Trials of the Twiceborn (The Songreaver's Tale Book 6)

by Andrew Hunter

  “What makes it go?” Alyss asked, having recovered a bit of her natural curiosity.

  “Our ship is entirely Lump-powered!” Master James called back as he trotted up the ramp into the hatchway of the boat.

  “Lump-powered?” Alyss said as she and Marla followed Claude up the ramp.

  “Let me introduce you,” James said.

  Marla and the others followed the boatman into the rust-scented belly of the iron ship. Even with the aid of her Bremmerite goggles, Marla’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the gloom within.

  She started a little when she saw the enormous tattooed troll sitting at the prow of the boat, staring glumly back at them with its glowing red eyes.

  “Milords and ladies! This is Lump,” James proudly announced.

  Marla had met plenty of trolls before, forest and hill trolls being the most common of the war-bred race to survive the fall of the dragons that made them. They all looked a bit like oversized goblins with broad, toothy mouths and noseless faces and pointed ears. Unlike the large, watery eyes of a goblin however, trolls usually possessed small, curious eyes, set deeply beneath heavy brow ridges and long manes of coarse, earth-colored hair.

  The cave troll known as Lump looked like a much fiercer cousin of his surface-dwelling kin. His gray skin had the same oily sheen as a goblin’s, bearing countless swirling tattoos that looked like draconic runes, but twisted and spiky by comparison to the graceful arcs and loops familiar to Marla. His eyes showed no spark of curiosity, but rather a brooding glare of reflected light. Even seated, Lump was obviously far larger than any other troll that Marla had seen before, and his three-fingered hands, resting on the shafts of two large oars, sported gnarled black talons, like a ghoul’s digging claws, rather than the polished horn-like nails that most overworld trolls possessed. His long white hair hung, tied back in a ponytail behind him as he sat, hunched over his oars.

  Alyss crossed her hands in greeting, and Marla did the same, but Lump seemingly took no notice of them. He simply hissed air through his rows of needle-like teeth and awaited the boatman’s orders.

  “Now that we all know each other,” James said, “It’s time to get underway.” He looked toward the other boatman who was struggling with the chain and pulley that would raise the ramp behind them. “You need a hand with that, Simms?” he asked.

  Simms grunted as he yanked hard on the heavy black chain, pulling it down with a creak and a clack of rusty wheels and chain links. The massive ramp slowly rose from the gravel of the shore and sealed the entrance shut behind them.

  James stepped up to secure the latches as Simms caught his breath. James reached over and punched his mate lightly in the arm. “Get your head on straight, Simms,” he laughed, “You should know better than to skip breakfast.”

  Simms nodded and took a seat on a low bench that ran the length of the port side of the vessel.

  “Takin’ the day off?” James asked.

  Simms looked up at the other boatman, his expression unreadable beneath his goggles and mask.

  “Get up top and cast off the lines,” James sighed, hooking his thumb toward an iron-runged ladder bolted onto the nearby bulkhead.

  Simms grunted and got to his feet again. He climbed the ladder up to a small iron hatch and pushed it open, letting in the moonlight as he ascended to the deck above. The hatch clanged shut beneath him, and the only light now came from the thin slit windows on either side of the boat and the dim red glow of Lump’s eyes.

  “Slam it a bit harder next time, will you?” James shouted at the ceiling, “I really like fixin’ stuff when it breaks!”

  “You don’t bring the sand in here?” Alyss asked.

  “Huh?” James said, turning to face the Arkadi girl.

  “I don’t see any sand residue in here,” Alyss explained, “It seems a bit cleaner than the other places around here.”

  “Oh,” James said, “Thanks for noticin’! I insist on runnin’ a clean ship, and anyways, we do all the dredgin’ up on deck with the hosepipe. There’s no reason Simms and me would ever have to touch the product, unless somethin’ breaks. Then, we usually wind up losin’ most of it back to the lake, and we turn the whole thing around and let the scrappers do all the real work back on shore.”

  “Scrappers?” Alyss asked.

  “The folks that bolt everything back together when it falls apart,” James chuckled, “Master Boatmen aren’t even allowed to try and repair the dredge gear. It’s in our contract.”

  “You’re under contract?” Alyss said, “To whom?”

  “House Bremmer,” James answered, nodding toward Valganna Morst.

  “So you’re not a member of the Bremmer family?” Alyss asked.

  “No, ma’am,” James said, “Most of us are... unaffiliated with the great houses... except by profession.” He leaned close to one of the narrow windows, watching the shore as Simms cast of the last line still tethering them to it.

  “Oh,” Alyss said.

  “Lump,” James called out, turning toward the cave troll, “take us out, if you please.”

  Lump made a deep grumbling noise and then hunched his massive gray shoulders, lifting his oars from the water. Marla looked out the nearest viewing slit to see glittering droplets of water falling from the great steel-plated oar heads just before they dipped back into the water. She heard a muffled grinding sound as the oars dug into the gravel beneath the water, creaking with the strain of the troll’s pull.

  A grating sound filled the hull as the iron-bound ship dragged itself off the shore and out into the water, pulling away with a velvety hiss of water against the hull.

  “Whoa!” Alyss cried as the deck suddenly bobbed beneath her.

  “Careful there, miss,” James said, catching her elbow to steady her, “You’d better take a seat until you get the sway of it.”

  Alyss gratefully joined Marla and Claude on one of the long benches along the port side.

  “This is exciting!” she whispered as she turned to them, and Marla could easily imagine the girl’s pearly grin beneath the leather mask that concealed her face.

  Marla nodded her agreement before noticing the downward cast of Claude’s goggles. “Are you all right, Claude?” she asked.

  “I’m fine,” he answered.

  “I’m sure they do this all the time,” Alyss said, putting her glove on Claude’s forearm, “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  “I’m not afraid,” Claude snapped back, “It’s just...”

  “What?” Marla asked.

  “I’d rather be flying than trapped inside a giant metal box like this,” he sighed.

  Marla looked up at the looming mass of iron plates above her head, suddenly appreciating Claude’s concern. While she understood the nature of boats, she couldn’t imagine that it was easy to keep a large hunk of metal afloat. If something went wrong, they might have only a few seconds to escape before the whole thing dragged them to the bottom of the lake.

  “Would it be all right if we went up on top?” Marla asked.

  “Should be fine,” James said, “Let me check.”

  Master James reached up to bang his fist on the roof a few times. “Hey Simms!” he shouted, “You see any chimeras up there?”

  The only answer was the gentle splashing of waves against the hull as Lump rowed them further out into the lake.

  “Oh well,” James said, “Either it’s safe, or they already ate Simms. Go ahead.” He gestured toward the hatch with an open hand.

  “Is it safe for them up there?” Morst demanded, sounding a bit queasy as he sat, hunched on the starboard side bench between Malco and Vruust.

  “They’ll be fine,” James chuckled.

  “Thank you,” Marla said, rising to make her way toward the ladder as the deck swayed and rolled beneath her.

  Nerrys took one look at the small hatch and shook her head. “I will wait here,” she said quietly.

  “We’ll come back inside if we see anything dangerous,” Marla assured
her.

  “Keep your eyes closed then,” James laughed, “There’s not much out here that’s not dangerous.”

  Marla climbed quickly up the ladder and pushed open the iron hatch with one hand. The wind whistled around her goggles and mask as she emerged through the hatchway and helped Claude and Alyss up behind her. Once they were through, she knelt beside the hatch, closing it as gently as she could for the sake of the boatman below.

  “So... what house are you from?” Master James was asking Nerrys as Marla sealed the hatchway shut between them.

  “I just hope she doesn’t kill him,” Alyss whispered as Marla stood up again.

  Marla sighed and nodded. She turned then to look out over the moonlit lake as the boat bucked across the rolling waves beneath them.

  The eerie glow of the moon sand shores cast a fiery light on the underside of the clouds, and, here and there, Marla could make out the distant shapes of chimeras hunting in the misty sky. Master Simms was working on some sort of machinery at the prow of the boat, seemingly unaware that they had come on deck, and the thick plating of the hull effectively muffled any conversation from the lower deck. As terrifying and alien as the lake had seemed before, Marla felt strangely calm now.

  She walked over to join Alyss and Claude at the chain railing.

  “What are those?” Alyss asked, leaning out to point down into the dark waters.

  Marla leaned over as well, seeing a faint glow rising up from the shadows below. A school of red-scaled fish darted to and fro in the waters alongside the boat, their sleek bodies silhouetted against the greenish glow of what Marla guessed was some great submerged reef of moon sand.

  “It’s very pretty,” Marla said.

  “Ugh!” Alyss exclaimed as the school of fish suddenly turned and began to splash violently, gnawing at the steel-plated hull of the black ship with shard-like teeth.

  “I guess those are the gnawers,” Claude said, starting to sound a bit seasick himself.

  “I see,” Alyss said, backing away from the chain railing. Claude pushed away from the rail as well, tugging at Marla’s sleeve as he retreated to the center of the upper deck.

  Marla lingered a while longer, watching as the boat pulled away from the reef and the gnawers abandoned their fruitless assault on the iron boat. The dim glow of the sunken reef disappeared beneath the waves as they entered deep water and the chill of the night wind began to seep through Marla’s leathers. She pushed away from the chain’s iron support pillar and joined her friends.

  Claude put his arm around her as they looked up at the cold, silvery moon above.

  Marla wondered what it must have been like to see two moons in the sky. What must the crystal moon have looked like, hanging there like a second sun?

  “They say there was no night then,” she whispered as she leaned close, her head against Claude’s chest, “when the crystal moon was still up there.”

  “That sounds horrible,” Alyss scoffed as she hugged herself, hunching her shoulders against the chill as she faced into the wind.

  “No... it was beautiful,” Marla sighed.

  She felt Claude turn his head to look down at her. “How do you know?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted, “I just...”

  Suddenly the deck lurched beneath their feet, and the entire boat spun around as though caught in a whirlpool.

  Alyss screamed as she staggered across the deck, catching herself against the chain railing.

  Marla and Claude swayed but kept their footing, their boots skidding slightly on the smooth plating of the upper deck. Marla hurried over to help Alyss who was leaning hard against the chain and staring down into the water.

  “Alyss, are you all...” Marla’s words trailed away into stunned silence as she stared down at the great coil of some vast tail, covered in lambent golden scales, that now churned the black waters beneath the boat. The hull groaned and creaked as the boat swirled and settled into the trough of the creature’s wake.

  “What’d we hit?” James demanded as he poked his head through the hatchway from below.

  He disappeared a moment later with a curse and a clang of the falling hatch as the boat lifted several feet from the water and then splashed down again, showering them all with lake water.

  Alyss squealed as she lost her footing, and slipped under the chain railing, her legs kicking wildly over the lake as the boat spun around again. Marla and Claude scrambled to help her to safety, each one grasping one of the girl’s arms in one hand and the railing with the other. Marla’s boots slipped across the slick deck unable to find enough purchase to do any good.

  “Help us!” Marla cried as she turned to look toward Master Simms. The silent vampire boatman stood at the prow of the boat, bracing himself with one hand on the lever of the dredging machinery. He ignored Marla and the others as he stared down into the water at whatever it was beneath them.

  “I’ve got her!” Claude yelled, bracing his boot against one of the poles that held the chain railing in place. With a heave, he pulled Alyss back away from the edge toward the relative safety of the center of the deck. Marla kicked off of the pole nearest her and struggled to her feet again beside her friends.

  “What was that?” Alyss gasped.

  Claude stared up at Marla in disbelief as she fought to make sense of what she had just seen.

  “Where did it go?” Marla cried as she staggered forward toward the prow of the ship.

  Simms turned to look at her, his goggles flashing in the moonlight. He jabbed one finger toward the center of the lake. Marla threw herself against the railing beside the silent vampire and saw the great golden coils of the creature churning the dark waters ahead.

  “Marla!” Nerrys roared, poking her helm through the narrow gap of the hatchway, “Are you safe?”

  “Yes!” Marla shouted back, “We have to follow it! That way!” she pointed toward the fleeing beast.

  “Follow what?” came the muffled voice of Master James from below.

  Nerrys looked down and shouted, “Row! That way!”

  “Marla, what are you doing?” Alyss cried, approaching as closely as she dared to the railing.

  “Just... you have to trust me,” Marla gasped, “We have to follow her.”

  “Her?” Claude exclaimed.

  Marla could sense her friends’ amazement, even though she couldn’t see their faces beneath their masks.

  “I don’t know,” Marla said, “I just... please... I think she’s showing us the way.”

  Simms jerked his head toward Marla but said nothing. Then he looked away, staring out over the roiling surface of the lake as a strange mist began to form upon the dark waters.

  “What do you see?” Nerrys called from the hatchway.

  Marla strained to make out anything in the misty waters ahead, but she felt an overwhelming sadness in her heart, a longing for something she could not name. She felt a flutter of panic, as if she had just one chance to find some lost thing, some part of her life, taken from her before she was even born, and, if she lost it again, it would be gone forever.

  “Can’t we go any faster?” Marla cried.

  “Faster!” Nerrys shouted.

  “Go fast, Lump!” James commanded, and the boat surged beneath them with the full power of the cave troll at the oars.

  The moon now shone above them as a dim glow through the warm mist that enveloped the iron boat. Marla and Simms leaned, shoulder to shoulder, over the prow railing. She could hear the boatman’s rasping breath as they tried to make out any sign of their quarry in the fog-shrouded waters ahead.

  Then a faint, golden glow began to spread through the fog, and Marla was forced to squint against the stomach-churning glow of pure daylight.

  “It’s the shore!” Claude shouted, “We’re going to hit the shore!”

  “No!” Marla cried, “We’re still in the middle of the lake!”

  “It’s the dawn, Marla!” Alyss screamed, her voice on the edge of panic.

/>   “No!” Marla shouted, “It’s...”

  Marla’s eyes went wide as a sun-bright mountain of light rose up from the mists before them. The island of her dreams appeared as though summoned into the world by the strength of her conviction, and she heard the waves crashing against its mist-hidden shore.

  “Stop the boat!” Alyss cried.

  “No!” Simms hissed at Marla’s side, and his voice chilled Marla to the bone as her hand went unconsciously to her neck.

  “Betrayer!” a voice like a river of light shook the foundations of Marla’s mind. She could not even be certain that she had heard the voice with her ears at all, nor did she have much time to ponder its source as a vast shadow rose from the waters between the boat and the shining island.

  The thing loomed above the iron vessel, too big to be anything alive, and yet it moved like living mist. A titanic tower of shadow, surmounted with a head, crowned with spiny horns, from which blazed twin motes of golden fire. Four great wings of shadow lifted from the waters on either side of the boat, like the walls of an approaching storm.

  Marla was only distantly aware of her friends’ screams behind her and the low, hissing laughter of the vampire boatman at her shoulder. Her eyes were transfixed on the misty jaws of the gigantic thing that now towered over her... jaws now crackling with golden fire.

  Marla saw only a flash of golden light as the enormous tail of the beast came crashing down across the spine of the iron boat, cutting it in half and throwing her body high into the misty air.

  She flailed her arms wildly as she fell, her mind blank with terror. She had only time enough to whisper, “I’m sorry,” before the waters of the lake slammed into her chest and swallowed her beneath their frothing waves.

  Marla’s lungs burned, straining for air as water spilled in through her leather mask. She opened her eyes to see a churning froth of bubbles, blindingly bright even through her enchanted goggles, and the roar of crashing surf hammered in her ears. She clawed desperately, feeling the weight of her leather garb and knee-high boots dragging her under, but then a wave lifted her up once again, and her head broke the surface of the water.