Harbinger

by Shae Ford

  He didn’t want that. He didn’t care what the mirror said: he wasn’t their answer. “Sorry, but you’re going to have to find someone else. I’m just trying to save my grandfather,” he said. He tossed the mirror onto the desk and turned to leave, but Morris blocked his path.

  “The gift isn’t easy, I understand that.” He wedged his arm in the collar of his shirt and pulled it down. Through the tangled wires of black hair on his chest, Kael could see the whisperer’s mark. “Do you know what this is?”

  “It’s a birthmark.”

  “No it isn’t. See how red and raised it is, how it goes down in a straight line? You ever seen a birthmark like that? ‘Course you haven’t! ‘Cause it’s no birthmark, lad — it’s a scar.”

  “Well whatever it is, it’s not like I asked for it.”

  He laughed. “It isn’t about what you asked for. You were chosen for this, long before you were even born. You were still in your mother’s womb when the lady Fate split you wide open. She put her gift inside you and sewed you up tight — that’s why every whisperer has a scar.”

  Amos never talked much about the history of their people, so he couldn’t help but be interested in what Morris had to say. He just wished he hadn’t brought Fate into it. “I won’t let anyone tell me what I ought to do.”

  “No, you got it all wrong — Fate gives her gifts, but she lets us decide what to do with them. There’s no reason why an ugly old seadog like me should have an eye for craft, or a redheaded, toothpick of a boy should have the gifts of a Wright.” He grinned and touched his arm to the side of his head. “But we do. Now instead of jumping overboard, why don’t you give it a shot, eh? Let me train you up a bit, teach you what I know about the gifts. Then you can decide what you ought to do with them.”

  He thought that sounded reasonable. Besides, whatever Morris had to show him might come in handy when he finally got to Titus. “All right —”

  “One moment, please,” Lysander interrupted. He slunk over from the window, arms behind his back and a sly smile on his face. “As Captain of this ship, I think I should be compensated for Morris’s time.”

  Kael wasn’t surprised. “Fine. I’ve got some silver in my pack —”

  He raised his hand. “I don’t want your coin. A man like me has little use for it.”

  “Then what do you want, Sandy?” Kyleigh said from where she lounged against the bookshelves.

  He frowned at her. “Don’t call me that.”

  “Don’t behave like a pinch-fisted shop woman, and I won’t name you like one.”

  “Fine.” He turned back to Kael. “What I want is simple — freedom. Help me break my curse, and I’ll consider it ample payment for your training.”

  Kael knew from his short time in the merchant’s caravan that there was no such thing as a simple deal. “How do I break the curse?”

  And just as he suspected, Lysander’s smile wavered. “An obnoxiously clever little whisperer, aren’t you? All right, I see no harm in telling you.” His face turned serious. “In order to break the curse, you’re going to have to slay the Witch of Wendelgrimm.”

  Kyleigh snorted. “That hardly seems fair.”

  “I’ll bring him there myself,” Lysander continued. “Thelred and I will go with him to the castle. But I can’t ask my men to risk their lives again, not for my sake.”

  “And of course, I’ll go as well,” Kyleigh added.

  “So there you have it.” Lysander spread his arms wide. “That’s every nook and cranny of our agreement, I’ve got nothing else to hide. What do you say?”

  Kael knew he didn’t exactly have a choice. So he took Lysander’s hand and, glaring at the excited sparks of lightning behind his stormy eyes, said: “All right, we have a bargain.”

  Chapter 22

  Galley-Scrubbing

  “A Wright is born in times of trouble, when the Kingdom is near to killing itself,” Morris said. “No one knows why, exactly, but that’s always the way it is.”

  They stood on the steering deck — Morris glanced between the sun and the waves while Kael stared very pointedly at the deck below. He kept his arms crossed tightly and tried to ignore the fact that there wasn’t a patch of land in sight. There were no landmarks, nothing to say where to turn or which path to follow. He felt as if they’d been swept out into another world, and he couldn’t help but wonder if they would ever find their way back.

  “Seems daunting, eh?” Morris said, as if he could read the worry on Kael’s face. “Look here.”

  Next to the ship’s massive wheel was a small wooden table. And upon that table sat an instrument Kael had only ever read about. It was a compass: capped in gold and with neatly drawn letters etched around it. Set in the middle of the compass was what looked like the arrow from a tiny bow.

  “The head always faces north, no matter what. But we don’t want to go north — we want to go south. So …” Morris wedged his arms between the knobs of the ship’s wheel and slid one limb over the other. The ship groaned as it turned, and Kael watched the arrow. When they were heading in the direction of the tail, Morris stopped. He grinned as Anchorgloam turned her nose, his eyes creased in their pouches. “See? Nothing to worry about.”

  Knowing which direction they were headed was useful, but Kael had to wonder why the only handless man aboard Anchorgloam was the one in charge of steering it. Then again, if he ever wondered about something strange aboard the ship, he only had to look as far as its captain for an explanation.

  “How’s that, Morris?” Lysander called from beneath them.

  White clouds rolled by occasionally, but the sky had been clear most of the day: dominated by the merciless heat of the sun. Naturally, the pirates saw this as an excuse to strip off their shirts. Now they strutted back and forth across the deck, pretending to work — but all they really did was flex their muscles any time one the girls walked by.

  Lysander had his hands propped up on his hips, sweat shining on every lithe muscle in his arms and chest. “Shouldn’t we tilt the topsail just a hair? I feel a breeze coming from the east.”

  “No, it’s coming from out your mouth,” Morris muttered, which made Kael grin. “Move the mainsail to catch it, if speed’s the thing you’re after!”

  Lysander jerked his head at the crew that worked the mainsail — which included Aerilyn. “You heard him. Now move, you mangy curs!”

  “Aye, Captain!”

  They hauled back on the ties, and Aerilyn struggled to keep her footing. When the wind caught the sails and jerked the line forward, she tumbled over with a squeak.

  Lysander leapt to her side and took up her slack. “You’ve got to lean back on your heels, lady merchant,” he said with a mocking grin. “Use your arms for an anchor and your legs for a tide.”

  Even from where he stood, Kael could see the muscles that bulged out from Lysander’s arms. Aerilyn must have noticed too, because her face reddened and she turned quickly away.

  “We’ve been stuck at sea for nearly five years, and in all that time I forgot what a show the captain likes to put on around the ladies,” Morris grumbled.

  Well, if Lysander wanted to keep his abnormally white teeth inside his mouth, Kael thought the only thing he needed to put on was a shirt.

  “Anyways,” Morris continued, “a Wright is always born in times of trouble. Think about all the ones you know — Charles the Wright was born during the rise of the mages, back when they tried to destroy the Kingdom. Setheran the Wright was born before the Whispering War, of course. And there are a lot of folks who believe Sir Gorigan was a Wright as well, but so much has been lost in the telling that I suppose we’ll never know.”

  “Wait a moment — you believe in Sir Gorigan?”

  “’Course I do! It’s history, isn’t it? Just because it wasn’t written down at the time don’t make it any less important. But the real question is,” he squinched up his eyes, “what’s Kael the Wright been born for?”

  “To crush Earl Titus,” he said dar
kly.

  “Wrong!” Morris smacked him in the back of the head with the blunt of his arm. “You haven’t been born for anything, not until you’ve been trained. And that’s where I come in. Now, the bow’s your weapon of choice, isn’t it?”

  “It’s the only thing I know how to use,” he admitted.

  “Hmm, well we’re going to have to fix that. But in the meantime,” Morris gestured at the mainmast: the one Kael had to lean back to see the top of, “there’s a knot in the wood near the crow’s nest, do you see it?”

  He followed the line down from the basket at the top of the mast and found the knot. It was darker than the rest and a bit raised — and probably about the size of his head. But from where he stood, it looked no bigger than the backside of a pin.

  “I want you to shoot an arrow into that knot.”

  “Well, I can’t do that.” He knew that shot was well outside of his paltry range, and he didn’t want to make a fool of himself.

  But Morris wasn’t going to let him off that easily. “Now see here,” he said with a growl, pink rising through his scraggily beard. “If I’m going to train you, then you’ve got to do as I say, understand? I don’t need your cheek — I just need you to shoot an arrow.”

  Kael was fine with that: the sooner Morris learned how weak he was, the better. He drew his bow and took aim at the knot, pulling back on the string until his arm shook. He released, and the arrow fell in a pitiful arc to the deck below — where it lodged itself in the wood a hair’s breadth from Jonathan’s boot.

  “Be careful!” he shouted. “I’ve only got two of those, and I need them both to do the jig.”

  “Sorry,” Kael called back. Then he turned to Morris. “See? I told you I couldn’t do it.”

  “Wipe that smug look off of your face. Failing just to win isn’t anything to be proud of.” Then he leaned over the rails and said: “Noah, bring me an axe!”

  A minute later, Noah jogged up the stairs carrying a small, two-headed axe. “Here you are,” he said, handing it to Kael.

  “Now don’t think about it, don’t worry over it and don’t sass me!” Morris barked. “Just throw the axe. Throw it!”

  He’d never thrown an axe in his life. But all Morris’s screeching made him mad enough to rear back and fling it as hard as he could.

  The weapon went sailing, spinning head over head. The pirates stopped their work on deck and watched, open mouthed, as it soared up and nearly out of sight. It disappeared behind the white light of the sun, and he thought he’d missed the mast entirely. Then it fell from the sky and — with a sharp thud — sunk into the exact center of the knot.

  He heard Noah’s jaw crack as it fell wide open. “How in Kingdom’s name did you do that?”

  “I have no idea.” Kael said. He’d imagined the knot was Morris’s head … but he wasn’t about to admit it aloud, not while he was within range of Morris’s club-like arms.

  “Contest!” Lysander declared, leaping to the top of the nearest barrel. “There’s an extra round of grog in it for any man that can best that mark!”

  The pirates cheered and jostled amongst themselves for a spot in line.

  Every man aboard Anchorgloam gave it a shot — sometimes two or three. Big men stepped up to try their luck, men with burly arms and hairy chests, men who cracked their necks and roared when they made their throws … men who grunted in frustration when their axes fell far short — when they missed the mast completely. Soon the pirates were scratching their heads in disappointment and muttering that the throw was impossible.

  “Do you see it now?” Morris said quietly.

  “See what?”

  Kael hadn’t exactly been listening. He watched as Thelred hurled an axe with all his might, and couldn’t stop himself from grinning when it barely made it halfway up the mast. Thelred muttered darkly and kicked an empty bucket out to sea — and Kael had to turn away to keep from laughing outright.

  Morris frowned at him. “It’s all fun now, but know this: if a Wright doesn’t doubt himself, there’s not a thing he can’t do.”

  Kael didn’t believe him, not at first. Then dinnertime rolled around and not a single pirate had gotten anywhere close to besting his mark. When he followed the others down to the galley and Lysander gave him his extra round of grog, he looked out and saw the wide-eyed respect on the pirates’ hardened faces.

  Then he believed.

  “To the throw that bested us all,” Lysander said, raising his tankard high. “May the axe rest ever on its mark — as a monument to the pirate Kael!”

  “Aye, to the throw!” the others bellowed, and they tossed back generous swigs of their drink in his honor.

  “Yes, how did you manage to do that?” Aerilyn asked as he took his seat. She wrestled with a rubbery tentacle that poked out from her soup, trying to spear it with her fork.

  “I’d like to know that myself, actually,” Jonathan agreed. He plucked the tentacle out of her bowl with his fingers and stuffed the whole grayish wad into his mouth, earning himself a disgusted look.

  Kael decided there was no point in trying to keep his gift a secret anymore. He was already an enemy of the Kingdom, and everyone around him was — quite literally — in the same boat. They’d have to be mad to try and turn him in.

  “I’m a Wright,” he said, watching as their eyebrows climbed. “I always knew I was a whisperer, but I just found out about the … the other bit.”

  Jonathan let out a low whistle. “Well, we’d already guessed the whisperer part, but a Wright?” He grinned. “I bet the ladies would really go for that. If I were you, I’d have it stitched to the front of my tunic.”

  “Wait — how long have you known I was a whisperer?” Kael said.

  “I guessed it after the first few hunting trips,” Aerilyn replied with a shrug. “I’ve lived with the caravan my whole life, and I’ve never seen anyone come back with so much game. Only a whisperer could’ve managed it. I told Jonathan, and he agreed. And then we,” she took a deep breath, “I’m sorry, but we went to Papa. We only did it because we didn’t want to put the caravan in danger,” she added, her voice imploring.

  “But old Garron already knew. Turns out he’d known for awhile,” Jonathan said. “He told us not to say a word. He said you were a good lad and danger or no, he wasn’t going to leave you on your own.” He smirked. “Not to mention the fact that those pelts you were bringing in made him a wealthy man.”

  “Yeah, but the gold on my head would have made him even wealthier,” Kael said, fighting stubbornly against the sudden emotion that rose in his chest.

  Aerilyn straightened her shoulders, as she did every time she talked about Garron. “No worse bargain was ever made than the fool who traded friends for gold. That was the first rule Papa ever taught me.”

  “Aye, and mates have got to stick together,” Jonathan added with a playful punch in his arm. “So like it or not, you’re stuck with us, mate.”

  Kael could only nod in reply. Then he mumbled some excuse about having a stomachache and ran up the stairs. He made it out into the solitude of the night and clutched his chest, pushing back against the waves that swelled in his heart — the ones that threatened to spill over and out his eyes at any moment.

  *******

  According to Morris, every Wright had a leaning: an unbalance in his gifts that made him better at one thing than the other two. And he believed, rather unwisely, that Kael’s leaning was in the direction of war.

  “The mind is like any muscle, lad — you’ve got to use it till it gets sore, wake up, and use it again. That’s the only way you’re going to get any stronger.”

  “How exactly do I do that?” Kael asked.

  Morris grinned. “Ever gotten a headache?”

  “Yes, and they’re horrible.”

  “That they may be. But then again, working yourself to a headache is the only way to build up the mind’s strength. Each time you push yourself, it gets stronger. And the next time you’ll be able to push even
farther. Got it?”

  Kael sighed. “I suppose. But how exactly do I get a headache? It’s not like it’s ever happened when I meant it to.”

  “There are several things that’ll tucker you out: fighting off magic is one, and then of course using the skills you’ve got will always take a toll.” Morris smirked. “But don’t you worry — I think I’ve figured out a way to bruise your body and your head.”

  It didn’t take long for Kael to discover Morris’s plan: the next morning at six bells, Lysander called them all up on deck for sparring practice. Against the railings were crates full of different wooden weapons. They were ordered to take up the sword and wait in line while Thelred paired them up.

  Kael was waiting his turn when Morris hooked him around the shoulders and pulled him aside. “I don’t think so, lad. None of those fellows will be near challenging enough. But I’ve found you someone I think’ll give you a match.”

  As it turned out, his partner was the most experienced, ruthless, and mean-spirited fighter among them:

  Kyleigh.

  “No, no lad! You’re not paying attention,” Morris barked as Kael fell hard on his back. “You’re just watching her swing.”

  “Well that’s how I keep my skull from getting cracked open,” he retorted, dragging himself to his feet. “I’ve got to watch after my head, don’t I? Especially when my partner is doing everything she can to knock it off,” he added.

  She returned his glare with a smile.

  Morris groaned loudly. “You can’t waste time watching your head — you’ve got to use it! Every move she makes, you got to be asking yourself why she makes it. See there?” Kyleigh stepped to his left, her wooden practice sword hanging loosely in her hand. “Now tell me why she did that.”

  “Because that’s her strongest side, and my weakest,” he said automatically. He took several trips to the ground before Morris finally pointed out, with no small amount of exasperation, that Kyleigh was left-handed.