Blackthorne

by Stina Leicht

Nels dreamed of home. Laughter and music from one of his father’s many parties drifted through the glass-paned doors to his right. He was outside on a palace balcony, leaning against the cold marble wall in an effort to lose himself in the shadows. His only company was a stolen bottle of his father’s best whiskey. A waltz—presumably from Kaledan, based upon the preponderance of bass string instruments—drifted from the ballroom and into the garden. Staring at the hedge maze, he considered fleeing to his barracks house. But before he could make good his retreat, Suvi swept through the doorway. A purple mourning ribbon was knotted around the right arm of her pale yellow ball gown. Her hair swung around her shoulders and waist in thick curls one or two shades lighter than the night sky—the same shade as their father’s. Once again, Nels thought she looked more his mirror opposite than his twin. Unlike Suvi, he’d been marked with their mother’s moon-pale coloring.

  A strawberry bounced off the front of his uniform coat.

  “That’s going to stain,” Nels said without much concern. He uncorked the bottle and took a swig of whiskey.

  “I’m angry with you,” Suvi said in Acrasian. No one at court bothered with anything as vulgar as Acrasian. Therefore, he and Suvi employed it for conversations they didn’t want overheard. Even so, her Acrasian was often barely adequate to the task. However, that wasn’t the case this evening. He decided she must’ve practiced while he was away. That struck him as odd.

  “Why are you out here?” she asked. “You’re the guest of honor.”

  “Father is capable of making a show of mourning me without setting the family disgrace out on display,” he said.

  “You’re no changeling. You’re a late bloomer, that’s all.”

  He blinked. It was just like her to use an expression normally employed to reference young girls. It shamed him for reasons he didn’t want to explain, because it would only anger her, and he wasn’t up for a fight. “I’m twenty-one, for the goddess’s sake. If my magic were going to manifest, it would have when I was fifteen. Like you.” That was another thing wrong, of course. He was twenty-one now. The night of that particular ball, he would’ve been sixteen, but dream-logic slipped past that detail with little resistance.

  He took another long swallow.

  She frowned. “It upsets Mother when you drink.”

  “Soldier’s prerogative. And anyway, last I checked, she wasn’t here. Unless you’re taking on her role for the evening?”

  “Oh, stop it.” Her scowl transformed into a slow conspiratorial smile. “May I try some?”

  He handed off the bottle.

  She grimaced. “That’s awful! Why drink it?”

  “Wait a few moments and ask again.”

  “Wine works just as well.” She gave it back. “And tastes less like tar solvent.”

  “How would you know? Have you acquired yet another filthy habit from your sailor friends? Father didn’t react well to the pipe, I recall.”

  “To hell with Father.”

  “Oh, my. Acrasian curses too? Tsk, tsk, Little Sparrow.” He used their father’s pet name for her out of spite.

  “I do as I please. Just like you.” She gave him a gentle shove, making room for herself in his shadow-refuge. Half her buttercream-colored skirts pressed against his legs, making it impossible for him to move. The other half protruded into the doorway, and the exposed fabric shone like a beacon. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that ball gowns weren’t designed for stealth. She grabbed the whiskey from him and drank again.

  “I thought you didn’t like it.”

  “Changed my mind. It stops the pain.”

  “My thought exactly.” His skin tingled.

  Stop. Please, Nels. Make it stop.

  The scene blurred. The darkness reflected a more sinister hue. Suvi and the balcony were gone. He staggered down a familiar passageway. He knew this dream. He’d had it before, and he didn’t want to have it again. He didn’t want to hear her crying. He definitely didn’t want to see the blood.

  Inching forward down the hall against his will, he reached a place he knew from childhood. A nook outside the nursery. He stooped. His hands shook as he tugged a small section of the baseboard free and reached inside. His fingers found the cherrywood box his sister had tucked inside as she always did when they exchanged hidden messages, but the lid felt different. Sticky. The sparrow carved into its surface was changed. Darker. Hollow sobs echoed in his head. A bolt of dread shot him through. He didn’t want to look but found himself lifting the lid anyway. The stench of death and stagnant saltwater filled his nose. He looked upon the contents and choked.

  A severed sparrow’s head lay inside. Its delicate beak gaped. He could see the tongue had been torn out. His skin prickled with energy again.

  “Please make it stop. Nels, please.” Suvi’s voice. Suvi’s tears.

  He snatched his hands from the box as if it’d burned him. His mouth mimicked the bird’s. Like the bird, no sound came from his throat—only forced air. He tried to feel his teeth with his tongue and couldn’t. His mouth flooded with pain and the salty taste of blood. He gagged.

  The falling box sank from sight, drowning in the darkness. He woke with his heart crashing against his chest. The hiss of rushing water reminded him of the smothering weight pressing the timbers at his back. The cabin was as lightless as a cave. Its dead lantern squeaked on its hinge on the ceiling. With a deep breath, he blinked the nightmare into oblivion and waited for his stomach to quiet. Aboard ship, rest didn’t come easily. He wasn’t certain how long he’d slept, but judging by the headache, it wasn’t nearly long enough.

  He focused on the sound of Sebastian and Viktor’s breathing and had almost drifted off to sleep again when a potent blast of magic flooded the stale cabin. Nels sighed in exasperation. Gods damn it, Viktor.

  Viktor’s voice pierced the blackness. “Sorry. I was listening for—”

  A distant, deep thump brought Nels up into a sitting position. It was followed by a loud splash.

  “That would be cannon. Knew I heard another ship.” Viktor’s even tone was contradicted by the nervous pop of cracking knuckles. “Thirty-two-pounder is my guess. Acrasian naval issue.”

  “Warning shot,” Sebastian muttered from his blankets on the floor.

  “I thought Eledorean magic didn’t work on the ocean,” Nels said. Have we been betrayed?

  He started as the alarm rang out. Hundreds of feet thundered across the decks. There came a second cannon blast. Closer. Grabbing the edge of the bunk, he shivered with a need to fight, to do something, anything but sit and wait for the inevitable. Another cannonball smashed into the water somewhere off starboard.

  “My mother’s father was Waterborne,” Viktor said. “Sometimes my magic works. Sometimes it doesn’t. It costs nothing to test. Why wait until it’s needed? Anyway, I’ve found the calmer the water, the better it works.”

  “Thirty-two-pounders,” Nels said. “Those are … big. You’re sure?”

  “I am,” Viktor said.

  “Why waste thirty-two-pounders on warning shots?” Nels asked. “Doesn’t that bitch carry anything smaller?” Calm yourself. You’re the damned colonel. He considered what should be done, but there was nothing. He wasn’t in charge and this wasn’t his ship. In truth, he’d accepted Edvard’s offer against Suvi’s specific orders. Nels hadn’t wanted her to take out her anger on anyone else. Thus, when he’d left, he’d told no one where he was headed, only that he’d be gone for a few weeks. On second thought, there were certain aspects of this plan that could’ve used rethinking. Ilta probably knows where I am, anyway. As she was a powerful Silmaillia, it was impossible to keep the truth from Ilta, and he’d given her a kiss goodbye.

  “We’re slowing,” Viktor said.

  The ship let out fresh protests. The water’s hiss against the hull changed pitch. Someone grunted.

  “Watch your step, Lieutenant,” Sebastian growled.

  “Sorry, sir,” Viktor said.

  The rasp of a sulfu
r match tore at the darkness. Blinking, Nels shielded his eyes from the light. A knock sounded. Sebastian abandoned his blankets and hopped up from the cabin floor. The door slid open, and a fresh aroma-cloud of sheep shit wafted in. Based upon the smell, the sheep didn’t enjoy sailing any more than Nels did. The sailor standing in the doorway hefted a lantern, peering inside. His dark brown face was a tattooed mask of indigo swirls and shadows. Thick hair hung to his waist in small ropes—the badge of a Waterborne spiritual sect, Nels had recently learned. Scars ringed the sailor’s neck and wrists.

  “I’m to warn you. We’ve visitors. An Acrasian ship of the line, she is. Navy regulation down to her pins. They’re boarding us. Lights out, and keep quiet.” The sailor whirled, sinking into the darkness and taking his lantern with him.

  The panel snapped closed on its own.

  “Your orders?” Sebastian asked, grabbing his breeches from the floor.

  “Are you up for plan B, Viktor?” Nels asked. “Do you think the magic will hold long enough?”

  “I think so.” Viktor’s face brightened. “Oh, how I enjoy playing royalty. In spite of the little inconveniences, you’re afforded the best accommodations. Is that bunk as comfortable as it looks?”

  “A coffin would be more spacious.” Nels regretted his words at once, but he pressed on, hoping to cover. “Damned box is too short. My legs cramp, and the bedding is crawling.”

  Sebastian pulled a sailor’s cap over his greying head. It would do nothing to disguise the black of his eyes, Nels knew, but Acrasians demanded meekness from inferiors, and a downcast gaze would not arouse suspicion.

  “We’ll only go with this plan if there’s absolutely no other option, hear me, Sebastian? It’s too risky. And I don’t want to spend the next year searching Acrasian prisons for Viktor’s sorry carcass,” Nels said. That was the more pleasant of the possible options if they were caught, they all knew, but now wasn’t the time to focus on the worst. “Here’s hoping this visit is up to chance and that Dylan was wrong about our informer.”

  “Yes, sir.” Sebastian opened the door panel and shut it after passing through.

  Viktor said, “Now, your clothes. The good ones. Not those rags you normally wear.”

  Nels handed off his kit and then frowned as Viktor pulled his last silk shirt from the bag and sniffed it.

  “I hope you’re not for the executioner,” Viktor said. “Your sense of timing isn’t always the best, you know.”

  “Are you implying I’m unreliable?” Nels asked.

  “When was the last time you wound your own damned watch?” Viktor asked. Her eturned the closed lamp to its hook when he’d finished dressing.

  Blind, Nels lay still on the floor and listened to water lapping the hull, the creaking of the ship, the rapid thump of his own heart, Viktor’s breathing—anything that might prove a sign of what was ahead. A door slammed the deck. Nels felt the vibration through the boards beneath him.

  “—reward.” The word may have been Acrasian, but there was no mistaking Sebastian’s voice.

  Plan B it is, Nels thought. Damn it.

  “I assure you, you’ll be granted your request should your information prove correct. Now, where is he?” The speaker’s officious Acrasian could have rivaled Eledorean court speech, and although it lacked the power of domination magic, the voice sounded no less menacing.

  “There,” Sebastian said. His Acrasian was limited, but he was learning. “Behind the crates.”

  Heavy boots shuffled closer to the door panel. The muffled clatter and bang of guns being made ready filled Nels’s ears.

  “We know you’re there. Discard your weapons and come out.”

  Nels took a deep breath.

  “They’re only Acrasians. Marines, by the smell,” Viktor whispered in Eledorean.

  Nels didn’t ask how Acrasian Marines smelled any different from any other Acrasian—nor how Viktor was able to smell anything beyond the sheep shit.

  “I can take the twelve in the back if you’ll dispatch the first eight.”

  “They sent twenty marines after little old me?”

  “If my ear is any judge,” Viktor said. “And we both know it is. Well? Shall we go out fighting?”

  “You’ll get bloodstains on my good clothes.”

  “Hrmph. These? You really should find a new tailor.”

  “On what remains of my allowance? That isn’t likely.” Nels kissed the Ytlainen medal hanging around his neck from a silver chain. Its raised surface bore the image of a running horse, Hasta, patron Goddess of cavalry soldiers. He couldn’t suppress the thought that Hasta was out of place on the open sea, but then, so was he.

  The voice on the other side of the wall lost patience. “You have until a count of three until we force our way in. One—”

  Nels shoved open the door and was met with a row of musket barrels and men in dark grey uniforms. Acrasian Marines. Eighteen of them.

  Viktor was off by two. He’s never wrong. Bad sign, that. Again, he thought, Will the magic hold?

  “Nels Hännenen, you are hereby under arrest for inciting rebellion among the people of Eledore, a protectorate of the Acrasian Regnum.”

  Are there enough Eledoreans alive to call the kingdom a protectorate? Nels thought.

  Viktor reached for the cabin’s ceiling, and Nels did the same. It was a short stretch, given that neither of them could stand without smacking his head into a ship’s beam. As planned, Viktor passed in front. Nels placed a hand on Viktor’s shoulder and focused on giving him a boost. Based upon how such things were judged in Eledorean circles, it was nothing, this magic of his, but Nels had begun to understand that it came in useful from time to time. The release of magical power prickled against the skin of his palm, and he felt tired at once. With that, he assumed it’d worked. Still, something didn’t feel right. Too late, it occurred to him that it would’ve been better to have direct skin-to-skin contact for the transfer of energy.

  No one seemed to know why the magic of land-dwelling kainen was so very unstable on ocean waters. Waterborne certainly didn’t have any problems, and this was the source of their dominance on the world’s seas. Since land-bound kainen had fewer problems on fresh water, some thought it had to do with the amount of naturally occurring salt. Salt did have a grounding quality when it came to magical power. This was why it was so often mixed with water for blessings in rituals. The current Ytlainen theory was that it had to do with the mutability of the sea. Nels didn’t have an opinion either way. All he knew was that he hated water.

  From behind their canvas wall across the hold, the sheep bleated nervousness into the stench-crowded air. From past experience, Nels knew he’d be the only one to discern the charge of magic thrumming in the mix. He just hoped it was enough to help Viktor.

  The marines paused, confused.

  Viktor had two magical talents: exceptional senses—mainly hearing and sight—and personal glamour. Even in the dark, it was apparent what had happened. Viktor had made himself conspicuous, more there.

  “Slippery bastard, got you at last,” an Acrasian marine said, grabbing Viktor’s arm and yanking.

  The action broke Nels’s contact with Viktor, but it was apparent that the marines had taken the bait. Nels’s relief was cut short when he was shoved face first against a wooden box, and his hands were bound behind his back.

  “Make certain he’s the one. I want no mistakes.”

  An overstuffed Acrasian marine lieutenant with porcine eyes grabbed Nels’s jaw and wrenched his head into an awkward angle toward the light. The Acrasian stank of stale rum and pipe smoke. Nels’s foot slid, and the edge of the rough wooden crate bit into his stomach and chest.

  The lieutenant squinted. With a growl, he turned to the marine restraining Viktor. “Sergeant Marius, get the creatures out of here. Can’t see a Goddamned thing, and this place reeks of sheep.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sergeant Marius said.

  Herded up the stairs, Nels stumbled from the hold into the moo
n-shadow of an Acrasian dreadnought half again the length of Lorelei. Three rows of gun ports pierced her side. Members of Julia’s crew were being escorted across the boarding planks. Someone shouted a warning, and a heap of knotted line slammed the deck. Acrasian sailors swarmed Lorelei’s yards like flocks of battle crows, picking apart the rigging. Sails lay in tangled heaps on the deck. Severed ropes whipped the air as they were cut and the tension holding the ship’s vital parts in place was released. One brave soul attempted to snatch a holed lump of wood the size of a person’s head from a surly Acrasian marine sergeant. She was rewarded with a punch in the face for her trouble. The sergeant tossed his prize to another sailor and joined the others restraining Nels.

  Dragged to the stern where a marine commander waited, Nels read the name MUNITORIS stitched in black thread on the commander’s coat. The kerchief was yanked from Nels’s head, releasing a cloud of ash. His scalp felt gritty, and the sea air was cold against his ears.

  Commander Munitoris scowled at Nels’s ash-coated hair and then Viktor’s brown curls. Nels stumbled into Viktor, once again lending as much power as he dared to Viktor during the impact. Another charge of energy weighed in the air. Commander Munitoris shook his head, and the filthy kerchief slipped from his hand. Nels hunched. Viktor stood straighter; he was still a good four inches shorter than Nels in spite of both of their efforts, but then Viktor tilted his chin upward in exaggerated royal defiance.

  Commander Munitoris blinked and appeared to awaken. “Well, well. I believe we’ve resolved our elph problem.”

  “May I be granted my request now, honored sir?” Sebastian asked.

  Right on cue, Nels launched himself at Sebastian. “Traitor!”

  He was yanked back. A marine punched Nels in the stomach. Bent over, he gasped for breath as his eyes watered with the pain.

  “Take both of them, sir?” Sergeant Marius asked.

  The lieutenant glanced to his commander.

  “The stench of one elph on board will be quite enough, Sergeant. Leave the other as agreed.”

  The lieutenant tossed a small leather folio to Sebastian. Then he made a sideways nod at Nels. “A quick sale at a slave market will make up the difference.”