The Forbidden City: Book Two of Rogue Elegance

by K A Dowling

  Ghosts, she thinks. Or nightmares of ghosts. Whatever they are, she shakes them away, shivering in the musty hold.

  Someone drops down the hatch, startling her. The newcomer lands with a dull thud at the foot of the ladder, his figure shrouded in thin, grey light.

  “I thought I’d find ye down here,” growls the Lethal. His scalp glistens with flecks of rain. “Sulking with the birds are ye?”

  “I’m not sulking,” she replies, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “Aye, that ye be.”

  “What are you doing down here?” Emerala asks.

  The Lethal pats a barrel in response to her question. “Fetching some rum for the Cap’n. Mate’s got it bad, he does.”

  Emerala grimaces at the memory of Alexander’s leg, shredded nearly to the bone in places. The last time she’d seen him, Derek had been barking orders over his limp form. His matted hair was plastered to his ashen skin. His eyes were hollow pits upon his face. She has not been to see him—not once. The sight of him makes her uneasy. Strange, she’s never been the type to feel squeamish around blood.

  “How is he doing?” she asks.

  The Lethal shrugs. “Well enough. Damned cat nearly tore his leg off. Lucky for us that that the diplomat remains on board. The boy has been able to keep the wound cleaner than a whistle, at least.”

  He studies Emerala across the musty hold, his expression unreadable.

  “Ye know,” he says. “I’ve been thinking—a girl like ye, stuck at sea in the company of such black hearted men—ye ought to know how to fight.”

  Emerala’s reply is instantaneous. “I can fight.”

  “Nay, ye can’t,” the Lethal disagrees. “You’re quick on your feet, there’s no question there, but ye know shite about swordsmanship. You’ve ended up on the wrong end of a blade several times now, haven’t ye?”

  Emerala sniffs. “I haven’t been keeping count.”

  “Aye, well I have. Catch.” He pulls his sword from the scabbard at his waist and flips the blade in one fluid movement. The shivering knife-edge dances on his calloused palm as he holds the hilt out for Emerala to take. She does so grudgingly, surprised at the weight of it in her hands. The moment the Lethal lets go, the blade dips toward the ground.

  “Keep your blade up,” the murderer snaps. “Parry.”

  “Parry?” Emerala repeats, as the Lethal kicks a broom into the air and snaps it over his knee. He lunges effortlessly, knocking her blade out of her hand and catching her upside the head with the broken end of the sweeper. Emerala cries out in pain, rubbing at her scalp as she leans down to pick up the sword. The wooden broom comes down hard across her knuckles.

  “Parry,” the Lethal says, “means block. That’ll be your second lesson.”

  “And what’s my first?” Emerala asks, scowling at him as she clutches her throbbing knuckles to her chest.

  “Don’t drop your sword. If there was a blade in my hand, ye’d be dead already.”

  “Sweet as honey, strong as a lion,” the parrot sings, interrupting them both. It makes a strange, guttural noise. For a moment, Emerala wonders in a panic if the creature is choking. Only after it settles back into watchful silence does Emerala realize that the bird had been trying to roar. The wooden broom catches her upside the head, sending stars spiraling across her vision.

  “Ye’d do well to leave those damned birds alone,” the Lethal says. “Now parry.”

  Emerala looks up just in time to see the broom swinging towards her face. She ducks, thrusting the blade of her sword hard against the incoming blow.

  “Why?”

  The Lethal swipes again. She deflects the assault, but only just. “They en’t pets. Try as ye might to get them to talk, they won’t say what you want them to. They’ll only do their job.”

  “They have jobs?” Emerala asks, chancing a look at the birds. The sleeping forms look thoroughly useless behind the curving wires of their cage. The broom swipes the backs of her knees, knocking her flat on her backside. She groans, nearly losing her sword a second time.

  “Aye,” the Lethal says, holding out a hand to help her up. “They be messenger birds for the seven pirate lords.”

  “Pirate lords?” Emerala rubs at a fast forming bruise on her elbow, feeling forlorn. The Lethal grimaces at her, jabbing a blackened fingernail at the cage.

  “Who’s the parrot, Rogue, ye or those feathered rats? Stop repeating everything I say.”

  “Sorry,” Emerala mutters darkly, not feeling sorry at all.

  “Ah, don’t be.” The Lethal waves her apology away with a swipe of his hand. “How would ye know? Ye en’t a girl of the sea, ye landlubber.” He flashes her a toothy grin. “The pirate lords are the seven appointed men assigned to keep control of the oceans.”

  Emerala hesitates. “Is this one of your stories?”

  “Nay, lass, this be the truth, strange as it may seem. It’s an old legend, yes, but the core of it is real as you or I. Now try and hit me.”

  “Excuse me?” Emerala asks.

  The Lethal paws his chest, holding out his arms in welcome. “Try and hit me.”

  “I’m holding a sword,” Emerala reminds him. “Not a wooden broom.”

  “Try anyway.”

  Emerala shrugs and swings, bringing the blade singing clumsily through the air. The Lethal moves like water, dancing out of harm’s way and into the shadows of the hold.

  “Again,” he commands. “And I’ll tell ye about the pirate lords.”

  Emerala thrusts her blade forward a second time, again missing her mark. The Lethal moves in and out of darkness, thrusting and parrying, thrusting and parrying. Emerala never comes close to touching him. As they duel, he speaks.

  “A long time ago, this world was at war, ye see. Parry. Men of the land fought one another upon the endless oceans for control of the water. He who had control, see, would be undefeatable. Faster, Rogue. Keep up. Anyhow, it turns out that man was not meant to hold the ocean in his hands. It en’t possible.”

  He pauses and holds out his hand, catching a shaft of grey light that falls through the hatch overhead. The beams plummet through the slits of his fingers in dusty shafts of silver. “Falls right through, ye see?”

  “So what happened?” Emerala asks. Captivated, she draws to a standstill and lets the blade of the sword drop towards the ground. The Lethal flashes her a dark look.

  “Well, I’m tellin’ ye, if ye’d just stay quiet.”

  “Sorry.”

  “En’t got to be sorry, just bite your tongue and raise your sword.”

  “Sorry,” she repeats.

  The Lethal brings down the broom hard atop her head. “Faster next time. As the legend goes, the spirits of the old world grew tired of drowned men polluting the brine. They wanted the spoils of war to remain on land, where they belonged. So they intervened.”

  “Sorry,” Emerala interjects. “But did you say spirits?”

  “Aye, spirits, Rogue. Ancient ones.”

  “I thought you said this was a true story, not one of your fables.”

  “It is a true story,” the Lethal snaps. “Ye think because ye’ve seen some of the world that ye know all there is to know about it? There’s things out there what you can’t ever begin to understand. Dark things. Ancient things—swimming around in the dark just underneath this ship.”

  The boat lurches as it is buffeted by an incoming swell and Emerala feels the hair stand up on her arms. The Lethal lunges at her from beneath the shadows, bringing the broom sailing through the air. She sees it just in time, watching the arc of it as it sails towards her shin. She pirouettes, bringing the blade hard against the sweeper—hard enough to send a sliver of wood skittering across the floor at their feet.

  “Not bad,” the Lethal relents. “Not good, but not bad.”

  “Tell me about the spirits,” Emerala says, thrusting the blade clumsily forward.

  “The four oldest spirits of the earth selected seven of the most fearsome sailors on the s
eas, one for each great ocean upon the map. They called these men the seven pirate lords and gifted them with the tools needed to prevent another widespread war upon the seas.”

  “Ha’Suri knows the way!” screams the parrot. The name startles Emerala into stillness. She blinks rapidly, feeling the familiar unease—the cold caress of disquiet—creeping into her. There is a fluttering sigh from the sleeping birds and then quiet.

  “Who is Ha’Suri?” she asks.

  The Lethal drops his broom down at his side and studies the parrot. He does not look at Emerala. He gives no indication of having heard her speak.

  “It’s just,” she continues, “I heard you mention the name on Caros, and the bird keeps saying it to me.” She clenches her hand into a fist and subsequently loosens her fingers, shaking out the ache that resides within the palm of her hand. The air around them is thick with humidity. She shivers all the same.

  “Ha’Suri is the wind woman of the north,” the Lethal says simply.

  “Right,” Emerala says. “Is a wind woman the same as a spirit?”

  “Aye. The very same. In fact, Ha’Suri of the north was the first to suggest the peace treaty.

  “I’ve been dreaming of her, I think.”

  “Indeed?” A flicker of interest passes across the Lethal’s face and is gone, his mask of apathy slipping back into place as quickly as it had disappeared. “What do you see?”

  Emerala scrunches her nose in an effort to remember. The images slip in and out of her grasp in fleeting bursts of color. “There is a woman all in white. Her skin is as cold—like death. In her hand she wields a dagger of ice.” She pauses, shivering as the memories give way to the image of the Hawk—of his sharp golden eyes watching her through the heavy snow.

  The Lethal’s voice wrenches her back to the present. Her ears ring with the faint memory of howling wind.

  “Ye saw Ilispin, did ye?”

  Emerala rubs furiously at the gooseflesh that has risen upon her forearms. She frowns at the Lethal. “Ilispin?”

  “Aye. Ha’Suri bound the seven pirate lords together by bloodspell. As the story goes, she united them with Ilispin, a blade of ice forged by shadowmen in deepest winter.”

  “Shadowmen?” Emerala repeats. Her fingers are numb at her sides. The palm of her hand pulsates with a slow, deep ache. A sudden image of blood-soaked snow flits through her thoughts.

  The Lethal shrugs. “Another story, for another time.”

  “Why does the parrot keep calling out her name?”

  “No clue. They be messenger birds, as I said. Perhaps the winged rat is trying to convey a message.”

  “Were they a gift from the wind women as well, the birds?”

  “Aye, they came from the eastern wind—a spirit so old so as not to be named in human tongues. According to the legend, she breathed the gift of speech into the birds and sorted them into groups by color. Each pirate lord received seven birds. Should they be let free, they act as a summons to the other pirate lords, bidding them come to the aid of the one who set them to the skies.”

  “It’s a call to arms,” Emerala marvels, studying the sleeping birds. Their feathered chests rise and fall in unison. The largest parrot remains awake, studying her through black eyes like beads.

  “Aye, so they say, but I en’t sure about that,” the Lethal says, glaring at the cage. “I’ve been on plenty of other ships where the birds stay stocked away below deck. Feathered rats, I say. The lot of ‘em. En’t nothing but a mess of feathers and feces everywhere, each of them louder than the rest.”

  “What were the other two gifts?” Emerala asks.

  “Well, let’s see,” the Lethal muses. “Airaida of the south wind gifted the men the hot breath of the leviathan in their sails. It’s said that the seven pirate lords and their ships can outrun even the finest fleet in any navy, should they need to.”

  “And the western wind?” Emerala asks. “What did she give?”

  Something shifts in the Lethal’s countenance and Emerala watches as a sadness befalls the old murderer. He appears suddenly older than his considerable years—tired. Overhead, the rain has picked up. It patters at the deck of the ship in a relentless rat-tat-tat.

  “Nolane, they called her,” the Lethal says. “She gave the pirate lords their ships.” He picks up the broom and spins it in his hand twice before tapping it against the wooden floorboards beneath his feet. “This ship, in fact, is one of ‘em. Said to be unsinkable—fashioned from the last remaining trees of the old world in the Westerlies.”

  He pauses, clearing his throat. His good eye finds her across the dark. The look on his face is stark, intense. Emerala thinks of Melena, and how she had mocked Lachlan the Lethal as they trudged through the jungle.

  They say it is only a great fool that falls in love with an immortal woman of the wind, she had giggled, dancing away from Emerala with a wicked gleam in her eyes.

  Emerala opens her mouth to speak, but the Lethal cuts her off.

  “Talk as much as ye do, and your enemies are like to cut out your tongue,” he snaps. “Stay on your toes, now. Parry.”

  Emerala sulks, narrowly dodging a blow from the broom. “We haven’t finished the lesson?”

  As if in answer to her question, the wooden broom comes down hard upon her knuckles. “Parry,” the Lethal barks.

  “So,” Emerala begins, dancing out of reach of the broom and thrusting her blade forward into the empty air. She groans, frustrated, and thrusts again—lunging at shadows. “Are you trying to—ouch—to tell me that the Rebellion is one of the original ships of the seven pirate lords?”

  “Aye,” the Lethal says. The broom cuffs her just below the chin. “Although it—pay attention, girl—it did not always have such a name. Its original name be of the dead speech. En’t around any longer.”

  “Is Alexander a pirate lord, then?”

  “Aye, that he be. Faster, now. You’d be dead if ye moved that slow.”

  “Does he know?”

  “Know he’s a pirate lord? I’d reckon his old man told him, aye. He’s bound by blood and the death of his ancestors. It en’t a fate that gets passed down lightly.”

  Emerala falls still, disengaging from the duel in order to nurse her steadily growing wounds. Bruises fan like purpling stains beneath her skin.

  “I don’t believe a word of it,” she insists. “That kind of magic doesn’t exist.”

  The Lethal spins the broom deftly, bringing it inches from Emerala’s eye. He smirks as she recoils from the proximity, drawing back against the wall. “Aye, ye are correct in that, Rogue. The women of the wind have long drawn back from the eyes of men. Nolane of the western wind commanded it, years ago.”

  Emerala thinks again of Melena’s words, and of the stricken look upon the Lethal’s face when he came upon her singing in the jungle.

  “You speak as though you knew her.”

  “Aye. I knew her as well as ye can know anyone. But that were a lifetime ago.”

  “You were in love with her,” Emerala says. It is not a question.

  “Once, ages ago when I was still a boy. A fool boy.” He flashes Emerala an unexpected grin. “Ruined me, she did. Left me an old man, hardened and broken.”

  Emerala shudders in the sudden chill that envelops them. Outside, the rain is slowing, sapping away with it the lingering heat of the pressing day. She watches as tendrils of grey moisture rise in curls off of the floor.

  “Blood red ice for diamond wars,” the parrot sings again. He hops back and forth upon his wooden ledge, startling the other birds awake. They squawk unintelligibly as they flutter around their cage.

  “Dinner! Dinner,” one of them shouts, sending the rest of them into a cacophony of unpleasant noises. Only the first of the seven parrots remains quiet, his black eyes regarding Emerala closely. The Lethal groans, lowering his makeshift weapon.

  “Messenger birds me arse,” he snarls, heading over to a burlap sack that overflows with grains. “I tell ye, the only damn thing
this lot is good for is eatin’ all the stores.”

  He thrusts a cup into the sack and draws it out, trailing yellow grains in his path as he heads over to the menagerie. He barely manages to pry the door open before the largest silver parrot bursts into movement. He flutters to the forefront of the cage in a wild frenzy of flapping wings, screaming into the Lethal’s face as the pirate upends the cup of grains onto the bottom of the cage. The rest of the parrots dive upon the food as the Lethal shoves the door shut.

  “Saints,” he snaps, flailing his arms in a harried attempt to catch the parrot. The bird circles above his head in self-satisfaction.

  “Emerala the Rogue,” the parrot screams. He drops down, landing on Emerala’s shoulder. “Daughter of Roberts!”

  Emerala freezes. The bird flutters to a standstill upon her arm. Her gaze locks upon the Lethal. He idles before her, a thoughtful frown upon his face as he studies the creature on her shoulder. Emerala’s heart flutters beneath her chest as she feels the talons tighten against her skin.

  “How does he know who I am?”

  The Lethal shrugs, pawing at the back of his head with his free hand. “En’t a clue.”

  “Pretty, pretty green eyes,” the parrot sings. He plucks at a bit of Emerala’s hair with his black beak.

  Emerala frowns and attempts to wave the bird off of her shoulder. He squawks in alarm, taking flight only briefly before settling back down on her shoulder on the other side. The Lethal lets out a low chuckle at the sight of Emerala’s annoyance. The parrot opens its beak and gives a satisfied squawk, hopping back and forth upon his black talons.

  “Parry!” the bird shouts. “Awk, parry the blow!”

  “Smart little beast,” the Lethal says. In an instant, Emerala sees the broom sailing through the shadows towards her face. She pulls the sword up just in time, nearly splitting the wood in half with the force of her thrust. The bird takes off from her shoulder with an indignant screech, settling among the rafters. The Lethal laughs, shoving her back so hard that she stumbles into the wall. The blade dips low and she feels the Lethal wrench the blade from her hands. Before she can utter a protest, the blade is pressed against her throat.