Kal Moonheart Trilogy: Dragon Killer, Roll the Bones & Sirensbane

by Rob May

  ‘I told you he was lucky,’ Dead Leg said, wading into the crowd and slow-clapping with his meaty hands. ‘Alright, show’s over; time for you all to get back to work.’

  Che joined Kal at the bulwark just as he was about to toss the rats overboard.

  ‘Can’t you make a nice stew with those?’ Kal asked.

  ‘Already try it,’ the cook said with a wink. ‘Most of the crew moan that it taste like bilgewater, though. Only you and Sea Dog seem to like it.’

  Kal laughed. ‘You should stuff them and make a trophy,’ she said. Che laughed too, and they chatted companionably for a while, both of them avoiding work while Dead Leg was out of sight. Kal spotted a dark line on the horizon. ‘Is that land? Where are we?’

  Che suddenly looked fearful. He squinted, but his pink eyes watered. ‘Cuss my eyes,’ he said. ‘You sure you see land? Why we not turnin’?’

  Kal looked up the mast to where Dogwood was snoozing in the midday sun. She put her fingers in her mouth and let out a piercing whistle. Dogwood jerked awake and almost fell out of the crow’s nest. He looked frantically in all directions, until he too spied what Kal was seeing. ‘Land ahoy!’ he announced, with an impressive parade ground bellow.

  ‘Port helm!’ Dead Leg shouted in response. At the tiller, Jako banged the rudder full-left so hard that Kal almost fell overboard.

  Che was still staring anxiously out to sea, nervously pulling on his dreads.

  ‘That’s Nubara, right?’ Kal said. ‘There’s nothing dangerous there, is there? At least not in the north; its just deserts and camel-herding nomads.’

  ‘Nubaran pirates patrol the coast now,’ Che said, ominously. ‘They the worst of the worst. Gangs of escaped slaves in captured ships. They got no use for treasure or hostages, since nobody will trade with them, so they kill and burn and rape instead. At least they will spare me the worst if they catch us.’

  Kal gave him a quizzical look.

  ‘They most likely kill me first,’ Che said. ‘We albinos bring bad luck everywhere we are found south of the Equator. Twice so aboard a ship. Dead Leg, he only manage to convince his crew to let me on board the Swordfish by reason that I must a made the trip to Amaranthium safe enough.’ He lightened up a shade. ‘That, and the fact that I cook a sweet jerk chicken.’

  Kal looked at Che with part sympathy, part admiration. ‘You’re brave to come home,’ she said.

  ‘It is long past time to work things out with my father,’ Che said.

  Lula was up on deck; in her role as quartermaster she was exhorting the crew to put some effort into their work. ‘Come on, you scallywags, I want us on an even keel with every sail as trim as it can be!’ She turned to the cabin boy, a young lad who looked about twelve. ‘Pip, toss a log overboard and get our speed. The faster we get away from Nubara, the faster we’ll make it safely back to Port Black! Now sing for me, my sea urchins! Take my darlin’ and take my land!’

  ‘Crush my castle down into sand!’ the crew sang back to her.

  ‘You can pull the ground from under me!’ Lula exhorted.

  ‘But you can’t steal away the sea!’

  * * *

  That night, black clouds hid the moon and stars, but the wind was still mild and the brief showers of rain were warm. Kal was alone on deck, apart from Jako, a dark shape abaft. He seemingly never slept, and was always at the helm. The Swordfish cruised through the night, the sails having been shortened and braced securely before the crew retired to their bunks in the forecastle. The ship was now heading further out than Kal had ever been from land before, cutting a dangerous path to the Auspice Islands across barely-charted waters. Kal hated the unknown—she would almost rather take on Nubaran pirates than suffer the horrors of her imagination.

  She was hanging by her arms to the foremast boom, her ankles crossed and raised behind her. With a grunting effort, she pulled herself up until her chin rose above the boom, then she lowered herself slowly, feeling the pain in her biceps and in the spread of muscles in her back. She tried to raise herself again—for the fifteenth time. The effort made her want to scream, but she needed to do this—the whole voyage so far had been one of preparation; Kal had to be ready both physically and mentally for the challenges ahead. It was how she had lived her whole life since she had left her village: death could come out of thin air like lightning out of a summer sky, and sometimes the only thing that could save you was readiness. Hope for the best; prepare for the worst, she had told an old lover once. Where was he now? He was dead, she remembered.

  Kal had been aware of Lula watching her for some time, but she didn’t react. It was a game she liked to play with people: convince them that they had her at a disadvantage, and then surprise them as they made a move. Lula was too clever to try and sneak up on Kal, though. Instead, Lula reached out surreptitiously and slackened the block that held the boom in place. Kal found herself moving slowly across the deck. When the ride stopped, she looked down and saw the open hatch and the black hole of the hold below her.

  ‘Damn you, Lula,’ she laughed. ‘Put me back.’

  ‘I’m already damned, remember,’ Lula said, holding up her palm. The white spot was twice as big now as when Kal had first seen it. ‘I just want to make sure you’re fit to fight zombies for me. Come on—ten more chin-ups!’

  Kal managed two more. It was two more than she would have managed without the extra encouragement.

  ‘Eight more!’

  ‘I can’t do one more,’ Kal groaned.

  ‘Alright,’ Lula said. ‘Tell me something instead, then. What were you and Ben talking about that day in the captain’s cabin?’

  ‘What? Nothing, Lu. Nothing important, anyway. Now, put me back!’ Kal’s arms had gone numb, and she didn’t even dare try to move along the boom to get to a safe spot to drop down.

  ‘Tell me that he’s not tasked you with hunting smugglers, like he did Dogwood,’ Lula said. ‘I just need to know that you’re giving your all to me, Kal.’

  ‘I know … nothing about Dogwood’s investigation,’ Kal spat out, truthfully. ‘Lula, if he gets in our way when we get to Port Black, I’ll deal with him, I promise.’

  ‘Alright,’ Lula said. Kal’s promise was valuable currency among her friends. Lula pulled on the rope. ‘I’m sorry, Kal. I just …’

  But Kal wasn’t looking at Lula’s apologetic expression. As the boom swung back into position, and her view out to sea shifted, Kal saw something beyond the prow. ‘Lula!’ she hissed. ‘Look!’

  There was something a few miles out. Something that could be seen despite the darkness that surrounded the ship, and that was because it glowed a strange phosphorescent green. As Kal dropped from the boom and leaned on Lula’s shoulder to catch her breath, the glowing thing sunk beneath the waves.

  Kal’s brain couldn’t process what she had just seen. It wasn’t land; it wasn’t a ship. By a process of elimination it could only have been one thing: a sea monster.

  ‘I’ll be right back,’ Lula said. ‘Keep it busy, Kal—sing to it!’

  Sing to it? Kal looked back, but Lula had already disappeared below deck. When Kal looked back out to sea, the thing had resurfaced, closer this time, revealing the hump of a great serpentine back. One after another, yards and yards of curved spines broke the surface and submerged again. Whatever the thing was, it was enormous.

  Kal ran back to the quarterdeck. ‘Jako!’ she called.

  ‘I see it,’ the navigator said, wide-awake now and gripping the tiller. ‘Don’t panic, Kal.’

  ’What is it?’ she asked him.

  ‘Well,’ he said, with a tight smile. ‘We call him Briney …’

  Kal couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. ‘You give it a name? You know what it is?’

  ‘Aye,’ Jako said. ‘We just didn’t expect to see him this far out from the Islands. Lula will deal with him … if she gets back in time.’

  It was too late: the monster swam under the Swordfish’s keel and surfaced on the port side, its i
mmense tubular body arching over the deck like a bridge. The scaly green torso was twenty yards thick, and snapped the topmast and topsail yard clean off. Kal dived to the deck as splinters and canvas came smashing down, accompanied by splatters of glowing slime. The monster didn’t stop there, though—it plunged back into the sea and doubled back on itself, corkscrewing around the hull two more times.

  Kal could feel the coiled creature putting the squeeze on. She could hear spars cracking and timbers groaning. What could Lula have possibly run off to fetch that could save them now? A magic spear?

  Then the monster broke the surface once more and brought its head to bear on Kal. The sea dragon was at least four times bigger than any other dragon Kal had seen. When it opened its jaw, a knight on horseback could have stood comfortably on its tongue. A double row of teeth like white spear tips framed the dreadful maw, and the monster roared at her—a frightening sound like an ocean storm multiplied hundreds of times over, accompanied by a rotten smell that made Kal want to puke.

  But it didn’t attack. It tilted its head and fixed Kal with an aquamarine eye that was as wide as Kal was tall.

  What did it want? Kal had nothing to give it.

  It roared again, and Kal fell on her back, covered with another wave of the monster’s stinking spittle. It clenched its curled body and the Swordfish screamed out in pain. The mainmast split in two, and the top half plunged down into the deck, stabbing it like a dagger.

  Sing to it! Lula’s crazy suggestion, which Kal had dismissed as whimsy, was her only play. She got to her feet and stared down the sea dragon as it brought its eye to bear on her once more.

  ‘When I was young, my spirit free.’

  The creature held her gaze. Its jaws relaxed slightly.

  ‘My feet they led me to the sea.’

  Kal’s singing voice was low and throaty, but the sea dragon’s head started to sway. It let out what could almost have been a contented purr, but what came across as a thunderous rumble.

  Then Lula reappeared on deck. In her hand was a small leather pouch. She stood beside Kal and lobbed the pouch underarm into the dragon’s mouth. It tipped its head back as if to swallow the offering, then sank out of view beneath the ship.

  The coiled body released its grip, and the dragon fell away like a loosened knot. Kal and Lula ran to the rail and looked down. The green glow dwindled to a dot hundreds of fathoms deep … and then it vanished.

  I.ix

  Thunder Road

  They replaced the mast with the spare, and patched up the hull with wood from the deck. In the next two weeks, the sea dragon made three more appearances; and each time, Lula dealt with it by tossing it another mysterious offering. When Kal asked her what magic she was using to keep the monster at bay, Lula simply smiled and said, ‘Vudu.’

  Kal felt like she was stuck in the middle, hanging in the space between Lula’s secrets and Dogwood’s investigations. When she tried to interrogate Dogwood, as they battled over the cosmic race board, he just tapped the side of his nose. ‘Senate business, Moonheart,’ he muttered. ‘And the last time I checked, you don’t work for the Senate.’

  ‘I voted for Ben last year,’ Kal reminded him. ‘Without him, you wouldn’t work for the Senate either.’

  Dogwood chuckled as he threw the dice and moved his counters. ‘In politics, no one cares about the voters once the votes have been counted. I’ve been Captain of the Senate Guard while senators have risen and fallen around me. I know more about how the Republic is run than any politician, and the rule is that once you’ve got yourself where you want to be, all the promises and friends you made to get there are instantly forgotten.’

  Kal shook her head. Dogwood was insufferable. And to make matters worse, he was good at his job and he knew it. As far as Kal could tell, his only weakness was his new-found love of gaming, something he could never have allowed himself to be seen indulging in back home. It was funny, watching him now sitting opposite her, still dressed in his blue Senate Guard surcoat, which he wore like a vest over his naked blubber. The swirl of gold stars sewn into his surcoat glittered every time the sun came out from behind the clouds.

  Dogwood had most of his counters home, but he still had two of them imprisoned on the bar, after Kal had captured them. Kal also had most of their escape routes blocked off, thanks to some clever tactical positioning that Dogwood had ignored, to his cost. Kal took the doubling dice and turned it from sixteen to thirty-two, giving Dogwood the choice of either doubling the stakes, or quitting.

  He hesitated. Dogwood loved to gamble, but he was risk-averse. ‘Tell you what,’ Kal said, as casually as she could manage, ‘if I win, I’ll let you pay me in information instead. Just a few harmless hints, even. As I’m sure you know from your work in the Senate, a small titbit of information can be as valuable as a chest full of gold!’

  Ten minutes later, Kal had freed her last counter from the board, and Dogwood was forced to spill the beans. ‘There’s a new drug on the market,’ he told her in a hushed voice. ‘One that’s taking Amaranthium by storm. It’s more dangerous than opium—it’s a stimulant rather than a depressant—and that’s what’s got the authorities worried: addicts don’t lay around in smoky dens all day; they become aggressive, with heightened senses. Gangs of political rebels are getting sucked in, and thanks to the drug they’re up all night, plotting violent schemes. They call the drug Black Ice, because it comes out of Port Black.’

  ‘And you think the crew of the Swordfish are involved?’ Kal asked, pressing the fat man for more information.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Dogwood said. Then his ego got the better of his circumspection: ‘I’ve laid a trap that will lead me to the source of the drug. I’ve marked hundreds of bills with invisible ink, and instructed the bank of Amaranthium to hand them out to any suspected addict asking for a withdrawal. If the same bills turn up in circulation in Port Black when we get there, then I’ll know I’m on the right trail!’

  * * *

  That night, alone in her small cabin, Kal unlocked her sea chest. She took out one of the calico bundles that she had been looking after for Lula, and unwrapped it. There was another bundle inside, wrapped in waxed leather and tied with twine. Kal had never doubted for one moment that it was money, but she had never been curious enough to take a closer look … until now.

  There was a lot of money in the package: a block of fifty bills, each promising to pay the bearer one hundred Republic Crowns (or—and this was of more interest to international smugglers—one hundred ounces of gold). Lula had given Kal five bundles to look after, too. Kal didn’t bother counting all the linen-paper notes; instead she lit a candle and held one of the bills over the flame.

  Chances were, Dogwood would have marked the notes with lemon, honey or vinegar—something that would brown when heated. A thief she once knew—Will Straightarrow—had told her about that trick. Sure enough, under the smoke of the candle, the secret mark revealed itself: a spiral of twenty-four stars. Kal smiled; the golden constellation had been the symbol of the Guard long before the Republic—back when they had been the Royal Guard. One star for each of the world’s twenty-four gods.

  So, the crew of the Swordfish were indeed smuggling Black Ice. And making a fortune from it, it seemed. Who’s the detective now, Dogwood? Kal gloated to herself. The question was, when should she confront Lula about it?

  Kal always favoured the simple and direct answer to any problem, so she took one of the notes, locked her chest, and went in search of her friend.

  Lula wasn’t in her own cabin. Kal went along the passageway, passing the open door to the galley. Che was still up, sitting on a stool, peeling potatoes.

  ‘Have you seen Lula, Che?’ Kal asked.

  ‘Up on deck,’ Che said.

  ‘Thanks,’ Kal said. ‘Oh, and Che?’

  ‘Yah?’

  ‘I hate potatoes.’

  Che grinned. ‘Well, you better catch us that sea monster, man, cos I’m fresh out of goats!’

  Kal p
assed on and up the rear companionway. The moonlit deck was deserted, but Kal could hear voices above her on the quarterdeck.

  ‘… has to be a map,’ Dead Leg was saying. ‘There are thousands of uninhabited islands around Port Black. Thousands! You don’t bury treasure and forget to make a map. It just ain’t right!’

  Kal crept up the ladder and peeped over. Dead Leg and Lula were standing with their backs to her. Both of them were as still as statues, with their arms outstretched like scarecrows.

  ‘Maybe there is no map,’ Jako said, from his usual position at the tiller. ‘Maybe there’s no treasure either.’

  ‘There had better be,’ Dead Leg said. ‘The sooner we find it, the sooner we can give up this smuggling lark and retire.’

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ Lula said. ‘I say if we find any treasure, we invest the money in another ship and crew. We could make twice as many runs to Amaranthium and back. You know the demand is there. And you know what they say: while the sun shines—make hay!’

  ‘Either way,’ Dead Leg said, ‘we have to shake off this curse first. I just hope you’re right, Lula, when you say that Moonheart can—’

  Kal would have loved to hear more, especially about the treasure, but Sea Dog wandered out of the captain’s cabin and woofed at her. She threw him an evil glare, and clambered up to the quarterdeck as naturally as she could.

  ‘Speak of the Dragon …’ Jako said.

  ‘… killer,’ Kal said, twisting the well-known phrase, ‘and she shall appear.’ She walked around Dead Leg and Lula to stand face to face with them. ‘What are you two doing? Waiting for gulls to perch on you? I’m not that hungry.’

  ‘It’s an old sailors’ trick,’ Lula said. ‘You stand with your back to the wind, with your arms outstretched, and then your right hand will point into the eye of the storm.’

  Kal followed Lula’s arm. The sky to the east was clear and full of stars. ‘There’s a storm coming?’