in a sling of cloth. Daimon hadn’t known what to expect, but he’d thought committing the dead man’s body to the waves would be the most involved part of the process. Instead, it seemed the song and the shorat held the greatest importance for the Tjakorshi. Ristjaan’s corpse disappeared into the water with little more ceremony than a farmer dropping a bucket into a well, after which his sister said something hurried with tears in her eyes. The rest had already returned to their places, and began the process of getting the ship moving again even before Sattistutar could give instructions.

  Daimon stepped cautiously along the deck towards the rear where the Brown Eagle chief held a large steering paddle. Sattistutar barely looked at him: she seemed more concerned with the water.

  “Why the hurry?” Daimon repeated himself when he was next to her. Sattistutar glanced at him, then resumed scanning their surroundings.

  “The birds are an ill omen,” she replied darkly. “We call on Father Krayk to take the spirit of our dead.”

  “And you fear he will not?” Daimon asked, when she did not elaborate further. Sattistutar tore her eyes from the waves long enough to fix him with a stare holding pity and contempt in equal measure.

  “No, Daimon of Blackcreek. This man fears that he comes, and that we are not far enough away.”

  Daimon’s eyes were drawn back to the fearsome carved figurehead. “You believe your god will come and… eat this ship?”

  “Do you remember what this man said when we ate together last night?” Sattistutar asked. Daimon frowned.

  “You said many things.”

  “She said a fool does not respect the sea, and a fool will die there. A fool does not respect the Dark Father, and a fool will be taken by him.” The ship was now fairly flying back towards the river’s mouth. “This man is no fool, Daimon of Blackcreek.”

  Something dark and scaled rose into view behind her.

  It was there for only a moment, and Daimon could make out no details, for it barely broke the surface. He couldn’t even tell if it was a back, the top of a head, or something else entirely, but his knees were water nonetheless. He drew his longblade, as though it would help.

  “Faster!” he urged. Sattistutar glanced over her shoulder and shouted, and the paddlers redoubled their efforts.

  The massive underwater shadow sank again. Daimon envisaged a huge, horned head on a mighty neck suddenly erupting from the water, or perhaps simply a titanic jaw rising from the waves on either side of them, teeth as long as he was tall, taking the ship down to the depths with a single bite, but no such thing materialised.

  Still, perhaps the ocean was not as peaceful a place as he’d imagined.

  ZHANNA

  SHE WAS GOING to see dragons.

  Zhanna did her best not to giggle like an overexcited child as she followed the servant Tirtza over a narrow wooden bridge spanning a moat and into the castle’s second yard, around the edges of which all manner of buildings were clustered. Smells of cooking reached Zhanna’s nose, but she didn’t allow them to distract her, and it took all her willpower not to push in front of Tirtza once it became clear they were heading for the long, low building occupying most of the yard’s far side. Tirtza cautiously poked her head through a smaller door cut into one of the two huge wooden ones that reached up for most of the building’s height.

  “Tavi?”

  Zhanna sniffed again. The smell from beyond this door was nowhere near as enticing. It wasn’t exactly unpleasant, but it lodged in her throat, deep and full and strange.

  The smaller door was pulled open to reveal a thick-set Naridan man, perhaps the age of Zhanna’s mother, or a little older.

  “What is it, girl?” He looked past Tirtza and then up at Zhanna, for he was perhaps a hands-breadth shorter than her, but unlike Osred and Tirtza he didn’t show any obvious sign of discomfort upon seeing her. “You must be the hostage.”

  “Master Osred told this girl she must show Zhanna around the castle, and Zhanna said she wanted to see dragons,” Tirtza said, as though apologising.

  “He did, did he?” Tavi looked at Zhanna again. “Zhanna, is it?” He tapped himself on the chest. “Tavi, stablemaster. Come in, then, if it’s dragons you want to see.” He turned away. Tirtza followed him and Zhanna followed her, wrinkling her nose as she did so.

  “Behold,” Tavi said, sweeping an arm out grandly. “The dragons of Black Keep.”

  At first, Zhanna could see nothing. Then, as her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she made out a series of barred metal gates as high as her chest, enclosing walled-off pens. These ran across the entire back wall of the stables, and inside…

  … were huge piles of straw. She frowned, and cautiously stepped closer. There was the faintest hint of a noise, just on the edge of hearing.

  Things abruptly swam into focus. The straw was packed under, atop and around a massive form. Zhanna saw the tips of four horns, and a leg as thick as a small tree terminating in a blunt-nailed, three-toed foot wider than her chest. The faint noise ceased momentarily, before a hollow wind rose in its place as massive lungs slowly emptied themselves of air they’d just collected. The top of the straw pile began to sink as the beast exhaled, but it was nearly as tall as she was, and the beast was on its side…

  “Not much to look at right now, are they?” Tavi chuckled. It took Zhanna a moment to realise he wasn’t joking. This wasn’t a sight that made the stablemaster’s breath catch in his throat, or twisted his stomach into a knot.

  “They sleep?” she asked, feeling foolish. She’d never really thought of dragons sleeping.

  “Most of the winter,” Tavi replied, leaning on the gate. “Longbrows and frillnecks like these don’t winter this far south. The wild ones are in the north at the moment; they’ll show up here before too long. But we have to bed these down, or they might not make it through.”

  Zhanna looked at the huge pile of straw in astonishment. “When will sleep stop?”

  “On their own? Could be a moon or more,” Tavi replied. “But we’ll rouse them today. Can’t be having Raiders in the town without our war dragons being awake, even if the Raiders say they’re friendly now.” He snorted in apparent amusem
ent, and gave Zhanna a wry smile.

  Zhanna eyed him. “You wake them? You have… magic?” She’d heard the word from Nalon: he’d said it didn’t properly match up to any Tjakorshi word he knew, but roughly meant the ability to do things that couldn’t normally be done.

  Tavi rubbed his chin, his eyes narrowing. “Of a sort. People say we used to have magic to control the dragons, to bond with them as rider and mount, but that was before the days of the Unmaker, and she destroyed it.” He heaved a sigh. “Tolkar’s arts and the God-King’s men couldn’t put magic together again. Now people like s’man have to use what charms are left to us, and the sars need all their wit and skill to master the beasts.”

  Zhanna wasn’t sure who anyone he’d just named was, and had more important questions. “Do they eat people?”

  “Eat people?” Tavi barked a laugh. “No! They’ll kill you sure enough, if you’re in the wrong place, but not to eat you. Longbrows eat grass.” He snapped his fingers at Tirtza. “Take Zhanna over to the kennels, if she wants to see dragons that eat meat.”

  “The kennels?” Tirtza repeated. She didn’t look delighted at the prospect.

  “Aye, the kennels,” Tavi said. “You’ll not be staying here. Dragon magic’s not for the eyes of serving girls. Or Raiders, for that matter,” he added. “Go bother Duranen.”

  Tirtza bowed to him, and turned to leave. Zhanna took one last look at the huge dragon slumbering in its pen, then followed her. The sheer size of it still astonished her. To think the warriors of her clan had actually fought against such beasts, with riders on their backs…

  Well, perhaps she understood a little better why her mother had been so scared for her when they’d been approaching the coast.

  The kennels were against the east wall, and had a similar design to the stables, if on a smaller scale. Tirtza was far more tentative here, and hesitated uncertainly when she raised her hand to knock.

  A tremendous racket arose within before the girl’s knuckles even made contact with the wood. It was a great rattling; the closest approximation Zhanna’s mind could manage was many large shells being shaken together.

  “Who’s there?” a voice demanded. Tirtza didn’t get a chance to answer before the door was pulled back and a tall, rail-thin Naridan glowered out at her. His age was hard for Zhanna to judge, since his head was as bald as a crow’s egg but his face was still largely unlined. He wore brown leathers and a sour expression, and held a long, knotted length of dark wood in his right hand.

  “What do you wa—?” the man began, then saw Zhanna and his eyes narrowed. “Nari’s blood, girl, you’ve let the savage out?” He squared up to her, fingers curling around his cudgel as though to strike her.

  “She’s to see the kennels!” Tirtza blurted out, backing away hastily while bowing. “Master Osred said!”

  “Osred said what?” the man demanded of Tirtza. “Don’t tell s’man she just gets to walk around like she owns the place!”

  “This warrior cannot go beyond the gate,” Zhanna said, eyeing him warily. She probably outweighed him, but he’d have reach on her even without his weapon… and of course, she added hastily to herself, she wasn’t looking to fight any Flatlanders.

  If one of them attacked her first, though…

  “Warrior? Hah!” The man laughed nastily, then spat. “By the Mountain, it speaks! Nari’s truth, but s’man thought your kind had only bird whistles and beast noises for language.”

  Zhanna wasn’t the best at reading Naridan faces, but she strongly suspected he was trying to provoke her, so she smiled. “This warrior has her language and yours.”

  The man’s left eye twitched slightly, and he didn’t look away from her even though his next words were to Tirtza. “She’s to see the kennels, you said?”

  “Yes, Huntmaster,” Tirtza replied timidly. “She wishes to see dragons.”

  Huntmaster—was that the man’s name?—nodded slowly. “Come inside then, savage, if it’s dragons you want.”

  He disappeared into the building’s interior. Zhanna followed cautiously, half-expecting the cudgel to strike her skull the moment she set foot through the door, but nothing of the sort occurred. Instead she found herself in a building not dissimilar in layout to the stables where Tavi had shown her the sleeping longbrows. The pens here were smaller, however, and the smell in the air was sourer. The strange dragon odour was there, but overlaid with the scent of rotting meat.

  “We call these rattletails,” Huntmaster said, from Zhanna’s left. He drew back a bolt and pulled a metal gate open, standing back behind it.

  Out prowled a dragon.

  Zhanna’s heart began hammering. This was no mountainous longbrow; it was a much smaller, leaner beast, although its shoulders were still at the height of her waist. It was covered in short, loose feathers in patterns of blotchy grey and brown, its muzzle was long and narrow, and the teeth in its slightly open jaws were pointed, like a shark’s. It raised its head to sniff in her direction.

  There was nothing like it on Tjakorsha. The sea was full of dangers—sharks, krayk, rogue leviathans and storms amongst them—but the land was safe, except for when storms made landfall and brought down trees, or the great mountain spirits stirred in their sleep and spat out chunks of rock, or clouds of ash. The greatest danger on Tjakorsha was other clans of Tjakorshi.

  The dragon’s nostrils widened as it inhaled, and its eyes—vertical slashes of black across bright gold-green irises—focused on her. Its tail came up, and she saw a cluster of long, bare quills at the end of it.

  It shook its tail and the quills struck each other, producing the eerie rattling she’d heard when approaching the outer door. Her heart sped up again.

  The rattling was answered, and a second dragon emerged from the same pen.

  “Careful now,” Huntmaster said, laughter bubbling under his voice. “They can smell fear.”

  The foremost of the two reared up onto its hind legs and, to Zhanna’s mounting terror, took a couple more steps forward. The thing walked like a person! Its head was near enough on a level with hers now, and its nostrils widened again as it sniffed once more, sucking in her scent…

  There was a scream, and the scuffle of small feet on the straw-covered stone floor. Tirtza clearly couldn’t take the sight of the approaching predators, and had bolted.

  Both dragons leapt forwards, a pair of grey-brown feathered blurs. Zhanna was forgotten: they barrelled past her, claws clattering on the stone, and out of the door.

  Huntmaster shouted something angry as more rattling erupted, and heavy bodies slammed against metal gates. Zhanna had visions of the gates giving way and a dozen more rattletails bursting out, leaping on her with fang and claw. She scrambled along the wall and out of the door, just as screaming erupted outside.

  Tirtza had been brought down in the middle of the yard.

  The girl was thrashing, and lashing out, but the dragons were not deterred: they merely jerked back from the blows and then quested in again with muzzles or claws, trying to get a grip on her. Zhanna saw Tavi’s head poke out from the stables, then disappear again. Huntmaster ran past her a moment later, wielding his cudgel.

  “Down! Down!” he bellowed, and when the dragons ignored his words he lashed out, catching one of them on the hip. Both turned towards him, mouths open and claws raised, tails rattling furiously.

  “Down!” Huntmaster yelled again, hefting his cudgel. For a moment Zhanna thought the dragons were going to attack, but then their heads lowered, they dropped to all fours once more, and their tails quietened.

  “Duranen!”

  Huntmaster’s head jerked at the voice, but he kept eye contact with the dragons. “Lord?”

  Daimon Blackcreek strode into the yard. Zhanna didn’t need to be an expert in reading Naridan expressions to tell he was furious. One hand was gripping the handle of his longblade, too, which wasn’t a good sign.

  Tavi had re-emerged from the stables with a long, broad-bladed spear, and advanced cautiously towa
rds the frozen tableau of Tirtza, Huntmaster—or was it Duranen?—and the two dragons. Other Naridans were watching warily from around the yard, but no one else had stepped forward.

  “What is going on here, Duranen?” Blackcreek demanded. “Why are your beasts loose?”

  “Your pardon, lord,” Duranen replied. He reached into a pouch at his belt and pulled out a strip of cured meat. Both dragons fixated on it instantly and Duranen began walking backwards towards the kennels, the two rattletails following.

  Zhanna was still directly in their path. She took several steps to one side, trying to move smoothly to avoid provoking the dragons into attacking her. They were still eyeing the meat in Duranen’s hand though, and ignored her. Duranen turned and threw it overhand, into the kennel doorway, and the dragons bounded after it. Zhanna saw Duranen glance at her as he followed them: he hadn’t checked where she was before he’d thrown it.

  Tavi was helping Tirtza to her feet. The girl was sobbing frantically, and Zhanna could see blood on her arms from where she’d been shielding herself from the dragons’ bites.

  “She needs the apothecary, lord,” Tavi said, after a cursory glance.

  “Send Faaz with her,” Blackcreek ordered. He looked at Tirtza, and grimaced. “Did you see what happened, Tavi?”

  “No lord, your man looked out when he heard Tirtza screaming, when the dragons were already on her,” Tavi replied. He looked up, and met Zhanna’s eyes. “The Raider girl would’ve. She wanted to see dragons, and your man told Tirtza to show her the kennels.”

  Blackcreek pursed his lips, then nodded once and began to walk towards Zhanna. She kept her eyes on his hands, which were resting on his longblade. She didn’t think she was at fault, but who could know the mind of a Naridan lord?

  Duranen appeared again, and Blackcreek focused on him instead. Zhanna noticed the thane’s robe was spotted and splashed with mud and water, which struck her as odd. What had he been doing?