by Ziv Gray
‘Oh,’ Zecha breathed.
On the Central Circle, the Bellim garrison assembled, a frayed line of the too-old and the too-young, with few hardened soldiers sewing the ranks. Someone shouted orders as panic swelled around them. Emmy jerked back, covering her ears as another explosion ripped through the air. She stared, wide-eyed, at the ships looming in the distance. Their tall masts stretched upwards like dead trees.
They sent burning masses through the sky, a grim imitation of the fireworks they had expected. Emmy cringed as a missile passed overhead and dealt a killing blow to a buildings on the other side of the Circle. Cannons, she thought. Oh, Goddess…
With giant sailed vessels sending balls of fire through the air, the friends struggled to break their fascination with the macabre display. Eventually, Emmy shook her mind clear and grabbed Charo’s wrist.
‘Come on!’
They kept close to walls, ducking low. Zecha followed.
In the distance, there was a terrific cry. Discordant. Impossibly loud. Emmy froze. She stared.
The gangplanks overflowed.
In the growing darkness, the Masvams’ blades glinted, bright and bloodthirsty.
Emmy bolted the rest of the distance to the apothecary, fumbling for her keys. She pushed the others inside and slammed the door, breathing hard.
From upstairs, Krodge screamed.
‘What’s going on?’
Emmy ignored her.
‘Take what you can,’ she said. ‘Blankets, some food, extra clothes. Forget everything else.’
Charo nodded and dashed to the kitchen. Zecha stayed in the shop front, his bow taut and ready in his claws. Emmy pulled a woven satchel from under the counter and turned to her glass cabinets. She looked from them to the keys in her hand, and grimaced. There wasn’t time for niceties. It had to happen.
She plucked up her measuring scales and cast them forward. The glass shattered into countless glimmering pieces, eliciting renewed screeching from Krodge. Emmy closed her eyes, berating herself for her tears. Crying over cupboards when their lives were at risk was foolish, yet she still felt the knife-edge of sorrow. Her precious order was gone.
Shaking herself, Emmy steeled her nerves again. She filled her satchel with bottles, pots, and jars. She shook her head. It isn’t enough, but what choice do I have?
A crash came from outside. She shared a harried glance with Zecha. His face was drawn. Outside, families streamed past, females wielding weapons from glinting blades to kitchen ladles and table-top shields. Younglings hung from their fathers’ arms. We need to get out of here… Emmy though.
She spared Zecha another glance, before running to her chamber.
‘Charo!’ she called as she pulled a heavy tunic over her clothing. ‘Get changed! It’s going to get cold.’
She threw on a pair of heavy boots and ripped the headdress from her horns. The twisted metal bent and torqued. Grabbing another bag, Emmy stopped. She bit her lip, and made another decision.
She wrenched her bed aside, revealing a trapdoor. Snatching her keys, she released the heavy latch.
The light of the moons’ rise made the slumbering coins sparkle. Inside were thousands of bickles, half-bickles, cren, and crom. Grabbing fistfuls of wealth, she stuffed her savings into the bag.
Then there was a thunderous smash. Zecha screamed.
‘They’re here!’
Emmy shoved the trapdoor closed, hefted her bags, and tore from the room. The usurpers bellowed. Krodge screeched.
Charo appeared in the doorway, armed with two knives.
‘It’s all I could find,’ she said.
‘It’ll have to do,’ Emmy replied, breathless, snatching a weapon.
Crashing and smashing invaded. Zecha still screamed, but Emmy couldn’t make out the words anymore.
Emmy met Charo’s harried glance. Her throat was without comfort. She wielded a knife she had last used to slice vegetables, the metal glinting in the light. With a nod, they stormed from the room.
But Emmy smashed against a hulking body that stank of sweat and seawater and blood. She bounced backwards, skidding on the rushes.
‘Well, well, well,’ the Masvam said, grasping her tunic. He called to his compatriots. ‘There is more out here!’
Thick fingers snatched at her, but she twisted from his grasp and drew her arm up, ready to strike. She launched forward, striking out, but the knife connected with a sudden shield. It bore a strange sigil, as strange as the Masvams’ words. The blade quivered, then clattered to the ground. Emmy drew back as Charo leapt forward. The Masvams slipped aside, sending Charo headlong into the wall. She crumpled.
One Masvam grabbed Emmy, while another lifted Charo by the throat. Emmy did the only thing she could think of. She screamed.
‘Zecha!’
She was silenced when a burly arm coiled around her neck.
‘You play nice,’ the Masvam whispered, his breath hot on the side of her face. ‘That is, unless you go to the Dark. Quick and nice. I would arrange that.’
Emmy writhed in his grasp, staring at Charo. Charo’s eyes pleaded as she stared back. Emmy sucked in a sharp breath. Her head swam from the choke-hold, white moons dancing in her vision. Her ears filled with the blows of her own heartbeat, and the screeches from upstairs.
Three more Masvams tore in. One of them headed straight up the stairway.
‘What keeps you?’ the oldest of the new arrivals asked. He had a hatchet face and a snarl on his lips. ‘Have you them yet or not?’
‘We got nasties,’ Emmy’s captor said. ‘Tried to slash with kitchen knives. But not now. They sorted.’
Both Emmy and Charo were released from death grasps. Air raced into Emmy’s chest, sweet despite the stench of unwashed sailor. Charo tried to slip the Masvam’s grip entirely, but he was on her again. He grabbed her from behind, shoving her to the wall.
‘Tie them,’ the oldest Masvam barked.
The sailor wrenched Emmy’s arms. Rope bit her wrists. Charo received the same treatment. Trussed like game, they were deposited in the shop.
It was in ruins. Shelves had been torn from walls. Soil and blood littered the floor like a gory carpet. The grand front window was in pieces, sparkling like a thousand tears. But that paled in comparison to the pitiful lump on the floor.
‘Zecha!’ Charo yelped.
Their friend was tied like a hunted carcass, bleeding from his mouth. His head lolled. His eyes were glazed. Emmy’s temper flared and she tried to wriggle from her bindings, willing the Goddess—any goddess—to help her. It was in vain. She was bound tight.
They were thrown beside Zecha. The Masvams bore down on them. The stench of filth and seawater was pungent, and the air filled with grating laughter.
For a moment, there was silence. Emmy’s heart stuttered. Silence—nothing from upstairs. Krodge?
‘Right, petals,’ said the older male, ‘let us see what you’ve in your bags.’
He tipped out the contents. Money spilled like a golden wave.
‘Look to this,’ one of the smaller Masvams said. ‘Money. Metakalan coin.’
The gathered crowd bayed.
‘Is good,’ the leader said. Then he turned to one of his wiry companions. ‘Kelom, what have you?’
‘Food and rags, Mamusan,’ Kelom replied. ‘That all.’
Another Masvam appeared. His front was soaked with fresh blood. He grinned.
‘No things of worth up there,’ he said, wiping his dagger on his leg. ‘Just an old pchak with big mouth. No use to us. Finished her off, I did.’ He grunted. ‘She was dead almost, anyway.’
The Masvam’s words rolled in Emmy’s head. Finished her off, I did. She looked at him. She looked at the blood. Krodge’s blood. Her stomach pitched. She’s dead…
‘Right,’ Mamusan said, brushing off death as he brushed off his hands, ‘take these to the boat. Search this place for more coin. Then burn it.’
Kelom bowed and turned his attention to the prisoners. Emmy screeche
d and writhed as he hefted her over his shoulder. She got a clout to the face as a reward.
‘Shut up,’ he grunted. ‘Freak.’
Battered as she was, Emmy still wanted to spit at him.
Beyond the blows and the choke-holds, there was something that consumed her last strength.
Finished her off, I did
Those words reverberated in her mind as the Masvams moved off with their new-found riches.
The dark streets were filled with the clash and wail of battle. Mamusan and the others joined a stream of Masvams bearing bodies, or herding cowering Metakalans to their ships. Many were still caught in the heat of blood lust. Corpses littered the ground.
Even as she was hefted through the streets, listening to Charo bite and kick against her captor, hearing the blasts of bombs and the snick of metal through skin, those words kept playing in Emmy’s mind.
Finished her off, I did.
When they passed a mangled corpse with its throat cut, her eyes widened. Blood pumped from the wound, spilling down his neck, but the expression etched on his face in death was worst of all. It was harrowing. It was one of betrayal.
It wasn’t just the gore or the expression that caught her eye. It wasn’t just the loll of the head. It was the face: unmistakably Amra Bose. The words changed in her head.
Finished him off, I did.
Looking away, Emmy jerked upwards. Her gaze latched on the shop. Her home. Now gone.
The building was dark.
Then a Masvam threw a lighted torch through the broken window. Her home. Her work. Everything she had ever known. Her memories. Her life.
Then there was fire.
Flames burst onto the street, enveloping the building in red destruction.
‘NO!’
For her outburst, she received another blow to the head. Everything went dark.
Finished her off, I did…
CHAPTER TEN
Bomsoi
When they reached the boat, Phen could cry no more. Instead, her body was racked by dry sobs of desolation. Seeing her son’s limp body slung over a pair of broad shoulders brought everything home in razor-sharp reality. What I did was for nothing, she thought. I gave up my life to save him and now he is dead, and I’ve lost Bandim, too.
Her feet were sliced to ribbons. Her legs were caked with mud. Her chest was tight. Her heart ached. My sons...
Yet, as they clambered onto a disused pier, towards a boat creaking and bobbing on the dark water, there was a drop of hope. She says she can save him. That she might save them both. I have to trust her. I have to take the chance...
As she followed, slipping on slimy boards that threatened to give way beneath her, Phen’s heart stuttered. What if this is a trap? she thought for the thousandth time. What if it is Bandim who awaits me, ready to slit my throat for my betrayal? Her hands trembled as she climbed into the rickety boat, but there was no one waiting in its dark embrace.
After laying Mantos along the length of the boat, the other female plucked up the oars. Phen fell to her knees, the craft bucking beneath her. She pulled her son’s head into her lap, winding her claws through his elaborate death braids. Oh, Mantos. This was what I tried to stop. I tried to save you then—and did. But now you are dead. I must save you again…
Sticking close to the shadows that clung to the coast, the large female rowed off. Phen watched as the twinkling lights of the temple and palace dimmed. Then they rowed around a spur of land, and all that remained was rock and ruin.
Still stroking Mantos’s cold head, Phen swallowed back tears. She stared at the female.
‘Who are you?’ she asked again. How many times had she asked that question? ‘What is your name?’
The female gave a rare smile. Her arms pumped back and forth, a steady cadence that propelled them deeper into the darkness.
‘My name is Bomsoi,’ she said. ‘That is who I am. That is all I’ll ever be.’
Phen wound another of Mantos’s braids around her talons.
‘What does that mean?’ she asked.
The reply came with a thin laugh.
‘Nothing,’ Bomsoi said. ‘Nothing and nothing.’
Phen’s tongue burned with questions, but she kept her mouth shut. There was little point. The female was skillful in her evasiveness. No question was met with honesty. So instead, Phen turned her eyes to the stars.
Some winked at her. Most were still. More impressive than any of the diamonds that hung on the dark blanket were the moons: three huge pearls, overlapping.
‘The Lunar Awakening,’ she whispered. ‘By the Goddess, I can’t believe I’ve lived to see it.’
Then the words swung back at her, a slap to the face. Tears budded again. I am alive and he is not, she thought, passing the back of her hand over Mantos’s cold cheek.
‘It is a time of great power,’ Bomsoi said. ‘It is a time that comes but once every thousand cycles. That is why I need you. That is why I need you now.’
Terror and fury swirling within her, Phen snapped.
‘Where are we going? Why do you need me?’
Not flinching at the rage, Bomsoi jerked her head over her shoulder.
‘We’re going there,’ she replied.
Before Phen could ask, she received the answer. Looming tall and proud above them, far enough from the shore that the darkness protected it, was a ship.
‘Who—?’
‘An old friend of Mantos’s,’ Bomsoi said, ‘and an acquaintance of mine. He will protect us.’
As they approached the sleek vessel, resplendent in cloth sails that rose like grey ghosts. Salt caught in Phen’s throat. By the Goddess, she thought. I’ve never seen a ship so large. One detail was familiar, though: the elaborate carving of a two-headed serpent on the prow. The gods Ethay and Apago, the joining of good and evil.
‘Althemerians!’ she breathed.
Bomsoi nodded as she brought them closer. The waves rippled and pulsed, as though the Althemerian ship was the ocean’s heart.
‘Yes,’ Bomsoi said. ‘Althemer is one of the few lands untouched by Masvam hands. Your son was—is—or will be again—close to Prince Fonbir.’
That name drew Phen back into her memories like a whiplash. Fonbir, Princeling of the Island Kingdom of Althemer.
‘The last time I saw Fonbir, they were,’ she shook herself, correcting the pronoun, ‘he, was just a youngling, only a few cycles older than Mantos and Bandim.’
‘He is no youngling now,’ Bomsoi replied.
She set the oars back in their notches as ropes rained from the deck above. Securing them to the hoops stem and stern of the little rowboat, she called out.
With that, they rose from the water.
Phen clutched the sides of the boat. Her stomach lurched more than it had on the waves. She watched as the silver-edged darkness below drew away. Soon enough, they were hoisted to the deck. A figure waited for them. Phen squinted through the darkness.
‘Fonbir? Is...is that you?’
The young male cut a striking figure, gilded in the light of the moons. He stood with a straight back, short but wiry, with dark skin and armour near as black as night, a long tail curled around his heels. His head fronds were red and clipped short, jutting out like a wild mane. Most striking of all his features were his eyes. Deep-set, they shone white.
‘Empress?’ he asked, his voice low. It was almost a purr.
‘Not any more,’ Phen breathed.
The prince helped her onto the deck. Phen’s hand trembled in his grip. Once her feet were firm on the boards, she caught his gaze, holding his eyes. Fonbir… she thought. You are no youngling anymore.
Neither spoke. The stillness shattered when Bomsoi stepped onto the ship, cradling Mantos’s body. At the sight, Phen’s legs turned to water.
She caught herself on the deck rail and Fonbir stepped forward. She waved off his hands.
‘Please, help me bring back my son,’ she breathed.
Nodding, Fonbir turned his attentio
n to Mantos’s prone form. Even in the darkness, pearls of tears glittered in his eyes.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Hold
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Why am I rocking?
Emmy turned and tried to cuddle her blanket. But there was no blanket. The soft flesh of her unarmoured cheek scraped against rough wood. A sudden reek of stale bodies and detritus invaded. Bile rose in her throat as realisation flooded back.
She jerked up, only to be toppled by the pitch of a wave. Gulping and retching, Emmy blinked in the gloom. Where am I? Surrounded on all sides by metal bars, her throat tightened. The ship! We’re on a Masvam ship!
All around her were Metakalans in cages. Faces blinked in the gloom. Her old neighbours. Those who had tormented her. We’re all the same now, she thought, locked up like animals. She snorted. I wonder if they still feel superior…
The sea dipped, eliciting a mournful chorus. It was followed by splashing and an unbearable stink. Emmy’s memory came back in flashes. The terror of the explosions. The mania of the streets. The capture, the apothecary, the destruction...
Krodge and Bose. Dead.
‘Emmy, are you awake? Emmy! Emmy!’
The thin voice pulled her from the murk of memory. Emmy turned in the tiny space, cursing her thick tail, and pressed her face to the front bars. They were locked tight. Many sets of eyes blinked through the darkness, but none belonged to the voice she sought.
‘Down here!’
Emmy squinted, her head swimming. A familiar face shone in the darkness.
‘Charo!’ she cried. ‘Are you alright?’
But their conversation was cut short. Their words uncorked terror.
‘We’ve been captured!’ someone wailed.
‘We’re going to die!’ said another.
Emmy bit back her vicious retort. Instead, she gulped against another wave.
Charo stared from a low cage. The details of her face were obscured by shadow, but the brightness of her eyes told all.
‘We’re being taken as prisoners—or rather, as slaves,’ she spat. ‘The Masvams don’t deal with Valtat slavers. They take what they want, and what they want is us.’
