by Scull, Luke
Ten years ago, maybe even five, he would have summoned up the strength to push back. Borun might be the larger man, but he was Brodar Kayne, and his strength had been legendary.
That was then. This was now. Try as he might, he could not overpower the huge, stinking warrior looming over him. Fact was, he wasn’t the man he used to be.
You have to adapt.
He dived to the left, heard the heavy steel head of the axe thud into the turf an instant later, missing his head by a hair’s breadth. There was an angry grunt and then Borun was on him again. Still on his knees, Kayne parried the first blow. He dropped a hand to the magical dagger at his belt and parried Borun’s second slash one-handed, his arm almost buckling with the effort.
With his free hand, he drew the blade and slammed it hard into Borun’s stomach.
The big Highlander gasped and stumbled backwards, staring down at the hilt quivering in his midriff. Blood seeped around it, dribbling between his legs.
Brodar Kayne clambered back to his feet and stalked forwards. ‘I reckon that’ll about do for you,’ he said, swatting aside a diagonal chop aimed at his neck. Borun was already weakening. The dribble of blood had become a steady patter. ‘I should leave you here to die a slow death. Ain’t like you don’t deserve it.’
Borun drew a shuddering breath. ‘Couldn’t rightly blame you for that,’ he said. He wavered and suddenly his axe tumbled from his grasp into the mud with a squelch. He placed both hands around the hilt of the dagger, where they hesitated.
‘Lost count of the times I dreamed of killing you,’ Kayne said. ‘Sometimes it was all that kept me going. I guess I should be feeling mighty satisfied right about now. Truth is, though, I don’t. You can’t change what’s been done.’
‘Aye,’ said Borun. He rocked on his feet again. His hands had begun to tremble. ‘And sometimes you can’t change what’s coming.’
Kayne closed his eyes for a moment. Memories came back to him. Swimming down the Icemelt on his twenty-first naming day, his skin so cold it had turned blue. Borun laughing his arse off, little more than a boy. He had swum to the shore and hauled the younger man in, to much laughter from them both.
Hunting in the Long Pikes together, Borun bringing down his first boar after they’d spent the best part of a day fleeing an enraged mountain lion.
The look of pride on Borun’s face when Kayne asked him to be Spirit Father for his bride-to-be.
The same face staring at the ground while he scraped his arms raw on the Shaman’s cage.
Mhaira’s screams.
He raised his greatsword high above his head. The sun bathed it in a red glow, the colour of blood. ‘Sometimes you can’t change what’s coming,’ he said, staring down into Borun’s eyes. ‘But a man who looks away and accepts it without as much as a whimper, he’s no man. And for damn sure he ain’t no brother.’ The sword flashed down. Borun’s head thumped onto the ground and rolled for a good few yards before coming to a stop against an outcrop of granite.
Jerek walked over, his twin axes dripping red. ‘You told that cunt,’ he said simply. Specks of blood dotted his face and short beard.
Kayne glanced at the bodies of the two Highlanders the Wolf had killed. It wasn’t a pretty sight. ‘You could have stepped in,’ he said. ‘Borun almost had me.’
Jerek snorted. ‘That’s some fucking gratitude. You’d never have forgiven me, Kayne, and you know it.’
The old barbarian thought about it for a moment, and then nodded. ‘Aye, you’re right. The others?’
‘Isaac and the girl are fine. He ain’t bad with a sword. Held them off until I got there. As for the faggot, fuck knows.’
Brodar Kayne shook his head. The Halfmage’s manservant was full of surprises. ‘Vicard fled. I expect he’s hiding under a rock somewhere.’
‘Up here,’ called a strained voice. They looked up. The alchemist knelt on a narrow ridge some distance above them. He had a stupid smile on his face. ‘I found a path,’ he exclaimed. ‘I was preparing a little something for those brutes, but it turns out it wasn’t necessary.’ He tossed the small ceramic ball in his hand into the air to demonstrate. The barbarian winced as he almost fumbled it.
Vicard wiped his nose with the back of his hand and grinned again. Kayne could see the brown leather pouch on the ground near his satchel. ‘Pack your things and get down here,’ he bellowed. ‘If I see you snorting that shit again, the whole pouch goes up your arse and that’s a promise.’ The adrenalin was wearing off and his whole body was aching worse than before. He glanced down, saw Borun’s sightless eyes staring back at him. He grimaced.
It don’t get any easier.
Hard Decisions
Cole retched one more time, heaving until there was nothing left inside him and he thought his innards were going to spill out of his mouth. Between the constant rocking sensation and the foul stench, scarcely an hour passed when he didn’t feel the need to empty his gut. Puddles of piss and dark mounds of excrement lay mingled with vomit, blood and other assorted filth on the floor beneath him. The one saving grace was that it was too dim to see the putrid mess in all its glory. Cracks in the planking above allowed a few narrow shafts of light to illuminate the faces of his fellow prisoners, but they didn’t reach far enough to penetrate the darkest recesses of the cargo hold.
Someone kill me, he thought miserably. The Redemption had set sail the night before, and while the small carrack was making good time they still had the better part of a day and night before they reached their destination.
Of the forty men on board, almost half were consigned to the cargo hold. Their ankles were shackled to ensure they didn’t try to escape. The rest of the ship’s passengers were above decks: Kramer, the disgraced former admiral of Dorminia’s fleet, now captain of the Redemption, and his first mate, a bald-headed brute of a man named Vargus; their crew, ten of the bravest – or stupidest – men they could convince to sail the ship; a dozen Crimson Watchmen to maintain order and help operate the small arsenal of heavy artillery in case of attack; and finally Falcus, the lisping Augmentor overseeing the expedition. He’d already murdered one captive for refusing to return to the hold after they’d been allowed on deck for their morning meal. The Augmentor had clucked in annoyance, whipped out his crossbow and put a quarrel through the man’s head at point-blank range. The body had been hurled overboard to sink to the bottom of the Broken Sea.
Cole’s ankles were chafed raw from his shackles, his ribs still ached and he’d been pissing blood ever since Goodlady Cyreena had clobbered him in the balls and shoved a needle in him.
She had been waiting down at the docks to watch them depart. Cole had longed to spit in her face or break away from his captors and drown her in the harbour. When she’d met his gaze with those strangely familiar eyes of hers, however, he’d felt his legs turn to jelly and promptly vomited all over the Crimson Watchman beside him. That had earned him a rough backhand across the face.
I want to die. He’d never known suffering like this. He was trapped on a cramped and filthy ship, his body a mass of agonies, any single one of which would likely incapacitate a lesser man. Even a hero had his limits.
Not for the first time Davarus Cole cursed his ill luck. He was on his way to the Swell, a place sailors spoke of only in the most fearful of whispers. The odds of him returning to Dorminia and the glorious future he had been promised were growing worse by the hour.
‘Stop your snivelling, boy,’ spat Three-Finger. He was an evil-looking fellow, with dirty grey stubble covering his scabrous face and piggish eyes staring from beneath a brow that seemed permanently furrowed. His left hand was missing its index and middle fingers. As a boy he had been caught stealing in the Bazaar.
From the other captives Cole had learned Three-Finger was also missing half a cock, having more recently been charged with numerous counts of rape and sentenced accordingly. He scowled at anyone he caught looking at him whenever he decided to take a piss, which was often.
‘My no
se is broken,’ Cole replied sullenly. ‘I wasn’t snivelling. You don’t know what I’ve been through.’
Three-Finger laughed. ‘Aren’t you a special snowflake. Take a look around, kid. Every man in this shithole has a sorry tale to share. You think I want to be here? It was this or swing in the Hook until the crows pecked off the rest of my prick. I figured the Swell would be quicker and a good deal less painful.’
One of the other captives coughed, a horrible hacking that told of some illness in his lungs. ‘I didn’t even have a choice,’ the man said, once he’d wiped the blood away from his mouth. ‘The Watch burst into my home. They told me I’d been found guilty of treason.’ He coughed again before continuing. ‘Taxes were raised so high to fund the war with Shadowport that my business collapsed and my wife had to take to the streets to support our family. I called Salazar every name under the sun, didn’t see the mindhawk until it was too late. Then the Black Lottery chose me.’
‘What kind of trade you in?’ Three-Finger asked. He had a rash on the side of his face and kept scratching at it with his maimed hand.
‘I’m an engineer,’ the sick man replied. ‘I ran a business. Soeman’s Solutions on Artifice Street.’
‘I know it,’ Three-Finger said. ‘You’re Soeman, then?’
The engineer nodded and lapsed into another fit of coughing. ‘Those in charge of this operation must have thought I’d be useful to them,’ he said once he recovered. ‘Otherwise I’d be dead. Armin is directing the mining operation. Maybe he requested an additional engineer aboard the ship.’
‘The Swell,’ exclaimed a red-nosed man of advanced years chained nearby. ‘I’ve sailed the Broken Sea for thirty years – travelled to the Drowned Coast and the ruins of old Andarr, and west further still, out onto the great Endless Ocean. Yet never once did I venture near that accursed place. They say the Swell marks the spot where Malantis plummeted from the heavens. His corpse rots there still.’
The old seadog’s voice suddenly dropped to a whisper. Cole struggled to hear him over the creaking of stressed wood and the murmuring of waves washing against the hull.
‘A ship can be sailing happily along one minute – and the next, it’s twenty feet under water. That ain’t the worse though. I’ve heard tales of craft that have crested a wave only for the sea’s surface to plummet a hundred foot or more in an instant. He might be dead, but the Lord of the Deep don’t rest easy in his watery grave. His rage is unquenchable, they say, and he’ll scupper any ship that dares disturb his resting place.’
The old sailor’s words sent a shudder of fear rippling through Cole and the other captives within hearing distance. Danger was one thing, a calculated risk to overcome. What the veteran sailor described amounted to playing roulette with the very sea itself.
‘This is suicide!’ he gasped.
Three-Finger grinned, revealing crooked yellow teeth. ‘I hope those wankers know what they’ve let themselves in for.’
The hatch above up them suddenly banged open and sunlight flooded the hold. Cole blinked tears from his stinging eyes. Once his vision had cleared, he saw the weather-beaten face of First Mate Vargus staring at them. Sweat ran in rivulets down his bald head and scarred cheeks.
‘Captain Kramer wants you all up on deck,’ he barked at them. ‘We’re coming down to open your shackles. Any of you so much as looks like causing trouble, that man gets to feed the fishes.’
He disappeared. A rope ladder was lowered, and four men of the Watch climbed down into the hold. Each wore chainmail and carried a steel longsword in his hand.
Cole briefly considered trying to overpower the soldier unlocking his shackles, but a glance at the open hatch revealed Falcus and a half-dozen Watchmen positioned around the edge of the hold, crossbows at the ready. The young Shard’s appraising gaze became a sickly grin when the Augmentor caught him staring at them. Cole gulped and quickly looked away.
Ten minutes later and the captives were huddled together on the main deck. The Crimson Watch surrounded them, swords in hand. Captain Kramer stood on the forecastle. Falcus was to his right, fondling his crossbow as if looking for any excuse to shoot someone. Vargus brooded to the captain’s left.
Kramer placed his hands on the forecastle’s rail and surveyed the men arrayed below him. The stress of recent events had affected him: he looked thin, almost frail. His grey hair was cropped close to his head and his weathered face looked tired. Even so, his voice was strong and clear.
‘By now, you all know where we are going,’ he said loudly. ‘The Swell, a place said to be haunted by the restless spirit of the Lord of the Deep. Be that as it may, we are all here for a reason. Many of you are convicted criminals who have chosen to be part of this voyage rather than face the noose or the headsman’s axe. Some of you are free men who possess the courage to risk your lives in pursuit of greater fortunes. I salute your bravery.
‘I am here because I failed Dorminia and our lord. In his wisdom and mercy, Salazar saw fit to grant me a second chance. I will not fail him again.’
Cole looked around as Kramer’s words rolled across the deck. The wind was a constant whistling presence, shaking the mainmast looming over them and buffeting the sails high above their heads. The Redemption’s flag displayed a white background, but in an ironic modification of the arms borne by the Crimson Watch, the Obelisk had been replaced by a gibbet. The significance couldn’t have been lost on Kramer or anyone else aboard the carrack.
In the distance, Red Bounty struggled vainly to keep pace alongside the swifter carrack. The huge cog was loaded with mining equipment and a skeleton crew of sailors and miners desperate enough to risk their lives in an expedition to the Swell. The dark waters of the Broken Sea lapped hungrily at her sides.
Closing his eyes for a moment, Cole imagined drowning in that sea, thrust into an abyss of crushing saltwater that squeezed the very life from his lungs. The thought made him nauseous again.
‘Pay attention to the captain, dog!’ ordered a Watchman to the side of him. The soldier placed a hand on the hilt of his sword. Cole’s eyes obediently shifted back to Kramer.
‘Tomorrow morning we will arrive at the Swell’s boundary,’ the captain was saying. ‘If all goes as planned, our mining operation will be under way within a day or two. We could be stationed at the Swell for as little as a fortnight. I am a hard man, but I am also a fair one. Do as I command and you might well live long enough to return to Dorminia.’
All across the deck men perked up at the captain’s words. Cole wanted to shake them, yell at them that Kramer was just another of Salazar’s puppets, feeding them a line so that they would work themselves to death. They would be disposed of once their usefulness was at an end. He was a Shard – he knew how the Magelord operated.
‘Bullshit,’ he muttered, louder than he had intended.
‘What?’ It was the same Watchman who had warned him before. The soldier’s eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘Did you just call the captain a liar?’
Everyone turned to look at him. He swallowed. ‘Not at all,’ he replied. ‘Everyone knows that Admir— uh, Captain Kramer is an honest man. As honest as stone, I’ve heard folk say.’
‘And just as dumb,’ Three-Finger added loudly, to Cole’s disbelief. There were gasps followed by chuckles. The face of the Watchman turned an ugly shade of red and he drew his sword. The other soldiers followed suit.
‘Halt,’ ordered Kramer from the forecastle. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ Next to the captain, Falcus had his crossbow raised and was sweeping it over the prisoners assembled below them.
‘These two clowns called you a liar and a dullard, Captain,’ the Watchman answered. ‘Say the word and I’ll put them overboard.’
Captain Kramer looked almost pained. ‘I am loath to waste more lives so early in our mission. Yet insubordination cannot be tolerated, especially from a rapist and a child-fiddler.’
A child-fiddler? Cole’s jaw dropped. A rational part of his mind told him to keep quiet, but the i
njustice of it all was too much to bear. ‘Forgive me, Captain, but you’re mistaken,’ he began. ‘I—’
‘Silence!’ Kramer screamed. He was shaking with anger. ‘You disgust me. Full details of your crimes were provided for each and every one of you. Some are more unfortunate than others to be here, true, but you, and you’ – he pointed at Three-Finger, and then at Cole – ‘deserve everything that might befall you on this ship. You’re the lowest form of scum.’
Cole bit down on his tongue so hard he tasted blood. This was a travesty!
‘Enough of this,’ Kramer said irritably. ‘You prisoners will be returned to the hold, where you will remain until your evening meal. If I so much as hear a complaint about the food from either of you,’ he added, glaring at Three-Finger and Cole, ‘you’ll both go over the side.’ That said, he turned his back on the crowd and disappeared off towards the bow. Falcus pointed his weapon at Cole, smiled, and then followed after the captain.
‘You crazy idiots,’ Soeman said, once they were back in the hold. ‘You almost got yourselves killed.’ He coughed and spat blood onto the soiled planking beneath them.
Three-Finger shrugged. ‘Death by drowning don’t seem so bad. I can think of nastier ways to go.’ He had an evil look in his eyes that made Cole uncomfortable.
‘Ain’t nothing worse than the Swell,’ the old sailor, Jack, spat. He made a warding sign in the air with his left hand. ‘I want to stare death in the face. Not be swallowed up by the sea when I least expect it.’
Three-Finger raised his mutilated hand and scratched at his scabrous cheek. ‘Most of us haven’t got any sailing experience. Know what that tells me? They mean to use us for all the dangerous shit – stuff no sane man would do. We won’t make it out of here, none of us.’
