Scimitar War

by Chris A. Jackson

“Anchor the boat,” Camilla commanded hoarsely, gripping the rail so tightly that her nails split the wood. Though destroying the galleon had taken little effort, it had drained her. She felt like an empty husk, a raging hunger that demanded satiation. She had fed on only one of the two marines the night before—she had had to kill the other quickly to silence him—and had hoped it would hold her over until she was well away from her friends. But now, the sound of three hearts beating so strongly—so close—lured her. She had to feed soon or risk the grisly fate of the demon’s last host. If she did not feed the demon, it would feed on her.

  “Hurry!” she urged.

  Camilla both hated and needed the fear in her friends’ faces as they complied with her plea. She had briefed them on her condition, and had been horrified at how they recoiled from her when she mentioned the name Hydra. But she wanted them to fear her, if only to keep them safe.

  Paska steered toward shore, then turned the boat into the wind. Tipos furled the jib and dropped the small anchor over the bow, paying out rode until they had backed nearly to the beach and the keel bumped the sandy bottom. He left the mainsail up, but slacked the sheet so that the canvas flapped in the breeze.

  “Dat’s as close as we be gettin’, Miss Cammy.”

  Camilla stepped up to the cockpit seat, then to the rail. She glared down at the sea and let slip the reins on the demon’s loathing. The water parted, leaving a strip of bare sand from the boat to the shore. She stepped off the transom, landed clumsily on the hard sand, and hurried to the beach, not slowing until she was well above the waterline. She heaved a ragged breath as the water closed behind her. Her friends were safe. She pushed back the hunger, straightened her shoulders and turned to Paska and Tipos.

  “Wait here,” she said, “and be ready. As soon as the captives reach the beach, get them into Flothrindel and leave. Take them to Vulture Isle. Do not return here or try to find me. And if I return to the beach alone, regardless of what I say to you, flee as fast as you can.”

  Paska and Tipos stared wide-eyed, and then nodded. Without another word, without even saying goodbye, Camilla turned and strode up the beach.

  ≈

  A shiver of dread quivered Broadtail’s fins, and he let the ancient scroll he had been studying slip from his slack fingers. The sharkskin parchment drifted to the floor of the comfortable nook that he and Silverfin used for reading and rest. This was not the first time he had felt this nebulous trepidation. The previous night, he had been awoken by a sensation he had not felt in many seasons. Then he had dismissed it as anxiety over the still-unknown fate of his son Tailwalker, but now he realized what it was.

  *What is wrong, my husband?* Silverfin signed, laying her own scroll aside, the concern on her features illuminated by the pale glow crystals that lit the nook. *You are as pale as the inside of an oyster’s shell!*

  *Something is manipulating the sea,* he replied, trusting his finely honed senses. He shivered again and flipped his tail in agitation. *Some magic.*

  *The seamage?* she asked as she joined him, her slim fingers caressing his fins in solace.

  *No.* He returned her caress, but his countenance remained dire. *This is different. The sea is being tormented, forced into submission.* He looked to his wife and saw that she understood.

  *Is it the same as before?*

  *I do not know, beloved. It feels the same, but Seamage Flaxal Brelak herself told me that the creature who wielded that foul magic was destroyed. We saw its filthy corpse sink into the deep, remember?*

  *I remember, beloved, but such creatures are often more spirit than flesh.* Silverfin was learned in many types of lore, and the legends of the demon of which they spoke were ancient. It had been summoned to the smoking island by landwalkers a very long time ago, and for many seasons its power had kept the mer at bay, forestalled their wrath against the marauding landwalkers that inhabited the island. *Perhaps the beast’s spirit survived.*

  *If so, this is dire indeed, for Seamage Flaxal Brelak is still far to the south. Only she has the power to confront such a creature.* Broadtail recovered his baldric and trident and swam to the exit. *We must find this threat, so that when the seamage returns, we may tell her where it lairs.*

  *Need you go yourself, husband?* she asked, and he fluttered his gills in gentle laughter at her worry.

  *No, beloved, I need not go myself. We have warriors aplenty who have sea sense strong enough to find the source of this evil. I will send out scouts.* He swam to her side and caressed her fins. *I’ll return soon.* He flipped his tail and swam from the grotto, intent on discovering this new and dire threat.

  ≈

  Dura cursed long and hard in dwarvish as the leather tightened around her wrists and ankles. The cannibals had bound her to a rough-hewn wooden frame, the same one to which all who had preceded her to this fate had been bound. It was black with bloodstains, and reeked of old, rotten blood and offal. She refused to even look at the ground in front of the frame, so thick were the flies and gnats. Her gorge rose in her throat, but she swallowed and cursed anew, struggling against the grasping hands and spitting into those grinning, shark-toothed faces. By the time the last bond had been cinched tight, her wrists and ankles were already raw. Unfortunately, she knew that these were only the first of many pains to come.

  She had hoped for a quick end, but it was not to be.

  The jeering, hooting crowd of cannibals backed away from her. Only one remained; the woman Dura had kicked in the groin two days before. She wielded the very same obsidian knife, and there was no humor whatsoever in her feral grin.

  “Well, this is jist gonna be bloody boatloads of fun, ain’t it?” Dura managed to keep her voice steady, but only barely. Her gut roiled with fear, threatening to overwhelm her stoic anger as her executioner approached. She’d seen what they’d done to the others, and knew what she was in for. She made herself a single promise: “I won’t scream.”

  But looking at the knife and the vengeful grin on the woman’s scarred face, she doubted it was a promise she could keep.

  ≈

  Hundreds of footprints led up the beach to the trail at the jungle’s edge. Flanking the entrance stood two bamboo poles thrust deep into the sand, each topped by a polished and grinning human skull, the totem of the cannibal tribe.

  Stepping onto the trail was like stepping into a dark, primeval world. The dusky light failed to penetrate the thick canopy, and the roar of the surf, so loud on the beach, faded with each step. From far ahead in the deep jungle came the sound of distant drums, shouts and cries. Camilla’s eyes adjusted quickly, and with a flicker of the demon’s power, the jungle around her snapped into crystal clarity, each leaf and frond distinct. Flashes of crimson among the foliage drew her attention, the blood-heat of living creatures that scampered, flew, and crawled through the trees and undergrowth. Her hunger quickened. She supposed that she might feed on them, but the thought was unappetizing. The demon craved only human blood.

  The trail led ever higher up the mountain. Camilla climbed steadily, not even attempting to be quiet. On the contrary, she hoped the cannibals found her quickly; she wouldn’t be able to resist the hunger much longer.

  She was not disappointed.

  The trip line she stumbled over released a long, supple branch bowed back under great strain. As thick as Camilla’s arm and studded with sharp stones on its leading edge, it would have torn a normal person in half. But Camilla was no longer normal.

  She raised her arm in time to intercept the branch as it swept across the trail. She heard a loud crack, and felt a numbing shock to her forearm. Two of the sharpened stones had flayed her open, but it was the branch, not the bones of her arm, that had snapped. She flung the branch aside and shook the ichor from her arm even as the wounds began to close.

  Camilla raised her head at the sound of running. Two people—sentries
, apparently posted up the trail—had been alerted by the noise of the trap’s discharge. Assuming that whoever had set off the trap had been disabled by it, they made no effort to be silent, and burst around a curve in the trail, only to pull up sharply when confronted by Camilla. The two men, both tall and well built, sported the typical piercings and bone jewelry of the cannibals. Camilla recalled similar decorations on the cannibals at Scimitar Bay, remembered the unthinkable things they had done to those she had asked to stay. She let the rage of the demon surge within her, welcoming it for the first time.

  One of the men muttered something, and although their dialect was thick, it was similar enough to the familiar native language that Camilla understood the word “Ghost.”

  “No,” she replied in the native language, careful to speak slowly. “I am flesh.”

  “You speak!” the other man said, grinning and brandishing a wickedly spiked club. “Come, then, white-skin, flat-tooth woman. You will make good sport before you feed us.” His friend laughed, and they stepped forward, weapons ready.

  Camilla stood for a moment, relishing the scent and sound of their blood, admiring the veins that ran just beneath the lean skin of their arms and necks, feeling their heartbeats as if she was pressed up against their powerful chests. She breathed deeply and felt the hunger flare.

  “White skin, yes,” she said calmly, “flat tooth, no.” But it was her smile that silenced their laughter. They were both head and shoulders taller than she, so she apparently looked harmless enough.

  She taught them differently.

  Camilla plunged clawed fingers deep into one man’s chest, tightening her grip until his ribs splintered. As his scream split the jungle silence, the other man raised his weapon to strike. She lashed out with her free hand, the force of the blow sending him flying into the brush. She would deal with that one later. The man she held flailed at her ineffectually, his frantic blows feeling like the patter of rain. His screams shrilled as she grinned and pulled him down to the sabers of her teeth, then dissolved into delicious gurgles and the rush of warm blood…and power.

  ≈

  The crowd stilled to an expectant hush as the executioner drew close to her victim. Her dark, animated eyes travelled up and down Dura’s stocky physique, examining her critically, as if inspecting a piece of granite she was about to sculpt or a blank canvas she was going to paint. Dura tried to close her eyes as the grinning woman approached, but a nauseating curiosity held her rapt. The serrations on the obsidian blade seemed as large and lethal as shark teeth as they neared her flesh.

  “Well, Maker, I’m comin’ ta meet ya,” she murmured.

  A shout, high-pitched and feminine, rang out from the back of the crowd, and the entire tribe turned, murmuring with curiosity. The executioner glanced around, her expression transformed from glee to rage. Dura craned her neck, but she was too short and the cannibals were massed too thickly for her to see what was happening.

  Another shout rang out, an ululating battle cry that devolved into a horrific shriek. The crowd of cannibals murmured and shifted back, shoving and jostling one another. Several brandished weapons, and it seemed that a full-on brawl might commence. Then a woman called out in the native language, and everyone froze.

  Dura jerked so hard at her bonds that she cracked her head against the wooden frame. The cannibals’ attention was away from her, and even her executioner had joined the crowd. If she was ever going to get a chance, this was it. Then the crowd parted before her. Dura glimpsed a flash of red amidst the shifting bodies as they moved aside and the newcomer stood before her. The dwarf sagged against the wooden frame and stared in disbelief.

  “Camilla?”

  Dura looked at her friend and nearly choked. The flash of red she had seen could have been Camilla’s crimson hair, or her scarlet dress, or the bright blood that painted her pale skin. Her arms were red to the elbow, gore dripped from her fingertips, and blood had spattered her from chin to the décolletage of her gown. Beyond Camilla, through the parted crowd, Dura saw the source of the blood. A warrior lay in a twisted heap, one arm bent at an impossible angle, his broad chest flayed open. She looked back at Camilla, and the woman’s blood-drenched lips curved up in a smile.

  “Hello, Dura.”

  The voice was Camilla’s, but something lurked beneath that calm contralto, something dark and powerful that sent a chill up her spine. Dura ignored the bloody mess and looked into her friend’s eyes. At first she thought that the dim light was playing tricks with her vision. Instead of their normal vibrant blue, Camilla’s eyes were two polished orbs of blackest obsidian.

  “Camilla!” she croaked again, unable to comprehend what had happened to her friend.

  In a flash, Camilla’s eyes shifted to blue and went wide, as if she only now recognized her friend.

  “Dura!” she said, urgency replacing the chilling calm. “I’ve got to get you out of here.” She stepped forward, reaching for the leather bonds.

  She was intercepted by Dura’s would-be executioner. The woman brandished her serrated knife, shouting and shaking with rage, pointing first at Dura, then at the mutilated warrior. Camilla snapped a sharp command to the woman in the native language, then turned back to Dura. As she stepped past the woman, the cannibal struck.

  “Camilla!” Dura called in warning…too late.

  The cannibal bared her pointed teeth in a feral grin, and buried her obsidian blade to the hilt in Camilla’s slim waist. Dura gaped in shock when, instead of crying out and collapsing, Camilla simply grasped the woman’s wrist, her blue eyes flashing black. There was a sound like dice clattering on a stone table, and a guttural scream tore out of the woman’s throat. Her knees buckled and she released the hilt of the dagger. Camilla grabbed the woman’s hair with her free hand and wrenched her head back, then stooped down to the exposed throat. Her crimson hair fell forward to hide the sight from Dura’s view.

  The woman’s horrific scream echoed through the clearing before dying in a strangled gurgle. Her body convulsed, then went slack. Camilla dropped the corpse, its throat a ragged mess of torn meat, and straightened. Fresh blood coated her lips and chin, and for an instant, Dura thought that her mouth bristled with dagger-like teeth. Camilla stood still for a moment, her head held high, obsidian eyes flashing, her hair, dress and the gore dripping from her chin all the same crimson hue; a beautiful yet repulsive goddess of blood. Then she shuddered and looked toward Dura, her eyes fading to sapphire once again.

  Dura couldn’t help but cringe when Camilla wrenched the knife from her abdomen and reached for the leather bonds. The blade was coated not with blood, but with a sickening black ichor. Dura swallowed hard and whispered, “Who are you? What are you?”

  “I’m Camilla,” she said, though there was some doubt in that claim. “Yes, for at least a while longer, I’m Camilla, and I’m here to free you, Dura.” She slashed the leather bindings at Dura’s ankles and wrists, then handed the weapon to her. “Free the others and follow the trail down to the beach. Paska and Tipos are waiting with Flothrindel.”

  Dura grasped the hilt with numb fingers. Her mind felt equally as numb as she tried to comprehend the last few moments. Beneath all the gore, this was her friend, Camilla, her face drawn, her eyes wide, and her hands clenched in bloody fists by her side. Despite her other actions, she had set Dura free. “What about you?” she asked.

  “I’m staying,” Camilla said, a sad yet cold determination edging her voice. “This is the only place I can live and not harm the ones I love, Dura. These…people deserve me for what they did, and I deserve them.”

  A dangerous murmur spread through the crowd as Dura stepped down from the wooden frame, dagger in hand. Camilla glared at them and they quieted, then she jerked her head toward the caged prisoners. “Go now, and hurry!”

  Dura wasted no more time in conversation, but hobbled to the ne
arest cage, sawed through the leather bindings, and helped the woman inside to crawl out. She heard the cannibals shout, but their protests were immediately quelled by Camilla’s harsh commands.

  Dura dared a glance back. Several cannibals had raised their weapons, but Camilla was pointing to the two corpses she had made and gesturing emphatically. The crowd quailed, many ducking their heads and backing away. Dura kept working, and in short order all of the prisoners were free. Though stumbling and stiff from their long confinement, they didn’t hesitate when Dura urged them toward the path to freedom. She turned once more toward Camilla, and found the woman staring at her with those black-on-black eyes.

  “Go, Dura!” her friend commanded. A sad smile flicked onto her face, then disappeared. “Go, and tell everyone to avoid this island. There’s nothing here but death and blood.”

  Dura didn’t have to be told twice; she shuffled after her fellow prisoners and headed down the trail.

  ≈

  Camilla breathed a sigh of relief as her friends fled into the jungle. She watched the tribe to ensure that none followed. They watched her back, muttering and glancing every so often at the two bodies that lay cooling on the ground. She caught a few words; they feared her, and resented her interference, but a few uttered words of awe and respect.

  The proximity of so many beating hearts, so much blood rushing through veins, was distracting, but the demon had fed well and she had expended little power. With the hunger sated, she was able to maintain control. She listened, but could not detect her friends any longer. They were safe from the cannibals…and from her.

  This is my life now, she thought as she looked down at the blood on her hands. Her heart twisted in her chest as she thought of Emil and what might have been, what she had lost. The voice in her mind, which she had fought so terribly to suppress until her friends had escaped, rose in scornful laughter. Perhaps one day, when the cannibals were gone and she had nothing more to feed it, it would feed on her and end her pain. The thought of the demon trapped forever on the island by the hated sea gave her some small satisfaction.