The Bloodheart

by Steve Rzasa

  My stomach heaves. In a step I’m up on the rail. Ariya lets the sails billow out again, and we lurch toward the masts of the huge warship ahead of us. With the wind blowing as it is, we nose over the bowsprit of the enemy. I’ve never met this Doorward Strathern fellow, and now he has his cannons on me and issues threats. He has Vesna.

  Blackguard.

  “Captain! What are you doing?” Ariya’s cry is shrill.

  No time. I leap.

  We’re barely ten feet over their deck and rising. I land atop a sailor, shove off him into a roll. We tumble into another sailor. They have swords. I scramble to my feet and plant the pommel of my sword dead center on one’s skull. The thud is reassuring. I kick and sweep the feet out from under the second sailor. His sword clatters to the deck.

  There.

  The deck between me and the ship’s wheels is crowded with men. A scream cuts through their cacophony of shouting.

  “Vesna!” I lunge at the nearest man. He’s a soldier, this one, wearing chain mail and a cloak bearing the same red and black colors as the ship’s pennants. Our blades clash and flash sunlight.

  A fearsome bark snaps at me. Gridley barrels by, a smudge of black and wide against the browns of the sailors. He tears at clothing and wrestles with men brave enough to stand ground. Others flee before him.

  My opponent strikes with his sword. I dodge the scimitar blade, thrust but he parries the blow. It’s a sloppy move. We trade more, intensity increasing. His brow is drenched with sweat. His neck is beet red and his breathing labored. It’s a miracle he can keep up a defense, given the stench of rum billowing from him.

  One slip is all it takes. I feint a strike and when he dodges, I thrust home. The falchion’s blade drives deep beneath his armpit, where the armor cracks and gives way like paper. His eyes go wide, white sclera, and he slides wordlessly off my blade.

  No pausing to wipe off the blood.

  Two men drag Vesna off. They’re pulling at her. She slaps one and he punches her in the side.

  Fury gives way to a cold so bitter I think my heart will stop. In this moment I care not about the source of magic, or whether it is a boon or a curse. I curl my hand at the one who hit her and let fly the incantation.

  Blue light flashes across the distance. It’s sudden and fierce, an explosion of ice. But I see not a coating on him, nor shards in the air. Only after the glow fades do I realize what’s happened.

  There’s an icicle as long as my arm punched deep through the man’s chest. He’s pinned to the bulkhead.

  Vesna and the other sailor stare at me. The sailor glances at her, and at me, before he bolts.

  My arm is numb. It lies weakened at my side. I try to shake it awake but it responds not. My teeth grind together. One moment I unleash magic I never knew was possible for me to possess, the next my body will no obey my commands. Tell me now this is not a curse.

  “Bowen!” Vesna clings to me. Our kiss is deep, passionate, and chases away the ice in my veins. Sounds around us dull beneath the roar of blood in my ears.

  The boom of cannon fire interrupts.

  Wood splinters explode near the bowsprit. I whirl around, shielding Vesna with my body from debris and my sword from all comers. But—who is attacking us?

  The reason is clear. Sleet wings her way over this ship’s masts, covering the deck in a welcome shadow. One of the other ships, a sleek schooner that had hemmed us in—and has thus far avoided getting doused with dragon fire—has smoke rising from its cannons.

  I grin. The fools. They tried to shoot Sleet and struck their own flagship.

  The young dragon sentinel swoops down on the offender and snaps off one of the portsails with its claws. He might as well be a child picking dandelions for all the effort it takes. The ship returns fire with cannons—or rather, tries to. The guns will not aim at such an angle, and the dragon is not foolish enough to tempt the gunners. Musketeers unload shot at him, but he veers from their sights.

  What I need now is a way off this vessel.

  Where is Sleet?

  Off to the east, and banking swiftly to starboard. Come along, Niall, we cannot leap to Zadar from this height.

  “Look out!” Vesna pulls me aside as a sword blade cleaves the air. Goodness knows where this soldier came from, flailing at me with a cutlass like his brethren hold, but he charges us with recklessness. The sword misses me by inches and chops wood from the bulkhead.

  There’s no time nor space in which to engage him in swordplay. He barrels in to me, shoves me against the rail.

  These are the moments for which my dirk is meant.

  I pull the dagger from its sheath on the back of my belt and bring the wide blade up into his stomach. Cloth rips and the blade makes a sickening, wet sound as it penetrates flesh. The soldier cries out in agony. I bend and twist, slipping him over the rail and plummeting to the sea. His cries fall from my hearing as a stone.

  Up on the stern deck, a man I presume to be the captain hollers orders and brandishes a wheellock pistol. The helmsman spins his wheels like a dervish, and the ship groans its way sharply to port. It lurches as we rise higher into the air. I cannot help but pray the aethershard does not give out from too sudden a maneuver.

  “Stay close. Niall and Ariya won’t let us fall.” I grip Vesna’s hand tightly.

  She nods. “What can I do?”

  “Same as you would in a bar fight, my dear.”

  She takes a dagger from beneath her dress. It sparkles in the sun. Jewels cover its hilt. Where in the clear skies did she gain that? Never seen it.

  Why did she not produce it until now?

  No matter. I whistle sharp. Gridley unlatches his teeth from around a poor sailor’s leg and bolts to our side. Now if only Niall were as fast—but Sleet is still too far off, and too high up. Ariya could only get one of us off the deck, if she flew over.

  The man in black and red lands on the deck before us. So this is the fiend, a lightning-summoner who would dare threaten Vesna. His eyes are a pale brown and his hair as black as his clothing, which is bordered in blood-red crimson. His right arm is encased in metal armor, from shoulder to fingers, and crackles with sparks. An orb inset in the arm pulses a glaring yellow.

  “Bowen Cord.” The voice is terse, carrying the heavy accent of a Northamber man, leaning on the consonants. “You insist on making things difficult.”

  None of the crew nor the soldiers pay us heed. They are quite preoccupied with the dragon roaring between the sails, shooting gouts of flame here and there. None of the fire has done more than smolder wood and cloth. He’s not aiming to kill, apparently.

  When Benath said he would keep an eye on us, I never figured a secret guardian into that promise.

  I put myself between this Strathern, Doorward of some Northamber king to whom I owe no allegiance. “You’ll not have her and you’ll not have the relic you seek. I suggest you get used to the disappointment.”

  Strathern chuckles. “You think it will be thus? You have little faith in my abilities, and in yours, for that matter. I, on the other hand, have no misgivings about the power I wield.”

  He lets fly a bolt. I put up my hand, the one not holding a sword, and lash out with the ice. Not the slightest clue what form it will take.

  Slivers of ice whirl at Strathern. His lightning obliterates most, but I’m satisfied that a handful of razor-thin, glittering slivers slash across his face and provoke an angry shout.

  Satisfied, that is, until lightning strikes my sword.

  It courses into my arm and my body with such force I’m blown into Vesna and the rail behind us. I may as well be a leaf for all the resistance I offer. Every muscle screams, every bone aches. Sound and pain throb in my ears.

  I collapse to the deck. My sword is fallen next to me. Vesna kneels, one hand on the small of my back. I cannot make out her words but there’s a double sense of comfort and warning. She has the dagger in place before us, for whatever meager defense that will offer against Strathern’s handiwork. />
  “You are untrained, but not without gift,” he says, advancing on us slowly. His gait suggests a summer’s eve stroll with a lovely lass hanging from his arm. “There’s no point to resisting my strength. Do you have any idea how long my master taught me these techniques? Years, Cord. Years spent isolated from anyone other than summoners. Years spent absorbing his every gesture, his every word, in hopes that one day I would take my place among the ranks of the summoners loyal to the king of Northamber.”

  I shake my head, meaning for it to be an act of vigorous defiance yet managing a slight jerk. “That’s not the way it should be. Summoners are not to serve any earthly king.”

  Strathern scowls. “You sound like an idiot priest.”

  Gridley’s hair is up. His growl builds with implied threat until he can take it no longer. He lunges at Strathern, teeth flashing. But Strathern interposes his armored arm between himself and my faithful companion. Gridley’s teeth scrape on metal. A burst of blinding light and crack of thunder flings Gridley to the deck. He whimpers, but staggers onto his paws again. Patches of his hair smoke.

  “Send word to your crew, Cord.” Strathern’s arm glows with lightning. I can feel its strength prickling across my skin, washing away the cold and melting the ice. Concentrate. I need the ice. I need it to counter Strathern, no matter the cost. “Heave to and surrender the relic. And the boy.”

  The boy. What use could they possibly have of Luc?

  It strikes me thus: the same use I have had of him. He is the key to the relics. “No. Never.”

  Strathern sighs. He raises his hands and his lips work with words I do not understand—

  And he does nothing.

  At first I am certain the lightning has addled my mind. Strathern stands over us, arms outstretched, like a frozen golem. But soon I realize it’s not only him. The other sailors are hunched and crouched solid, too. The sails are caught in mid-billow. The rigging is stuck halfway through a swing.

  Everything is suffused with a silvery light, a strange transparent coating of—of nothing I have ever seen before.

  “Bowen, what’s happening?” Vesna’s eyes are wide. “The ships—they’ve all stopped.”

  She’s right. The ships of the Northamber fleet, some still ablaze, others firing their cannons, are all frozen in various maneuvers. That’s when I see it: a seagull, twenty feet over our heads, wings stuck in the air in mid-flap.

  The only sounds are the wind and a pounding beat. The dragon hovers over the stern deck, shaking the hull clear to the bow. “Man-worm! You and your mate and your beast must flee!”

  “A fine idea.” Vesna helps me to my feet. Gridley manages his encounter with Strathern’s lightning better than I. He stays near us as we hurry up stairs to the stern deck, passing by the stock-still helmsman and his captain. Spittle hovers in a tiny spray from the captain’s wide open mouth.

  Sleet sails into view, a hundred feet off the stern of this warship. She alone is moving.

  Luc is on the deck, with the Bloodheart held high in his hands. Subtle waves of silver light ripple outward, as circles from a stone tossed into pond.

  He has done this?

  The dragon clutches Gridley in one large clawed hand, and reaches likewise for me and Vesna. Rough scaly skin squeezes us together. Metal presses painfully to my side—Vesna retrieved my sword, apparently. I shake the confusion from my mind.

  In an instant the dragon wings us from the deck of the warship and deposits us on Sleet. I have never been more grateful to feel that familiar sway of the deck beneath my feet, or the whisper of those sails over my head.

  “Niall! Get us from here with haste!” Ariya kneels beside me, her expression sour with worry. “Captain, you’re injured.”

  I wave her away as one shoos a fly. “No, no, see to Gridley. I’m well enough.”

  The dragon snorts, letting out a puff of smoke. “Well enough for crisp worm. You have courage, but not much smarts.”

  “I shall take the half-compliment.”

  Sleet turns away and up from the frozen tableau. The warships hang in the air, icicles on the edge of the barn roof in the dead of winter. Yet ships around them and elsewhere near Zadar move unhindered.

  Luc shudders and sags. His arms droop. The Bloodheart stops its silver pulses.

  The ships, now a mile or more off, snap into motion. But they’re hopelessly positioned to do anything but avoid collisions with each other. One of the smaller ones, still flaming with dragon fire, bounces off the hull of another. Faint cracking of wood and shouts of alarm drift to us on the winds.

  We slice through the clouds. Finally. Safe.

  I limp to the stern under my own power, Vesna alongside. Ariya flies up and over to the dragon, speaking to him about what I have no idea.

  “Well, Captain! Decent of you to return.” Niall grins. Arm muscles bulge as he handles both wheels with aplomb. “We took care of your ship for you in your absence. Though Ariya insisted we leave without you.”

  “That is not so!” she shouts from far off. “It was you who said it, you hairy oaf!”

  “It was. But only in jest.” Niall winks. “Vesna, glad you could come along on our little jaunt.”

  She smiles, shakily, and puts her arms around me. “My travel options were limited.”

  “They were indeed.” I lift her chin and give her a kiss. “We’re safe now.”

  “Thank you, Bowen. For coming for me.”

  “Was it true? What Strathern said?”

  Vesna’s smile falters. “Let’s not speak of it now.”

  Niall coughs loudly.

  “Niall. Nicely done. But I’ll not kiss you.” I wave a hand behind me. “What about the dragon?”

  “What about him?” Niall scowls. “Spraying fire about like cheap whiskey. Dunce could have burned us all down. I’ve no idea whence he came, Bowen, nor how he’s been following us.”

  We break through the patch of clouds and keep rising. Zadar lies far below us and at our backs. Smoke rises in inky black fingers from the warships. The tightness in my chest fades, and I breathe deep the cool air.

  Ariya flits to a landing behind Niall. “His name is Tereth, a dragon ranger. Benath assigned him the honor of being our shadow.”

  “Benath said he’d keep his eyes upon us. Well, I’ll not say nay to a helping hand—or flame, in this instance.”

  Luc sits cross-legged on the deck, cradling the Bloodheart. He looks tired enough to sleep, eyelids drooping and body relaxed. The Bloodheart pulses in the same way that guided us east from the Atlan Reach and Cloud Reef. Our stopover in Zadar was to be but a brief resupply.

  I glance over my shoulder at Vesna, whom Ariya takes below. We exchange smiles. Mine is forced. It cannot be bad luck that this Strathern and his forces were lying in wait for our return when only one person knew for certain we were coming back.

  Gridley paces and whines. I scratch his neck, avoiding the sore patches of fur. “You did a fine job, too, boy.”

  He favors me with an aloof, Of course I did. You expected less?

  “I’m glad you’re safe, Captain,” Luc says.

  I join him, folding my legs underneath and sitting on the deck. “What was that, Luc? What did you do?”

  He shrugs. “We had to save you. I begged for help.”

  “You did not freeze all of them?”

  “No. I asked for help.” He looks at me as if he’s speaking to an even smaller child. “The Bloodheart answered.”

  THE TWENTY-FIRST CHAPTER

  ~

  Strathern

  I’ll kill them all.

  When I next meet them, it will be slow torture and agonizing death that greets them. I’ve been far too lenient. Bowen Cord will revel in the sight of the woman he loves abused, ruined, and slain before his eyes. He will exult in the spectacle of his crew torn open and fed to dire-wolves. He’ll relish the sounds of his mongrel being roasted alive.

  “Sire,” my lieutenant says. “Are you well?”

  Gah! I stri
ke the idiot with such force that he’s flung six feet to the nearest bulkhead. The ring of my hand against his chest armor bangs across the deck as gunfire.

  “Moor the ships!” I scream. “Continue evacuation of Vigil and Rattler. Get the hulls into the water and salvage munitions, supplies and don’t forget the aethershards! Move your carcasses!”

  Sailors and soldiers scurry to obey my orders, moving as swiftly as if they were my next intended targets—which they very well may be.

  My lieutenant picks himself up and, without so much as a grimace, returns to my side. Well. If it’s an apology he awaits it’ll come when I run out of lightning.

  “Sire.” Captain Hamish stands a good distance off, here on the quarterdeck of Inexorable. Or perhaps I should rechristen her Useless for all the good she did me against a dragon. “With my urging the crew can have the ship ready for pursuit in six hours.”

  Six hours. Six hours. Left unspoken is how long it will take to repair the other ships. Neither Vigil nor Rattler can do me any good at this point. Their masts are splintered, their sails are blackened, and the crew not slain by that Aevorn harpy are engaged in frantic efforts to repair their ships. That leaves me with Cobra and Encampment. They are fast but they won’t be able to catch Sleet. Not with the head start they have.

  And I won’t trust Cord’s capture to anyone else.

  “Sire. The woman, Vesna Juric, is gone,” my lieutenant says.

  “Thank you for the statement of the obvious.”

  “We will not be able to hold her as leverage on Captain Cord and his crew.”

  I grind my teeth together, imagining lightning bolts shooting through his chest. “Your point being?”

  “What are your orders, sire, regarding our pursuit?”

  I fume for a spell, drumming my fingers on the rail. Below, Kolovare’s is a hive of activity with ships’ crews and local merchants milling about. A smile dances across my lips. “We must be thorough in our questioning, Lieutenant. “But first I have new arrangements to make.”

  ~

  The man screams in agony as lightning scalds his chest.