The Shadow Within

by Karen Hancock

  In the depths below, the kraggin’s long powerful limbs, having drifted downward from its head, sparked yellow-green and stiffened. Then they snapped together in a mighty contraction that sent it arrowing headfirst for the surface.

  Across from Abramm, Rhiad hissed. “It comes! Where are the Flames? They must go up first!”

  As the sense of imminent attack closed in, Abramm urged the oarsmen to hurry. By the time they finally swung alongside Wanderer’s hull, the pressure was nearly unbearable. He secured the tiller and leaped up before the boat had even stopped moving, shouting for Wanderer’s crewmen to lower the stretcher and man the harpoon guns. From the corner of his eye, he saw Rhiad lurch upright, muttering fiercely as he staggered forward, falling on oarsmen and fellow Guardians alike. Into the very first stretcher he placed the closed brazier of Flames and ordered it pulled aloft. Then, without waiting for anyone’s permission or aid, he climbed onto the longboat’s gunwale and scrambled up the rope ladder, ordering his subordinates to follow. Glancing at Abramm like nervous sheep, the other Guardians arose and, rather than helping with the transport of the injured, clambered awkwardly up the ladder after him. Abramm let them go without comment, hoping it didn’t cost someone’s life.

  Trap steered his boat away from Wanderer into the open, his voice carrying over the water as he directed his men to break out the spears and see to the harpoon gun on the bow. Meanwhile, aided by several of the royal armsmen, Abramm worked swiftly to get the first casualty strapped into the stretcher and swinging slowly up to Wanderer’s deck. Once the second man was also on his way, he gestured at the bundled spears on his own boat and directed his companions to break them out.

  They looked at him in horror. One of them, a lean, compact fellow with a bruise already purpling his cheekbone, voiced their shared protest. “They’ll just get in the way, sir. And if the beast is comin’ back, what good will they do anyway? Like sticking broomstraws in a Basani bull. ’Twill just make him mad.”

  The man stood amidship straddling a thwart, lifting his palms persuasively. He wore a dark goatee and had thinning, shoulder-length dark hair now plastered wetly to his skull. His blue jacket had been torn away entirely, his white blouse clinging to a well-muscled torso. He looked to be in his early thirties, and from his mien, Abramm judged him commander of the group assigned to guard the barge.

  “What’s your name, armsman?” Abramm demanded brusquely.

  “Lieutenant Shale Channon, sir. Of His Majesty’s Royal Guard.”

  “Well, Lieutenant, would you rather face it with nothing at all? Because the old man’s right—it’s coming. In fact, I’d say it’s practically on us.”

  Lieutenant Channon blanched as Abramm bent to follow his own orders, seeing as no one else was. The man hesitated, then bent to help him as from above another stretcher came flopping down. Swiftly the other men in the boat transferred their injured comrade into its confines as Abramm tugged free several of the spears. He’d just handed off two of them when the sense of the kraggin’s presence tightened hard around his chest.

  “Abramm!” Trap’s urgent cry brought him around to the sight of a darkmottled shape floating at the surface a quarter-stone’s-throw away. Barely had he registered it, when a huge spade-headed tentacle burst from the water and reached for Wanderer, washing him in a choking, eye-watering ammoniac stench. Instants later, a second arm shot out of the water and coiled around his longboat. One of the men immediately started hacking at it with the ax as behind them Trap’s harpoon gun banged.

  Bellowing at the man to belay the chopping, Abramm grabbed the spear, then windmilled wildly as the boat rolled, spilling all of them into the sea. He came up sputtering in a turmoil of churning waves and foam, still holding the spear. A third tentacle now angled out of the water with the others, passing over top of where the longboat had been, to disappear over Wanderer’s gunwale. Though Abramm couldn’t see her masts, from the rain of wood and canvas, he could guess what was happening.

  His own boat, still intact, floated upside down ahead of him. Lieutenant Channon had already pulled himself atop its keel and shortly Abramm had joined him. Having secured his own spear by stuffing it into his breeches, Channon seized a floating oar and paddled toward another armsman bobbing on their right. Shortly the three of them sat atop the heaving boat, their combined weight pressing it just under the water as they worked to keep their balance and row free of the destruction raining down past Wanderer’s hull. Not far away, Trap was pulling Philip from the water. He had already rescued one of the other men from Abramm’s boat and held a spear of his own.

  A booming crack preceded the squeal of Wanderer’s main mast going down. Moments later it crashed into the water where Abramm had just been unloading his boat. Another tentacle burst out of the sea before them, lashing up toward Wanderer’s deck, and at Abramm’s command, the men paddled over to a rubbery limb, bigger round than all of them put together and smelling like a privy. Drawing his knees up under him, Abramm passed his oar back to the third man, then glanced over his shoulder. Trap and Phil had used the harpoon’s rope to pull themselves over to the creature’s body floating near the surface. Both men watched Abramm, awaiting his signal. He nodded, then stood, and with everything he had, plunged the spear into the kraggin’s heavy arm.

  Truly it was less effective than sticking broomstraws in a Basani bull. The thing didn’t even flinch. Beside him, Channon plunged his own spear through the beast’s thick hide, its milky phosphorescent blood streaming into the dark waters. Abramm felt the darkness rise up the shaft in his hands, and the Shadow stirred within him in response, like to like, pressing him to let it in, filling his mind with a keen, terrified awareness of his own frailty. Frantically he turned his thoughts to Eidon, and the Light flared out of him, shooting down the shaft in a blaze that lit the gloomy twilight like a rocket’s glare.

  So much for hoping his efforts would be unobtrusive.

  The Light’s opalescence gilded the world around him—the spear, the tentacle, the waves, and the man beside him. The shield blazed like a lighthouse beacon from his chest, and even the shaft of Channon’s spear glowed with it. But at least the kraggin finally reacted, jerking its limb downward with such force it nearly ripped the spear from Abramm’s grip. He managed to hold on as Channon flew off into the distance—or rather, it was Abramm who was flying, holding on with all his might as the tentacle flailed—dusky sky, dark waters, foam, the fractured lace of Wanderer’s pummeled rigging, the water again, coming up fast now.

  He gulped air a moment before he smacked the surface, his grip nearly jarred loose again. Yet still the fire burned in him, and still he kept his mind on the image he needed: Light pumping into a beast that had never known Light before, that could not know it without wilting before it. Its penetrating wail threatened to split his head as he was dragged down and down.

  It occurred to him that if he didn’t let go, he’d be pulled too far to make his way back up in time. Even so, it was hard to make his fingers release the wooden shaft. But he did, the action tumbling him through sudden, utter darkness. When he finally stopped, he had no idea which way was up. That distant greenish light was undoubtedly the kraggin. All the rest was darkness. And already his lungs strained for air.

  He let out a bit of breath and, from the bubbles spewing past his cheek and ear, determined his course to the surface. It took another act of will to follow that course, though, because he was so disoriented it felt entirely wrong. Finally, his chest burning, his vision flashing, and his arms flailing like leaden lumps, he burst into the cold clean air and gasped in desperate delight. It was only as his breathing eased and the sparks faded that he realized the ringing in his ears had given way to cheering.

  And here was Trap, asking what had happened as he reached over the edge of the rescue boat. “Did it have hold of you?”

  “No,” Abramm gasped. “I had hold of it. Why?” He grabbed Trap’s arm but found himself too weak to help as the man hauled him halfway over the
gunwale.

  “Because you were down there far too long,” Trap said.

  Abramm swiveled his trembling legs into the boat and sat upright, still panting. “I wanted to make sure it was dead.”

  The other men on the boat, Shale Channon among them, were staring at him with very odd expressions. Not quite as if he were a spawn of the kraggin, but certainly as if he’d grown tentacles. He glanced down at himself to be sure, and saw that his tunic had suffered in its contact with the monster’s rough hide. His left sleeve was torn off, revealing a well-developed bicep scraped raw around the red dragon brand he’d received from his Esurhite masters. At least the shield on his chest was still covered, though after the display he’d put on, he couldn’t think why that mattered.

  Trap shoved his own overrobe into Abramm’s hands. “To keep you warm,” he said, for the benefit of the men watching. Then he sniffed and made a face. “You smell awful, sir!”

  “Well, it was bleeding and spewing all over the place,” Abramm said, shrugging into the garment and noting that Channon was still staring at him. Ignoring the man, Abramm offered to take the tiller so Trap could help with the rescuing, and they got under way. They picked up as many of the survivors as they could fit into the boat, ferried them to Wanderer, then went out for more. It was as they waited for this second load to disembark that Channon finally spoke.

  Freed from rowing, he’d been stealing glances at Abramm since they’d stopped, brown eyes flicking from Abramm’s chest to his face to his chest again. He more than anyone must have seen the power that had shot down the shaft of Abramm’s spear, and felt it, too, since it had leaped into the shaft of his own. He had to have guessed the truth by now.

  The lieutenant turned more fully toward him, and said, “He called you Abramm.”

  Which were not at all the words Abramm had expected him to say. “What?”

  “Your friend there.” Channon gestured toward the bow, where Trap was helping the last of their passengers mount the rope ladder. “When the monster surfaced, he called you Abramm. To get your attention.”

  By now, though he had spoken quietly, Channon had the attention of every man aboard, Trap included. And though the latter sought to appear only casually interested, Abramm saw the dismay in his eyes at the realization of his slip.

  Abramm returned his glance to Channon. “Yes. I believe he did.”

  The lieutenant held his gaze for a few breaths, then nodded and turned away. The others frowned at him, understanding the cryptic exchange no more than Abramm had. But then the armsman sitting at the port oar on the next thwart, a crusty old soldier in the Royal Guard’s blue jacket who’d also been staring at Abramm off and on, now exclaimed into the silence, “Pox an’ plagues! That’s why he’s seemed so familiar! It’s Prince Abramm, come back to claim his crown!”

  If Abramm had received his companions’ attention before, now he was all but impaled by it. Mouths gaped and eyes widened, and for a long, long moment only the slap of the water and the creak of Wanderer’s hull filled the silence.

  Then someone said, “Comes back, and on his first day does what Gillard’s failed to do for six months running!”

  “Not afraid to beard the beast in its den, either!”

  “Killed it with his own hands—now there’s a king like we had in the old days.”

  Trap turned away, a smile tugging at his lips, as Abramm felt the blood rush to his face and a wild discomfort writhe in his middle. “We don’t know for certain the beast is dead,” he said sharply. “And I most certainly did not do this alone.”

  They looked away, accepting the rebuke in token, though their covert exchanges of half smiles and knowing looks said otherwise. It irked him, but arguing further would only make him look stupid.

  They rowed another circuit of the waters, found only two more men alive, and were returning when an outcry arose from Wanderer’s deck. As they came around her bow, they saw the men leaning out over the gunwale, pointing and exclaiming in excitement. The kraggin had returned, floating limply amidst the flotsam it had created. Its tubular body, pale now in death, gleamed in the light of Wanderer’s lanterns, twelve lifeless tentacles splayed around it like a woman’s long plaits of hair.

  “Well,” Channon said smugly, “I guess we can be certain it’s dead now, Your Highness.”

  A cheer went up, resounding off water and wood and fog-shrouded sky. Channon grinned at Abramm, an uncannily accurate reproduction of the expression Trap wore, while Philip clearly fought to maintain his manly dignity against an exuberance that threatened to set him bouncing like a little boy. After they had come alongside and transferred their shivering cargo up to the main deck, Channon soberly requested of Abramm that he and his men be allowed to board next. “So you’ll have a proper welcome, sir.”

  And here was that familiar sense of events sweeping Abramm along, quite out of his control. There was no answer to Channon’s question but yes, not if he truly meant to take the next step he’d envisioned for himself once the kraggin was dead.

  As the men climbed the rope ladder, their laughter and soft voices drifted down to him, warming his face.

  “Did you see him go under. . . ?”

  “. . . wanted to make sure it was dead, he says. . . .”

  “I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it. . . .”

  Well, my Lord Eidon, I see you’ve made a way for me. As usual. Not at all my way, I might add, because I have no idea how it will play out. It would be nice now and then if you could give me some sort of itinerary. . . .

  Abramm could almost feel the laughter of his Sovereign. But you wouldn’t need to trust me if I did that, my boy.

  The last man disappeared over the top, and now it was Abramm’s turn. It was only as he started the climb that he realized somewhere in all that flailing he’d pulled something in his left shoulder. At least it worked well enough to get him up the ladder and over the gunwale into the pocket of sudden silence that awaited on deck. Two lines of armsmen in tattered uniforms flanked the gateway at stiff attention in honor of his arrival. The crew looked on curiously from deck and rigging, and Captain Kinlock stood with Trap at the gauntlet’s end, grinning broadly. Beside him hunched the crooked form of Master Rhiad, and one look at his ruined face and wild eye told Abramm things would not go as smoothly as he had hoped.

  He had a sudden sickening flashback to the blaze of white he’d let loose when he’d driven the spear into the kraggin. Men engaged in the struggle with the beast and those tossed about up on the ship might well have missed that flash. But even if Rhiad had not physically seen it, he surely would have felt it, would have known what it was—and therefore could now guess the most important change Abramm had undergone in Esurh.

  Channon, standing straight and stiff at the gunwale, announced Abramm’s royal name in a loud voice, and the idle chatter of the crewmen on the periphery cut off. Abramm walked the line with as much dignity as he could muster, feeling unspeakably odd. It seemed wrong that he would be doing this, almost silly—as if he were playing king and would shortly be found out.

  Before he’d even reached Captain Kinlock, however, Rhiad lurched forward, good eye flashing. “Abramm, is it?” he croaked, limping toward him. “Come back to claim the crown, they say.”

  “Hello, Rhiad,” Abramm said as the man drew up in front of him. “I’m surprised you didn’t recognize me earlier.”

  By the look of confusion that flashed across the ruined face, Abramm knew the man hadn’t recognized him yet. Had the trauma that ruined his body also affected his memory? Or was he just pretending? Abramm, of all people, knew how very good he could be at that.

  Whatever the explanation, Rhiad set the uncertainty aside and drove on with his mission. “Many have sought to kill this beast,” he said. “Sought and failed. Yet you come in knowing nothing of it and on your first engagement kill it outright! I would ask how that was accomplished, sir, for it is not an outcome expected from the mere power of men.”

  “ �
�Twas the power and mercy of Eidon,” Abramm said.

  Rhiad’s one eye narrowed. “ ’Twas power all right. Whether it was Eidon’s is another matter.” He glared at Abramm triumphantly. “I demand that you remove your tunic and show us your bare chest.”

  Abramm slammed down his sudden panic and made himself stand calmly, quietly, eyeing the holy man as if he’d asked if Abramm would like to take tea with him. He let his gaze flick over the sailors and armsmen who crowded the decks and rigging around him, ragged, exhausted men, riveted by the sudden conflict playing out before them. The sailors would have little understanding or real interest in any of it, but the armsmen, Abramm sensed, were very much involved—and already leaning toward him in their sympathies. With a slight smile, he met the Master Guardian’s half-mad gaze, lifted his chin, and said, “I’d rather not, thank you.”

  The dark eye bulged. “Then I must assume—”

  “That I am your rightful king,” Abramm interrupted. “And that you have no business demanding any such thing of me.”

  “You dare to refuse the command of a servant of the Holy One!”

  “It is by the Holy One’s power that I hold the office I do. An office whose authority, if I recall correctly, supersedes that of your own in matters like these. It is you, sir, who has been overbold this day. Given the circumstances, I will ignore it. But if you overstep again, you will regret it.”

  Silence closed upon his words, filled with the creaking and dripping and groaning of the injured ship, but not a word from the men who rode her, and not a word from the man who had sought to dress Abramm down. A man who looked as if he might burst with the effort of restraining himself.

  Abramm nodded. “You understand me, then. Good. Now we have work to do. You can either help us or retire to your prayers and meditations somewhere out of the way.”

  He turned to Kinlock. “I want to haul the carcass into the harbor by dawn. So everyone can see the beast is really dead. Can we do that?”