NIghtbird (Empire of Masks Book 2)

by Brock Deskins

  Russel unwrapped the parcel and stared at the pastry as if it were some sort of puzzle. “It’s a fritter. Why?”

  Kiera smiled, proud of herself for swallowing her pride and doing something nice. “It’s a peace offering for getting so mad at you earlier. I know you need the gold and mage glass for whatever it is you do down there and you can’t help yourself.”

  Russel blinked at the fritter several times. “But it’s not Forgeday.”

  She threw up her hands. “Who cares?”

  “I do. Fritters are for Forgeday. Forgeday for fritters. Today is Twinsday. No fritters on Twinsday, or Moonsday, or Wellday, or—”

  “It tastes the same no matter what day it is!”

  “—Thornday, or Swordsday. That’s why we call it Fritter Forgeday. F-Forgeday. F-Fritter.”

  Kiera rubbed at the throbbing pain building up in her temples. “Just say thank you like a normal person.”

  “Thank you.” Russel then tossed the pastry over the side of the airship.

  Kiera ran to the rail and watched a skitter lizard bolt out of its hole, grab the fritter in its mouth, and pull it back into its den. “Why did you do that?”

  “It’s not Forgeday.”

  “If you weren’t going to eat it you could have given it to me!”

  “You said you got it for me.”

  “I did, to eat, not throw to the skitter lizards.”

  “Same thing. Fritter’s gone.”

  Kiera shook her head. “What are you talking about?”

  “Fritter for Russel or fritter for lizard. Both gone. No difference,” Russel signed, his fingers flying before him.

  “No difference? One is a nice gesture for you to enjoy and the other is a damn lizard eating our garbage. It’s a huge difference!”

  “Not to me. Not to the fritter. Only to you. Only to the skitter lizard.” He grinned. “Fritter lizard.”

  The pain behind Kiera’s eyes became unbearable and she began to walk away. “I can’t do this. It hurts my head too much.” She turned and ran back when she heard the door clang shut behind her and pounded on the metal. “Can you at least appreciate the gesture enough to let me use the toilet?”

  Another metallic clank answered her request.

  Wesley grinned at her. “Told you.”

  “Oh, shut up! At least now I can pee indoors.” She looked longingly toward the spot the fritter had landed. “I’m so hungry. I really would have liked to have had the fritter.”

  “I’m sure if you call Russel back you could make him understand how you feel. Please, I literally have nothing to do for the next few days.”

  “Shut up.”

  He suppressed the snicker trying to break free of his throat and partially succeeded. “What’s the plan now? I assume we’re even deeper in debt.”

  “Yeah, we’re going to have to do something big—again.”

  “Because that worked out so well last time…”

  “We don’t have a choice, unless you want to work for Rafferty.”

  “You know Russel won’t leave his ship.”

  “Yeah, that’s a problem.”

  “How long did she give us?”

  Kiera’s shoulders slumped. “Two weeks.”

  “I guess that’s enough time to hit the house I scoped last night without drawing attention to me.”

  “No, I have something bigger in mind.”

  “Bigger?”

  “I’m going to rob Switzer.”

  Wesley’s eyes went wide and his jaw dropped. “You want to rob a drug dealer—my drug dealer? Are you insane? He’ll kill you…and me, and Russel, and probably that fritter-stealing lizard just because he’s that goddam insane!”

  Kiera rolled her eyes. “That airship has kind of already sailed.”

  He slapped a hand over his face and mimicked Kiera’s earlier action of trying to massage out a splitting headache. “Now what did you do?”

  “He and his goons harassed me on the way to tribute, so I lifted Top Hat’s purse. He found out and wasn’t happy about it.”

  Wesley clapped both hands to the sides of his head and stomped in a circle. “You robbed the most sadistic lunatic in the city? Why would you do that?”

  “He was a jerk! Besides, I needed the coin to give to Nimat. Which one would you rather have come after you?”

  “That’s like having to choose between the noose and the headsman’s axe.”

  “Well, pick one, because I’m going to need your help.”

  Wesley threw up his hands. “Of course. Misery loves company, so why not bring in Death so we can make it a threesome!”

  “Are you in or out?” Kiera demanded.

  “Fine, what do you need me to do?”

  “Same thing you always do.”

  “I am not bedding Fred Switzer!”

  “No, you idiot! You set up a buy at his place and give me its layout. He told me to tell you to come see him, so it shouldn’t be at all suspicious.”

  “You forgot about the little detail of you robbing Top Hat.”

  Kiera laid a hand on his shoulder. “You’re clever. You’ll figure something out.”

  “Yeah, like how to breathe through my neck.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Dorian strolled across the gangplank with Jasso following a step behind and leading half a dozen Ulec warriors. Alerted by the crew, the pilot and captain broke from their evening meal and met the boarders amidships.

  “Sah Dorian, what brings you onto the Anguish?” the captain asked, his voice hesitant but trying to hide his suspicion.

  “I am taking command of your vessel, Captain. We set sail immediately upon my war party boarding.”

  “On whose authority, sah?”

  “On mine.”

  “Sorry, sah, only the harbinger can command this airship. If you have a writ granting you authority, my crew and I are at your disposal, but until then, it stays in its cradle.”

  Dorian rested a hand on the captain’s shoulder and felt the muscles tense under his touch. “The harbinger is not well. She has lost her nerve and can no longer lead our people into the future, to glory. Would you not rather have your name added in the annals as one of the heroes who returned us to Phaer and enacted our righteous retribution than sit here in this gods-forsaken land gathering dust?”

  The captain’s eyes narrowed and flicked to his pilot for support. “I live and die by the harbinger’s grace.”

  Dorian smiled. “You might live by hers, but you’ll die by mine.”

  Dorian’s void lance leapt to his hand, extended with a thought, and stabbed into the captain’s chest. The Necrophage let out a blood-curdling cry as Dorian pulled his spirit from his body and stored its life energy in a soul stone.

  The pilot sought to defend her captain, but she was too slow. Even as she gathered power from her own store of energy, Jasso thrust his lance into her body. The crew made to intervene, but Dorian’s Ulec leapt to the fore and interposed themselves between them and their master. One blew a horn, and the impact of a hundred pairs of feet pounding up the embarkation platform reverberated across the deck.

  Dorian and Jasso tossed the desiccated bodies aside and stood with their warriors. The crew, almost all Ulec slaves, hesitated before the power that the two Necrophages represented. To attack a master without orders was not permitted, particularly when one was the harbinger’s son. Their uncertainty on how to react to what was transpiring saved a great deal of bloodshed.

  The main battle force stormed the deck with their daggerwing knives and deadly macuahuitls held at the ready. The crew dismissed any thought of defending the ship and avenging their former masters.

  “I am your new captain,” Dorian declared. He looked to one of his Ulec. “Check the wailing chamber. Make certain we are ready to lift off.”

  The Ulec vanished below decks and returned in less than a minute. “Full, master.”

  Dorian nodded and smiled. He had anticipated as much, but he was relieved to find that the slaves whose
bodies powered the vessel were present and that he would not have to sacrifice any of his warriors for the task.

  “Excellent. Let us get underway before my mother discovers we have absconded with her airship. I do not expect she will take the offense lightly. Jasso, set a guard on the wailing chamber. As much as I am sure the crew would never think to disobey me, I will not allow even the slightest chance of sabotage.”

  The wailing chamber was a hideous mockery of a monster’s womb. Sixty Ulec men and women were chained to benches with flesh-like umbilical cords that channeled their life energy into the heart stone located in the center of the room.

  Dorian gripped the controls, and the vessel lifted from its cradle with the mournful keening of three score of tortured souls.

  ***

  An acropolis acolyte raced into the harbinger’s audience chamber, disregarding protocol, and dropped to his knees before Amaia. “Harbinger, Sah Dorian has taken your airship and departed with at least a hundred warrior slaves.”

  Amaia stood and stormed down the dais steps. “He has done what? Stolen my airship? What is the meaning of this?”

  The acolyte shook his head. “I know not, Harbinger. The two crewmen who slipped off the Anguish claim he spoke words of vengeance and righteousness before slaying the captain and pilot.”

  Amaia seethed behind her calm façade. “That fool of a boy has gone too far this time. Xebarria, go fetch your brother. I will see him on his knees for this.”

  Xebarria smiled at the prospect of further humiliating Dorian. “What measures am I allowed to take to do so?”

  “Whatever is necessary. He must not be allowed to enter the tempest. If the sorcerers think us destroyed, then we must continue to allow them to believe so. We cannot allow Dorian’s foolishness to doom us all no matter the cost.”

  “I will likely have to destroy your airship to stop him.”

  “If that is what it takes,” Amaia said, inclining her head and turning away.

  Xebarria swept from the room. Finally, a chance to be done with her petulant sibling once and for all.

  ***

  “Dorian, you had best take a look at this,” Jasso said as he handed him a spyglass.

  Dorian took the instrument and peered through the lenses. The small soul stones set in the brass glowed slightly and created a ring of daylight within the darkness. “Damn. I had hoped to have gotten at least the entire evening before Mother launched a pursuit.”

  “What do we do?”

  “We continue to run, but have our warriors man the weapons.”

  “Do you think it will come to a fight?”

  Dorian’s face looked grave as he studied the pursuing vessel through the spyglass. “Without a doubt. That is my sister’s ship, and she will run her wailers all out to catch us. We have to spare ours if we are to have any hope of passing through the tempest alive. She’ll catch us long before we reach the sea.”

  Jasso blanched. “What if the harbinger herself is aboard?”

  “Then our war, like our lives, is bound to be short-lived. With luck, it is just my sister, in which case, our odds of survival have increased—if only slightly.”

  Dorian pushed his wailers as hard as he dared, but as he had foretold, Xebarria caught up with him just as the sun was rising and he was still two days out from reaching the tempest. The pursuing vessel closed in on them as the minutes ticked by. Within two hours, the Anguish’s crew could hear the awful keening coming from the Tormentor’s hull, the wailers’ death knells carried across the expanse by the wind.

  ***

  Xebarria watched the Anguish grow larger as she caught up with her renegade brother. While she enjoyed the opportunity to humiliate him once again, she could not help but feel a bit of respect for his audacity and conviction. Part of her wanted to join him on his expedition in a yearning to satisfy her lust for battle and achieve the fame she deserved. But she had never known her mother to be wrong or forgiving, and Xebarria had no desire to share Dorian’s fate, whether delivered by their mother or the tempest.

  She turned to an Ulec standing nearby. “You are the one with kin aboard the Anguish?”

  The warrior nodded his bald grey head. “Brother.”

  Xebarria pulled a soul stone-tipped stylus from her belt and used the razor-sharp gem to carve into the Ulec’s muscular back.

  ***

  “Dorian, you should see this,” Jasso said as he pushed an Ulec ahead of him.

  Dorian read the blood-scribing through the crimson ichor dripping down the Ulec’s back. “My sister promises to only humiliate me if I surrender.”

  “Your orders?”

  “Ready the weapons. She will get my answer the moment she is within range.”

  Jasso rushed off to relay Dorian’s command to the weapons crews. The Anguish’s primary armament consisted of half a dozen deck-mounted manuballistae, a catapult on the bow and stern, as well as four heavy ballistae installed amidships, two on each side of the airship. The bolts were not simple steel but techno-scribed and powered by a small soul stone that released its pent-up energy when it struck a target, making the weapons far more lethal than their ordinary counterparts.

  The deck reverberated under the ballistae’s release as they sent their bolts streaking across the distance. A pair of explosions drowned out the sound of both ships’ wailers for a moment when one of the energized projectiles found their mark, the other falling into the void until it reached the ground a thousand feet below.

  The Tormentor rocked beneath the impact, forcing Xebarria to tighten her grip on the sterncastle rail to steady herself. She had received Dorian’s answer and was not disappointed by his choice. Seeing as how Necrophages had no real enemies, she had never been in an airship battle and had longed to engage in one. Her decades of study and training were finally about to be put to the test.

  “Order the ballistae crews to shoot the moment they get a target,” Xebarria told one of the Ulec crewmen. She turned her head to face the pilot, the only other Necrophage on board. “Get us higher. I want to come in above him.”

  Dorian watched his sister’s airship surge forward and climb. “Jasso, take the wheel.”

  His friend rushed to his side and took hold of the complex controls.

  “Keep us at a greater elevation no matter what.”

  Jasso grimaced. “I will have to push the wailers very hard.”

  “Then do so. If we cannot hold our advantage, we are lost regardless. When I give the order, you must bring us about and charge her vessel, but keep us above her.”

  Jasso nodded. “I will do my best.”

  “As must we all if we are to live to see another day.” Dorian pointed to one of his strongest Ulec. “You shall have the glory of dying for your master and seeing us to victory.”

  The Ulec raised his chin and thumped his fist against his chest. “I live to die.”

  Dorian plunged a knife into the warrior’s stomach, careful to avoid rupturing any vital organs. Taking a soul stone the size of a skitter lizard egg from a pocket, the Necrophage shoved it into the Ulec’s bleeding cavity. He then wiped his blood-covered hand on the sterncastle bulkhead, painting a crimson line vertically down its surface.

  Throughout the gruesome task, his Ulec did nothing more than grunt at the pain of his mistreatment. Dorian slapped a blood-encrusted hand onto the Ulec’s shoulder.

  “You must stop that ship.”

  “Yes, master,” the Ulec said, his voice sounding like two stones grinding together.

  Dorian rushed to the railing and looked out at the pursuing vessel. “Jasso, get us higher! She is about to overtake us.”

  The agonized cries from the hold redoubled as more life energy was drawn from their bodies to power the airship. Jasso felt the ship buck and steered into an updraft to aid their ascent. The Anguish rose steadily higher and the temperature dropped accordingly. Plumes of fog billowed from the mouths of everyone on board as the cold overcame the feeble weather wards enveloping the vessel. />
  Booms like thunder shook the airship as some of the Tormentor’s energized bolts struck their underbelly. Muffled explosions responded, indicating that at least a couple of gunners were able to still bring their ballistae to bear. Sharper cracks sounded across the deck as the aft catapult flung fist-sized stones by the dozen over the side.

  “Jasso, now!” Dorian shouted across the deck.

  The pilot spun the wheel and pivoted the airship around so fast that the crew and soldiers had to hold on or be cast across the deck, or worse, over the rail.

  Dorian turned to his badly bleeding Ulec and pointed toward his sister’s ship scores of yards below. “Go!”

  The Ulec, who was called Kehlt, hurled himself over the side without hesitation, twin daggerwing knives gripped in his hands. He plummeted through the air, angling his body to strike the billowing sails and strung lines below. Plunging his blades into the thick canvas, he fought to arrest his fall enough to survive the inevitable impact with the hard deck. His daggers became dislodged when they struck a thick, horizontal seam and cast him away from the sail.

  His blades useless for the moment, Kehlt tossed them away and grabbed for the lines strung below. His powerful hands clutched at any rope within reach only to have inertia tear them from his grasp and send him tumbling. More lines struck him across his back, legs, and chest, each impact twisting him in the air but also slowing his fall.

  The Ulec struck the deck hard but struggled to his feet heedless of any injury. Weaponless, he set his feet wide with his arms held out as if to welcome the Ulec charging at him with knives and macuahuitl held high, ready to cut him to pieces.

  Kehlt rushed the nearest foe, stripped the bone knife from his hand, and plunged it into the attacker’s neck. He shoved the body into his comrades’ path and prepared to meet death with a smile on his face. The invader slashed with his procured blade but found nothing but air. Knives stabbed into his body, but still he fought on even as his blood painted the deck red.

  Dorian watched his Ulec finally fall beneath the heavy blow of a macuahuitl. The moment Kehlt died, the Necrophage embedded a soul stone set in a techno-scribed spike into the blood-stained bulkhead. The bloody line pulsed and undulated, splitting open like flesh being parted by an invisible sword, the effect mirrored in the blood spreading out beneath Kehlt’s corpse.