Heirs of the Fallen: Book 03 - Shadow and Steel

by James A. West

  A dozen feet away, whitecaps battered their way through the Bloody Fingers, a forest of sandstone sea stacks jutting off the southernmost point of Witch’s Mole. A steady wind soaked the Brothers and the shelf of stone with foaming spray. Overhead, clouds continued to mass, blotting out the failing light of day.

  An hour before, when it seemed possible that the worst of the coming storm might skirt the island, Ulmek had sent Sumahn and Daris up the faint trail to the top of the cliff. “If you cross patrolling enemies, avoid them,” he had warned. “For now, we need only to know where the sea-wolves are holding our brethren. Alerting the Kelrens that we have returned will not help us.”

  Sumahn and Daris accepted that order with agreeable nods, but Leitos scowled. “Should I not join them?”

  “You are the last person I would send,” Ulmek said firmly. Before Leitos could protest, he took him aside. “If I had need of dead slavers, I would gladly send you.”

  “You do not believe I can follow orders?”

  Ulmek gave him a sympathetic look. “With your father taken, do you really think you could adhere to my commands?” Leitos made to answer, but Ulmek cut him off. “Kelrens are a cruel race, men and women both. Could you stand by and watch them dig out your father’s eyes, or cut off his tongue, or brand him with hot irons?”

  “No,” Leitos admitted.

  “And so you will stay here, at my side.” He clapped a hand over Leitos’s shoulder. “Trust that I know how you feel, and believe me when I say, I long for the moment when I can unleash you upon these bastards.” His eyes flashed darkly. “I long for that moment myself….”

  Now Leitos pivoted on his heel, and stalked back the way he had come, glancing at the trail zigzagging up the cliff, almost invisible with the approach of night. Brush and trees on the rim whipped in protest against the wind’s fury, but he saw nothing of Sumahn and Daris. Lightning flashed, thunder rolled, and a brief, drumming patter of rain stung his cheeks.

  A different sort of thunder turned him about, and he recoiled at the sight of a gigantic mountain of dark water crashing through the crooked stacks.

  “Hold!” Ulmek shouted, and rushed to help Halan protect an unconscious Ke’uld.

  With a shuddering boom, the wave tumbled over the men. Leitos scrambled for the longboat, but the turbulent waters swept him off his feet, dragging him toward the sea. Before the angry waters could take him, Ulmek caught his wrist and pulled him back.

  “Bathing, are we?” Daris called out of the gloom, laughing as he rushed nimbly down the treacherous path. Sumahn came behind him.

  Ulmek did not rise to the jest. “We cannot stay here any longer,” he said, wiping his face.

  Leitos wanted to learn what the two Brothers had seen, but that would have to wait. He helped the others right the longboat, then, gently as possible, they settled Ke’uld into the bottom. After reloading the supplies, they launched the craft.

  The turbulent waters threatened to shatter the longboat to splinters against the Bloody Fingers. With much cursing, half the Brothers rowed, while the other half used spare oars to keep the longboats off the stacks.

  Beyond the Bloody Fingers, the Sea of Sha’uul had gone dark and perilous, with waves big as houses crashing over them. The storm gobbled the fading light of day. Lightning slashed the darkness, a chaotic flickering that turned the driving rain silver. Wind screamed, and thunder joined its voice to the steady rumble of the sea.

  “What did you learn?” Ulmek yelled.

  “The sea-wolves are taking the prisoners to one of their ships,” Sumahn shouted back, fighting to keep his balance.

  “Which one?”

  “The storm came too fast to know,” Daris answered. “It was dark before we found them gathered on the western shore.”

  “What else?” asked Ulmek.

  “Most of the Kelrens remain on shore,” Sumahn said. “They have built bonfires, and are well on their way to drunkenness. I think they mean to stay on the beach until the storm passes.”

  Ulmek squinted against the lashing rain. “The Silent God of All has favored us with this storm. Make for the west!”

  While the Brothers pulled at the oars, Ulmek called out his plan. Not a single Brother shrank from the coming danger, but instead rowed all the harder.

  Leitos knelt beside a delirious Ke’uld, and bailed water. Using his arms and cupped hands, he swept the seawater over the side, only to have it come rushing back each time the longboat wallowed over another mountain of black water. Between the crests waited deep valleys, the longboat slicing through the lacey sheets of foam that adorned their steep walls. On and on they fought against the storm, until Leitos began to the think it was not a blessing at all, but a curse.

  “There!” Ulmek called suddenly. He stood firm in the bow, despite the pitching seas.

  Leitos looked up and caught sight of an anchored Kelren ship before they plunged into a trough. When the longboat rose again, lightning raked the clouds and lanced down, spreading violet fire over the ship’s mast and spars. The vessel’s bow slammed against the sea in a frothy explosion. Leitos searched for enemies on the deck, but all he could make out were ropes and tarps snapping in the gale. If the sea-wolves had any guards on watch, they had taken shelter.

  “Closer,” Ulmek commanded. He had fished a coil of knotted rope from his haversack, and tied a small iron grappling hook to one end.

  Foot by foot, the longboat slogged nearer to the Kelren vessel. Along with Sumahn and Daris, Leitos made ready. When the ship’s side loomed before them, Ulmek hurled the grapnel over the rail. He dragged the slack out of the line until the hook caught, and thrust the rope into Leitos’s hands.

  There was no time for consideration. Leitos began climbing, using his feet to keep from slamming against the planks. Sumahn and Daris followed, their weight pulling the knotted cord tight. More Brothers came after, making a solid line of men.

  Hand over hand, Leitos quickly hauled himself up to the rail, heaved himself over, and landed in a crouch on the rain-slicked deck. A hasty search showed him secured booms, furled sails, coils of rope, stacked buckets, and bulky shapes covered with tarps. A hundred paces across the teeming waves, the second slave ship bobbed wildly.

  “Guards?” Sumahn asked, as he dropped next to Leitos. He braced himself against the ship’s bucking deck, and drew his dagger.

  “If so,” Leitos said, as Daris joined them, “they are hiding in wait, or below decks.”

  The trio quickly helped the rest of their brethren aboard. In the longboat below, standing protectively over Ke’uld, Ulmek gave a hand sign to begin.

  “Keep an eye on the hatch,” Halan ordered Leitos. Then, taking charge of the boarding party, he directed the Brothers to the fore- and poop decks.

  Without speaking, the Brothers spread out over the ship, checking every possible place to hide. They found nothing, and in short order returned to the raised hatch set in the center of the main deck.

  “Waiting gains us nothing,” Leitos said, imagining his father shackled below.

  “Do you mean to go down first?” Sumahn asked.

  “You are a new Brother,” Halan rumbled in protest. “One of us should—”

  “I’m the smaller target,” Leitos interrupted, drawing both his sword and dagger.

  At Halan’s reluctant nod, Sumahn and Daris each grasped a handle, and prepared to swing open the doors. Sumahn eyed Leitos. “Are you ready, little brother?”

  Leitos swallowed, throat dry despite the glut of rainwater pouring down. With some effort, he cleared his mind of all the possible dangers that might wait beyond those doors. “Now,” he said.

  Sumahan and Daris heaved open the doors, and the ghastliest stench Leitos had ever smelled gusted from the open hatch. Behind it rushed a mutilated demon bearing an axe in one hand, and a torch in the other.

  Chapter 7

  Reeling backward, Leitos slashed at the terrible figure bearing down on him—not a creature, but a man, scarred over every inch of
his body with gruesome brands. His sword furrowed the sea-wolf’s brow, and a wash of blood poured into his eyes, momentarily halting him.

  By then, more Kelrens had swarmed out of the hatch to join the first, all wielding cudgels and axes, swords and daggers. Outnumbered though they were, the Brothers crashed against the horde.

  Without thought, Leitos ran his dagger through the first Kelren’s throat, giving it a brutal twist before wrenching the blade free. Gagging, the man dropped his torch into a stack of crates, and toppled over the rail.

  Lightning flashed, and out of that brilliant blue-white radiance came another sea-wolf. His fist, balled around the hilt of wide-bladed sword, landed against Leitos’s chin, knocking him into the stack of now smoldering crates. Stunned, Leitos struggled to get free of the shattered wooden slats. Despite the deluge, something within the crates went up with a loud whoosh of flames and heat. Leitos tumbled away, a hair’s breadth from catching fire himself.

  The Kelren waded toward Leitos, battering men aside. Before Leitos could gain his feet, the man booted him in the ribs, the force of the kick tossing him across the deck. The sea-wolf drubbed him again, rocking his head.

  Groaning, his face and ribs feeling crushed, Leitos flung himself against his attacker’s shins, knocking him off balance. When the Kelren stumbled out of reach, Leitos thrust himself to his feet. Still seeing starbursts, he held up his weapons, and beat a quick retreat.

  To one side, the pile of crates erupted into a spitting tower of fire. Seeming to dance within the lurid firelight, the Brothers fought fluidly. The Kelrens attacked like wild animals, full of fury and seeking blood. That recklessness had cost them half their number, and no more were coming out of the hatch.

  “A boy dares face me,” roared the Kelren in front of Leitos, “the greatest of my clan?” He whipped his head to clear sodden hair from his eyes, and raised his axe.

  “And who stands against me,” Leitos shot back, “but a ravisher of swine?”

  The sea-wolf’s face hardened, and he charged with a bloodcurdling battle cry. Leitos waited, and all before him slowed to the pace of a dream. As the slaver’s axe fell, Leitos dropped to his haunches and leaned hard to one side. His sword slid across the raider’s bare waist, sinking deep. The man lurched past with a strangled shriek, and skidded across the deck on his knees.

  Leitos stood upright, and circled around the kneeling Kelren. He had dropped his axe in favor of holding back his insides. When Leitos came around him, a look of distress crossed his branded features.

  Mind empty of all feeling and pity, Leitos drove his dagger into the slaver’s eye. The man stiffened, his fingers spasming through his innards. Leitos kicked the twitching raider off his dagger, and spun to face his next enemy. But to the last, the Kelrens lay dead.

  “Gods good and wise,” Sumahn drawled, wiping his blade clean on a dead woman’s soiled breeches, “from a puling initiate to a blooded Brother, all in less than a night and a day. I suppose I have now seen everything.”

  “Put out that damned fire,” Halan roared.

  Leitos spun to find that while the flames had begun to die, they were far from out. As Brothers rushed to stamp out the fire, Leitos looked past them to the second Kelren ship, now aglow with lanterns, and teeming with movement. Even as he watched, the mainsail began to unfurl.

  “It’s too late,” Daris said. “They must have seen saw the fire.”

  “Surely they are not foolish enough to sail in this weather….” Sumahn trailed off. The ship was already setting out, nearly obscured by sheeting rain. “The cowards are leaving half their men behind.”

  “Search below for our Brothers!” Halan ordered.

  Leitos scrambled down the ladder to the rowing deck. Nothing moved, but the rank smell was worse below decks. Struggling not to gag, Leitos waited for the others to join him.

  The light of a single firemoss lantern, hanging on a peg driven into an overhead beam, cast all in ugly yellow hues. Rainwater dripped onto rows of benches lining either side of the deck. Hull-side racks held stacks of long oars. The portholes through which those oars drove the ship were shuttered against the storm. Piles of crates and barrels, secured with webs of rope, nearly hid two closed doors set in the bulkheads on either end of the deck. On Kelren vessels, Ulmek had told them, the shipmaster’s cabin lay aft of the galley, and the crew’s quarters dominated the area beyond the forward bulkhead.

  In the center of the rowing deck waited another large hatch that led down to the hold. The source of the ship’s stench—tar, salt fish, caged animals, unwashed men, rancid bilge water—wafted through the hatch’s wooden grating. That was where the slavers kept prisoners. Before venturing there, Leitos knew they must secure the rest of the ship, or risk getting trapped below. It took every bit of his will not to hurl caution aside, and seek out his father.

  “Get Ke’uld onto the ship,” Ulmek called back over his shoulder, as he descended the ladder. Once his feet hit the deck, he pointed at Leitos, Sumahn, and Daris. “You three secure the shipmaster’s cabin. The rest of us will see to the crew’s quarters.” He frowned then. “We need to take any remaining sea-wolves alive.”

  “One would do for information,” Sumahn said.

  “We need them all alive,” Ulmek said, his tone brooking no argument.

  Daris moved to the aft bulkhead. Leitos came next, with Sumahn last. Each held two blades ready. After reaching the door, Daris opened it a crack, then shoved it wide. The galley was a cramped, narrow space with three walls of cabinets, a small iron stove, and reeked of strong spices.

  Daris led them through the galley, squeezed through another doorway, and led them into a short passage. To one side, a ladder climbed up a bulkhead to a leaky hatch in the main deck, and next to this stood an open doorway. Beyond it lay a small cabin, the floor scattered with clothes. A large rumpled bed was tucked into a recess in the rearmost section, and a table was set with a half-eaten meal.

  “Seems this ship is without a master,” Sumahn said.

  Daris opened his mouth to respond, but a sudden commotion cut him off.

  The three turned and ran back the way they had come, and found Ulmek standing over a score of kneeling Kelrens, men and women all bleary-eyed from sleep and too much drink. Some were naked, others wore breechclouts, still more were garbed in voluminous trousers that looked as if they had never suffered a cleaning. All bore signs of quick, violent abuses—bloody cuts, broken noses, a few shattered limbs. Some few lay near the open door to the crew’s quarters, sprawled in unconsciousness. Bindings secured every pair of wrists and ankles.

  “Check the hold,” Ulmek ordered, his flinty eyes locked on the slavers. He tested the edge of his dagger on a thumb, the slowly twisting blade throwing shimmers of light.

  “You’ll find naught but rats and supplies in the belly of the Bloody Whore’s,” one man said, his hostile grin showing a mouthful of rotten teeth. Like his shipmates, his hair hung long and matted, his weathered skin dark, leathery, and covered in entwined brandings.

  Ulmek’s flat stare did not change when he booted the man’s face, driving him to the deck. Chuckling wetly, the Kelren gathered himself, struggled back to a kneeling position. He spat blood and two shattered teeth at Ulmek’s feet.

  Eager to see if his father and Ba’Sel were aboard, Leitos hurried into the murky hold, only to find it packed with supplies. “Send down a light,” he called, refusing to accept his eyes, or the Kelren’s word.

  Sumahn passed him down a lantern, and Leitos held it high. Rats scurried over barrels, crates, timbers and tools, rolls of canvas and coils of rope, and all else that the slavers might need on their voyages. There were no men, no chains. Disheartened, Leitos climbed back to the rowing deck, and shook his head at Ulmek’s questioning look.

  “Telmon does not lie,” the prisoner said with a shrug.

  Ulmek kicked him again. This time, Telmon was slower getting back to his knees. Nose shattered and pouring blood, he looked at Ulmek with an express
ion that spoke not of anger, but something darker and far more dangerous. When his eyes found Leitos, his face changed to a greedy curiosity.

  “You have the look of an Izutarian.”

  “Do not speak to him,” Ulmek said to Leitos.

  “Haven’t seen your kind in years,” Telmon said. “A pity. I miss the sweet tears that your women weep when they spread their legs for me and my fellows.”

  A prickly heat flashed over Leitos’s skin. His sword flashed in a deadly stroke, but Ulmek caught his wrist.

  “The other ship is almost out of sight,” Halan said through the hatch.

  Ulmek cursed under his breath. “Sumahn, make sure these animals stay put.”

  Telmon’s abrupt laughter filled the rowing deck, and the other slavers added their voices to his. Ulmek twined his fingers through sea-wolf’s ratty hair, then dragged him to the ladder up to the main deck. “Climb.”

  Telmon spat again. “May a bloody pox infect your mother’s festering—”

  Ulmek rammed Telmon’s face against a rung, ending his insult. “Climb, or I will shove this dagger through your spine. You’ll twitch and cry, but you won’t die … at least not quickly.”

  Telmon’s face writhed with something beyond hate, but he went up the ladder, clumsily, for the ropes binding his hands and feet. Before he was halfway through the hatch, Halan snatched him out of sight.

  “With me,” Ulmek said, pointing to Leitos and Daris.

  The trio climbed into the storm. They joined Halan and a kneeling Telmon at the starboard rail, looking south. Lightning clawed at the black of night, highlighting the other ship’s ghostly outline.

  “Where do they go?” Ulmek shouted above the wind.

  Telmon laughed riotously. Ulmek clubbed him across the mouth, and asked again. Still laughing, Telmon said, “My mates sail for the hunting grounds.”

  Those words sent a nervous flutter through Leitos’s belly, and he offered up a silent prayer for his father, Ba’Sel, and all the others.