The Silver Star (Kat Drummond Book 11)

by Nicholas Woode-Smith

  “Don’t mer live underwater?” I asked. I held some sympathy for Lianthorn’s story and the elves who had been slaughtered, but I was also a historian. I had to take stories like these with a pinch of salt. There were many more stories of elves wiping out humans on the North Island to contrast with this tale of woe.

  “Some do,” Lianthorn answered, with the tone of a teacher tutoring a grade schooler. “But we have spotted a huge concentration of mer on this island. The magic and raids emanate from this location. I am certain this is where the sea witch resides.”

  “And no one has tried to fight her before?”

  “We have bigger threats facing our home, human. Not that you would understand.”

  Sure, I didn’t have Anzac on my doorstep. I only had to worry about the Empire, necromancers, Adamastor and the villain or monster of the week. I was practically on permanent vacation.

  The ship heaved to a stop on the beach. Apparently, they didn’t fear being beached. They had hydromancers onboard that could carry the ship back out to sea. Seemed like an unnecessary risk to take. What if the mages ran out of spark? Or died? Magic-users were so complacent!

  Brett, along with the ship’s crew, relaxed as best he could while flanked by Sintari guards. I was relieved to see that one of them was Ari. She’d convinced Lianthorn not to execute us right then and there. That meant she had to be at least a little bit reasonable.

  I embraced Brett.

  “Are you sure you’ll be fine without me?”

  “With that chunk out of your leg, you’ll just slow me down. Besides, you’re a valuable hostage.”

  I tried to smile but ended up frowning.

  To my side, Trudie was lecturing Senegal.

  “Watch the pack till I’m back.”

  Senegal was in human form, but his expression looked like he had his tail between his legs. But he nodded all the same. I turned to the party that would accompany me ashore.

  Trudie pulled back from Senegal, joining with Pranish whose arms were crossed. But I saw a glint in his eye. The island had a weyline. A great comfort for a wizard. I knew he didn’t want to rely on his measly spark and cryomancy. Candace and Kyong stood apart. My sister’s thigh looked good as new. Elf healers had taken care of the party. Triage, only. Brett was saved from death’s door, but he still had a limp and a nasty scar.

  “When you are on the beach, we will lower down your weapons,” Ari explained. Her English was pretty good. Held a hint of an American accent. “Is it just the sword, dagger and gun?”

  I nodded. They didn’t need to know that all the weapons were for me. My comrades didn’t really need them.

  We stepped onto an elevator platform along the side of the ship and were lowered down slowly to the sandy shores. As we reached the bottom, another elevator dropped, carrying my weapons.

  I retrieved them and holstered them around my belt, coat and thigh. It felt good to have their familiar weights in their respective places. It felt like at least one thing was right in the world.

  But this familiarity was not enough to raise my spirits in such a place.

  The beach was silent. Eerily so. The fog was thick, and the air held a morbid foreboding chill. It was as if a pale greyness infused this land. And the dawn held an ironic promise of death.

  “Slay the witch!” Lianthorn called down from above, his voice out of place on these silent shores. “And don’t try to escape. Even if you managed to somehow swim for your life, your comrades will be here with us. And they will soon wish for death after that.”

  He disappeared, leaving us alone on the shore.

  “Charming man,” I muttered, then sighed.

  “What’s your strategy, Kat?” Pranish asked.

  Candace and he did not have their spell books. We didn’t want to reveal that they were wizards. So, they were relying on memorised spells. The strain of memorisation was taking its toll, evidenced by creased foreheads and bags under their eyes.

  Candace, almost absent mindedly, strolled away from the group, towards the edge of the beach as it rose up into a grassy hillock. I saw the roofs of concrete structures just beyond.

  I glanced towards her, but Kyong and Pranish were still looking to me to lead them.

  “If the mer are being mind-controlled by this witch’s corruption, then I’d prefer to minimise casualties. We’ve killed a lot of them already.”

  “They’re dangerous, commander. We may not have a choice,” Kyong commented.

  “I know. But if we can choose to spare them, do so. Otherwise, do what you must.”

  The men nodded. I turned to Candace, who had stopped and was looking towards the roofs of the buildings. Fog roiled overhead.

  “What is it?” I whispered, catching up to her.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered back, glancing between me and the buildings. “I’m feeling something.”

  Vague.

  “Treth,” I whispered. “Can you go scout just ahead?”

  He saluted and disappeared into the fog. Always useful to have a spectral scout.

  I turned to the party.

  “Stay close. Let’s find this sea witch and save our friends.”

  No objections. The group followed, with me taking the lead. Trudie hung back, watching our rear.

  We scaled the hillock, smelling wafts of fresh morning dew on the leaves and foliage. It was a fleetingly pleasant smell, as the rot of the ocean soon overwhelmed it.

  On top of the hillock, I drew my sword, slowly and softly. Before us stood a large stone and concrete structure. Thin slits surrounded it at eye level, with a hole dominating the centre. Out of the hole, protruded a metal pipe. Thick metal. Artillery. Well, it was once artillery. Magic of some kind had warped the barrel, so that it was now bent into a right angle.

  “Bunker?” Candace asked, whispering.

  I nodded. “Looks that way.”

  The Sintari-Anzac Wars had been going on and off for decades now. Sometimes, the elves and humans found middle ground. For a time, humans and elves would coexist in tentative peace. It worked in Ireland. But, the Irish elves were not Sintari and did not wish to govern. There had been no wars to determine domination there. Here, my aunt had worked to achieve and maintain peace among warring peoples. She had failed. Again, and again. But had kept on trying, until she found herself on the wrong side of the straits when war started again.

  I suspected that many more remains of past wars littered these islands.

  We rounded the bunker and found its door rusted shut. No signs of scuffing on the floor. It had been closed for a long time. No mer or sea witch inside. And I didn’t want to find out what was.

  On the other side of the bunker was a form of a street. Dirt-road flanked by more concrete structures. But, intermeshed between them, the ruins of stone structures. They looked to be of an old, alien design, but this was a new island. These had to be the remains of the elvish village. Perhaps, Lianthorn had been telling the truth.

  There were no signs of life, death or undeath. No mer. Living or dead. And no sea witch. Just an abandoned military base, built on top of the husk of an elvish settlement.

  Candace sniffed.

  “There’s darkness here,” she muttered.

  “You’d know,” Trudie remarked, venom in her voice.

  Candace continued, ignoring her. “It’s a dark weyline. There has been suffering here. A lot of it. It’s toxified the magic.”

  “Can you two still use your magic?” I asked, now understanding my profound feeling of unease. Weylines could affect one’s mood profoundly. Dark enough weylines had been known to drive people to murder and suicide.

  Pranish and Candace nodded.

  “My combat magic will be fine,” Pranish replied.

  “But we’ll struggle with healing magic,” Candace continued.

  “Good to know. So, guys, don’t get hurt.”

  “No problem there,” Trudie replied, grinning toothily, gold in her eyes.

  Now I was more afraid for the me
r.

  We stuck close as we traversed the abandoned streets of the Island of Sorrow. The island and settlement atop it were far larger than we had first predicted. Roads snaked their way across the island, criss-crossing and leading from obvious fortifications to a settlement more resembling a human village, with clapboard housing with peeling white paint. Signs of struggle were more evident here, with doors hanging limp off their hinges and glass windows smashed by projectile or monstrous appendage.

  Still, no mer. No corpses either, which suggested an horrific appetite in whatever eldritch horror befell this place.

  We walked in relative silence for an age, as the sun rose higher. The fog did not abate, with the illumination only making it brighter. Treth returned, reporting no mer. He stuck around as we patrolled, seeming to grow nervous himself despite his incorporeality.

  Finally, I stopped.

  “We’re not covering enough ground this way. We need to split up.”

  “Is that really wise?” Pranish asked, critical.

  “Have any other ideas? This island is far larger than we thought. We need to find something. We can go in two groups. Candace with me. Trudie, Kyong and you.”

  “My spark is renewed. I don’t mind going alone,” Kyong added.

  I nodded. “Go ahead. But, be careful. Listen out to Trudie’s howl, a gunshot from me, and, if you’re in danger, make some sort of sonic boom or something.”

  Kyong saluted and, with hands in his pockets, sauntered into the mists.

  Trudie eyed Candace suspiciously, until she was dragged away by Pranish. They soon also disappeared into the mists.

  “Treth, could you watch them all?”

  “I can’t be everywhere at once.” He frowned. “And we aren’t sure where the dividing lines on the weyline are on this island. You wander too far, and a dark spirit could appear. And it smells like dark spirits here.”

  “Treth is right,” Candace added. “Best he stays with us.”

  I was frustrated that I had to have a ghostly baby-sitter but also somewhat relieved. Having Treth back by my side was reassuring.

  I doubled back, leading the way and scouting in an opposite direction from the others. While I didn’t like the idea of close confines, the wrecked houses could be hiding something. I didn’t know exactly what a sea witch was, but I presumed it was female and humanoid. Possibly human, elf or fae.

  With Ithalen and Voidshot drawn, I signed to Candace that I was going to enter one of the houses. It was a single-storey affair. Pitched, corrugated iron roof. The morning moisture was dripping from the gutter in stuttering rivulets.

  Candace took a spot near the other side of the door as Treth proceeded inside. I kept an ear out but could hear nothing above the sound of Candace and my shallow breathing.

  Treth appeared and gave us a thumbs up. No enemies. But that didn’t mean no clues. And, as he constantly reminded me, I was the detective.

  I pushed the semi-shut door open fully with the point of Ithalen, the blade sinking into the mouldy wood. Candace made a move forward, but I stopped her. Sure, she was powerful, but incantations required time. If Treth was wrong, and there was something hiding in there, then Candace could get hurt. Or worse.

  I stepped forward, putting my body between Candace and whatever monster could be hiding within.

  Creak. Creak.

  My boots didn’t allow for stealth as they pressed on the old floorboards. I winced at the sound. Candace followed. She peered around the room. Analysing everything. Calculating.

  Candace, for all her social anxieties, occasional childishness and moments of insanity, was a genius. You had to be to ascend to arch-wizardry at such a young age.

  The entrance hall turned promptly into a kitchen. I noted that the chairs were tossed over. A struggle? Or, a frustrated predator knocking over long-abandoned furniture?

  Candace tip-toed past me, being much more adept at staying quiet, and made a beeline for the fridge.

  “You that hungry?” Treth asked, as Candace opened the old fridge. As was to be expected, there was no power. But also, nothing left inside.

  Candace rubbed her chin. “There would be something left inside if the residents were murdered, or if they had fled in a hurry.”

  “Perhaps it was never stocked?” I suggested.

  “Possible, but I doubt it.” She sidled along the countertops until she reached a gas-stove top. “Burn marks on the hood, and on the plates. This has been used. Which means they needed food to cook.”

  “So, the owners managed to flee but had enough time to pack food?”

  “Maybe. But why? Groceries aren’t valuable. If you had to flee your house, what would be the first and last thing you retrieve?”

  “Alex, weapons and my laptop. In that order.”

  “Exactly. Let’s see what else these people took with them.” Candace, taking charge, walked past me back into the hallway. I followed her, ignoring Treth’s smug grin that Candace was overshadowing me at detective work. I really didn’t mind. And I liked that he had finally accepted her.

  I caught up with Candace in what must have been a living room. The couches had been ripped up, with the stuffing removed. I knelt down and examined the damage. Something sharp had cleanly stabbed into the upholstery, forming a wider and clean hole but, as it sliced through, the cut became messier. Not a slice. Tearing. Which meant a sharp point with a blunt edge. Very much like the mer’s claws.

  “Why would something take the stuffing?” Candace asked, pausing her own search.

  “Stuffing is edible. At least for some metabolisms. If something is hungry enough, it could eat it. That, or it was building a nest.”

  The thought of the latter gave me shivers. I didn’t like fighting things that laid eggs. Birds were cute, drakes were tough, and insects were gross and swarmed in a fight.

  Candace turned back to her investigation as I examined the room for other clues. After some searching, she stood up, bearing a wide and victorious grin. In her hands she held a large binder. Leather-bound. Obviously not real leather. One of those embossed pleather albums with the Memories title.

  She paged through, and then held the book to show me.

  Photos. An Anzac junior officer with a young family. His wedding, at a quaint church in Dunedin. His son, looking just like his father, even as a baby. They were all smiling in every photo. Candace’s satisfied grin had long since disappeared.

  “Photo albums are one of the first things anyone will retrieve when they flee their homes,” she said. “Why take food but not this?”

  “Because…they weren’t the ones who took the food.”

  Candace nodded, frowning.

  The happy people in the album had hopefully fled. But I doubted it. These were the faces of the dead. Surreally cast in film and forgotten in a decaying ruin.

  “The stuffing has been eaten.” I was pretty sure of it. “And whatever ate the stuffing also ate the food from the fridge.”

  “The mer?” Treth asked.

  “Perhaps. But there’s something off about this place. It isn’t what it seems.”

  Candace nodded in agreement and followed as we made our way out the back door of the house. I’d seen enough.

  A sea witch, like all times witches had been blamed in the past, seemed an unlikely excuse. But there was something monstrous about. Something hungry. Something that could make humans flee without bringing their cherished memories with them…or kill them and clean up the evidence.

  I don’t know if it was providence or the fighter’s instinct that made me turn suddenly towards Candace as we exited out the backdoor. Candace was lost in thought, probably analysing the same clues that I was. But, while she was consumed by the analysis, she didn’t notice as a creature dropped down towards her from the ceiling above.

  In a blur, I sliced through the black creature with Ithalen, propelling its now separated body into the wall with a squelch. My coat flared at the sudden activity. It had woken up since its bath time during the sto
rm.

  Candace, eyes wide, dashed behind me as I approached the remains of the creature.

  With both its pieces back together, it would have been the size of my fist. Black and gleaming with moisture. I imagined that in life it would have pulsated. But, it lay still now, oozing slime and translucent blood onto the floor of the patio.

  I stabbed both pieces with Ithalen, for good measure, and the pieces didn’t flail at the pain. It was truly dead. Hopefully. Couldn’t be sure.

  I turned back to Candace.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Ah…yes. What is that thing?”

  I turned back to it. “I don’t know. Some sort of slug? Maybe a leech. Think it could have something to do with what’s happening on the island?”

  “Possible,” Candace hypothesised, then smiled faintly. “Thanks for…you know…killing it.”

  “Anytime. I kill things for a living.”

  I stepped off the patio and Candace followed, catching up to walk by my side. I slowed my stride, realising she was struggling to keep up. I sometimes forgot that not everyone was as athletic as I was, and my legs were much longer than Candace’s.

  “This reminds me of that time last year,” she said, as we walked across some overgrown lawn towards an even more overgrown hedge.

  “Which? The time we fought a mind-controlling elf or the time we fought those gangsters?”

  “Both.” She grinned and seemed genuinely happy. “Working together. It’s what I wanted, remember? A knight to my mage.”

  “As I recall, you needed me to keep you safe and sane while you were playing necromancer…sorry.”

  “No…you’re right.” Candace saddened; eyes downcast. “And so is Trudie. I did bad things…”

  “But everyone deserves redemption,” I cut her off.

  I used Ithalen to cut through a thin part of the hedge, hiding an old wire-mesh gate. I opened it and took the lead again and was greeted by the sight of the dark blue sea, crashing relentlessly onto the shore.

  “Despite all the drama,” Candace continued, fidgeting with the pockets on her hoodie. “I’ve enjoyed this trip. Perhaps more than anything else in my life.”