The Black Road

by Mel Odom

  Darrick said nothing. He watched in stony silence and kept himself dwindled down to a small ember. Nothing touched him as Mat’s shroud-wrapped body slid from under the Westmarch flag and plummeted down the ship’s side to the rolling waves. The ballast rocks wrapped into the foot of the shroud to weight the body dragged it down into the blue-green sea. For a time, the white of the funeral shroud kept Mat’s body visible.

  Then even that disappeared before the ship sailed on and left it behind.

  The pipes blew the disassembly, and the men drifted away.

  Darrick walked to the railing, easily riding the rise and fall of the ship that had once made him so sick in the beginning. He peered out at the ocean, but he didn’t see it. The stink of the blood and the soured hay in his father’s barn filled his nose and took his mind away from the ship and the sea. His heart hurt with the roughened leather strokes his father had used to punish him until only the feel of his fists against Darrick’s body would satisfy him.

  He made himself feel nothing at all, not even the wind that pushed into his face and ruffled his hair. He had lived much of his life numb. It had been his mistake to retreat from that.

  That night, having not eaten at all during the day because it would have meant taking mess with the other men and dealing with all the unasked questions each had, Darrick went down to the galley. Cook usually left a pot of chowder hanging over a low fire during the dogwatches.

  Darrick helped himself to the chowder, catching the young kitchen apprentice half dozing at the long table where the crew supped in shifts. Darrick filled a tin plate with the thick chowder. The young kitchen apprentice fidgeted, then got to wiping the table as if he’d been doing that all along.

  Without speaking, ignoring the young man’s embarrassment and concern that his laxness at his duties might be reported, Darrick carved a thick hunk of black bread from one of the loaves Cook had prepared, then poured himself a mug of green tea. Tea in one hand, thick hunk of bread soaking in the chowder in the tin plate, Darrick headed back up to the deck.

  He stood amidships, listening to the rustle and crackle of the canvas overhead. With the knowledge they carried and the fact that they were in clear waters, Captain Tollifer had kept the sails up, taking advantage of the favorable winds. Lonesome Star sloshed through the moon-kissed rollers that covered the ocean’s surface. Occasional light flickers passed by in the water that weren’t just reflections of the ship’s lanterns posted as running lights.

  Standing on the heaving deck on practiced legs, Darrick ate, managing the teacup and the tin plate in one hand—plate on the cup—and eating with his other hand. He let the black bread marinate in the chowder to soften it up, otherwise he’d have had to chew it for what seemed like forever to break it down. The chowder was made from shrimp and fish stock, mixed with spices from the eastern lands, and had thick chunks of potatoes. It was almost hot enough to burn the tongue even after being dipped on bread and cooled by the night winds.

  Darrick didn’t let himself think of the nights he and Mat had shared dogwatches together, with Mat telling wildly improbable stories he’d either heard somewhere or made up then and there and swore it was gospel. It had all been fun to Mat, something to keep them awake during the long, dead hours and to keep Darrick from ever thinking back to the things that had happened in Hillsfar.

  “I’m sorry about your friend,” a quiet voice said.

  Distanced as he was from his emotions, Darrick wasn’t even surprised to recognize Lhex’s voice behind him. He kept gazing out to sea, chewing on the latest lump of black bread and chowder he’d put into his mouth.

  “I said—” the boy began again in a slightly louder voice.

  “I heard you,” Darrick interrupted.

  An uncomfortable silence stretched between them. Darrick never once turned to face the boy.

  “I wanted to talk to you about the demon,” Lhex said.

  “No,” Darrick replied.

  “I am the king’s nephew.” The boy’s tone hardened somewhat.

  “And yet you are not the king, are you?”

  “I understand how you’re feeling.”

  “Good. Then you’ll understand if I trouble you for my own peace while I’m standing watch.”

  The boy was silent for a long enough time that Darrick had thought he’d gone away. Darrick thought there might have been some trouble with the captain in the morning over his rudeness, but he didn’t care.

  “What are those lighted patches in the water?” Lhex asked.

  Irritated and not even wanting to feel that because long years of experience had shown him that even the smallest emotion could snowball into the feelings of entrapment that put him out of control, Darrick turned to the boy. “What the hell are you still doing up, boy?”

  “I couldn’t sleep.” The boy stood on the deck in bare feet and a sleeping gown he must have borrowed from the captain.

  “Then go find a new way of amusing yourself. I’ll not have it done at my expense.”

  Lhex wrapped his arms around himself, obviously chilled in the cool night air. “I can’t. You’re the only one who saw the demon.”

  The only one alive, Darrick thought, but he stopped himself before he could think too far. “There were other men in that cavern.”

  “None of them stayed long enough to see the things you saw.”

  “You don’t know things I saw.”

  “I was there when you talked with the captain. Everything you know is important.”

  “And what matter would it be of yours?” Darrick demanded.

  “I’ve been priest-trained for the Zakarum Church and guided my whole life by the Light. In two more years, I’ll test for becoming a full priest.”

  “You’re no more than a boy now,” Darrick chided, “and you’ll be little more than a boy then. You should spend your time worrying about boy things.”

  “No,” Lhex said. “Fighting demons is to be my calling, Darrick Lang. Don’t you have a calling?”

  “I work to keep a meal between my belly and my spine,” Darrick said, “to stay alive, and to sleep in warm places.”

  “Yet you’re an officer, and you’ve come up through the ranks, which is both an admirable and a hard thing to do. A man without a calling, without passion, could not have done something like that.”

  Darrick grimaced. Evidently Lhex’s identity as the king’s nephew had drawn considerable depth in Captain Tollifer’s eyes.

  “I’m going to be a good priest,” the boy declared. “And to fight demons, I know I have to learn about demons.”

  “None of this has anything to do with me,” Darrick said. “Once Captain Tollifer hands my report to the king, my part in this is finished.”

  Lhex eyed him boldly. “Is it?”

  “Aye, it is.”

  “You didn’t strike me as the kind of man who’d let a friend’s death go unavenged.”

  “And who, then, am I supposed to blame for Mat’s death?” Darrick demanded.

  “Your friend died by Kabraxis’s hand,” Lhex said.

  “But not till you made us go there after I told you all I wanted to do was leave,” Darrick said in a harsh voice. “Not till I waited too long to get out of that cavern, then couldn’t outrun the skeletons that pursued us.” He shook his head. “No. If anybody’s to blame for Mat’s death, it’s you and me.”

  A serious look filled the boy’s face. “If you want to blame me, Darrick Lang, then feel free to blame me.”

  Vulnerable, feeling his emotions shudder and almost slip from his control, Darrick looked at the boy, amazed at the way he could stand up to him in the dark night. “I do blame you,” Darrick told him.

  Lhex looked away.

  “If you choose to fight demons,” Darrick went on, giving in to the cruelty that ran within him, “you’ll have a short life. At least you won’t need a lot of planning.”

  “The demons must be fought,” the boy whispered.

  “Not by the likes of me,” Darrick sa
id. “A king with an army, or several kings with armies, that’s what it would take. Not a sailor.”

  “You lived after seeing the demon,” Lhex said. “There must be a reason for that.”

  “I was lucky,” Darrick said. “Most men meeting demons don’t have such luck.”

  “Warriors and priests fight demons,” Lhex said. “The legends tell us that without those heroes, Diablo and his brothers would still be able to walk through this world.”

  “You were there when I gave Captain Tollifer my report,” Darrick said. The boy hadn’t shown any reluctance to throw his weight around with the captain, either, and Tollifer had reluctantly allowed him to sit in during the debriefing the morning before. “You know everything I know.”

  “There are seers who could examine you. Sometimes when great magic is worked around an individual, traces of it remain within that individual.”

  “I’ll not be poked and prodded,” Darrick argued. He pointed to the patches of light gliding through the sea. “You asked what those were.”

  Lhex turned his attention to the ocean, but his expression revealed that he’d rather be following his own tack in the conversation.

  “Some of those,” Darrick said, “are fire-tail sharks, named so because they glow in such a manner. The light attracts nocturnal feeders and brings them within striking distance of the sharks. Other light patches are Rose of Moon jellyfish that can paralyze a man unlucky enough to swim into reach of their barbed tentacles. If you want to learn about the sea, there’s much I can teach you. But if you want to talk about demons, I’ll have no more of it. I’ve learned more than I ever care to know about them.”

  The wind changed directions slightly, causing the great canvas sheets overhead to luff a little, then to snap full again as the crew managed the change.

  Darrick tasted his chowder but found it had grown cold.

  “Kabraxis is responsible for your friend’s death,” Lhex said quietly. “You’re not going to be able to forget that. You’re still part of this. I have seen the signs.”

  Darrick pushed his breath out, feeling trapped and scared and angry at the same time. He felt exactly the way he had when he had been in his father’s shop when his father had chosen to be displeased with him again. Working hard to distance himself, he waited until he had control back, then whirled to face the boy, intending—even if he was the king’s nephew—to vent some of his anger.

  But when Darrick turned, the deck behind him was empty. In the moonlight, the deck looked silver white, striped by the shadows of the masts and rigging. Frustrated, Darrick turned back and flung his plate and teacup over the ship’s side.

  A Rose of Moon jellyfish caught the tin plate in its tentacles. Lightning flickered against the metal as the barbs tried to bite into it.

  Crossing to the starboard railing, Darrick leaned on it heavily. In his mind’s eye, he saw the skeleton dive at Mat, sweeping him from the cliff’s edge, then witnessed again the bone-breaking thump against the wall of stone. A cold sweat covered Darrick’s body as memory of those days in his father’s shop stole over him. He would not go back there—not physically, and not in his mind.

  TWELVE

  Darrick sat at a back table in Cross-Eyed Sal’s, a tavern only a couple of blocks back from Dock Street and the Mercantile Quarter. The tavern was a dive, one of the places surly sailors of meager means or ill luck ended up before they signed ship’s articles and went back to sea. It was a place where the lanterns were kept dim of an evening so the wenches there looked better if they weren’t seen as well, and the food couldn’t be inspected closely. Money came into Westmarch through the piers, in the fat purses of merchants buying goods and selling goods, and in the modest coin pouches of sailors and longshoremen. The money spilled over to the shops scattered along the docks and piers first, and most of it stopped there. Little of it slopped over into the businesses crowded in back of the shops and tradesmen’s workplaces and the finer inns and even not-so-fine inns.

  Cross-Eyed Sal’s featured a sun-faded sign out front that showed a buxom red-haired woman served up on a steaming oyster shell with only her tresses maintaining her modesty. The tavern was located in part of the decaying layer that occupied the stretch of older buildings that had been built higher up on the hillside fronting the harbor. Over the years as Westmarch and the harbor had existed and grown, nearly all of the buildings nestled down by the sea had been torn down and rebuilt.

  Only a few older buildings remained as landmarks that had been shored up by expert artisans. But behind those businesses that seined up most of the gold lay the insular layer of merchants and tavern owners who barely made their monthly bills and the king’s taxes so they could stay open. The only thing that kept them going was the desperate times endured by out-of-work sailors and longshoremen.

  Cross-Eyed Sal’s had a rare crowd and was filled near to capacity. The sailors remained separate from the longshoremen because of the long-standing feud between the two groups. Sailors looked down on longshoremen for not having the guts to go to sea, and longshoremen looked down on sailors for not being a true part of the community. Both groups, however, stayed well away from the mercenaries who had shown up in the last few days.

  Lonesome Star had returned to Westmarch nine days ago and still awaited new orders. Darrick drank alone at the table. During his leave from the ship, he’d remained solitary. Most of the men aboard Lonesome Star had hung around him because of Mat. Blessed with his good humor and countless stories, Mat had never lacked for company, friendship, or a full mug of ale at any gathering.

  None of the crew had made an attempt to spend much time with Darrick. Besides the captain’s frowning disapproval of an officer’s fraternization with crew, Darrick had never proven himself to be good company all the time. And with Mat dead now, Darrick wanted no company at all.

  During the past nine days, Darrick had slept aboard the ship rather than in the arms of any of the many willing women, and he’d marked time in one dive after another much like Cross-Eyed Sal’s. Normally, Mat would have dragged Darrick into any number of festive inns or gotten them invitations to events hosted by the lesser politicos in Westmarch. Somehow, Mat had managed to meet several wives and courtesans of those men while investigating Westmarch’s museums, art galleries, and churches—interests that Darrick had not shared. Darrick had even found the parties annoying.

  Darrick found the bottom of his mulled wine again and looked around for the tavern wench who had been serving him. She stood three tables away, in the crook of a big mercenary’s arm. Her laughter seemed obscene to Darrick, and his anger rose before he could throttle it.

  “Girl,” he called impatiently, thumping the tin tankard against the scarred tabletop.

  The wench extricated herself from the mercenary’s grasp, giggling and pushing against him in a manner meant to free herself and be seductive at the same time. She made her way across the packed room and took Darrick’s tankard.

  The group of mercenaries scowled at Darrick and talked among themselves in low voices.

  Darrick ignored them and leaned back against the wall behind him. He’d been in bars like this before countless times, and he’d seen hundreds of men like the mercenaries. Normally he was among ship’s crew, for it was Captain Tollifer’s standing order that no crewman drink alone. But since they’d been in port this time, Darrick had only drunk alone, making his way back to the ship each morning before daybreak any time he didn’t have an early watch.

  The wench brought back Darrick’s filled tankard. He paid her, adding a modest tip that drew no favoring glance. Normally Mat would have parted generously with his money, endearing himself to the serving wenches. Tonight, Darrick didn’t care. All he wanted was a full tankard till he took his leave.

  He returned his attention to the cold food on the wooden serving platter before him. The meal consisted of stringy meat and scorched potatoes, covered with flecks of thin gravy that looked no more appetizing than hound saliva. The tavern could get aw
ay with such weak fare because the city was burgeoning with mercenaries feeding at the king’s coffers. Darrick took a bit of meat and chewed it, watching as the big mercenary got up from his table, flanked by two of his friends.

  Under the table, Darrick pulled his cutlass across his lap. He’d made a practice of eating with his left hand, leaving his right hand free.

  “Hey there, swabbie,” the big mercenary growled, pulling out the chair across the table from Darrick and seating himself uninvited. The way he pronounced the term let Darrick know the man had meant the address as an insult.

  Although the longshoremen rode the sailors about being visitors to the city and not truly of it, the mercenaries were even less so. Mercenaries touted themselves as brave warriors, men used to fighting, and when any sailor made the same claim, the mercenaries tried to downplay the bravery of the sailors.

  Darrick waited, knowing the encounter wasn’t going to end well and actually welcoming it all the same. He didn’t know if there was a single man in the room who would stand with him, and he didn’t care.

  “You shouldn’t go interrupting a young girl what’s going about her business the way that young wench was,” the mercenary said. He was young and blond, broad-faced and gap-toothed, a man who had gotten by on sheer size a lot of the time. The scars on his face and arms spoke up for a past history of violence as well. He wore cheap leather armor and carried a short sword with a wire-wrapped hilt at his side.

  The other two mercenaries were about the same age, though they showed less experience. Darrick guessed that they were following their companion. Both of them looked a little uneasy about the confrontation.

  Darrick sipped from the tankard. Awarm glow filled his belly, and he knew only part of it was from the wine. “This is my table,” he said, “and I’m not inviting company.”

  “You looked lonely,” the big man said.

  “Have your eyesight checked,” Darrick suggested.

  The big man scowled. “You’re not an overly friendly sort.”