The Black Coast

by Mike Brooks

  “Duranen,” Blackcreek said, coming to a halt. “This lord still awaits your explanation.”

  “Lord, Tirtza brought the Raider to the kennels, saying she wanted to see dragons,” Duranen replied with a bow.

  “So Tavi said,” Blackcreek said. “This doesn’t explain why two rattletails came to be mauling one of this lord’s serving girls in the middle of the damned yard.”

  He delivered the last half-dozen words through his teeth, and there was no mistaking the edge to them.

  “Your man misunderstood,” Duranen said, glancing at Zhanna. “He thought the Raider was familiar with rattletails, so he let two out to greet her. She became scared, they became agitated, and chased Tirtza when she fled.”

  Blackcreek looked at Zhanna. “Well?”

  Zhanna was sure Duranen was lying: he’d intended the dragons to at least scare her, possibly harm her. However, she wasn’t sure she wanted to directly contradict one of Blackcreek’s household in front of him, so she shrugged. “Perhaps yes.”

  Blackcreek’s eyes flicked back to Duranen, and narrowed. “Take greater care in future. The apothecary’s bill will come from your pay.”

  Duranen’s face hardened, but he bowed again. “Lord.”

  Blackcreek’s fingers drummed three times on the bare white wood of his longblade’s scabbard, then he rolled his shoulders and seemed to put the matter behind him. “How fare the hatchlings?”

  “Not well, lord,” Duranen replied, his manner becoming brisk and matter-of-fact. “‘Tis too early in the year for a brood, in truth, and the mother has rejected them. It happens on their first clutch, from time to time.”

  “This lord will see them,” Blackcreek said, heading for the kennel door. He looked at Zhanna. “Come. The dragons will be secure now, and the hatchlings will not bite.”

  Zhanna was dubious, but followed them inside. More rattling arose, but the Naridans ignored it, so she tried to as well. This time Duranen led them to the pen at the far right. Adult dragons approached their gates and sniffed, but none responded aggressively, and Zhanna began to breathe a little more easily.

  “Here, lord,” Duranen was saying, gesturing to a pen with a low wall and a gate of solid wood, rather than a metal lattice. “We keep them as warm as we can with a smothered charcoal pit, but it’s not the same.”

  Zhanna peered in, and almost laughed at what she saw. Six tiny creatures, barely the height of her outstretched fingers, were huddled together on soft earth. Unlike the feathered adults, these were naked save for their scaled skin.

  No, not six, there were seven. There was another, smaller one, slightly apart from the main group. She pointed at it. “Is that well?”

  Duranen glanced at her dismissively. “The runt. Not able to fight for the warmth. It’ll likely be dead by the morning.’

  Zhanna frowned. “Do you not be mother?”

  Duranen blinked. “What?”

  “On Tjakorsha, have crows,” Zhanna said, trying to work out how she could explain. “Sometimes child find baby crow… hatchling? Out of… home?”

  “Out of the nest?” Blackcreek asked.

  Zhanna shrugged. It could be. “Child will raise hatchling as mother. Hatchling grow well. This warrior did so when she a child be.”

  Duranen snorted. “Dragons aren’t crows, girl.”

  Blackcreek eyed first Zhanna, then Duranen. “You say the runt will die?”

  “Nine times out of ten. If not tonight, the night after, for sure.”

  Blackcreek nodded thoughtfully, then unbolted the gate and stepped into the pen, to Duranen’s consternation.

  “Lord…?”

  Blackcreek walked around the huddle of rattletail hatchlings, reached down, and scooped the runt up off the earth. It squawked weakly at him as he walked back out and shut the gate behind him. He turned back to Zhanna, and in his hands, a scaled, featherless head on a wobbly neck peered up at her.

  “You wanted to see dragons, and say you know crows. This lord’s huntmaster says this hatchling will not live on its own. Very well; its life is yours.”

  He held out his hands, and dropped the tiny dragon into hers.

  RIKKUT

  THE WARBAND HAD scoured the shores and ridges of Kainkoruuk, but nowhere was there any sign of the Brown Eagle clan. It wasn’t until the warriors were sullen and exhausted that Amalk Tyaszhin had given the order to turn back, and his fleet had set sail once more. Rikkut couldn’t blame him for wanting to make sure, but his actions had gone past thorough and well into desperate. All that time, their captive Ludir Snowhair had sat on the Red Smile’s deck with his cloak wrapped around him, staring straight ahead, and coldly unresponsive to any questioning about where his neighbours had gone. “Take me to your chief, then,” he’d said to Rikkut, folding his arms tighter and shivering. “Take me there, if that’s your purpose, and stop wasting everyone’s time.”

  “We have no chief,” Rikkut had told him sternly.

  “What do you have, then?” Snowhair had asked, displaying his first sign of interest as he looked up at Rikkut and cocked an eyebrow.

  “The Golden,” Rikkut had said simply, and a tight bubble of fear and excitement stirred in his belly as he said the name. “It needs no other title.”

  “Foolishness,” Snowhair had snorted, fidgeting with his cloak again. Rikkut hadn’t chastised him. The old man had yielded. It was down to The Golden what happened to him.

  Rikkut was an Easterner from Volgalkoruuk. He’d performed the bone walk around the rim of its crater, the entrance to the netherworld, and although his head had swum and his legs had grown weak, he’d resisted the spirits of his ancestors and had returned to his clan, instead of leaving his own bones there. He felt a fierce pride in the rock of his home, but he still had to admit it was dwarfed by the sheer scale of the island known as Dvokolorstal.

  Formed of two Great Peaks, Ogongkoruuk and Korakoruuk, Dvokolorstal’s massive double-lobed shape towered above the waves and trailed clouds from its twin summits. In the great bay that made up much of its west coast sat Torakudo, The Town of No Chiefs, where grievances between clans held no weight. It had always been a safe place; a welcoming port in a storm, a place to find a crew or a ship, a place to take counsel from witches and plan the year ahead.

  Now it was the seat of The Golden, and safety was a relative concept.

  “I’d heard tales,” Snowhair said hoarsely as his eyes lit upon the blackened, burned wrecks that had once been buildings, scattered through Torakudo. The Golden had been thorough when it had made landfall, and had ordered the home of anyone who resisted put to the torch. It was work that had gladdened Rikkut’s heart, and had helped earn his name, Fireheart.

  “Now you know them to be true,” he said to Snowhair as Tyaszhin ordered the sail reefed, and guided the Red Smile alongside one of the long wooden jetties thrust out into the bay. Men and women jumped ashore with ropes and wrenched the yolgu to a halt, then made it fast on mooring posts. “Up you get, old man. Time for you to meet the true ruler of Tjakorsha.”

  Tyaszhin strode through the streets, Olja at his left shoulder and Rikkut at his right. Ludir Snowhair trailed behind, flanked by two more warriors, but his chin was held high, for he was still a clan chief so long as he drew breath. Most of the rest of the fleet dispersed into the town. Some were seeking shorat or fresh food, the embrace of a loved one, or a roll on a pallet with someone whose affection was for hire. The rest merely wanted to avoid laying eyes on The Golden.

  Rikkut knew Tyaszhin wished him to be among those seeking their entertainment elsewhere, but the need to claim the glory of capturing Snowhair was almost fire-hot in its intensity. So he walked through the streets one pace behind Tyaszhin and one to the side, with Ludir Snowhair’s blade sheathed at his belt in the scabbard he’d taken from the old man’s longhouse. It was a strange thing, the pale wood richly decorated in a manner he’d never seen before.

  The largest building in Torakudo stood at the very centre of the town. It had offici
ally been known as the House of the Fates, but more commonly called the Witchhouse, and it was here the witches of Torakudo had lived and received callers. A clan chief would have their own witches for counsel, but a sea captain might wish for advice before a voyage, and some islanders would even consult the witches before arranging a marriage or deciding what crop to plant.

  The Golden had killed all but two of the witches when it had arrived, added the pair it had spared to its retinue of advisors, and taken the Witchhouse as its own.

  The great double doors were closed fast, with two of The Golden’s own Scarred on guard in front of them, one man and one woman. Tyaszhin came to a halt and eyed each in turn. They stared back, their hands on their weapons but making no move either aggressive or respectful. In normal times a captain of Tyaszhin’s reputation would expect some deference from his own chief’s Scarred, so long as he respected the chief in turn, but these weren’t normal times. The Golden had turned all structures on their head, and only one thing remained certain: the draug was at the top.

  “I’m here to see The Golden,” Tyaszhin said grudgingly, when neither warrior reacted to his arrival. “Got a chief who needs to swear fealty.”

  The woman reached out and hammered on the doors three times with her fist, and the thick wood began to creak open. Tyaszhin started walking forwards before they’d even finished opening and Rikkut shadowed him, not wanting to be late into The Golden’s presence. Behind him, he heard Tyaszhin’s two crewers chivvying Snowhair along, and the old man snapping at them.

  The interior was dark and smoky, with open fires burning in the floor and red-lit shapes of people flitting between them. The Golden ordered that its fires should never die, and it only suffered witches to live if they could read the flames. It was rumoured to never sleep, and Rikkut could understand why, in this atmosphere of constant light. It was as though it sought to keep the Long Day alive, when the sun skimmed the horizon and never set.

  “What have you done here?” Snowhair demanded, and now the old chief’s voice was growing more strident. “This was a place of wisdom, not some sweat lodge! Who did this?”

  “I did this.”

  Between one moment and the next, the draug was there, looming up out of the flickering shadows like a plume of smoke emerging from Korakoruuk’s summit. Rikkut immediately dropped to his knees, his heart hammering in his chest. Tyaszhin and the rest followed suit a moment later, leaving Snowhair standing alone, but Rikkut couldn’t help stealing a look upwards from the corner of his eye.

  The body The Golden had taken was that of a naked man, and was painted in russet and shade by the flames so even the fine blond hair on its chest and legs took on the colour of fire. It stood tall enough to look slightly down at Amalk Tyaszhin, although it was not so broad, and when it moved Rikkut could see muscles shifting beneath its skin, like sharks in the shallows. It was marked all over by scars. Some were hair-thin, and some were jagged and thick, but all had healed. The witches said The Golden could not be killed, and its body was testament to that. Ugliest of all was the thick rope-mark around its neck, but that too was healing.

  Even here, naked and sweat-slicked in the heat, it still wore its mask. It was grey steel inlaid with gold whorls and spirals, and covered all its face save the eyes, mouth, and bearded chin. The blond hair on the draug’s head was shorn so close its scalp was visible, leaving the leather straps securing the mask resting against the skin. Rikkut had never seen it without the mask: if any man or woman in Tjakorsha had, they wouldn’t speak of it.

  “I did this,” The Golden repeated. The draug spoke Tjakorshi, and its voice was as cold and clear as a snowmelt stream, but there was something wrong about the way it formed the words. The intonation was slightly off, and the stresses came in the wrong places, as though the body and the being controlling it were not quite one.

  The Golden tilted its head slightly to one side as it studied Snowhair with eyes of the palest green, like twin chips of ice that had settled under a man’s brows, as hard and uncaring as the bitterest southern hail. “Because I could. You say this was a place of wisdom?” Now its voice started to rise. “They didn’t know I was coming, or didn’t know what I intended! What wisdom is that?”

  Its head tilted back the other way, that cold stare unblinking, unflinching, and it sucked a deep breath of the smoky air in through its nose. “So you’ll be Snowhair. Another weak old man claiming to be a chief, clinging to a title he doesn’t understand.” It held out one hand. “Give me your belt.”

  Snowhair tilted his head back, somehow finding a way to look down his nose at The Golden despite being the shorter of the two. “This belt belongs to the chief of the Seal Rock clan, and—”

  “And I want it,” The Golden cut him off. It seized Snowhair by the throat, the muscles on its arm standing out. The old man gurgled, reaching up with both hands to prise its fingers away, but couldn’t free himself. Rikkut grinned, silently urging Snowhair to fight harder. That would be fun to watch.

  “No one can stop me,” The Golden said urgently as Snowhair struggled. “You need to understand that. You have to know it, in your heart. Or I’ll burn you alive, then break your blackened bones into powder.” It released its grip and watched Snowhair sag, wheezing desperately.

  “You can give me your belt, kneel and swear fealty, and go back to what was once your clan,” The Golden said simply. “Or I can kill you, and take it anyway.”

  He might have been old, but he wasn’t foolish. Slowly, as though his hands were moving against his will, Ludir Snowhair reached behind his back and unfastened the belt of engraved bronze discs that had been around the waists of his predecessors for more generations than Rikkut could be bothered to think about. It slipped off him and dangled from his hand like a fat, bright-scaled eel as he sank to his knees and slowly handed it to The Golden.

  “Put it with the others,” The Golden said, taking the belt unhurriedly and holding it out without looking. A woman Rikkut didn’t know appeared from the shadows, her face lowered in deference, and took the belt from the draug before disappearing towards the rear of the hall. Snowhair looked even more unwell at seeing the symbol of his clan’s power disposed of so casually, but he said nothing.

  “Where’s the second?” The Golden asked Tyaszhin, its mask turning to the captain of the Red Smile. Tyaszhin swallowed, and Rikkut held his breath. He was looking forward to seeing the older man squirm, but there was no guarantee The Golden’s displeasure would be tightly focused.

  “The Brown Eagle clan fled before us, master,” Tyaszhin said, managing to keep his voice steady. “Their hearths were cold, their beaches empty, their fields abandoned.”

  “Where did they go?” The Golden asked. Tyaszhin shook his head, words apparently failing him.

  Rikkut saw The Golden’s jaw shift for a moment, and then it drove its right knee directly into Amalk Tyaszhin’s face.

  There was a crack of crushed cartilage and Tyaszhin toppled backwards with a stunned grunt, his hands flying to his ruined nose, but the draug hadn’t finished with him. It let out a growl and flowed down atop the Red Smile’s captain to straddle his body. Then it prised his hands away from his face, and battered him with open-handed strikes.

  Tyaszhin tried first to shield himself, then to desperately crawl away. Each time, The Golden seized a wrist to wrench aside an arm or hand, and delivered another blow that bounced Tyaszhin’s head off the Witchhouse’s dirt floor. Rikkut watched hungrily until, after perhaps twenty such strikes, The Golden rose back to its feet and turned its back on Tyaszhin, the light of the flames glistening off the sheen of sweat on its skin, and Rikkut tore his eyes away to look at the floor again.

  “Pathetic,” The Golden remarked, apparently to the air at large.

  Amalk Tyaszhin pulled himself painfully back to his knees, nose streaming blood, lips swollen, right eye already closing. He should have stayed there with his head down and accepted his punishment, but although he’d changed his sails when The Golden’s wi
nd had risen in the east, Rikkut knew Tyaszhin had never been a believer. He still had too much of the old pride, a throwback to the days when a captain could look a chief in the eye and tell them they were a fool, if that seemed necessary.

  Tyaszhin drew the spearfish-bill dagger on his belt and lurched upright, his one good eye focused on The Golden’s unprotected back.

  Kozh and Enga, Tyaszhin’s two crewers who’d been escorting Snowhair, leaped into action before Rikkut could even move. They lunged as one, each seizing an arm to drag their captain back down again, for loyalty to a captain paled in insignificance compared to loyalty to The Golden. The draug turned back to Tyaszhin unhurriedly, its pale eyes almost mocking.

  “There is some fire in you, then. A shame you couldn’t use that to find the Brown Eagles.”

  “They’ll have gone west.”

  Everyone’s heads, including The Golden’s, turned towards Ludir Snowhair. The old man smiled with one side of his mouth, exposing the old, stained teeth last seen when he’d been gasping for air.

  “You said you didn’t know where they’d gone!” Tyaszhin snarled, spitting blood into the dirt.

  “I just ignored you and told you to take me to your chief,” Ludir laughed wheezily. “I’m no friend to Saana Sattistutar and her land-stealing bastards, but I wasn’t going to spill my guts to the likes of you!” He looked at The Golden, a sneer cutting across his face, and for the first time Rikkut got an impression of the arrogance Snowhair must have carried in his youth, when he’d been able to back it up.

  “That goat-fucker did nothing but stomp around my longhouses like he had half an axe up his arse, and now he’s led me here like he reeled me in himself,” Snowhair spat, jabbing a finger at Tyaszhin. “You want my fealty, draug? Then I’ll tell you the truth. That boy there was the one who did the deed worthy of song! Fair flew over my shieldwall, like Kydozhar Fell-Axe reborn! He killed one of my best, and put the other down long enough to get his axe at my throat.”