by Lisa Shearin
While we couldn’t reach the thousands of seabird nests, our firedrakes had no such problem. They probably liked fish well enough, but the eggs and the birds were a welcome treat. Thankfully there were plenty of seabirds, and drakes had enough sense not to gorge themselves. In the wild, a drake that couldn’t outmaneuver drakes from a rival flock when fighting for mates or territory didn’t live very long. When they were full, they stopped eating.
Unfortunately, a few of them had discovered the turtle nests.
I quickly went to where Calik was filing Sapphira’s claws while she dozed. I was careful to stay out of the sentry dragon’s torching range. I took a seat on the rocky beach near Calik and pointed out the adventuresome diners.
“Not a problem,” Calik told me. “Drakes and dragons can eat most anything. If you breathe fire and belch sulfur-scented gas, a little turtle toxin is just seasoning. They’ll be fine.”
Phaelan was sidling over to where we were, trying to give Sapphira a wide berth. The deep blue dragon opened one reptilian-pupiled eye into a slit and watched him. Phaelan saw and sidled faster.
“Don’t worry, Captain Benares. She won’t fry you,” Calik said. “I’ve told her not to. She always does as told.” He winked at me. “Most of the time.”
Phaelan saw the wink and chose to ignore it. “The two drakes that went out to have a look at the Nebian ships just came back.”
I sat up. “And?”
“They’re still there, about five miles out.”
Both Phaelan and Calik were looking at me.
Kesyn had wandered over. “That’s getting to be annoying.”
“As much as I’d like to, we can’t simply blow two ships out of the water just for following us,” I told them.
“Why not?” Phaelan asked. “And don’t give me that ‘I’m the king’s representative’ crap. They’re not tailing us because they want to make friends. They’re waiting for an opportunity—or a signal from someone.”
“We’re sitting on a beach and our dragons are asleep.” Calik lifted one of Sapphira’s newly manicured claws, released it, and it fell limply to the sand. That was a seriously relaxed dragon.
I nodded. “I know. I’ve been giving it a lot of thought. They know we’re going to Aquas, and we can’t risk them following us the rest of the way there. I’ll be taking my battle mages with me when we go inland, which will leave our ships magically defenseless. The mages on the Nebian ships aren’t Khrynsani. They’re worse, which until now I didn’t believe was possible.”
“What are the chances they’re not from around here?” Calik asked.
Meaning they were part of the off-world invaders. We had all been thinking it, but no one really wanted to say it.
“Their magic is unlike anything I have ever sensed,” I said. “Kesyn?”
“Slimiest magic I’ve ever felt. Even the blackest Khrynsani magic seems cleaner.”
“What do Gwyn and Gavyn have to say?” I asked Phaelan.
“They’re all in favor of clearing our wake. We’ve got enough trouble ahead of us; we don’t need it creeping up behind us, too. There are smaller islands on our way once we leave here.”
“You’re suggesting an ambush.”
“Strongly suggesting.”
“We’d need to completely conceal the ships,” I said. “Douse all signs of life and magic, but even that won’t be enough. We’ll need to conjure a realistic projection.”
“Fake ships?” Phaelan asked.
I nodded. “Just to give them something to chase, or at the very least distract them. It’ll be close. I’m sure they’re expecting something.”
Unless they had a surprise for us first.
Chapter 32
Imala needed to know what we were about to do, as did Mychael Eiliesor. Destroying two Nebian ships who had yet to fire on us was essentially a declaration of war. It didn’t matter how many alien dark mages there were on board.
Once again, I was about to be at the center of an inter-kingdom incident. Though this time, I’d be taking it one step further.
I’d be starting a war.
It was a decision I had to make on my own—and right now.
The Raven and Sea Wolf had each gone to shore and restocked their water supplies.
I had tried to contact Regor and the Isle of Mid to obtain official sanction for what I was about to do.
My attempts had been solidly blocked.
Not just blocked, slammed down—by the mages on the Nebian ships.
All three of our ships were flying Conclave Guardian flags. Diplomatically speaking, we were untouchable. I didn’t need to ask what Justinius Valerian would do. He was the supreme head of the Conclave of Sorcerers, the commander in chief of the Conclave Guardians, and the most powerful—and vicious, if pushed—mage in the Seven Kingdoms.
We’d just been on the receiving end of a sucker punch.
Justinius Valerian wasn’t one to turn the other cheek.
“So you feel better now about blowing them out of the water?” Phaelan asked cheerfully.
“I’m positively enthusiastic about it,” I said. “We’re too close to Aquas to let them follow us any longer. In mage-speak, what they just did by preventing us from contacting the mainland was firing a cannonball across our deck.”
Phaelan’s grinned fiercely. “Now that’s something I know how to respond to. And while I like a straight-up fight as much as the next pirate, I value my fleet over fun. Let’s set us up an ambush.”
*
If there were multiple angles to a plan—and multiple scenarios that could go wrong—I wanted them covered. Decisive action had its place and was all well and good, but judicious caution had kept me standing on top of the ground, rather than lying in a crypt beneath it. And I had no plans to go underground—or underwater—any time soon.
The Nebian ships had held their position on our southeastern horizon until our three ships emerged from the harbor close to sundown. The setting sun was in our eyes, but it was also in theirs. A good wind took us quickly to the last cluster of small, mountainous islands before we would again be in the open sea. We sailed just past the last one and turned sharply north, letting the island’s mountains act as a natural windbreak to slow us down. Phaelan expertly timed our arrival as the Nebians had begun gaining on us. When the Nebian ships cleared the last island, we would be waiting for them.
They never arrived.
“They should be here by now,” I murmured to myself.
“Don’t you think I know that?” Phaelan snapped from beside me.
I didn’t take Phaelan personally. We were all tense.
I ran down the stairs to the main deck and over to the open hold doors. All three ships had left their holds open. The ladies had a big part to play in tonight’s performance.
“Calik?” I called down, loud enough to be heard, but not loud enough to carry across the water.
“Sir?” Calik said from below.
“Get a drake aloft. We need to see what’s keeping our guests.”
*
We had turned to the north after passing the last island. The two Nebian ships had turned to the south and were holding their positions as well as they could. They were out of our cannon range, going no farther south, but coming no closer to where we were concealed.
They knew we were here, and they were waiting.
“What the hell are they doing?” Talon asked for all of us.
I allowed myself a moment of anger and then focused on what I felt, had been feeling, but had dismissed in favor of the threat I could see.
The Nebian ships had no intention of attacking us, at least not directly. An attack was imminent, but it wasn’t coming from any direction on the compass.
It was coming from below.
I ran to the rail and leaned over, staring down into the depths.
And saw a ship.
It wasn’t a reflection of the Kraken cast by her lanterns. It was the masts of a ship beneath the surface, sailing direct
ly under us on the currents, getting clear of the Kraken.
Once it was clear…
I took the stairs to the quarterdeck in two strides. “We’ve got demons.” I kept my voice down for Phaelan’s ears only.
Fortunately, the elf was facing toward the Nebian ships as they drifted into view just past the last island, but still out of cannon range. Our crew was rushing to battle stations, focused on their duty. That was good, because the color drained from their captain’s face.
“Demons? On my ship?”
“Not yet, but they’re coming—from below.”
“The hold?”
“The water. Under the water.”
“Sea monsters?”
The shouts came simultaneously, from fore and aft. Moments later, shouts rang out from the Raven and Sea Wolf.
Masts and sails erupted from beneath the waves, as a ship rose from the depths.
A red glow appeared beneath the surface off the starboard side, as a second mast broke the surface, followed by rotten sails, both black in the last rays of the setting sun. Twilight, the edge of darkness, when things that didn’t belong here could break through into the realm of the living.
“Ghost ships!” came the scream from aloft. And it was a scream, born of disbelief and terror.
The crews of all three ships went deathly silent as two ships, black of sail and wood, the decks and yardarms glittering with points of blood red light, surged to the surface, water sloughing off the decks as they settled on the waves. It took a few seconds for me to realize that what I was seeing weren’t lights.
They were eyes.
The eyes of countless demons of every size, gleaming in eager anticipation as they scurried across the deck and up the masts. Still others were launching themselves with bat-like wings onto the yardarms. All with one purpose—to board and take our ships. There would be no prisoners taken, no mercy shown.
We wouldn’t be captives.
We would be food.
The demons were aloft, but what stood silently on the decks were worse than demons. They were what any man or woman who went to sea feared above all else.
A ship of the dead.
A ship of the damned.
Given life, animated, in this place and at this time by dark demonic purpose.
The Nebian ships never had any intention of fighting us. The alien mages had conjured demons and the dead to do their fighting for them. These weren’t translucent phantoms. They may not have had blood, but they had flesh. Flesh that had been long dead. We couldn’t kill what was already dead. But I knew these dead could kill us.
Some of the demons looked all too familiar.
Demonic zombies, courtesy of Bricarda, brimstone-scented mage, and lady friend and fiend of Sarad Nukpana.
The demonic vessels had risen between us and the Raven and Sea Wolf—their intended victims.
Our slice of hell didn’t arise out of the depths, it sailed out of a sudden manifestation of mist between us and the island.
The Wraith.
No.
A growl started to build low in my chest and I let it. My lips peeled back from my fangs and the growl became a snarl and then a full-throated, enraged roar.
I wasn’t the only one.
Whoever had committed this blasphemy had made a very bad mistake.
Shock, fear, and raw agony showed on the faces of the goblins with me on the deck of the Kraken. The blackest magic was at work here. The appearances of the dead on the ghost ship’s deck were those of the men and women they had served with. To be attacked by their closest friends went beyond desecration. I swore by all I held dear that whoever was responsible would pay with their lives and souls. There would be nothing left.
“They’re not real,” I called out, using a touch of power to amplify my voice to carry throughout the Kraken and across the water to the Raven and Sea Wolf. The elven crews didn’t count the phantoms as friends, but they would have been afraid of a ghost ship of dead goblins regardless.
Jash tightly gripped his crossbow. “They could be constructs.”
“I know.”
“What the hell is a construct?” Phaelan’s voice was tight, but that was the only indication that what he was seeing was probably scaring him to death. I was impressed. This was a man who’d been ready to jump out of a second-story window rather than risk being in the same room with just one reanimated corpse.
“A construct is a conjured re-creation of a living being,” I told him. “Given enough power behind them, they can function just as they did while alive.”
“Meaning those things could kill us.”
“Yes.”
“But we can kill them, right?”
“If the mages who created that are strong enough, you could kill the constructs, but they would come right back.”
“That is not what I wanted to hear.”
“That wasn’t the answer I wanted to give you.”
If they were solid enough, we would have to kill them. To the goblins on the Kraken, it would be like losing their friends twice: once by explosion, again by their own hands. If they were recurring constructs, the goblins on the Kraken would have to kill their friends again and again. This was premeditated. Those who had done this had also been responsible for the destruction of the Wraith. They would have known who had been on board. Someone had been watching and recording before the explosion, gathering the images of those who had been about to die. They had a backup plan in place in case the expedition could continue without the Wraith and half her crew.
The Khrynsani had been involved.
In my dream, Sarad had said: “The terror’s in the details, details you will begin experiencing soon. I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise.”
Somehow, Sarad Nukpana had been involved. If he valued what was left of his life, he would stay in the Lower Hells. I wouldn’t use black magic or a bull demon to extinguish his miserable life.
I would use my bare hands.
The mages on the Nebian frigates were controlling all of this. Those ships wouldn’t be coming any closer. They didn’t need to. They only needed to be within sight of the construct they had created. I’d never heard of a Khrynsani mage who could manage constructs on this scale, enabling each creation to act independently. The work and craft involved was staggering.
The magic couldn’t possibly be of this world.
One of the goblin phantoms was manning a deck cannon aimed at our mainmast.
Phaelan stood straight. “Mr. Lucan?” he called.
“Sir!”
“Ready a broadside. On my order.”
“Aye, Captain.”
I couldn’t kill one of my countrymen in cold blood, but these weren’t my countrymen. They were images, re-creations of the living, nothing more.
“Give me the bow,” I told Jash.
“But—”
“You can’t do this. It should be me.”
Jash understood and handed me the crossbow. I was the leader of this expedition. If we had to fight the constructs of the Wraith’s dead crew, the responsibility or blame for that first kill to determine exactly how solid they were needed to fall squarely on my shoulders.
Phaelan stood still, waiting. A quick glance at me said he was holding the command to fire only for the sake of his new goblin crew members.
The phantom gunner lowered a glowing slow match to the cannon’s touch hole.
I snapped the bow to my shoulder and fired.
The bolt took him squarely in the chest.
An eldritch scream echoed across the distance between the ships. The gunner’s image flickered and vanished. The relief from the goblins around me was palpable. They were constructs. They might have looked like their dead friends, but they weren’t them.
We waited.
We didn’t have to wait long.
With another flicker, the gunner reappeared and smiled…
…and fired the cannon.
“Fire!” Phaelan screamed.
A broads
ide from the Kraken tore into the side of the Wraith.
The cannonball from the Wraith took a chunk out of the foredeck railing.
They didn’t want to destroy our ship.
They wanted to board us.
How can you fight opponents who can regenerate as soon as you kill them?
You kill the mages maintaining and regenerating the construct.
We had to get to those Nebian ships.
Phaelan had drawn a wicked, curved sabre, prepared to join his crew in repelling boarders. “Can you stop this?” he shouted.
“Yes.” I ran toward midship—and the hold.
Chapter 33
Calik Bakari had Sapphira saddled and ready to join the fight.
“I need her,” I said quickly. “They’re constructs. Kill them and they come back. The mages controlling those things are—”
Calik flashed a fierce grin in realization. “On those Nebian frigates. Say no more, I’m on it. A couple of grenades and they’ll lose control of everything, including their own—”
“You’re good, Calik. The best. But those mages are protected. The Nebians won’t leave any survivors. They can’t risk it.”
Calik stood back with a flourish, revealing a double saddle strapped to Sapphira’s back. “While you work your magic from the backseat, me and Saffie will keep you out of harm’s way. She’ll toast ’em.” He grinned broadly and tossed a grenade in his hand. “And I’ll roast ’em.”
I vaulted into the saddle. “Let’s do it.”
*
I’d planned to signal Bane and Dasant as soon as we were airborne, but it wasn’t necessary.
As Sapphira rose farther above the Kraken with each beat of her powerful wings, Bane flying with Amaranth and her pilot had already cleared the Raven’s mainmast. Dasant with Mithryn and her pilot were emerging from the Sea Wolf’s hold.
