A Blight of Blackwings

by Kevin Hearne

  “No matter,” Lohmet eventually grinds out. “I have extraordinary news to share. Hearthfire Winthir Kanek has burned the capital of Talala Fouz and slain King Kalaad the Unaware. We have this news from the Raelechs. Apparently he was seeking his daughter, who was with Mogen at the Godsteeth but surrendered to me there and begged my indulgence to travel to the capital. She wanted to build a city in the Gravewood, and the king granted her leave.”

  “I am…astounded. You wouldn’t jest with me?”

  “No. I would not.”

  “So Winthir Kanek has sacked the capital?”

  “No, he is dead. Slain in the street by a face jumper. His fury and crew abandoned his body and escaped while the city burned. Or so they thought. Their ship was rammed by a Larik whale, and Kanek’s pet fury, who burned the city down, was lost. We have this too from the Raelechs.”

  “How would they know all this?”

  “Because the Nentian boy with the Sixth Kenning made it happen, and he is with them now, traveling upriver.”

  “So the Sixth Kenning is real? I’ve heard only rumors.”

  “It’s real. That same boy was at the Battle of the Godsteeth, and he took out most of the lavaborn—except for Mogen—with a stampede of kherns. We are very grateful for the aid Forn gave us in repelling Mogen, but henceforth such aid shouldn’t be necessary.”

  “This truly is extraordinary news.”

  “Indeed! And now Ghurana Nent needs a new king.” He turns his head to look over his shoulder at Hennedigha. A sly smile spreads on his face, like mold on bread. “What do you think, Hennedigha? Have we not proven our merit? Shall we travel north, fresh victory under our boots, and build a new capital from the ashes of the old?”

  The tactician smiles on one side of his face, gives a single nod and a grunt of assent.

  “Ha! He speaks eloquently, does he not? Such a lofty lexicon. So that is why I have called you here. We leave in three days’ time for the capital with our army to restore order and rebuild Talala Fouz. You may accompany us or remain here in Hashan Khek; it is your decision. Either way, I imagine you have preparations to make, letters to write, and so on.”

  “I will of course follow you, Viceroy, but perhaps a day or two behind to make sure we have made all necessary preparations. Thank you for letting me know. Is there anything else?”

  “Not for now. I have no idea what situation your embassy might be in up there, but you have permission to build or rebuild as needed when you arrive.”

  I bow and hurry back to our embassy. Rot and wilt the giants for burning us again! Is my colleague in Talala Fouz dead? If not and I’ve simply not received word, I’ll still go. The viceroy invited me, and someone needs to look out for the Canopy’s interests. Melishev Lohmet thinks to make himself king, and I have little doubt that, behind Hennedigha’s army, he can do it, even if other viceroys covet the throne. There will be unrest, however, in the short term—perhaps even a civil war, if Lohmet’s popularity is as polarized as I think it is.

  Forn definitely needs eyes and ears in every Nentian city now—not to take sides, but simply to have a better idea which shoots might grow to full flower.

  Sometimes, when gardening, it’s difficult to know which plants are weeds and which are desired. And some weeds, when allowed to grow, become so entrenched and troublesome that we wish we had the foresight to yank them out when they were seedlings.

  * * *

  —

  Fintan’s voice returned to its accustomed timbre as he dispelled Mai Bet Ken and told everyone it was time to find out what Second Könstad Tallynd du Böll found out next in the Mistmaiden Isles.

  The pelenaut was almost as interested in the fecund fishing waters as he was in the discovery of the Seven-Year Ship, and he assigned Föstyr, the lung, the task of putting together a group that could build and sustain a fishing camp on either Bean or Bolt.

  “Are we in such dire straits already?” I asked, and he shook his head.

  “Not yet. But we will be. That’s the way the river’s flowing. We’ll need the sea to sustain us until we can get our agriculture functioning again.”

  I was granted a few days’ rest while Pelenaut Röllend conferred and planned, and when I reported back, I was to return to the Seven-Year Ship, as I suspected. Gerstad Nara du Fesset would be going with me, and together we were to steal the ship and take it to Dead Man’s Point, where it could be studied in safety away from the wraiths and kept out of the hands of the Bone Giants. Föstyr would meet us there.

  Nara’s lifebond, Mynstad du Möcher, stopped by to say farewell at the entrance to the Lung’s Locks in the Wellspring. Nara flicked her eyes to me and begged my pardon.

  “Of course,” I said, and I turned my back and heard their embrace—the creak of the mynstad’s leather armor squeezed in her lifebond’s arms—then a kiss and soft murmurs of love. I grinned because they were so adorable. But then, following so hard I had to stifle a gasp, a sharp pang of grief seized my heart. I felt myself welling at the memory of such moments with my husband. Squalls of grief can surprise me sometimes, though it’s been years. I miss him so much.

  “Ready, Second Könstad,” Nara said, suddenly beside me at the pool’s edge.

  “Oh. Good.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” I said, dashing a tear away from my eye. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  —

  The churn of the feeding grounds around Blight was not so severe as it had been a week ago. There were no bladefins in the area anymore, but the crabs and smaller scavengers were still at it, ensuring that the Bone Giants were no more than bones, and even those would eventually be broken down by small creatures that would take a longer time to get the work done.

  “Bryn preserve us, this is horrible,” Nara said, treading water next to me at the edge of the Eculan fleet.

  “Wait until you see the wraiths. That’s the true horror.”

  “What’s the plan?”

  “We have to enter into that cloud of guts and blood and surface next to the hull of the ship. We need to be stealthy about it so the wraiths don’t spot us. Then we cut the lines mooring the ship to the dock and use our kenning to float that ship out of there.”

  “Are we going to get on board?”

  “I have no ambitions of that nature. I’d feel safer in the sea. We don’t know if there are wraiths on board or not.”

  “Oh, squid shit! I didn’t even think of that.”

  “We’re safe in the water, even if they are on board. They’re going to be someone else’s problem, not ours. It’s cutting the ropes that will place us in closest proximity to their reach. So silently we go.”

  I reached out my hand to Nara and she clasped it in hers. Together we ducked underneath the waves and sleeved ourselves through the water a handsbreadth below the surface, probably creating a small ripple as we moved but unlikely to be noticed.

  The cloud of sediment—really a diffused suspension of Eculan body fluids and tissue mixed with crab shit—was spectacularly unpleasant. The water felt unclean and greasy, and we could see little chunks of flesh and organs floating past our eyes. Some of it was no doubt getting trapped in our hair, and I would be giving mine a vigorous wash as soon as possible.

  A dark slice of the keel appeared eventually, and we descended to surface on the other side of it.

  “I never want to do that again,” Nara whispered to me, her eyes wide in horror, and I nearly laughed out loud. I clamped my lips together and shook my head in agreement. Nara had little pieces of skin and who knew what in her hair, which meant it was in mine too.

  We looked up at the situation. There was a padded fender on the dock to prevent the hull from scraping against the planks and taking damage. There were four hawsers tying the ship to the dock, but we quickly
realized that these were too far above the water level for us to reach. There was also a gangplank lowered, so there might indeed be wraiths on board, but the ship wasn’t anchored.

  That itself was curious to me: This was rigged in such fashion as to indicate a stay of a few days or weeks. It wasn’t an ideal situation for an extended period of dormancy, such as seven years. The ship didn’t appear to have languished here long either; up close, I could see that the varnish on the hull was new. I didn’t see seven years or more of weathering on the boards.

  Nara and I pointed to the gangplank at the same time and said in low tones, “That’s a problem.” There was no way for us to get rid of it without getting up on the dock.

  “Hawsers first,” I said, pulling out the large serrated glass knife we’d brought with us for the purpose. Hathrim glass knives like these were rare; they were made exclusively for us at enormous expense by one particular firelord in Narvik, shipped overland across the breadth of Forn from Pont to Keft, and then up the coast to us in Pelemyn. No one else had use for such tools; steel was the preferred material for everyone who didn’t have to spend most of their working hours in the water. Bryn’s blessed, however, preferred tools that wouldn’t rust. I had sent the firelord a thank-you note for his skill in my best approximation of calligraphy, using the ink of a great Peles longarm. I liked to think he envied my kenning even as I envied his.

  I took the fore and Nara took the stern. On a nodded signal, we both gushed out of the sea just enough to wrap an arm around the hawser and dangle from it while the other arm sawed away at its braided strength.

  My eyes darted to the shore and the dock, looking for any signs of approaching wraiths. The splashing noises we’d made might have been heard but might also be the sort of thing that occurred frequently as the feeding went on below. We weren’t visually obvious, presenting only a forearm and head above the level of the dock. All I could see in turn was the telltale blurring of the tree trunks, indicating that the wraiths were still milling about the island.

  Nara sawed through her hawser first, and I heard her splash back into the water. I followed soon after and then glided over to confer with her.

  “Let’s wait and watch before taking the next two,” I said.

  “Okay,” she agreed. “My arm could use the rest anyway.”

  We treaded water, watching the beach for any indication that the wraiths had heard us and listening for any activity on board the boat. It had rocked a little bit at the release of tension and would no doubt do so even more violently once the last two hawsers were severed. At that point only the hooks of the gangplank attached to the dock would keep it moored there, and it would be unsteady.

  “When the next two go, we’ll need to move fast,” I thought aloud. “The ship will visibly move, and I don’t think they can miss it. And to get the gangplank unhooked, I’ll have to get up on the dock itself.”

  “Why you? I can do it.”

  “You have a wife.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “And you have kids.”

  “But I bet you promised you’d be back.”

  Her eyes broke contact with mine. “I did.”

  “I didn’t. It breaks my heart, but the kids know I can’t promise them anything anymore, except to love them. And I don’t think you can shield yourself from them as well as I can—I can maintain a bubble of water around myself as I walk, and that’s the best defense I can think of. So I will do this. Once the gangplank is free, pull a wave to push the boat away.”

  She nodded acknowledgment of the order, and we separated to attack the last two hawsers. I was hyperconscious of the fact that when these snapped, the release of tension might well whip us toward the ship. My head could be in danger of cracking against the hull.

  As before, Nara sawed through hers first. She was thrown against the hull with a thud and grunted in pain as she fell back into the water. I unhooked my arm and gripped the hawser with just my hand as I sawed through the final braid. The eventual snap was violent, the fibers burning my palm and lashing my left wrist and also whipping my right, causing me to fumble the expensive blade. But I dropped straight into the water rather than suffering a crash against the hull. I hoped Nara was okay, but I didn’t have time to check on her. The gangplank needed to be done right now.

  I fountained myself out of the water to land on the dock, understanding that stealth wasn’t a part of the equation anymore, and I maintained a sheath of water a knuckle deep all around my body as a defense against the lure of the wraiths and perhaps even against their touch. The horrors had already either spotted or heard us. They were no doubt en route to my position, silent and deadly, but looking up and wetting myself in fear wasn’t going to get the job done. I focused on the gangplank and nothing else.

  The boat was straining hard against the hooks, so taut that I couldn’t unfasten them. I pulled the water underneath the hull toward me, to give me the slack to unhook the plank and cast it off so that it would hang uselessly off the side once Nara summoned it away. Once done, I shouted, “Clear!” to Nara, even though I couldn’t see her. That’s when I realized there was no space for me to drop back into the water. I turned my head to the left and saw that the wraiths were in fact bearing down on me, coming to fetch me since I couldn’t be lured to them. Their eyes were blackened pits, pools of night floating in the sun; likewise, their mouths were gaping maws, lined with spectral teeth—for what purpose, I wondered? Would I feel them tear into me, like a bladefin’s teeth? The rest of their forms were insubstantial, but the eyes and mouths appeared all too real. I spun to sprint to the other side of the dock and promptly fell flat on my face, as my left foot—speared by an Eculan not so long ago—refused to support such an athletic move. The water sheath I’d been keeping in place splashed away with the impact and my surprise, and I was therefore vulnerable. I kept my eyes shut.

  Getting back to my feet would take too long. I threw myself into a roll until I dropped off the dock, opening my eyes only as gravity took me and I couldn’t stop my fall. The wispy fingers of the lead wraith clutched at my feet, missing by only a hair; a gust of freezing wind on my toes was the only hint of what fate I’d suffer if they actually touched me. The nasty water welcomed me back with a floating eyeball, and I had never felt so relieved. I shot as quickly as I could underneath the dock and the Seven-Year Ship to the other side, already pushing the waters of the inlet to buffet the hull of the ship and guide it away. I surfaced, facing the ship, and looked around for Nara. She was off to my left, and she cried out when she saw me.

  “Tallynd! Thank Bryn! I thought you might be lost!”

  We laughed in relief, the way people do when they realize they’re still alive and perhaps shouldn’t be. The silent milling of the wraiths held no terror for us now that we were safe in the ocean. Or at least it was a reduced terror.

  “What say we get ourselves to clearer waters and steer the ship to us from out there?” I said, and she readily agreed. We sped out to the edge of the inlet and spent a while vigorously washing the chum out of our hair. Then we linked hands and worked together to guide the ship on carefully controlled swells out of the inlet and into the open waters of the strait.

  We kept a close eye on the deck as it moved in our direction, shepherded by waves of our own making. I saw no telltale wobble in the air that would indicate a wraith was on board, and no one emerged from belowdecks in bewilderment that the ship had become unmoored. It eased out into the strait, and soon enough we were able to leave the wraiths behind.

  It was a beautiful ship, it could not be denied. But I couldn’t see how it was worth all the effort of the Bone Giants to find it or how it was worth so many lives on all sides.

  Without ever boarding it or unfurling the sails, using our kenning only, we tugged it along with us to Dead Man’s Point, a clublike peninsula north of Festwyf, due west of the island I call Blight.<
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  There’s a dock and a lighthouse there, and when we reached it, Föstyr and a crew of picked mariners were waiting. We tied it up, secured the dangling gangplank, and a brave volunteer boarded to see if the ship was truly free of wraiths or other murderous creatures. When he reported that nothing lived on board, we all followed Föstyr onto the ship. He headed straight for the ornate cabin and strode through the unlocked door, and I followed while Nara and the others went belowdecks.

  It was a well-appointed cabin. Luxurious, even. There was a small bookcase of volumes written in the Eculan language, which should please that Kaurian scholar no end. Rolled up in a cubbyholed box were maps and charts in the same language, many of which bore details of the coastline of the Northern Yawn; that pleased Föstyr, but not as much as the map that showed us where Ecula’s five islands were located in relationship to our eastern coast. That was the true prize for us.

  “Ahh, there it is,” Föstyr cooed as he tapped the outline of our enemy’s islands. “We know where you are now, you bastards.”

  There was also a log with a list of dates, seven years apart, but nothing listed for this year. There was nothing of material value in the cabin, apart from some gold- and silver-lined instruments.

  I emerged from the cabin to find Nara climbing up the steps from below, shaking her head.

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “No vast treasure in the holds. There are only lots of bunks—more than you’d need to crew this vessel—and a few barrels of some vile goop in the cargo hold.”

  “Nothing else?”

  She shrugged. “Kind of a weird-looking cloak down there. But nothing says to me, ‘This ship is worth dying by the thousands for.’ ”

  “Then something else is, and they thought this ship would take them there.”

  There were some tools in the bilge, and with Föstyr’s permission I pried off a piece of the outer hull near the hawser port that was stained with the strange dark resin. We left him there with his mariners and returned to Pelemyn, to report and to deliver that piece of the hull to a hygienist I trusted. Her name was Feryn du Landyn, and she lived conveniently close to the docks.