“Maybe, but it doesn’t make sense. Why would a cannibal kill him, then leave the body?” He shook his head. “But I don’t know what else could kill a man like that.”
“Neither do I, but maybe…” She paused and looked grim, biting her lip. “Maybe we could take Flothrindel if we made it look like the same killer.”
“There’s still the chain to deal with, and there’s no knowing who has the key to the lock. Besides, they’d still come after us once they found out we were gone, and then they’d think we’d done both killings.” He smiled grimly, and tousled little Koybur’s hair. “No, I don’t see a way to do it.”
“But every day we sit here, more of our people are killed by those flesh-eating bastards. That admiral doesn’t mind sacrificing our people, but he has a fit when one of his own dies.”
Tipos shrugged; there was no easy answer to their dilemma.
≈
Camilla stood in the shadows of the lofting shed’s gutted forge, watching as Paska and Tipos walked away toward the keep. She mulled over their words, wondering if they would actually act on their violent intentions if they had a way to free the Flothrindel. The natives were no strangers to killing, but were generally peaceful until they were threatened.
She had come out here to get away from the keep, and to avoid Emil until she could figure out what to do. When she distanced herself from people, the pounding in her head eased, lessening the cacophony of living hearts beating on hour after hour, day after day, pushing precious blood through fragile veins. Soldiers, sailors, natives, friends, strangers, and perhaps even enemies she did not know of; she could feel them all, smell their sweat, sense the rivers of blood flowing through them. She hungered, and the urge to feed was growing.
What am I? she wondered, though in truth, she knew the answer. Camilla shuddered. During her time as Bloodwind’s captive, her greatest fear had not been the pirate lord himself, but his sorceress, Hydra. Too vivid were the memories of that vile creature’s lust for blood. She could not imagine being such a monster, feeding on humans like a wolf among sheep.
But I saw the demon die! she thought, remembering the grisly sight of Bloodwind’s pirates hacking it to pieces and casting them into the sea.
Suddenly, her body was wracked with pain, her mind flooded with another vision: blades slashing, blood, then the feeling that she was trapped within a small, stone prison. Camilla gasped and clutched the charred bricks of the forge, her body quaking with vicious tremors. Not a vision, she realized, her heart sinking, but a memory. After long moments, her shaking stilled and she pulled herself upright.
How had this happened? How had the demon survived, and how had it possessed her? Camilla thought hard, but the memories of her time in the cavern were hazy. Desperate thirst, a crimson glow, water that tasted like the finest wine to ever pass her lips…Then Emil.
Emil…
She could not bear the thought of hurting him, but…I already have, she realized. She pictured the anguish in his eyes when she turned her back on him. Every moment she was close to him, every time she felt the gentle touch of his hand, the hunger rose. Initially, she had thought it merely passion, but now she realized it was more, and the thought of giving in to that hunger horrified her. A vision of the soldier’s face filled her mind, lust gleaming in his eyes the moment before she ripped out his throat, then the rushing warmth of his blood, the salty taste as it slid easily down her throat, and the power it gave her…All her life she had been powerless and afraid, but the blood…oh, the blood gave her power.
Something whispered in the back of her mind. Blood…power…freedom…
No! she insisted. I don’t want power, and I don’t want blood. She slumped against the wall and closed her eyes. Hot tears escaped from beneath her lids and tracked down her cheeks. There was no denying what she had become. No matter how hard she tried, someday she wouldn’t be able to hold herself back, and people would die. Who would it be? Emil? Tim? Paska? Little Koybur?
She had seen Hydra use her power over the sea to spy, to hinder, to harm and kill…Now those powers were hers, though she didn’t want them. She gazed out over the glassy bay, but the tranquil scene didn’t delight her as it usually did. Instead, it inspired a surge of loathing and contempt. She was trapped by the sea.
Power…
Camilla shook her head to clear it, and stared at the water. If she could just use that power to escape…She thought about the water, about moving it. She felt a resistance, a reluctance, but she pushed, and saw a pulse of concentric ripples radiated outward from the exact point she was staring at.
Power to force it to your will, the voice echoed. But power needs blood…
I’ve got to get away before I murder everyone I love, she thought. But how? The answer floated peacefully at the shipyard dock, chained to a piling.
“Tonight,” she whispered. “It has to be tonight.” For she didn’t know how long she could hold out against the hunger.
≈
“Hard a-starboard! Fend off that bloody tree on the fore-top, damn it!”
Farin shielded his face from the rain of sticks and leaves that clattered to the deck as the fore-topsail yard caught an overhanging branch. One of the topmen stood out at the end of the yard, holding on with one hand and wielding a machete with the other. He hacked at the offending branch, and the yard came free with a shower of debris.
“You in the launches! Pull to starboard!” Farin squinted up at the foliage and the close-braced yards. This was the narrowest stretch of the channel to their hidden lair.
For six weeks, he and the pirate crew aboard King Gull had worked the Sand Coast, posing as a storm-damaged merchant, pouncing on any ships foolish enough to offer aid. They’d taken two ships, the Fair Wind, a small galleon stuffed to the gunwales with spices and copper, and a low Marathian war galley on patrol. The latter had not been easy, but surprise had served the pirates well, and they’d only lost four men. The warship carried no cargo, but bore weapons and stores aplenty, and the captain had had a few bits of finery.
All told, it had been a worthy venture and a good haul. More importantly—to Farin at least—he had proven himself as a pirate captain. Parek would be pleased.
“Captain!” the man on the bowsprit called as they nosed around the last bend. “Captain, Cutthroat’s gone! There’s nobody here!”
“What in the Nine Hells?” He strode forward, cursing under his breath. Why would Parek leave?
Sure enough, the place was empty. Though they could still see the hacked and broken branches where the ship had been tied, even now the breaks were turning gray; it had been several days since Cutthroat had been moored here. The crew buzzed with curses and speculation: Parek had abandoned them, Cutthroat had been caught by a warship, the seamage had found and sunk the ship.
“Belay yer jaw flappin’!” Farin snapped, glaring at them. “Get one of them tow lines aft and we’ll warp her around and moor her on the north bank. Smartly now!”
The crew followed orders with only a few grumbles, and in short order the ship was securely tied to the towering mangroves, the men taking their ease. This only brought the inevitable speculations back to a head, and Farin knew he would have to nip this dangerous talk in the bud before it went any further.
“All hands on deck!” he bellowed, taking his customary position on the galleon’s raised hatch cover as the crew formed up around him. An old pirate, called Quid for the huge wad of tobacco he always had stuffed in his mouth, spoke out above the whispered murmurs.
“What’s the story, Capt’n? Parek go off and leave us?”
“I’m not gonna start supposin’ where Capt’n Parek’s gone to, lads, but remember your oaths. He wouldn’t just run out on us.” This drew a few murmurs, and Farin knew he had to quell them. “I will tell you this: when we left, he had a plan to pit the emperor’s warshi
ps against the sea witch. Now, three things could’a come from that: the seamage could’a sunk the emperor’s fleet, which means we’re right back where we were before, without any warships to worry about. Or the emperor could’a won, and though they’d probably leave a garrison at Plume Isle, which means we’d have to dodge warships, it also means that we wouldn’t have to worry about the sea witch. Or,” and here he paused for dramatic effect, showing them a predatory grin, “the emperor and the sea witch could’a destroyed each other, leavin’ the Shattered Isles open fer us!” The men cheered at this last suggestion until Farin waved them to silence. “There’s no way to tell what’s happened without waitin’ to find out. We’re safe here, so we’ll give Parek a week or two to show. If he don’t, we poke our noses out and have a look. If we don’t like what we see, we take our booty north and make the best of it.”
There were a few grumbles, but many more nods and mutters of agreement. Farin smiled at how easy it had been to allay their fears. Crew motivation, he had discovered, was what being a good captain was all about. That was what had made Bloodwind such a legend; the men and women under his command would willingly put their lives on the line for him. Once motivation was mastered, the rest was easy. Of course, it helped to have some instant gratification, too.
“Now, we had a long run to get here, and I think we’re all deservin’ of a little victory celebratin’, so tap a barrel of that Marathian wine, and we’ll all have a tot or three!”
Shouts of approval rang through the trees, startling some egrets nesting in the high branches. Farin barely had time to leap off the hatch cover before eager hands flung it open and a heavy barrel was hoisted up on deck. In short order they were raising their cups and shouting three cheers to his name.
≈
The fire of Akrotia waned. Edan felt it throughout his innumerable chambers and corridors, from the tips his soaring towers to the inverted pinnacles of his underwater spires. The well of power inherent to the enchanted structure, untapped for a millennium, had fueled the vast energies required to set the city aflame, to cleanse it of the detritus of centuries, and to purge the hated seawater. Now he used that power to move the ancient floating city northward, fortified by the heat of the sun, but the surrounding sea dampened his fire and progress was slow. He hoarded his strength, sealed his doors, and let his lower reaches cool. And he tried to ignore the chill of fear, the dread of the surrounding sea that gnawed at him.
The other fire within him, the hatred and madness, helped burn away that fear. He let the rage smolder: rage at the seamage; at Feldrin Brelak; at her traitorous brother Tim and her worthless fop of a father, everyone...A confusion of memories, fused and distorted, impossible to separate. Some were his, some were not, but he could not always distinguish between the two. He felt as if his new self, their joined minds, burned as brightly as his new body that was Akrotia. He burned with an all-consuming madness; every moment, every memory, wreathed in flames.
Edan conserved his strength as he urged the winds, watching the sun climb to its zenith, then fall to plunge beneath the endless sea, day after day moving ever northward, guided by stars, moon and sun. Strangely, he knew exactly where he was in the wide ocean. A detailed map of the entirety of the world’s oceans was fixed in his mind, and the angles of the celestial bodies told him his position on that map. So he traveled north, toward the seamage’s island, for he knew what else waited for him there.
Not only revenge, but power.
Not the seamage’s power, but something deeper, hotter. He could feel warmth ahead, and that sparked a memory of his ascension, the pinnacle of his life. It was fire, deep beneath the earth, calling to him in a siren song. All the fire of the world, his for the taking…
Chapter 4
Dangerous Friends
“Miss Camilla?”
Camilla started at the sound of her name, but didn’t turn around. She kept her eye on the silver glint moving slowly underwater toward the center of the bay. It might have been a large tarpon, the moonlight shining off of its silver scales…but it wasn’t. She watched until it finally sunk out of sight where the water was deep, where no moonlight could penetrate, and where no one would ever find it.
“You’re early,” she whispered. She dabbed the corners of her mouth with a handkerchief and turned around. Tipos stood there, looking beyond her as if trying to see whatever had drawn her attention. At his feet lay a bulging sack, and at his waist hung a newly fashioned war club. Paska hurried up behind him, a stolen cutlass on one hip, little Koybur on the other.
“Where be de guards?” the dark woman asked, hitching the sleepy baby up higher.
“Just get in the boat,” she ordered them.
“But it still be chained to de dock,” Tipos said.
“And de guards?” Paska repeated.
“Never mind the guards. Just get in the boat!” Camilla snapped.
They stared at her in shock. She had never used such a tone with them before, but she feared that if they didn’t do this quickly, the hysteria that fluttered her stomach would overwhelm her. The power raging like fire in her veins didn’t help, and with it the voice in the back of her mind had become bold.
Blood…power…take them all!
She pushed it aside, willed it to silence. Astonishingly, it obeyed.
“Get the sails ready, but don’t raise them,” she ordered.
“Sails won’t do us any good anyway, Miss Camilla,” Tipos said, his voice strained, “when dere’s so little wind that a fog’s settlin’ on de wata.” He lifted his bag and stepped past her.
“Dis fog ain’t right,” she heard Paska whisper as they boarded the boat. “Never foggy here in de middle of de night.”
Tipos stepped forward to ready the mainsail as Paska tucked little Koybur into the forward bunk. She handed the bagged jib up to him through the forward hatch. He took it without a word and hanked it onto the forestay. By the time she was back at the tiller, he had the sheets run aft to the winches.
“Ready when you are, Miss Cammy,” Paska said.
“Good.” Camilla stepped aboard.
Paska and Tipos exchanged glances; he shrugged and muttered, “Dis gonna be a short trip, wit’ no wind and chained to de bloody dock.”
Camilla stood in the cockpit of the little smack and stared down into the water around the piling. The chain was short enough that it could not be lifted up over the top of the foot-thick post, and the lock—an iron padlock as big as Camilla’s hand—was closed through the chain plate of Flothrindel’s aft stay. She couldn’t break the chain, and forcing the boat forward would break the chain plate and dismast the little boat before it broke the piling. But the piling was surrounded by water.
Camilla had learned with some simple experimentation that she could not coax the sea like Cynthia did. Her power was darker, and the demon within her despised the salty wetness of this world. Hatred and loathing forced the sea to her will, and now she loosed the reins on the demon’s bottomless well of malevolence, and commanded the sea to obey. Water roiled as she grasped the piling in a vice of her power and pulled it away from the dock. Nails screeched free, and the wood of the dock creaked and snapped, the piling tearing away from the planking.
“Holy Odea!” Tipos muttered, staring at her.
There was a muffled crack, and the piling tipped over until its top was at the sea’s surface. Camilla eased the sea’s grip on the piling, then pushed the little smack forward. The chain slipped over the top of the piling, and Flothrindel was free. Camilla heaved a breath, fighting against the heady rush of the demon’s power, the seduction to wield it at will.
“How you doin’ dis?” Paska asked, her wide eyes pale in the darkness. “And what happened to dem guards?”
“Never mind how, and forget the guards. You were ready to kill this afternoon to get this boat so you could save your kinsm
en,” Camilla snapped. She didn’t need their distractions. “Now you have the boat, and you didn’t have to kill anyone. What’s the problem?”
Paska shared a stunned look with Tipos, then said, “All right, Miss Cammy, you got us de boat. Now, how we gonna go anywhere wit’ no wind? Dem longboats’ll be on us afore we can—”
Camilla exerted her will, and the boat surged forward.
Paska and Tipos started to whisper again but she ignored them, guiding Flothrindel toward the channel. Unfortunately, there were two warships anchored in the bay, and they would have to pass by them to reach safety. Camilla pushed them steadily forward, hoping to slip past unnoticed under cover of the light mist she had created. But she was new to this power, and in propelling the boat forward, she let slip her control over the fog. It began to dissipate.
“Hey, it’s the smack!” called a voice from high in the closest warship’s rigging. Other voices shouted orders, and an alarm bell clanged.
Faster! Camilla commanded the sea. Move us faster!
Flothrindel leapt forward as more shouts rang out. Paska steered toward the harbor mouth, gripping the tiller hard, but by the time they neared the second warship, a full alarm had been raised. A row of archers stood at the rail, and the ballista crews were cranking furiously at their weapons.
“Dis ain’t gonna be pretty,” Tipos said as they drew within range.
“Get down!” Camilla snapped, and the two natives flung themselves to the floor of the cockpit.
Camilla concentrated on the interface between sea and air, and let the demon’s power flow. In the span of a heartbeat, the air became so thick with moisture that she could barely breathe. Fog rose from the water, obscuring the warship and eliciting an entirely new cacophony of cries and alarms. Camilla stood in the cockpit, her pale hands clutching the hatch coaming until her nails bit into the wood.
Scimitar War Page 5
