Fortune's Toll (The Legion of the Wind, Book Two)

by Corey Pemberton

  This time it wasn't his. The voice was higher pitched, a bit gravelly.

  Argus listened to it bounce along the walls. After that scream died off another followed it. He answered them with Reaver, ringing as she left her scabbard.

  Argus ran. Adrenaline carried him over skeletons and dank puddles. Whenever the light dimmed he stuck close to the wall, plowing ahead as fast as he dared.

  He stumbled a few times, hopped up and kept moving.

  Every so often he screamed.

  The scream that answered him sounded even more desperate. It was the kind of scream that woke you in the middle of the night, shivering in your own sweat. Just as it reached its loudest point, it ceased as abruptly as it began.

  Argus quickened his pace. He jumped over a pile of leg bones, and then he saw them.

  There were two.

  One was human. The other looked like a distant cousin, except where skin should have been there were shimmering green scales. They were fighting. The thing had the man, an elderly man with a mop of white hair, pinned against the wall, throttling the life from him.

  “H-h-help…”

  The man's face turned red, then purple by the time Argus got to him. He stabbed the scaly thing in the back. Reaver was wrenched aside as she struck something harder than bone. The impact reverberated all the way up his shoulder. A few scales sheared off and scattered on the floor.

  He'd done little to harm it, but he'd certainly gotten its attention. The scaly thing turned and glared at him. The old man took advantage and slipped from its grasp, driving home a dagger in one of its legs.

  “Go for the legs, you idiot! Where there aren't any scales!”

  Argus backpedaled from those terrible eyes. They were thrice the size of his, and completely black. The only thing blacker than those eyes was its gaping mouth. Every tooth was different; it was like someone had collected samples from every living animal and thrown them into one gigantic mouth. Some were white, others yellow, most covered in moss.

  They disappeared and reappeared in rhythm to its snapping jaw.

  Argus clutched Reaver with both hands and looked for an opening. He slashed at its knees—those hunks of coral he thought were knees—but they were gone before his blade whistled past.

  He looked up, swore, and tried to block with Reaver.

  Too late.

  The thing plummeted from the ceiling, landing right on top of him. First it went for his wrists. Argus should have been strong enough to shove it off. But he couldn't. Despite being the size of a girl around ten, the thing attached to him like flies on cow shit.

  He wrestled with it. Every attack left him with fewer free limbs after the thing pinned them. He sat up and headbutted it, but only succeeded in cutting its brow. The old man rode on top of them both, stabbing it repeatedly, releasing torrents of sticky black blood.

  The scaly thing thrashed and lowered its head. It was enormous, a grotesque mismatch to the rest of its body. But it had to be that large to accommodate that gaping mouth. Teeth flashed. Click snapped its jaw. It pried open again—and stayed open this time. Argus didn't see a tongue. There was only darkness and the stench of a thousand rotten things, of dead fish and the fear of men.

  It'll swallow me, he thought. It'll swallow me whole.

  “Don't just sit there!” yelled the old man. “Do something!”

  Argus gritted his teeth. All of his effort was spent keeping that thing from lowering any closer. But all of his effort wasn't enough. While every nerve in his body urged him to struggle, he settled his thoughts instead.

  He focused on the arms that were pinning his own. Argus used touch magic to feel them, truly feel them for the first time. They weren't so different than his. Except they needed a lot more moisture. In truth they were already too dry.

  If I can dry them out even more…

  Those jaws snapped inches from his nose. Argus tried to ignore them and shut his eyes. Chanting silently, he started to draw every drop of moisture to the surface, sucking like a tree root in the Rona Desert.

  The scaly thing groaned.

  Argus kept on. His hands were wet. Blood? Sweat? Moisture from that thing's insides? It was impossible to tell. He kept feeling and drawing like the Touch Branch had taught him, even after his face was engulfed in the scaly thing's jaws.

  “No!” said the old man, his voice muffled.

  Argus kept chanting. The arm he was holding felt like a piece of petrified wood. He waited for those teeth to tear into him—and suddenly found himself back in the light.

  It's trying to get away!

  He wouldn't let it. Argus grabbed the thing, which had shriveled to about three-quarters of its original size, and held it while the elderly man kept plunging his dagger into its legs. Scales showered them, flaking off like dead skin in the winter cold.

  The creature convulsed.

  This time Argus let it go.

  He grabbed Reaver and ran it through. Groaning, he sat up and twisted the blade in the creature's chest. He kept thrusting until the old man hopped out of the way to avoid becoming another casualty.

  Argus shucked the thing off, keeping Reaver inside, and pinned it with one knee.

  “My gods,” the old man said. “You killed a ulegot.”

  It twitched beneath them, but there was no escaping that blade. At last those black eyes froze. Argus pulled out the sword and wiped it off with his boot, panting. He and the old man looked at each other a long time without saying a word.

  “What did you call that thing?” Argus said.

  The old man waved his arm. “Bugger the ulegot. I'm more surprised to see a sword in my son's hands.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “What did you just say?” Argus stepped back, and pointed Reaver right at the stranger.

  The old man held up his hands. “I'm just surprised to see you're a fighting man. Not just a drunken brawler, either. A good one.” He lowered his voice. “I'm surprised you're still alive, Argus.”

  His arm twitched. Reaver demanded more blood, and Argus wanted nothing more than to give it to her. But he was so weak he could hardly hold himself up against the wall. “You aren't real,” he said. “You're already dead.”

  The old man smiled. “Wrong on both accounts. Though being stuck down here has made me wish you were right.”

  Argus looked away. The more the old man talked, the more he resembled the statue back on Davos—the one Argus had burned. His face bore more scars and wrinkles, but the high cheekbones and narrow-set eyes, the dimple in his chin…

  No. I don't believe it. I won't.

  Argus couldn't escape that feeling, though. No one had stared at that statue for as long as he had. Probably not even the artisan who sculpted it. He knew that face; he knew it very well.

  “You see?” the old man said. “This is what I tried to tell your mother all those years ago. I can't help being who I am. A sword and the sea, strange new lands and a belly full of ale. It's in my blood, son. And in yours.”

  “Call me that again and I'll run you through.”

  Fotis lowered his eyes. “And I wouldn't spite you for it. Go on, if it suits you. It won't ever settle the debt I owe you… but it beats starving down here.”

  Reaver quivered in his arms as Argus considered it. His father was one of the last links to his old life. No, not his father. He didn't deserve that title. Fotis was just the man who'd sired him before running off.

  “You're a ghost,” he said. “You left me with nothing but a few memories.”

  “I know, so—Argus. It wasn't right. It never will be. No…” He sighed. “Deep down I knew a quiet family life wasn't meant for me. For a few years, I pretended.”

  Argus sheathed Reaver. Maybe I'll kill him later. But for now I have questions.

  “How are you still alive?”

  Fotis shrugged. “I shouldn't be. Not after all the adventures I've had. Fighting and stealing and pillaging. Wronging women who didn't take kindly to being wronged. I don't know, Argus. Ca
ll it fate if you will. If it's luck, I've had enough for a dozen men.” He tapped the wall behind him. “Though I'm starting to think it ran out.”

  “Do you know where you are?”

  “No. This place is strange to me.” He told Argus he'd spent the last year aboard a pirate ship off the coast of Tokat. “Not just aboard it, mind you. I was the captain. We went after easy pickings, mostly. Plundering spice traders on their way over from the Comet Tail Isles. Every once in a while we'd swipe some Tokati silk. A quiet life—at least for the sorts like myself.”

  “That doesn't explain how you ended up here.”

  Fotis's eyes flickered, and his son noticed them they were exactly the same shade of green as his own. He had to look away. You didn't just find that sea green, shallow water color anywhere. Here stood the man who'd given it to him.

  Fotis told him how his first mate, a “dim Harlockian cretin with delusions of grandeur,” organized a mutiny.

  “He doesn't sound that dim,” Argus said.

  “He's an imbecile! Anyhow, I caught wind of the plan before they pulled it off. At least some of my men were loyal. We were docked on the island of Char. So what did I do? I left the bastards and hired a whole new crew.”

  Sounds familiar.

  Fotis told him of more reaving along the coasts of Valcrest, but as they worked their way toward Nalavac, not a single pirate wanted to take their chances against the Nalavacians. So Fotis traded his ship for a smaller one and took a break from piracy—at least for a while.

  “I was in Azmar before this,” he said. “I had the notion to visit your sister and my grandson. I would have visited you, too, except no one in Leith knew you were alive since… since your mother and the exile.”

  “It should have been you!” Argus's voice quavered. He kept his eyes low. The warps and knots in the floor reminded him of that time. No matter how far he traveled, those memories would remain. Nothing his father said could smooth them.

  “I know…” His voice broke off, and little gasping sounds came from his side of the passage. “I'm the one who should have been exiled. You were just a boy, back then—”

  “Not anymore.”

  “—no, not anymore. But you still had the courage to do what was right. If I could do it over I would have been there. I'd have killed that bastard Belen myself.”

  “I did,” said Argus.

  Fotis's eyes, which were streaked with tears, widened. “That was you?”

  Argus nodded, and told him briefly what had happened. He left out the parts about meeting Willow and reuniting with the Legion of the Wind. “Little good it did,” he added. “Kyra still had to bear that fat bastard's child. And mother is still dead.”

  “No. It still mattered to me. I've thought about killing Belen hundreds of times. You gave him what he deserved. And don't worry about Kyra's son. She loves that child dearly—even though he's Belen's seed.”

  Fotis told him about his last visit to Leith, which had been seven years earlier. He hadn't revealed to his family that he was still alive. Just lingered around the palace and checked up on them without drawing any suspicion.

  Last week, planning to repeat the ritual, he'd set sail from Azmar. “I tried to thread the Shipbreakers. Madness. There wasn't any reason to it. I used to thread them all the time. Guess I wanted to prove to myself that I still could.” He threw up his arms. “And here I am.”

  “You've never seen this place.”

  “Never. When my ship sank I thought I was a dead man until I spotted land. What is it? Where are all the people?”

  Argus told him he was standing on the Cradle of Eld.

  Fotis threw back his head and laughed. “That's rich, boy! A bit of black humor before this place swallows us. Just what I needed to soothe my soul.”

  “I'm being serious.” Argus decided the only way to get his father to believe him was to share a little more. So he did. He told him about the sorceress who had brought him here, and how they'd gone into the Library of Man.

  “Oh, gods.” Fotis slumped against the wall. “At least I know who to pray to down here. Remor and Nessa and—what were the rest of their names?”

  “How long have you been down here?”

  “Let's see. One, two, three…” Fotis started counting his fingers, and when he ran out on one hand jumped to the other. “Eight, I think. Eight or nine.” Once he washed up on the Cradle he didn't waste any time before exploring the city. “The third door I opened locked behind me. Went up some stairs and boom! Slid right down that long chute.” His skin was pale, and his tunic draped off him like a blanket. He told his son he'd finished the last of his bread and cheese days ago. His waterskin was empty too, so he'd been drinking from whatever dank puddle he could find.

  Argus pulled out his last strip of jerky. “Here. You don't deserve this. But we'll share it.”

  “No, I don't think so, so—Argus. You need that if you're going to get out of here. My luck has changed. I think I'll just find myself a nice spot here on the wall and…”

  Argus strode across the passageway and put the jerky in his hand. “Eat.” He didn't flinch until Fotis did, and washed it down with a few drops from his waterskin. Then Argus finished the last of it.

  “What now?” Fotis said.

  “Now we keep walking. And listen closely in case more of those creatures attack.”

  * * *

  They kept walking until the sun fell.

  “Nice to have someone to talk to,” Fotis said. “You're real, aren't you? I've been… seeing people down here. People long dead.”

  “I'm just as real as you are, old man.”

  “Hmm. Maybe we're both dead.”

  Argus pondered that. If this was death. it wasn't anything like the paradise Siggi promised it was. He'd meant to ask the Rivannan what the gods of Eld thought about the afterlife. It seemed like a crucial detail now, seeing as they were trapped beneath the Cradle their descendants had built.

  “I wonder how that ulegot got in here,” Fotis said. “I still can't figure it out.”

  “What are they? I've never seen one before.”

  His father grabbed him with a bony hand. “Neither have I, my boy. Not even after half a century at sea. I didn't believe ulegots were real. Normally you can't mistake sailors' tales for the truth.”

  “Tell me everything you know about them.”

  Fotis told him the ulegots were rumored to attack sailors in shallow water. They weren't much for fighting, and preferred dragging men down to watery graves. They were fast and slippery, and thrived where the water was cool.

  “It's supposed to be worse after shipwrecks,” his father said. “Legends say they circle around the wreckage, sucking the meat off the corpses before the crabs can get them.” He shuddered. “There must be thousands of them near the Shipbreakers.”

  Argus nodded, starting to remember. A girl named Evie, the first one he'd fancied after discovering that fancying a girl was actually possible, made a point of tossing her leftover chicken bones into the water. “It's for the ulegots,” she would say. “So they can clean off what we didn't. Better those bones than ours!”

  He'd laughed then. But the memory brought no relief now. He was surprised he remembered it at all, because it belonged in the murky years before his exile. “So they're real,” Argus said. “Question is, how the blazes did it get all the way down here? If there's water in this place, I'd love to find it.”

  “Sailors have told me they can live for a few hours outside the water, but after that they'll dry out and die. Their legs don't work like ours do. On land they have to drag themselves along with their arms. That's what this fellow did—before he jumped me while I rested on the wall.”

  “That explains the missing scales.” Argus squinted and spotted a few green shimmers up ahead. “There's a trail. All we have to do is follow it until we find water.”

  Fotis laughed. “Aye. We'll find the water, all right. And maybe a thousand more of those bastards in it.”

 
“Better than starving and turning into one of those skeletons.”

  “Aye. A part of me was mad when someone came to save me. Seeing it was you changed my mind.”

  They followed the scales in silence. It was getting harder to see them. Sometimes they had to wait for what felt like hours between each shimmer.

  Onward they went, until Fotis stopped and cleared his throat. “Planning on telling me how you killed that thing?”

  Argus shrugged. “My sword's sharp enough.”

  “I'm a shit father, but I'm no fool. It had you, Argus. Just a breath before that jaw snapped shut and devoured you. But you did something. It changed.”

  “Maybe it finally dried out.”

  Fotis grinned. “As you wish. We all have our secrets. I probably have enough to fill this whole dungeon.”

  “I don't know about that.”

  They crept along, following the scales. The smell grew rank. It reminded Argus of a forgotten Azmar alley, refuse ripened in the sun. The air thickened. Whatever moisture he had left trickled out, soaked his clothes with sweat.

  “What is that awful stench?” Fotis said.

  Argus stopped beneath one of the missing stones, where the light streamed in. He squinted ahead. He could hardly see it, but there it was. “I think that answers your question.”

  Ahead of them lay a fetid pool. It rippled in the darkness, stretching from wall to wall. Every few seconds it gurgled. “That must be where the ulegot came from.”

  “Aye.” Fotis inched his way closer. He nearly slipped half a dozen times. The floor was slippery and covered in moss. “So we're supposed to just wade right through it, then?”

  Argus frowned. It wasn't the most appealing prospect—especially because more ulegots might be lurking down below. But unless they wanted to wait there and die, it was their only choice.

  They approached cautiously. Argus dipped a finger into the little pool—it wasn't so little, really, it stretched as far as he could see—and the water was lukewarm.

  “Wait,” said Fotis. “Why aren't we already soaked? Nothing's stopping the water.”