Red Tide

by Marc Turner

  The tavern must have been flooded recently, for the floor was submerged beneath a finger’s width of water, inky black with blood and shadow, and covered with rushes. A handful of bodies were scattered about the room. A barmaid was sprawled at the foot of the stairs where Karmel stood, apparently cut down trying to flee. Strange that the corpses had been left here when they’d been removed from the houses earlier. Strange, but not a cause for concern. It wasn’t as if a stone-skin would be playing dead among them on the off chance someone stopped by for a drink.

  Caval made for a staircase on the north side of the room. Each time he passed a body, a cloud of needleflies took to the air. Only when he reached the stairs and signaled the all clear did Karmel move herself.

  The water on the ground was cold against her sandaled feet. She picked her way through the wreckage of a smashed table, her gaze twitching all the while to the silhouetted stone-skin. Still no movement from the figure. Karmel was beginning to wonder if it might be a statue rather than a soldier, but a statue outside a tavern? In Bezzle?

  A flash of sorcery from outside smeared the south-facing wall orange and yellow, the glow reflecting in the water on the floor. Karmel stepped over the corpse of a bare-chested man. His head was held to his neck by a flap of skin, and bile rose in the priestess’s throat. Death never looked pretty close up. Easier to observe it from a distance where you could pretend there were no victims at all. Like from the top of the Dragon Gate, for example. Her foot snagged on something—

  A hand seized her ankle, and the bottom fell out of her stomach. Instinctively she tried to pull away. Nails dug into her flesh. She was about to strike out with her knives when her leg suddenly came free, and she staggered forward, tottered, made a despairing grab for the bar. With her blades in her hands, though, she couldn’t get a proper grip on it. She fell to her knees, jarred them on the stone floor. Water splashed her face. An image came to her of the arm’s owner rearing up behind, and she scrambled forward, half turning to look back.

  A Rubyholt man was propped on one elbow, reaching out. He must have taken a stone-skin blade across the face, for his eyes were gone, and all that remained of his nose was a splinter of bone. But then how had he seen her leg to seize it? Unless he’d merely flailed out as she brushed against him, and had the fortune—or misfortune—to grab her.

  “Help me,” he croaked through blood-flecked lips.

  Karmel silently swore, angry more at herself than at the stranger. What was she, a Shroud-cursed acolyte, that she’d panicked like that? A shock to be sure, but if she’d stopped to think, she would have realized the hand must have belonged to one of the Rubyholters. Outside the tavern, the “statue” came to life. Karmel heard the scrape of a sword being drawn from its scabbard.

  Footsteps clomped toward the door.

  Karmel froze in a half crouch, glanced across at Caval by the stairs. The merest flicker of his eyes toward the Islander told her to silence the man. It was too late for that, though. The door handle was already turning down.

  “Help me,” the Rubyholter said again.

  Karmel looked back at the man, imploring him with her gaze to be quiet. Then she remembered he couldn’t see her.

  The tavern door opened.

  * * *

  Amerel reached out with her Will. It wouldn’t be easy persuading the Augeran he’d imagined the commotion, for with the Rubyholt attack on the harbor, the stone-skin sentries had become wide-eyed watchful. She could only hope the Chameleons had the sense to shut the dying man up before—

  The sound of shattering glass broke her concentration—a perception not from her spiritual body, but from her corporeal one. She muttered an oath. Before she’d started spirit-walking, she’d found a house not far from the White Pool to take cover in, thinking that it would be far enough from the harbor to guarantee no callers. But she hadn’t reckoned on the Rubyholt raid. She could hear shouts now, the stamp of running feet, the hollow note of a sword striking stone. Some of the Islanders must have been driven back from the waterfront toward her hiding place. And while it was unlikely any of them would blunder into her building, was she prepared to risk her life on “unlikely”?

  A moment’s hesitation, then she returned her attention to the tavern. The southern half of the common room was bathed in light from the torches on the waterfront, but the remaining half was a tangle of shadows. The dying Rubyholt man lay pale-faced and shivering. He was whispering “help me!” over and over, though what good he thought anyone could do when half his face was missing, Amerel didn’t know. There was no sign of the Chameleons. Evidently they’d engaged their powers, and if the Guardian couldn’t see them, then the stone-skin wouldn’t be able to either. With luck, he’d put the Rubyholter out of his misery and return to the waterfront, no wiser to the Chameleons’ presence.

  A scream sounded in Amerel’s corporeal ears, so loud the culprit might have been standing next to her body. This was going to be a problem. Hard to concentrate on the inn, after all, when there could be an Augeran about to test his sword on her throat. She had to check, didn’t she? Odds were, the Chameleons wouldn’t need her help here, and of course they still had Noon to watch their backs.

  Her mind made up, Amerel flashed back to her body.

  * * *

  Karmel squinted against the light streaming through the tavern door. Two Augerans entered, instead of the one she’d been expecting. Their skin glittered where the light caught their faces. Both were carrying swords, and both wore black cloaks.

  The lead soldier, the shorter of the two, stepped inside and halted. His reflection wavered in the rush-covered water. He took in the corpses, the open back door, the blinded man. The Islander pleaded for help. Karmel waited for the Augeran to advance and finish him, but the stone-skin held his ground. Perhaps he understood the common tongue enough to wonder who the Islander wanted help from. It seemed he wasn’t going to take a chance on the Rubyholt corpses remaining dead, for he stepped to his left and drove his sword into the back of a woman. The body made no sound.

  Karmel’s thoughts raced. There were corpses to either side of her position, and if the Augeran meant to stab them all, he’d probably end up treading on her toes at some point. So what to do? Stay still and hope he missed her? Or strike when he came close? If she picked the right moment, it should be simple to dispose of him. But what about the second Augeran? She’d need to silence him too before he raised the alarm—or Caval would have to do it. The problem was, Karmel was facing away from her brother just now, with no way to signal her intent.

  And yet he’d be ready to support her if she moved, wouldn’t he?

  As the first stone-skin strode around putting holes in more corpses, his companion circled to the south-facing wall so he could check no one was hiding behind the bar. Karmel’s breath was so taut in her chest, it ached when she breathed. A needlefly landed on her cheek. She was glad for the gloom about the room, else the motion of the insects might have alerted the Augerans to her presence. The injured Rubyholter crawled away, only to bang his head against the tavern’s bar. He flinched as if he’d bumped into a stone-skin’s legs, then started sobbing and begging for mercy. Mercy. One word in the common tongue Karmel suspected the Augerans hadn’t bothered learning.

  The first Augeran was now half a dozen paces away. He raised his sword in readiness to stab the closest motionless figure, then noticed it was the man whose head had been all but severed from his body. A neat trick that would have been, playing dead without a head. The Augeran must have made a comment to that effect to his companion, for the man chuckled, not a snatch of tension between them.

  The first stone-skin approached the wounded Islander. At any other time, Karmel would have left the man to his fate. What was he to her that she should risk her life and Caval’s to help him? She had no choice but to attack the Augeran, though, and the best time to do so would be when the soldier’s attention was fixed on the Rubyholter.

  She could make out the stone-skin’s face. He
was younger than she’d expected, maybe as young as the priestess herself. Hard to be sure of his expression in the gloom, but it was best to imagine a sneer or a snigger. That would make it easier to do what had to be done. Her grip on her knives was steady. When she struck, she would go for the Augeran’s throat in the hope her blade would choke off any cry he made.

  The stone-skin halted over the injured Islander and drew back his sword arm.

  Karmel sprang forward, her right hand coming round.

  The stone-skin half turned, his expression disbelieving. He tried to bring his sword up to parry Karmel’s knife, but too late. The priestess’s blade buried itself to the hilt in his neck. Her momentum carried her crashing into him, and he staggered backward, toppled over a corpse, and splashed down, shattering the reflections in the water.

  Karmel righted herself, then pulled back her left hand with her second throwing knife, looking for the other Augeran.

  The man was already on his knees. Caval’s dagger protruded from his chest over the heart. He fell forward onto his face.

  Caval swept past Karmel, making no effort to silence his footfalls. “Come on,” he said. Then, when the priestess made to retrieve her knife from the first soldier’s throat, “Leave it!”

  There was an edge to his voice that could have been nervousness, but equally it could have been anger. Directed at her? She stumbled a pace after him before remembering the blinded Rubyholter. “Go back to being dead,” she said to him, then set off after Caval.

  Her brother had reached the steps leading up to the back door. He leapt to the top in a single bound.

  The door burst inward and thudded into him.

  CHAPTER 16

  “WITHDRAW!” GALANTAS shouted to his men. “Withdraw!”

  Things weren’t going as he’d planned. The stone-skins had spotted his group as soon as it broke cover, giving them time to bring their shields round against the volley of crossbow bolts that followed. Two of the warriors had survived, and now they retreated along the quay at which the Crakehawk was moored. Perhaps the remaining Needles, along with Galantas’s Spears, would overrun them in time, but there was no longer any point in trying, for the Needle water-mage had just lost his head to an enemy sword stroke. Even if the Needles reached the ship, they wouldn’t be going anywhere on it.

  “To the Fury!” Galantas yelled. “Qinta, cover our retreat!” Then, to the Needles, “Pull back!”

  The Needles needed no second invitation.

  Galantas trotted along the waterfront. His mouth was dry as dust. Ahead a Needle two-master and a Spear warship he recognized as the Saberfin rose on waves of water-magic. They pulled away from the docks at the same instant, as if their captains had agreed on a race. Meanwhile, on the waterfront, Kalag’s two Raptors loped toward Galantas, looking all about as if they were searching for someone. For Galantas, most likely. He drew his sword to make it look as if he’d been in the thick of the fighting.

  Twenty paces behind the Raptors came yet more Islanders—Squalls, at a guess. They emerged at a gallop from a pool of shadow. Anyone running that fast had to be fleeing something, and sure enough, a stone-skin in a red cloak appeared from the gloom behind them. Galantas blinked. One man? One man had put an entire party of Squalls to flight?

  Reaching the quay where the Fury was tied, Galantas dashed toward the ship. With each step, the stink of blayfire grew fiercer until his eyes started to water. No question the devilship had been one of the vessels stained with oil, but there was no time to look for another. Some of his men had already climbed on board and lowered the gangplank. As Galantas clattered across it, he heard a high-pitched keening coming from the demon figurehead, no doubt roused to life by the prospect of bloodshed.

  “Cast off!” Galantas called.

  He stepped onto the main deck. There were a dozen little differences between the Fury and Galantas’s beloved Eternal: the overloud creaking of the rigging; the exaggerated pitch of the deck; the fact it took him twelve steps instead of the usual fifteen to reach the ladder to the quarterdeck. Climbing it, he found Barnick waiting beside the ship’s wheel. The mage shot him an inquisitive glance.

  Against his better judgment, Galantas said, “No. Wait until everyone is on board.”

  The Raptors crossed the gangplank. On the waterfront behind, what had started as an orderly retreat by the Needles had turned into a stampede. The last of their number reached the quay just ahead of the first of the Squalls. Jogging at the rear of the Squall party, Galantas recognized the krel, Klipp. One of the best blades in the Isles, it was said, if only by Klipp himself. Intent on covering the retreat of his kinsmen, he drew his sword and turned to confront the red-cloaked stone-skin behind. It must have been a trick of the light, but when the krel swung his weapon, it seemed to pass through his opponent. The Augeran brought his own blade flashing across Klipp’s throat, and the Squall fell in a spray of blood.

  The stone-skin hadn’t so much as broken stride.

  “Crossbows!” Galantas shouted.

  Three of his men rushed to the rail and leveled their weapons. The first bolt flashed past the Augeran’s face, but he did not falter. As he entered the light from one of the lanterns, Galantas noticed golden tattoos on his cheeks like the ones Eremo’s bodyguard had sported. Another bolt missed him, then another.

  Hells, wasn’t there anyone on this ship who could shoot straight?

  On the quay the first Squalls had reached the gangplank. Behind, two women supported a male companion between them. He was limping. His two female friends looked back to see the Augeran closing—and promptly abandoned their kinsman to his fate. As they dashed for the Fury, the man gave a despairing cry and hobbled after them.

  The stone-skin’s sword punched through his back.

  The women leapt to the deck.

  “Go!” Galantas said to Barnick.

  The ship sprang away from the docks. For the first time that night, Galantas found himself glad he was aboard the Fury and not the Eternal, for his own vessel, with its skin of steel plates, would not have proved as spritely at that moment. The Augeran warrior tensed. Galantas thought he meant to chase the ship along the quay and jump for one of its lines. No, he wouldn’t dare. Galantas’s crew, supplemented by the Needles and Squalls, now numbered around twenty, and the idea of the stone-skin attacking against those odds seemed … absurd. The Augeran must have thought likewise, for he spun and retreated the way he’d come. Jeers from the Fury’s main deck followed him along the quay.

  The ship flitted out into the harbor. Galantas scanned the waterfront. There was fighting to the north and south, and every knot of combatants likely represented a ship that would not sail. The Spirit pulled away from its berth, but the Breeze was still tied up at the quay along with the Swarm and—

  Someone stepped in front of Galantas, breaking his line of sight. One of the Raptors. The man’s once-flamboyant mustache drooped in the heat. “I am taking command of this ship,” he said. Then, louder, to carry to the crew, “The Fury is mine.”

  Galantas stared at him.

  “She belongs to Kalag,” Mustache added.

  Galantas looked from the man to his Raptor companion. “He must want her very badly indeed if he sent both of you two heroes to claim her.”

  Laughs from the main deck, but Mustache held his ground. “The Fury is mine,” he said again.

  “If you want her, you’ll have to take her from me. Draw your sword.”

  “My sword?”

  “You know, the piece of metal in the scabbard at your waist.”

  More laughs.

  “Why?” Mustache said.

  “Because I want to see if you can draw it. The Sender knows, you made no effort to, back on the waterfront. Instead you just stood by and watched while your kinsmen here”—his gesture took in the Needles and the Squalls as well as his own Spears—“did all the work. And now you have the nerve to try to steal the ship from us.” Because stealing was such a terrible thing.

  The Rapt
or scowled but said nothing.

  “What’s your name?” Galantas said, beginning to enjoy himself.

  “Toben Stark.”

  Galantas had heard of him—he was the krel who had won the Hundred Islands race the year before Galantas. “Never heard of you.”

  Toben looked round like there might be some way to extract himself from his predicament. Galantas, though, wasn’t ready to put him out of his misery.

  “Are you a water-mage?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “What about your friend here?” He nodded to the other Raptor.

  Toben shook his head.

  “So tell me, if I had ceded you the command, how would you have gotten your new ship to safety? I trust you weren’t intending to give an order to my water-mage. Or to one of the Squalls or Needles.”

  No response.

  Galantas dismissed him with a snort. And to think that earlier he’d considered disposing of the Raptors when he had the chance. Much better to let them live for their entertainment value. He addressed his crew. “Someone find these fools a mop and get them swabbing the blayfire from the deck.”

  With that, he turned his back on Toben.

  As the ship sailed into the black of the harbor, the screams and the clatter of blades fell away. Even the moaning of the Fury’s demon figurehead abated as the immediate threat of bloodshed receded. Gliding ahead of the Fury were a handful of Rubyholt ships. The white-hulled Colossus was there, along with the Spirit, and the black-sailed Karmight, and a few other vessels Galantas didn’t recognize. He did a quick count. Nine in total, if you included the Fury. A poor return on tonight’s efforts, but he would worry about that when he was clear of this place.

  Thus far he’d been too busy to look for Malek and his ships, but now he peered into the darkness ahead. Rising from the distant waves were the islets that marked the edge of the harbor. Beyond, four stone-skin vessels with lanterns in their rigging were lined up like floating fortresses. Farther out was a row of seven Rubyholt ships, little more than shadows in the gloom. Between the two fleets, a heaving mass of water cut and foamed like a storm-tossed sea. A hissing sound reached Galantas, together with a growl and a thunder as if some titan were stirring in the depths.