Tylar finally spoke. “If the enslaved rogues are fueling this storm, then we can end this siege by finding and freeing them. As Eylan warned.”
“Simple enough,” Rogger said. “But that depends on two things.”
All eyes turned to him.
He held up a finger. “First, Tashijan must hold out that long.”
Kathryn nodded. That was her duty. To remain behind and rally the towers as best she could. To hold firm until Tylar could bring in additional forces-or find some way to free them. It wasn’t only rogues that were ensnared by the Cabal.
Rogger held up a second finger. “And more importantly, we must find this coven of song-cast gods.”
Tylar nodded. Here was his duty. “Eylan has offered us one clue. Hinterland.”
“Not exactly a map, now, is it?” Rogger said. “Half of Myrillia is still unsettled hinter. We can spend a lifetime or more to find them.”
“Maybe not,” Krevan said. “The skull came from Saysh Mal. The Eighth Land’s hinter is the trickiest maze of them all, and the most wild and dangerous.” The pirate glanced to Tylar. “Not one shadowknight has ever set foot in there and returned to tell about it. If you’re going to hide something from Tashijan, that would be a good place to begin.”
“And it was in that hinter that Keorn was captured,” Tylar said.
Krevan nodded. “The Wyr had tracked him there, then lost him. Only to have him appear again in Saysh Mal.”
“Then that’s where we’ll begin our search,” Tylar said.
“We may have one other ally to aid us,” the pirate said. He pointed to Rogger’s burdened satchel. “Wyrd Bennifren waits just outside of Saysh Mal, in the neighboring hinterland, for the skull. The trade still stands. We can ransom it against the Wyr’s knowledge.”
“Not a bargain I’d trust,” Rogger said.
“But we have little choice,” Tylar said. “And in some small way, perhaps it’s a debt we owe to Eylan.”
No one argued against that.
Rogger finally spoke. “I forgot one last item that stands between us and success.” He raised his hand and now held up three fingers. “Before any of this can begin, we have to get our arses out of here.”
After several matters had been settled further, Tylar stepped into the back room. They could wait no longer.
“It is time,” he told the healers.
Healer Fennis and his wife bustled on either side of the bed, shoving last bits of balms and wraps into an overstuffed pack. “Are you sure that’s everything?” Fennis asked.
His wife gave him a look that seemed equal parts exasperation and certainty.
Fennis held up a hand, acquiescing. Wise man.
Lorr crossed and picked up the pack.
“There’s extra wrappings,” Fennis said, fingering at the dressings on the man’s arm. “If you’ll need them.”
Lorr batted him away. “Don’t mind me. Get the boy ready.”
Tylar studied the wyld tracker. He had agreed to let Lorr join their search. His hunting and tracking skills could prove useful out in the hinterlands. It would be foolish to refuse such experienced service. The man hauled the laden bag with ease, little fazed by his burns.
Brant, though, looked little better, burnt as well, but on the inside, where it was harder for balms to reach. His bronze skin had yellowed and stretched thin across his bones. And though his breathing was stronger, when he tried to lift himself up on an elbow, he failed.
Tylar caught the healer’s eye.
“He’s been well-draughted,” the man assured him. “Addles a bit. By midday on the morrow, he’ll feel half his oats again.”
He nodded. Morning was not far off, but it seemed like a fanciful dream, a hope that one did not really expect to attain.
Kathryn hurried inside, slightly breathless. “I heard word. Argent has gotten wise to what we’re planning.”
Tylar clenched a fist.
“I’ll get Master Brant,” the giant said.
The loam-giant rose from a crouch on the far side of the bed and plucked away the bedsheet. He gently collected Brant out of his nest of pillows with a regretful expression.
Brant startled, clutching at the man’s neck.
“Just Mal, Master Brant.”
The boy’s eyes focused and searched the room. “We’re heading out?” he asked through thin lips.
“We must,” Tylar said and led them back to the main room. The others were already waiting.
“I’m coming with you,” Mal said.
Tylar thought to argue, but the giant’s brother had died to gain them this vantage. Plus the man was plainly strong and could prove his value. An objection arose, though, from another corner.
“No,” Brant mumbled. “The whelpings?”
“I locked ’em up in your rooms,” the giant said. He pulled a key from a pocket as proof.
“Who’s going to-?” Brant coughed away the last of his words, but the worry shone in his wan face.
Mal’s brow furrowed into deep-plowed tracks, caught between two duties.
He was saved by a hand plucking the key from his fingertips. Lorr tossed the key over to the young tracker beside the bullhound. “Kytt and Barrin will look after them.”
The young tracker bumbled the iron key, and it fell with a clatter.
Laurelle retrieved it as it bounced to her toes. “I’ll help, too.”
Mal sighed with relief. “They’ll take good care of the mites.”
Brant still wore a troubled expression, but he did not object.
With such matters settled, they set out. Dart gave her friend Laurelle a final teary-eyed hug. Then the group was on its way at a quick pace, herded close, led by Kathryn.
Halfway down the hall, a long-limbed man in blue livery, spotless and unwrinkled, blocked the way. “The warden sent word that no one is to leave this floor!” he scolded.
“Out of our way, Lowl,” Kathryn said, stiff-arming him aside. Luckily all of Argent’s forces were occupied down below, leaving only this manservant to attend his orders here. “I’ll take it up with the warden when I get back.”
Chased by the man’s objections, they hurried to the stairs and fled up toward the top of the tower. A cool wind wafted down to them. Tylar heard the pound of hammer on wood. That could not be good. With Argent below and the storm without, they had no time for delays.
Tylar found Captain Horas just inside the door that led out to the flippercraft dock atop Stormwatch. He had a stick of coal in one hand and had been calculating on the wall. Numbers and symbols lined from floor to eye. Some crossed out, others circled.
The man wore the yellow-and-white uniform of his station, but it was stained and smudged. From the smell, not all of it was coal.
“Won’t work…” the captain muttered, scratching his head with his sliver of coal.
Tylar joined him and waved the others out on the dock.
Captain Horas had to squeeze against the wall to allow Malthumalbaen to pass. His eyes tracked the giant, then back to Tylar. “He’s not going, is he?”
Tylar nodded.
“Sweet aether…” The captain scratched a line of calculations. “A dozen, that’s the most we’ll be able to ferry through the storm. If we can ferry through the storm.” He laughed, but it held no mirth. “And I need three men to crew…and that giant…that’s two men right there.”
Tylar took the charcoal from his fingers and turned the man toward the open door. “We’ll have to manage.” He gave him a push out into the freezing bite of the storm’s heart.
Outside, the others gaped at the state of the flippercraft. The woodwrights had proven their mastery. The stoved ship seemed to be patched well. Details were fairly smeared away.
Lorr held a hand over his nose. Tylar did not blame him. The reek was overpowering even in the open.
“Black bile,” Krevan said with a shake of his head.
One of the dockworkers, masked against the stench, swabbed a sodden mop over the outer plank
ing of the ship’s bow, smearing more black bile over a thin patch. Shouts echoed. Ladders were being hauled aside.
Tylar hurried to the others.
Rogger stood with his fists on his hips. “A ship of shite…now that’s a boat fit for a regent.”
Gerrod crossed toward the group, expressionless behind his bronze armor. He was followed by a welcome figure. Delia was bundled in a heavy coat, also splattered with bile.
“You had enough humour?” Tylar asked the armored master.
“Barely. We’ve emptied all of Tashijan’s storehouses.”
“And a few privies, I’d imagine,” Rogger said.
Gerrod ignored him. “Mistress Delia has proven to be an able alchemist. She had some suggestions for heightening the Grace with tears. It will not last long, but hopefully long enough to get through the storm.”
Delia stood to the side with her arms crossed. Her eyes flitted to Kathryn and back to him, her face unreadable, smudged with bile.
Gerrod continued, “Her suggestion allowed us to thin the coating across the flippercraft, while still hopefully blocking the storm’s ability to draw Grace out of the ship’s mekanicals as you pass through it. But even bile has its limits. You will have to gain as much wind as you can before attempting to spear through the storm’s ring.”
“We’ll make it,” Tylar said. They had no other choice.
A shout by the stairway door reminded them that Argent was on his way.
“Everybody aboard,” Kathryn said.
Tylar waved them toward the open hatch. Captain Horas and two of his men had already boarded, all wearing expressions of doom. Tylar watched the others climb inside. They looked no more confident, except Rogger, who was whistling.
The last to leave, Tylar turned to Kathryn and Delia. Gerrod had already clanked off to oversee something near the stern tie-down.
The two women seemed to suddenly become aware they were alone together. Kathryn broke the spell first. “I should get below. Argent will need much calming. And we have our towers to ready.”
Delia stepped off after her. “And I should see to Laurelle and the other Hands.”
Tylar lifted an arm, to object, to offer some more intimate farewell.
But he wasn’t sure to which woman he raised his arm.
Before he could decide, the pair retreated back toward the warmth and light of the open tower door. Left out in the cold, Tylar turned toward the waiting ship. A frigid breeze swept through him. His broken finger ached, and behind the palm print on his chest, something deep inside him churned with distress.
Rogger stood at the open hatch to the flippercraft and waved him to hurry. Ducking against the wind, Tylar headed toward the ship.
He did not whistle.
Dart held tight to the belt that secured her seat as the flippercraft lifted from its docking cradle. A tremble passed underfoot and under her buttocks. The mekanicals had been set to full burn. In her belly, she felt the world fall away under her.
Pupp stood near her seat, legs wide, spiky mane sticking straight out around his face. Dart swore she could hear him whine in the back of her head, but maybe it was the mekanicals ratcheting up into higher pitches, where the normal ear could not discern but only felt in the bones.
She glanced to the porthole window beside her head, but there was nothing to see. Even the windows were coated with bile.
Across from her sat Calla, the gray-cloaked Black Flagger. Despite the ash on her face, Dart read the worry. She kept glancing to Krevan, her leader, who stood at the door to their tiny cabin braced in the opening, ready to ride out the storm on his feet. He had argued earlier to join Tylar and the captain in the forward controls, but he had been refused. Captain Horas was in no mood to argue, and Tylar supported him.
“His ship, his command,” the regent had said.
Past Krevan, another cabin stood open to the hall. Malthumalbaen filled an entire bench by himself. Brant was propped up next to him, his head hanging, asleep or despondent. The giant rested a massive hand on his shoulder. On the opposite bench, Lorr sprawled on his back, knees up, as if they were all afloat on a sunny river.
Rogger spoke beside her. “Best you blink a few times, lass. Your eyeballs will dry out if you keep staring like that.”
Dart leaned back. Her fingers remained clenched.
“We’ll get through this storm,” he assured her.
“How do you know?” She coughed to chase the tremulous keen from her words.
“We’re covered in shite. What storm god would want to snatch us from the air? Probably part the clouds themselves so we don’t smudge their snowy whiteness.”
She offered a weak smile.
“We’ll make it through,” he promised.
She took a measure of strength from his confidence, but not all her worries were buried in the storm. We’ll make it through. But what then? Though she appreciated Rogger’s company, she was all too aware of the burden he carried in his satchel. It rested beside him tied to his wrist.
The skull of the rogue god.
She had been trying her best to ignore it, to dismiss it as some cursed talisman, none of her concern. Even the others continued to avoid mentioning the more intimate history of the bones.
The rogue had a name.
Keorn.
After so many years wondering about her mother and father, dreaming her childhood fantasies, here was her reality. Her father was no faceless rogue. In one night, she had gained not just a father, but an entire lineage.
Chrism’s son.
That made her Chrism’s granddaughter.
It had been Chrism who had forged Rivenscryr and sundered the gods’ homeworld in the first War of the Gods. And now a new war was starting here on Myrillia. Ancient enmities, drowned in the naether, were rising again.
And she stood at the heart of it.
Chrism’s granddaughter.
That was enough to unsettle her, to make her want to run and keep running. But that was not the primary reason for her bone-deep unease. She had long come to accept her heritage as the progeny of rogue gods. Even this new revelation of her heritage, she could come to acknowledge. In fact, she had already unburdened her fears to Laurelle and Delia. After an initial surprise, Laurelle had readily accepted her heritage.
“It makes no difference,” Laurelle had said and hugged her to prove it.
But it had been Delia who truly helped return Dart’s footing. “It doesn’t matter,” she had said. “You are not your father, nor your grandfather. And I should know, being the daughter of Argent ser Fields. Blood does not dictate the woman. Only your own heart does. You must remember that.”
And she would.
But that sentiment did not soothe another reality, one more solid than fear. She stared at the satchel. After so long being mere myth and dream, here was her father. The last of his bones. All that was left, all she would ever truly know. And despite the curse, she longed to touch them, to make at least that much contact, between daughter and father.
And deeper below this desire lay a well of grief.
Her father was dead. And if the stories were true, he had sacrificed himself to bring forth word of his enslaved and tortured brethren. This was also her heritage. And it both warmed her and filled her with sorrow.
Who was her father?
Even a name did not fully answer that.
She tried searching out the window to distract her, but there was nothing to see. We’ll make it through. Then what? From there, they would follow the last footsteps of her father.
But where would they lead?
Around her, the flippercraft shuddered, from bow to stern.
“We’re entering the storm,” Rogger said.
Tylar crashed against the railing. He clutched at the grip, earning a protest from his wrapped hand. He stood at the foot of the spar that led out to where the pilot had been belted to his chair. Like the bowsprit of a deepwhaler, the man’s perch protruded from the deck and overhung the wide curved
glass Eye of the ship.
Nothing could be seen below. Blinded by bile, the pilot had to trust the calls of fathoms from his crewmate who manned a steaming curve of mekanicals locked in bronze to the left. The mica tubes and vessels bubbled with the churning alchemies. The mate, a short, bandy-legged man, kept a continuing report of the ship’s health and course.
On the far side of the deck, to the right, Captain Horas stood before another curve of mekanicals. He danced across the jarring deck as if it were as steady as stone. Tugging at his forked beard, he monitored his stations, becoming another mate of the three-man crew. At the same time, he did not forsake his role as captain.
“Two turns to port!” he shouted to the pilot. “Catch the wind on the aft flippers!”
This was his ship. He seemed to read its every bump and roll with more intent than the mekanical soundings. Tylar kept out of his way, out of everyone’s way. He was here only in case his blood was needed. Through his veins, raw Grace flowed. It bore the aspect of water, not air. But power was power, and if it proved necessary…
The ship heaved up on one side. Tylar slid down the smooth rail, hanging by his hands. Terror rang through him.
Captain Horas came running down the tilted deck. He skidded next to the smaller mate and clapped him on the shoulder as if greeting him on the street. “Feed a flow here…and here…” He tapped at two mica tubes that steamed and hissed.
“Will it hold?” the other asked, but he was already turning bronze knobs.
“It will have to,” Captain Horas said as the pilot corrected the roll and evened the deck. He crossed to Tylar on his way back to his original post. Their eyes met.
Tylar pulled on the rail to gain his feet. “How are the alchemies holding?”
“We’re losing air.” Horas read the concern in Tylar’s face. “Not air Graces, just air. The storm gods know what we attempt. I can practically sense their Dark Grace swirling around us, seeking some crack to suck the power out of our alchemies. But as long as we keep a full burn, the mekanicals are holding steady.”
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