Shadow and Flame

by Gail Z. Martin

  Whitney shook himself out of it and turned toward Connor. “Lucky for you that you had the Nomad. How did you get her?”

  “She was drifting in the current up near where the herring boats fished,” Connor replied.

  “The ship was deserted when the fishermen brought her in. So the colonists who wanted to come back had their chance.” He rubbed his hands together, remembering the cold. “I didn’t mind being able to leave.”

  Whitney chuckled. “Well, before long, you’ll get to see it all again.” He shook his head. “Lord Penhallow made it clear that my crew and I were to give your group our full assistance, no questions asked. So I’m not asking who you are and why we’re bringing you up to the edge of the world and back. But the crew has been speculating, and the tales get taller with each retelling.”

  Whitney turned to meet Connor’s gaze. “So if I were you, I’d keep your story about being on the Prowess and how you found the Nomad to yourself. Some of the men are plenty superstitious. Being aboard one ship that sank is bad enough. But sailing on a ghost ship, too? You don’t need the crew muttering about curses. Understand?”

  “I certainly do,” Connor replied. Although the night was warm, he repressed a shiver. Out on the open sea, sailors were likely to be more afraid of a jinx than a talishte lord an ocean away. Stories about passengers believed to be unlucky always ended badly—for the passenger.

  They took their dinner in their quarters, as they had since leaving Castle Reach, so they could speak freely. Although their rations were no different from those of the rest of the crew, Penhallow had spared them a few bottles of whiskey. One went to gain the favor of Captain Whitney, and the rest they kept for themselves, as Penhallow had provisioned the crew with ample casks of ale and grog.

  “What do you make of the captain?” Verran asked, picking at his ration of dried meat and hard biscuits.

  “Seems to know his business,” Borya said. “Although I don’t exactly know how it was Penhallow chose him for the trip.”

  “Whitney has a kruvgaldur bond to one of the other Elders.” Nidhud’s voice startled them, since his approach had been silent. He closed the door behind him, finding a seat on the floor.

  “Well, that’s interesting,” Verran said. “I hadn’t figured on that.”

  “Most of the crew are so marked, but not all,” Nidhud replied. “Penhallow, of course, would have preferred the entire crew to be bonded, but time was of the essence.”

  “What about the others, the ones who don’t have a kruvgaldur link?” Connor asked. “How can we know they’re trustworthy?”

  “The rest came from Traher Voss’s mercenaries,” Nidhud said. “Not a guarantee, but an endorsement. Voss runs a tight organization. His men are loyal, and skilled. Seems he had some experienced sailors who were game enough to get back on the water, they didn’t care where they went.”

  “They’ll care all right, once they get to Edgeland,” Connor said with a shiver.

  “Aw, come on, mate,” Verran said. “It’s not so bad in summer. Cooler than Donderath, but it’s not like you’re going to be stuck there for the rest of your life. It’s practically balmy this time of year!”

  Connor looked at Verran as if he had gone mad. “I was in Edgeland ‘this time of year’ last year. I nearly froze.”

  Verran gave an exaggerated sniff of mock disdain. “Then again, you and Mick were coddled nobles.”

  Connor rolled his eyes. “My father was such a minor baronet that his title wasn’t good for much more than getting him invited to parties with free liquor and getting me taken on as Lord Garnoc’s assistant.” He knocked back his shot of whiskey at that. Garnoc’s loss still hurt.

  Verran turned to Zaryae with dramatic flair. “See that? First Mick keeps his most trusted companions in the dark about his title, and now we find out Connor’s one of them, too. Next thing you and the twins will be telling me you’re some kind of lowlands royalty.”

  Borya and Desya exchanged a glance and grinned wickedly. “Well, we don’t like to brag,” Borya said.

  “But we’ve been meaning to bring this up,” Desya said.

  “Stop it, you two!” Zaryae said, laughing. She looked to Verran and shook her head, still chuckling. “Mind they don’t feed you a line. Next thing you know, they’ll have you addressing them as ‘sir.’”

  “And that would never do,” Nidhud said drily. Connor and the others looked at Nidhud, trying to determine whether or not he was serious. His lips quirked, ever so slightly, at the corner, as much of a smile as Connor had ever seen from the Knight of Esthrane in the time he had known him.

  Verran stretched and finished off his own shot of whiskey. “So once we get there, how do we find Grimur? He went off into the ice fields because he didn’t want to be bothered by mortals. So we’re just going to walk up to his cabin and knock?”

  Nidhud shook his head. “No. The Wraith Lord is known to Grimur. That will be your surety. You have nothing to fear.”

  “Says the guy with the big, sharp teeth,” Verran muttered.

  Zaryae was watching Connor closely. “You’re bothered by something,” she said.

  Connor shrugged, embarrassed. “It’s nothing. Just ghosts.”

  “On the ship?” Desya asked.

  Connor shook his head. “No. The ocean’s full of them. So many ships over the years that went down in the deep places, and so many bodies that were never found or properly buried. They tug at me as we sail by, more in some places than others, wanting me to acknowledge them.” And in some cases, wanting to take me over, he thought, but did not say the rest aloud.

  “I can help you learn to shield,” Zaryae offered. “You never had the benefit of being trained in your gift, did you?”

  Connor sighed. “I didn’t even realize I had a gift until I met the Wraith Lord. I mean, I knew I could see ghosts better than most people, but I really didn’t think of that as a gift. And I certainly never thought I could allow ghosts to speak through me.”

  “Part of learning to use your gift is learning how to control it, instead of letting it control you,” Zaryae said. “I was fortunate to have others in my caravan who had abilities similar to my foresight, who showed me how to keep it from taking over my mind.” She touched his arm. “If you’d like, I can do the same for you.”

  Connor nodded. “I would be very grateful,” he said. “The extra power I came away with as a Lord of the Blood was protection against being taken over against my will, but there’s still a lot I don’t know about my magic and how it works.”

  Zaryae smiled. “I would be glad to help—and we have the time on the journey.” Abruptly, her gaze became distant, as if she had heard a voice from afar. Zaryae’s eyes went wide, and she gasped. “We are all in very great danger. Death comes from the skies.”

  Before anyone could react, the ship made a sudden shift, throwing them all across the deck except for Nidhud. “What in Raka is going on?” Borya said, springing to his feet along with Desya and sprinting for the door.

  “The captain was sure the weather was calm,” Verran grumbled. He and Connor managed to grab on to hammocks, so they avoided sliding across the deck. Connor barely caught hold of Zaryae’s arm as she tumbled, saving her from crashing into the opposite bulkhead. They had just reached their feet when the ship lurched again, throwing them off balance so that they clutched at the support posts to remain upright.

  “Something’s wrong,” Connor said, and headed toward the door.

  “If there’s a problem, you’re safest down here,” Nidhud said.

  “Depends on the problem,” Connor retorted. “I fought my way out of the hold of a sinking ship once. I don’t care to do it again.” He pushed past Nidhud and climbed the ladder out of the hold.

  The deck was a battlefield. “Stay under cover!” Borya shouted from somewhere in the shadows. Connor drew back just as something large and dark shrieked through the air as it dove at him, pulling up an instant before it would have rammed into the deck.

/>   Desya slipped toward them, staying close to the railings for cover. “I’m going to fetch our bows. There’s something out there, something big, and it’s hunting.” He dropped to the bottom of the ladder like a cat. An instant later, Nidhud appeared on deck.

  “You decided to join us?” Connor asked.

  Nidhud nodded. “If there’s a fight, I may be useful.”

  Connor could hear Captain Whitney’s voice shouting commands in the night. The deadly silhouette swooped again, and Connor strained to get a better look from where he crouched along the bulkhead. Big, like a gryp, but not the right shape. Head’s all wrong. Too much of a beak, skull’s too narrow, he thought.

  Nidhud had brought his sword with him when he came on deck. “It’s one of the monsters from the magic storms,” he shouted. “A hesper.” Magic storms had plagued Donderath, a side effect of the Cataclysm. Monsters often appeared out of the storms, terrifying beings changed or summoned by the wild magic. Most of those creatures had been killed in Donderath by now, at least in the more populated areas. It had not occurred to Connor that some of those monsters might also have spawned from storms at sea.

  “Can we fight it with fire, like we did the gryps?” Verran asked.

  Zaryae turned to him. “You really want to use fire—on a ship in the middle of the ocean?”

  Verran reconsidered. “Maybe not. But will anything else drive it off?”

  Whitney’s sailors were putting up a valiant effort. The seamen charged at the giant flying predator armed with cutlasses and belaying pins. Two of the sailors managed to get in several blows when the hesper dove at them, but despite the bone-cracking force of the strikes, the hesper used its strong wings to slap one of the sailors out of the way, and struck with its talons to grab the other before the man could react. Borya and Desya were in the rigging with their bows, but the darkness, the movement of the ship, and the swiftness of the predator made it difficult to land a killing shot.

  Connor winced at the man’s screams as he was carried aloft. The cries were suddenly silenced as the hesper slashed at its prey and droplets of blood hit the deck below. In the light of the deck lanterns, Connor caught a better glimpse of their attacker. The monster was covered with dark, smooth feathers. Its skull was narrow and elongated, ending in a terrifyingly long, sharp bill. Powerful talons scratched across the deck, and the creature must have had keen predator’s senses, given how easily it sought its prey in the dark.

  The hesper carried its prey into the air. Its wings beat in lazy, powerful strokes that sent gusts of air across the ship’s deck. As the crew and passengers watched in horror, the creature tossed the man into the air, stretched its bill open wide, and gulped him down, like a gull with a fish.

  Zaryae had gone pale. “Sweet Charrot, not again,” she murmured. Connor knew that Zaryae and the others had fought the gryps many times, and that Zaryae had lost a family member to the monsters.

  Several of the men maneuvered a small ballista from beneath a tarpaulin. Aiming it was a challenge, as the hesper’s dives were steep and fast, and they dared not shoot at the creature when it was anywhere near their own masts or sails. That limited their ability, since the ballista’s base could not swivel to track the airborne monster’s moves. Some of the sailors ran belowdecks, to emerge with armfuls of heavy, rounded rocks and balls of plaited vines, ammunition for the ballista.

  “Clear!” one of the ballista men shouted. With a thud, the small catapult sent a rock the size of a man’s head into the air, aiming just ahead of the hesper’s path. The rock struck a glancing blow on the creature’s side, and the monster shrieked angrily, circling to dive at the men manning the ballista. They dove for cover, and other sailors surged forward with spears and crossbows they had grabbed from a locker on deck.

  “Pull!” the sailor holding the crossbow yelled. The powerful bolt nearly matched the speed of the hesper, lodging in its breast. Blood dripped from the wound, and the hesper faltered in the air, dropping several feet before gaining altitude again. The ballista crew lobbed another rock to catch the hesper while it was slowed, but once again, the creature managed to twist out of the way, so that the rock struck only a glancing blow against one of its taloned feet, snapping a claw in the process.

  Enraged, the hesper dove at the deck, and one of its powerful, feathered wings swept the sailors aside before they could get off a shot. Archers from the rigging fired their arrows, but the tough feathers deflected most of the arrows like armor. One sailor came at the monster with a curse, swinging a grappling hook with all his might, intent on impaling the hesper with the hook’s sharp tip. He landed a blow against the monster’s side, only to be carried into the air as the creature beat its strong wings and lifted off from the deck. The sailor screamed as the creature carried him out over the dark, choppy waters and shook him and his hook loose, dropping them into the sea.

  Some of the sailors pulled out slings and grabbed handfuls of small rocks from the pile of ammunition on the deck. Rocks pelted the hesper, and the creature shrieked and hissed, drawing back and out of range, but not yet willing to give up. The hesper flew slowly around the ship, looking for the safest angle from which to attack.

  “Connor, I have an idea on how to defeat this thing. But you’ll need to give yourself over to the Wraith Lord to make it work,” Nidhud said, appearing so suddenly at Connor’s elbow that he jumped.

  The hesper’s talons put a long rip in one of the ship’s sails. If the Nomad took more of that kind of damage, they could end up adrift in the middle of the ocean. That decided Connor. “Do it,” he said, and opened himself to the Wraith Lord.

  Kierken Vandholt had been many things over the last thousand years: soldier, mage, talishte, Elder. And for the last six hundred years, he had been a wraith, caught between life and death as a result of sacrifice, treachery, and the intervention of a goddess. Connor’s gifts as a medium meant Vandholt could take possession of his body and mind, while leaving Connor’s consciousness intact. They had forged a partnership of sorts, and as intrusive as the Wraith Lord’s possession was, Connor knew he would have been dead many times over without it.

  Connor felt the familiar frisson of power as the Wraith Lord’s spirit slipped inside his body. By now, he had learned to withdraw to a corner of his mind where he was able to watch and influence as Vandholt moved his body with the deadly grace of a thousand-year-old talishte-mage.

  You’re planning to fight that thing? Connor asked the Wraith Lord.

  Not physically, not if I can help it, he replied.

  Then how?

  Magic, the Wraith Lord replied.

  You’ve never used me to do magic, Connor protested. Will it even work with my body? I’ve got no magic talent at all except channeling spirits.

  The Wraith Lord chuckled. How easily you dismiss your abilities! But yes, it will work. Magic is not a function of body, but of spirit.

  Connor stepped out of the shadows, with the Wraith Lord in control. He strode out onto deck amid the chaos. Captain Whitney had given the wheel to his second-in-command, and now Whitney was down on the main deck with the rest of his men, fighting off the hesper with their swords and lanterns.

  “Go back below!” Whitney shouted when he saw Connor. “You’re going to get yourself killed!”

  The hesper shrieked and gyred, then it came at the deck with horrifying speed, its bill thrust forward, plunging like a falcon. From up on the rigging, Borya and Desya let fly well-aimed arrows. One of the arrows struck the hesper in its wing, and the other hit the creature’s body forward of the wing joint. The hesper kept on flying as if it had not noticed the injuries. More arrows flew, and although several hit their mark, the hesper did not falter.

  Nidhud had appeared beside Connor. “Let me take a crack at him.” He raised both hands, muttered words of power under his breath, and pushed outward, as if shoving the creature away. Cold, furious power streamed from Nidhud’s hands, glowing without burning, and it hit the hesper like the slap of a hand onto a f
ly. The hesper shrieked and fell, but caught itself just before plunging into the ocean, and let out a cry that sent chills down Connor’s back.

  “I think you made it mad,” Connor observed.

  The hesper swooped low, and wide, powerful wings downed sailors like bowling pins. This time, its talons raked across the lower deck, tearing up boards and leaving deep gashes in the wood. The hesper beat its wings and the sails rippled as the creature lifted away again, out of reach of the knives and belaying pins thrown at it. But before it could grab another sailor, the Wraith Lord and Nidhud stepped out to confront it.

  “Together!” the Wraith Lord said through Connor, and Nidhud nodded. They raised their hands, and fixed their attention on the hesper. “Back!” The voice that shouted the command was Connor’s, but the will belonged to the Wraith Lord. A surge of power filled Connor, unlike any he had ever felt before, rising from the center of his being and swelling until he thought he would burst from it. Energy tingled up and down his body, and as the Wraith Lord thrust out his right hand, palm open and outstretched toward the hesper, that power reached a crescendo and exploded in a blast of force.

  The blast hit the hesper in its chest, driving it back across the deck although its talons scraped at the decking boards for purchase. With a crash, it slammed into the railing and fell, screaming, over the side.

  The sailors and onlookers stood in stunned silence, and then a cheer went up from the seamen. Not yet, lads, the Wraith Lord murmured in Connor’s mind, and his gaze never left the spot where the hesper had vanished into the sea.

  An earsplitting shriek made the others jump. Beating its enormous wings hard enough that it sent spray up from the sea, the hesper lifted out of the ocean like a dark god, malevolent red eyes fixed directly on Connor.

  “Everyone, take cover!” Captain Whitney shouted. The others ran, leaving Connor and Nidhud on the deck as the hesper hung on the wind above the waves just off the starboard side of the ship, eyeing them warily, trying to decide what to make of its upstart prey. “Get back!” Whitney warned.