Northern Storm ac-2

by Juliet E. McKenna

  ‘Come on!’ Dev dragged Kheda towards the side of the sinking ship. The water was lapping around the hem of his hauberk and rising fast, a cold grip around his thighs.

  ‘We’ll drown,’ protested Kheda numbly, looking at the impossible distance to the dubious refuge of the shore.

  No, we won’t,’ yelled Dev. ‘Do you want to burn to death?’

  The deck beneath their feet fell away, leaving Kheda frantically trying to swim, to keep his head above the water. Lumps of wood battered him in the roiling foam. Bodies jostled among the wreckage, arms and legs limp. Kheda couldn’t tell if they were—alive or dead as they appeared and vanished in the chaos. The water was cold but cuts and scratches he didn’t know he had stung like fire.

  The weight of their armour dragged both men below the surface. Kheda managed to draw a last, despairing breath before the sea closed over his head. Dev still had hold of his hand, their fingers intertwined. Kheda opened his eyes, trying to prise Dev’s fingers loose with his free hand. Dev held on still tighter. He shook their linked fists, face twisted with anger. Kheda stopped fighting to free himself and they sank together.

  The water became calmer beneath the uppermost surge of the waves. Sooty black trails from burning shards of wood followed them down towards the pale ripples of the sea floor. Bodies floated around the still smouldering hulk of the ship, slowly sinking as the curious sea riffled their lifeless hair and clothing. Some were intact, others cruelly maimed and burned. More were caught twisted among the remains of the stricken trireme.

  The pain in Kheda’s ears was indescribable. Water was forcing its way up his nose. His eyes felt raw. He looked up, his chest burning. The surface of the sea was opaque confusion, shining like nacre. He blinked and rubbed at his eyes. Everything under the water was blurred and weirdly distorted. Noise filled his ears but he couldn’t make sense of it. He couldn’t tell where any sound in the deafening turmoil was coming from.

  Dev tugged at his hand, still kicking to drive them at least some way towards the shore before they landed on the sea bed. They came to rest with a soft thud on the undulating sand. It was hard and unyielding beneath Kheda’s feet. Kheda tugged, panicked, at the neck of his hauberk then realised that he could barely feel the weight of the armour. Before he could make sense of that, an invisible swell nearly knocked him off his feet.

  Still holding tightly to Kheda’s hand, Dev let himself drift down to lie almost prone on the sea bed. The warlord saw that the wizard was pinching his nostrils tightly closed with his spare hand. Kheda blew the water out of his own nose and did the same. Somehow that eased the vicious pain in his ears. He squinted at the mage, seeing Dev still blunted and looking oddly bleached.

  Stern face demanding obedience, Dev released Kheda’s hand. The warlord half-lay, half-crouched on the sea bed, not knowing what to do. Dev turned and began half-crawling, half-swimming towards the distant beach.

  Kheda tried to stand up again and once more a swell knocked him down. He sat on an unyielding ridge of sand for a moment. His chest was a hollow cavern of agony and the strain in his throat was becoming intolerable. Tenor paralysed him like a stone fish’s sting.

  I can’t swim for the surface and I won’t make it to the shore. I can’t help it: I’m going to take a breath. Then I will drown. Will it make any difference to Chazen if I die a natural death instead of being burned to ash by the dragon’s fire?

  Dev appeared beside him, face twisted with a fury apparent even through the blurring still plaguing Kheda’s vision. Kheda opened his mouth in a mute, hopeless plea. Dev reached out to force Kheda’s jaw shut, his fingers digging in painfully. The wizard raised a warning finger in front of his eyes and pointed towards the shore. Somehow in the midst of his panic, Kheda realised that foul as the feeling of being half-suffocated was, it wasn’t actually getting any worse.

  Will it make any difference to Chazen if I’m saved from a natural death by wizardry?

  Dev turned and began his laboured crawl back towards the shore again. This time Kheda followed, pushing with his feet and knees, doing his best to drag himself with his spare hand. The fingers pinching his nostrils threatened to cramp as he grew colder. He found himself fighting against the water and the drag of his chain mail, even though he couldn’t feel its weight. Jaw clenched so tight his teeth ached, he ducked his head and continued fighting his way towards the pale promise of the open air.

  The sea bed sloped more steeply upwards and the ridges in the sand grew closer together, telling Kheda that they were getting closer to the shore.

  I suppose it makes sense to move more like a crab than a man down here.

  He looked up and in a heart-stopping moment of relief thought they were within reach of the open air. He tried to stand and raised a frantic hand only to realise that the surface was still more than an arm’s length away. A roll of surging white foam knocked him sideways, shoving him this way and that. Kheda fell back to the sea bed, using hands and feet in a desperate scramble until his head broached the surface. He gulped down clean, salt-scented relief before choking on a mouthful of water as a wave broke over his head. When he could breathe again, he retched and coughed.

  ‘Come on.’ Dev’s hand grabbed the scruff of his neck and hauled him forwards. Before it sees me.’

  ‘Where’s the dragon?’ Kheda wiped water from his eyes and tried to run in the knee-deep surf. He lost his footing and fell, only saved from another ducking by Dev’s strong arm.

  The wizard hauled him upright and gave him a feeble slap across his nerveless face. ‘Move, curse you!’ Kheda’s armour felt five times the burden it had ever been as the waters fell away behind them. Where his hands and feet had been numb before, now he realised that the water and rasping sand had left his skin sodden and tender. He staggered after Dev as the wizard reeled across the sand like a man drunk on barbarian liquor. The mage barely reached the shade of a cluster of nut palms before he collapsed, chest heaving, breath rattling in his throat.

  Kheda rubbed at his stinging eyes. His hair and beard were sticky with salt. Looking out to sea, he saw the Brittle Crab and the Gossamer Shark racing desperately away from the island. The dragon wheeled above them. ‘They can’t outrun the beast,’ he said despairingly.

  ‘They won’t have to.’ Dev forced himself up on to his hands and knees. ‘It’ll be back.’

  ‘Look!’ Kheda pointed to men crawling ashore among the wreckage of the Mist Dove. We must get everyone together, before the savages attack.’

  ‘There are no savages.’ Dev’s words were muffled as he scrubbed his face with his hands. ‘There never were any savages. The dragon wrought an illusion. It wanted us to come and see what had happened.’

  ‘It can do that?’ Kheda gaped. ‘I don’t know what it can do.’ Dev broke off, shuddering. ‘I know what it wants to do. It wants to kill me. It’s realised I come in a ship. It’s realised Chazen ships are hunting the wild men. So it showed a Chazen ship a Chazen village under attack by the wild men. Ah!’ He gasped with pain and began frantically tearing at the lacings of his hauberk

  ‘What are you doing?’ Kheda asked in alarm.

  ‘The dragon,’ said Dev, jaw clenched as he fought his way free of his armour. ‘It’s back.’

  A black shape blotted out the sun and Kheda saw the creature’s evil shadow sweep across the sand. ‘Run!’ Dev threw his chain mail away as hard as he could. The ungainly sprawl of metal burst into flames, the plates writhing and buckling, the rings melting into drops of liquid steel.

  With the deafening sound of the dragon’s wings directly above, Kheda took to his heels. The stand of nut palms exploded into flames as the dragon wheeled overhead, blasting the sand with its fiery breath, scorching whatever was left of Dev’s armour into oblivion. It crowed with exultation before landing with a thud that shook the whole beach. Thrusting its massive head into the flames, it began ripping at the burning trees with its murderous foreclaws.

  Warlord and wizard crouched in a tandra thicket.
Kheda saw that some of the men washed up on the shore who had fallen terrified to the sands were cautiously lifting their heads. One made a dash for the dubious safety of the trees. The dragon ignored him, still intent on reducing the nut-palm thicket to smouldering fragments. More of the men ran for their lives.

  They’ll never believe I swam ashore in this armour.

  Kheda threw his helm aside and began wrestling his way free of his own hauberk.

  ‘I’ve got to get away from it,’ Dev said fervently, shaking like a man wracked with fever.

  ‘We’ve got to get away from all this tinder.’ Alarmed, Kheda saw the dry husks of tandra pods start smoking. A tuft of the white fibres within flared up. He flailed at it with his armour before the oily black seeds ignited.

  ‘It knows its magic speaks to mine,’ Dev said with difficulty. ‘That’s how it’s going to find me.’

  ‘This beast’s too cursed clever by half.’ Kheda looked at the dragon standing in the midst of the blackened nut-palm stumps. The creature had lifted its head and was surveying the trees and brush that fringed the beach. But you said it was doing a wizard’s will. Where is he?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ said Dev tightly. ‘All I know is that thing wants me dead.’

  The dragon took a few paces along the shore and blasted a striol-choked spinefruit tree into fiery oblivion.

  Could I escape, along with whoever else has washed ashore, while it hunted him down?

  But Dev saved my life, so I’m bound by every code of honour to try to save his barbarian, magic-cursed hide. Besides, this magewoman won’t be too inclined to offer her help if she learns that I left him to be eaten by the beast.

  ‘What do you suppose it wants more?’ Kheda said slowly. ‘Do you think we could escape it if it was sated with gems?’

  ‘They’re all at the bottom of the strait along with the Mist Dove? Dev watched with sick apprehension as the dragon studied the spreading blaze it had created, tongue tasting the air.

  No, they’re not,’ Kheda said with growing determination. ‘Look.’

  Several of the survivors were seizing chests or coffers from the broken wreckage scattered on the shore before scurrying towards the forest.

  ‘That fire’s coming our way.’ Dev began backing out of the tandra thicket.

  Kheda stood his ground despite the scarlet flames crawling towards them, crackling and spitting. ‘Can you distract it somehow, while I try to find some gems? We can at least buy some time to run. How far do we have to go before it loses your scent?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ spat Dev. ‘There’s no hiding from it—’

  Kheda slapped the mage hard across the face. ‘You’re a lot of despicable things but you’ve never been a coward. Don’t start now!’ He caught Dev’s arm, barely saving himself from the wizard’s fist in his face. ‘How can you distract it?

  Dev rubbed his flushed cheek. ‘We could see what it makes of your armour if I set it melting,’ he muttered without conviction. ‘Leave it there.’

  ‘Just keep one step ahead of it.’ Kheda gripped Dev’s arm, trying to encourage the mage. ‘I’ll be back.’ Dev pulled away and disappeared into the trees. His bare feet left scorched, smouldering prints in the dry leaf litter.

  Kheda caught up his swords and ran along the edge of the shore. He scanned the trees urgently for any signs of the Mist Dove’s crew.

  ‘My lord!’ An ashen-faced oarsman peered out from behind a spinefruit tree. He flinched and ducked back again as a ball of fire erupted in the trees behind Kheda.

  The warlord flung himself into the shelter of the spine-fruit’s shadow. Do you have any gems?’ he demanded. Did you pick any up?’

  No, my lord,’ the hapless rower quavered.

  Kheda looked back to see a pillar of flame snaking up into the sky. The dragon sprang into the air and circled it, lashing at the writhing scarlet fire with its tail. It was all far too close for comfort; Kheda could feel the heat on his forehead.

  ‘Come on.’ He drew a sword and began hacking a path through the tangled underbrush. ‘Chazen!’ he yelled. ‘To me! We need gems to fill the creature’s mouth or we’ll all get eaten!’

  A couple of terrified archers appeared on either side of a tandra thicket. Neither had bow nor arrows but one clutched a small coffer in his shaking hands. Kheda hurried forwards and seized it. His heart sank. It was his physic chest.

  ‘That’s something,’ he said tightly. ‘Look after it. But we need gems.’

  ‘My lord.’ Another rower appeared, this time holding one of the coffers of jewels so grudgingly sent from the Daish treasury.

  ‘Good man,’ Kheda breathed with heartfelt relief. ‘Are there any more?’

  There were stirrings further along the shore. Unseen, some man called out to another, passing the word of Kheda’s appearance and of his search for gems.

  ‘Come on.’ The warlord led his stunned, disparate band further away from the dragon.

  The creature was now roaring horribly at the pillar of flames. Every time it blasted the taunting inferno into oblivion with its fiery breath, the stubborn blaze sprang back up again.

  That hauberk was definitely bad luck. Whatever Dev’s doing, how much longer can it last? ‘My lord.’ A handful of shocked oarsmen appeared from behind a sandy outcrop.

  ‘Gems.’ One thrust another small coffer at Kheda.

  The warlord took it and looked around the stricken handful of survivors. A strange calm came over him as he put the only plan he could think of into halting words. ‘I’ll see if I can distract the beast, then I’ll make a run for it. Get yourselves over to the far side of this island. Find the most northerly point. Wait until dusk and try to flag down a fisherman. Don’t light a fire, that’ll only attract the beast. I’ll try to join you.’

  ‘My lord—’ the man still clutching the physic chest protested inarticulately.

  ‘Give me that.’ Kheda took the ebony and silver coffer and knelt to open it. He found a small wax-sealed box and tucked it inside the front of his sweaty, sandy tunic. ‘Go on. You have to take word of what’s happened back if I don’t return.’ He looked at the men now staring at him, aghast. ‘I can’t and won’t ask any of you to do this. This is my duty to you as your lord.’

  And how better to find out if I am truly doing the right thing by Chazen, or if I’m truly cursed to die by the magic that I’ve brought to this domain.

  ‘Go!’ he barked, with all the authority he could summon.

  Slowly, the survivors of the disaster backed away. As they turned to see where they were going, they began to move more quickly. Soon they were running away through the forest, heedless of the noise they were making.

  Kheda picked up the two jewel coffers by their rope handles. They weren’t overlarge but were still heavy enough to drag painfully at his arms as he walked slowly out from the shelter of the trees. The dragon had finally managed to quell the impudent flame Dev had raised against it and was stamping violently on the ground where Kheda had left his armour. Its vehement throbbing growl made Kheda’s head ache.

  The warlord walked slowly down to the waterline and scanned the debris, glancing up at the dragon with every second step. He saw another battered chest and splashed into the shallows to retrieve it. Movement caught the corner of his eye and he halted, knee-deep in the water. The dragon was looking at him, heavy blunt head cocked to one side. Faint trails of smoke rose from its nostrils. It snorted and the smoke stopped.

  Kheda straightened his back and stared the dragon straight in the eye. It looked back at him, unmistakable intelligence in that white fire lighting its ruby eyes. Kheda swung one of the coffers at aim’s length, backwards and forwards, the arc lengthening with every swing. Putting all his strength behind it, he flung the little chest down the beach. The dragon’s eyes followed it as it flew through the air and landed with a solid thud further down the waterline.

  Kheda stood still. The dragon stared back at him before turning to look over its shoulder into the unrevea
ling trees. Kheda threw a second chest, the effort forcing out an unintended groan. The chest landed and broke open. The dragon’s head whipped around and the light in its eyes glowed brighter. It took a pace forward before looking at Kheda again.

  He threw the third chest as far as he could. It fell not far from the first, Daish workmanship holding firm. Just what I don’t need. What do I do now? There’s no way I’m going any closer to open the cursed things!

  The dragon took another few paces forward, its attention switching between the two unopened coffers and the one spilling bright jewels over the white sands. Kheda began walking slowly backwards, feeling his way as best he could to avoid tripping over broken wood and bodies. The dragon ignored him as it crouched low to run its tongue over the scattered jewels.

  Kheda risked a glance over his shoulder as he shifted his path towards the tree line. A few more men were dragging themselves out of the water and scrambling across the sand. He looked back to see that the dragon wasn’t interested in them, and was advancing on the two unopened chests.

  Now Kheda was half-way between the waterline and the trees. He abandoned caution as the dragon broke open the second coffer with a splintering claw. He ran for the forest, but rather than join the fleeing rowers, he doubled back towards the blasted ruin of the tandra thicket where he’d left Dev. His heart pounded in his chest as he tried to recall the oath the wizard had taken. Caught unawares, he skidded to a halt as he saw the black footprints charred into the dry leaves. Curbing the urge to shout out the barbarian’s name, he forced his way through the entangling brush. Behind him on the beach, the dragon’s growl had softened to an unnerving croon.

  Dev hadn’t got far. Kheda fell over him behind a green-stained outcrop. The mage was lying in the shade of the rock, eyes tightly closed, arms wrapped around himself and shaking violently.