Scimitar Moon

by Chris A. Jackson

  “We’ll hold this course,” Brelak said, making a decision. “He can’t go too far west without running the risk of hitting a reef. He’ll either turn north, or stay on course. This’ll clear by mornin’; then we’ll see what’s what.”

  “Aye, sir,” Rowland said, but they both knew that in these conditions, if their prey changed course they could be a hundred miles apart by morning.

  CHAPTER Thirty-One

  Defeat

  “Bloody hell!” Brelak swore, gripping the wheel with white-knuckled fury as he glared at the mountainous seas, the screaming sky and his battered crew. Morning brought clearer air, but even higher winds and seas. Hurricane-force gusts and torrential rain cut visibility to less than a mile.

  Hippotrin was nowhere in sight.

  All hands had been on deck throughout the night, and everyone bore signs of exhaustion. They had held their course, or tried to, under reefed sails and greatly diminished speed, no-one knew how far downwind the storm had pushed them.

  “We gotta make a run fer it, Capt’n!” Rowland made his way aft from the foredeck where he’d been handing out rations. “Hippotrin could be anywhere. We’re slidin’ downwind and the Shattered Isles are somewhere to leeward. We need to head back to Southaven.”

  “Bloody, bloody hell!” Brelak squinted to leeward. The southeasterly weather bore into them, pushing them toward the deadly leeward shore. “I’m not givin’ up, Row,” he said, wiping the spray from his face. Another crashing wave buried the foredeck, knocking men to the lengths of their lifelines. “The ship can take it. She’s not even shippin’ much water. She’s tight as a drum.”

  “The ship can take it, but the crew can’t. Even if we find Hippotrin, there’s nothing we can do. We’d smash each other to splinters if we tried to board in these seas.”

  “We could follow them to Bloodwind’s lair,” he countered, turning into a crashing sea that buried the foredeck once again.

  “They’d let you chase ’em to the southern ice before they’d lead you to Bloodwind,” Rowland said, ducking his shoulder into the driving spray.

  “I’m not givin’ up! I can’t give up!”

  “I ain’t sayin’ give up. We need help, is all. More men, more weapons, and more ships. We’ll find her, Feldrin, but we can’t do it alone!”

  He glared at the cook, clenching his teeth against the truth. Rowland was right. He knew it in his head, but his heart raged at him to continue the hunt, to find Hippotrin and gut that traitorous pirate Yodrin. He squinted out over the deck, taking stock of his exhausted crew. The night had taken its toll, and everyone sported minor injuries from hour after hour of battering seas. Their eyes looked up to him—their captain, their sole link to life or death. There were no accusations there, no judgments; they would follow him whatever decision he made.

  “Bloody hell,” he muttered as the facts won out over his emotions. His heart ached as it never had before, but he had no choice.

  “Prepare to tack! Man the foresheets! Backfill the jib as we come about! Rowland, take a man below and center that monstrosity of a stove. We’re gonna be on a starboard broad reach. I want the flying jib on her as soon as we’re downwind. We should rig the fore-top, but we’ve got no spare yard. These damned swells are so high we’re losin’ our wind in the troughs. Gotta keep her pointed or we’ll broach.”

  “Aye, sir!” Rowland began shouting orders.

  In only a few minutes they were ready, but timing would be crucial. Tacking a ship in seas like this was a dangerous maneuver. If they failed to come about, if the bow remained pointed into the wind and the sails flapped uselessly, the swell could push them backward down a wave, which could snap the rudder and leave them at the mercy of the sea and the rocks of the Shattered Isles.

  “All hands, we’re comin’ about!” Brelak brought the wheel over as they mounted a swell, swinging her bow around into the wind.

  The exhausted crew toiled with surprising speed. The bow came around smartly, smashing through a plunging swell. In moments, the sails were set and Orin’s Pride raced ahead on her new course, surfing the monstrous swells with the wind now on her starboard stern quarter. With the seas no longer breaking over the foredeck, the entire crew heaved a collective sigh of relief. The helmsman bore the brunt of the duty on this tack, fighting every swell to keep her bow pointed downwind.

  “Get the off-watch below, Row,” Brelak ordered, “and see if you can manage a hot meal. Four hours and it’s your watch. Get some sleep.”

  “Aye, sir.” He shouted orders and the crew responded, struggling out of their harnesses and going below.

  As the ship quieted down, Feldrin Brelak spared a glance over his shoulder to the southwest. Somewhere between them and the Shattered Isles sailed Hippotrin, but how far and on what tack, he had no way to know.

  *

  “Furl the fores’l! Get another reef in that main, damn you!” Yodrin cracked a length of knotted line across the back of a slow sailor, urging him on. “Faster, damn you! I’ll have your balls on a spit if you don’t shape up!”

  Cynthia smirked at the venomous glare the crewman cast at his captain’s back.

  Hippotrin clawed upwind, straining to maintain a southerly course. They’d spent the night pounding into the mounting seas in an attempt to keep the ship east of the Shattered Isles. With no moon or stars to fix a position, the distance to the lee shore was only a dangerous guess.

  Neither of the captives had slept much. Cynthia’s exhaustion, combined with her seasickness and lack of food and water, left her weak and shaking. Hope that Mouse would find some way to help them dwindled as the night wore on. The decks were often awash; the little sprite could have easily been swept overboard.

  Dawn brought little comfort, but it did bring Koybur with another cup of hot tea and a sandwich of bread, cheese and beef jerky. Cynthia choked back her rage long enough to take a mouthful of tea. She swallowed forcefully, washing the salt and bile from her mouth, willing the warming liquid to stay put. She turned away from the proffered food, knowing she would be lucky if the tea stayed down. Koybur stumbled as the deck lurched, fighting to stay on his one good leg and hold the food.

  “He’s going to run this ship onto a reef if he doesn’t change course,” Ghelfan told Koybur while chewing the tough beef into submission. “He could make more sea-room if he beat northeast.”

  “Aye, he’s less of a sailor than a killer.” Koybur held the cup to Ghelfan’s lips until it ran empty.

  “Did you help him with that, too?” Cynthia’s anger boiled away her nausea and calmed her ceaseless shivering for a moment. “Did you help him kill my grandmother?”

  “What do you think?”

  She looked into Koybur’s tortured features for a moment; there was more pain in his one good eye than a lifetime as a cripple had dealt him. A surge of sympathy welled up in her, but the anguish of his betrayal promptly drowned it out.

  “I don’t know what to think anymore, Koybur.”

  “Think whatever you like, Cyn, but I never—”

  “Enough talk there!” Yodrin strode forward, his voice ragged from yelling orders all night. “Back to your station! One more word out of your mouth to those two and I’ll cut out your lying tongue.”

  Koybur turned his back to the bound pair and made his way aft without a word. Yodrin bristled at the lack of respect and raised the knotted line to strike, but a breaking wave buried Hippotrin’s bow, tossing the ship like a child’s toy in a bathtub. She watched Koybur disappear down the hatch, her thoughts straying to the same burning question: Why? Why did you do it, Koybur? Why did you betray me?

  *

  “The storm grows, my captain,” Hydra said, entering the room without preamble. She wore the familiar guise of a sensuous young woman, but Camilla ignored it, knowing what lurked beneath. She kept her eyes on her plate, concentrating on her breakfast. She had eaten well since her transition from slavery. The cost seemed trifling when compared to the years of hunger and degradation.
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  “I don’t need a sorceress to tell me that,” Bloodwind said around a mouthful of kippered flying fish. “I can hear the wind through the shutters and see it bending the palms. What I can’t see is Hippotrin. Tell me if my new ship is in peril.”

  “The storm will pass through the Fathomless Reaches tonight. The winds will bear southeasterly, shifting south and then southwest as it passes.” She shrugged, strolling slowly around the table while tracing one long, slender finger along the back of Camilla’s chair. “Hippotrin sails west of Carbuncle Shoal, holding a southerly course. Yodrin does not know the force of this storm, nor its track. His speed is diminished, but even beating against the wind, he is making ten knots.”

  “So he’s sailing right into it.” Bloodwind considered the delicate fish arrayed on his plate, put his fork down and shifted his eyes to Hydra’s pitiless orbs. “Can you protect them? Shift the storm, or divert some of the winds?”

  “Such a storm is beyond my power, my captain. I can calm the seas around the ship, but doing so will require a great amount of energy. I will need…” her fingertips brushed Camilla’s bare shoulder, “sustenance.”

  Camilla pulled away, shuddering at the chill caress.

  Both women jumped as Bloodwind buried the point of his dagger into the tabletop. The violence of his thrust had upset a pot of preserves, and the sticky sweet stain, red as blood, spread slowly across the white linen tablecloth. Bloodwind’s voice, low and as smooth as the freshly pressed tablecloth, bore an edge as sharp as the dagger in his hand.

  “I told you once, Hydra. Touch her again, and I’ll put this in your eye. Of the two of you, I value her company much more than yours.”

  “Ah, but my captain,” Hydra said easily, slithering around the table in a caricature of feminine seduction, “she brings you only pleasure of the flesh, while I bring you gold. And at what price?”

  The sorceress wrapped one slim hand around the blade of the dagger embedded in the table and slid her palm up the edge. Camilla cringed as black ichor oozed from between her fingers to hiss and smoke upon the table.

  “Only a little blood.”

  “You’ll have your price, Hydra, but not her.” The pirate stood and wrenched the dagger from the table. The black liquid smoldered upon the blade, pitting the fine steel. He cast it aside and fixed her with an equally smoldering glare. “I will send as many slaves as you require. Protect Hippotrin.”

  “I will try, my captain.” She inspected the cut on her palm and smiled. Her sensuous curves swayed like the undulations of a serpent as she left the room.

  “She is dangerous,” Camilla said, pushing away her plate, her appetite destroyed. “She will kill us all if she doesn’t get what she wants.”

  “Rest easy, my dear.” Bloodwind rounded the table and took her hand, escorting her from the breakfast area to the shuttered doors that led out to the balcony. The doors shuddered with the rising storm. “There is no shortage of slaves for her to devour. Unfortunately, her services are indispensable to my plan, and she knows it.”

  “And your plan? Your real plan?” She knew now that he coveted more than gold, that power was his true seduction. But how much power?

  “My plan, dear Camilla,” he said, reaching for the latch, “is to have everything.” He turned the latch and flung the shutter aside.

  Storm winds and tepid rain drenched them both to the skin in an instant as he pulled her onto the balcony. He encircled her with one strong arm, drawing her close, as he swept his other in an arc to indicate the entirety of Blood Bay.

  Wind and rain thrashed through the palms and mangroves. The power of the storm gripped Camilla, even as she shivered with the drenching rain. Its strength and violence reminded her of Bloodwind, as if he were a personification of nature’s most horrific force.

  “I want it all, Camilla. This is just the beginning. I will have everything.” He pulled her close, his palm cupping her cheek to bring her face up to his. “And you will have everything with me.”

  She moved with him as he guided her into the lee of one of the massive pillars that supported the stone over their heads. The rock pressed against her back, rough through the silk of her gown, in contrast to the softness of his lips as they pressed against hers. Slowly, gently, he drew down the shoulders of her dress. This was the cost of her freedom from torment. No small price, but she relinquished it, drawing him to her as his hands rent the fabric of her sodden gown.

  “Everything,” he said in her ear, his hushed voice barely audible above the driving rain and the roaring in her ears as he and the storm surged against her bared flesh.

  “Yes,” she whispered back. “Everything…”

  CHAPTER Thirty-Two

  Storm Child

  Orin’s Pride raced before the storm, surfing the swells with gale-force winds filling every stitch of canvas the crew could hoist aloft. Brelak could not measure their precise speed in the following sea, but he knew they were sailing faster than any ship had ever sailed. If he had accurately estimated their position, they would be in Southaven by morning.

  “My watch, Captain.” Rowland’s bony hand clapped him on the shoulder, and he handed over the wheel. “Anything I need to know?”

  “Nothin’ new. Just keep her bow pointed about forty degrees. Wind’s clockin’ west.”

  “Aye. Damn big storm. Thought we’d be out of it by now.”

  “As did I. As did I.” Brelak glared up at the overcast, willing it to dissipate. “Bloody early fer a hurricane, but there ain’t no doubt of it.”

  “Aye, we’d have been in the thick of it if we’d stayed on course. I imagine the Shattered Isles are getting the brunt of it.”

  “And Hippotrin.” Brelak’s voice rumbled like distant thunder. He looked over his shoulder at the seas, imagining Hippotrin pounding into a hurricane, and aboard her Cynthia Flaxal in the hands of the pirate Yodrin. “Bloody hell…”

  He went below and sat down to a bowl of stew and biscuits in the captain’s cabin, his cabin. Food calmed him, but his eyes fixed on the heavy teak cabinet that held the lightkeeper’s fire and he began to wonder. Curiosity won out over caution, and he opened the cabinet. A moment’s inspection showed him where all but a few strands of the pull cord had been cut through, the damage hidden with a bit of wax.

  “Sabotage,” he said, fingering the cut hemp. Karek or Yodrin must have done it prior to their departure. His temper flared, wishing he could jam the ceramic vessel of dormant fire down Bloodwind’s throat and pull the cord. One of his dark brows arched speculatively with the thought that he might be able to do that very thing.

  “Maybe…”

  *

  Blood and water… life and death… power and the beast within all vied for a place in Hydra’s over-taxed mind. The storm slammed relentlessly against her, pounding on the shield of her tattered sanity like a hammer against an eggshell. The shell was cracked, but it held; blood held it intact, and she needed more.

  “Bring her!”

  A scream shivered the air, but it went unheeded. The guard was either deaf or inured to the suffering and fear of those in his charge, and Hydra simply didn’t care.

  Blood was the only thing that mattered.

  Keeping her mind focused on the task of calming the seas around Hippotrin, Hydra reached out and drew the struggling girl near. Briefly, she glanced at her prey, young and strong, one of Bloodwind’s whores, no doubt. The horror and disbelief on the pretty face whet Hydra’s appetite as her nails pierced the delicate flesh. The girl’s screams devolved into gurgles as a torrent of sweet crimson flowed down Hydra’s throat in gulp after luscious gulp. She fed until she felt her stomach would explode, then cast the lifeless husk aside and bent all her will back to her task.

  Power flowed through her, slamming against the brunt of the storm, flattening the towering swells, preventing the plunging breakers from burying the ship. How much power, how many times she fed, all blurred in the morass of fatigue and concentration. One thought, however, did fin
ally surface through the haze of magic, blood and madness: the expenditure of this much magical energy had drawn attention.

  “Odea’s minions…” she hissed, gazing into the swirling pool of bloody seawater. “They come.”

  *

  “Something’s wrong!” Cynthia shouted, her words barely reaching Ghelfan’s ears before being torn away by the howling wind. “The seas have calmed, but the winds are higher.”

  “Magic,” he yelled into the wind, his face turned away from the sting of rain. “Someone is holding back the worst of the seas.”

  “Right now, I think I’d like to thank them.” She squinted into the distance. They had seen flashes of lightning all night, but aside from that sporadic illumination, darkness enveloped them like a burial shroud. She could barely see the surface of the sea, a blur of foam-streaked water flowing past at an astonishing rate. “We’re making better headway.”

  “Yes, but think, Cynthia. This is a cyclone, and we are on a port tack beating into the wind.”

  “We’re sailing right into it,” she said. “Yodrin’s crazy! Unless our heading has changed, he’ll run us ashore before he makes the Fathomless Reaches.”

  “That might be a kinder fate than arriving safely at our destination.” The shipwright’s tone had gone grim. “Bloodwind will get what he wants from us.”

  Lightning split the sky in a sheet of white, revealing the sea around them in horrifying detail. They sailed in the center of a circle of ocean hammered flat by an unseen hand. Mountains of water encircled them, towering seas streaked white with foam that peaked at half the height of the mast. Only a circle of water perhaps two lengths of the ship lay in a relative state of calm, and that calm hardly resembled a quiescent sea.

  “Holy mother of storms!” she heard Ghelfan gasp as shouts of surprise and alarm rang out around the deck.