Storm of Sharks

by Curtis Jobling

  ‘Think of what they’ll say about me!’ He laughed manically. ‘Sergeant Kramer, the man who caught the Wolf!’

  With a triumphant sneer, he tugged out a signal whistle on a cord of leather and placed it to his lips. With his other hand, he swiftly plunged the torch back towards the pitch-soaked youth in the stocks.

  The flames never reached the captive boy, the arm’s progress cut short by Yuzhnik’s descending axe. Severed limb and burning brand clattered to the ground as the Redcloak cried in horror. The flat of the blade silenced his scream, striking his temple with a sickening crunch.

  Whitley dashed to Drew’s side, holding his scorched face in her hands as his features shifted. The dark, burned hairs receded, his muzzle shortening, drawing flush to his skull. Thick, powerful canines slid up into his gums, grinding back like an ivory portcullis. The yellow eyes dimmed, the fearsome Werewolf slowly returning to the boy from the Cold Coast. Drew blinked as he tried to focus on his friend.

  ‘So much for us keeping a low profile,’ Whitley whispered, brushing Drew’s singed hair from his eyes. The young Wolflord managed a smile, wincing at her touch.

  ‘I thought you knew me by now,’ he said. ‘I’m not the best spectator.’

  The Romari brought his axe down on the stocks and splintered the bolts, aware that the fishermen stood in a huddle, watching. Yuzhnik lifted the terrified youth from the broken wooden blocks and put an arm around him.

  ‘They say you’re a Wolf’s man, lad? Whether you were or weren’t, reckon you might be now.’

  One of the fishermen rushed up, beckoning the group frantically. ‘Hurry! The Redcloaks’ snitches will have spread word of what’s just happened. There’ll be more here, soon enough.’

  Whitley glanced around the marketplace, catching sight of inquisitive faces peering from windows. She heard the distant cry of the mob, calling for the watch’s attention. She turned to Yuzhnik.

  ‘What are the chances of Violca taking the Lucky Shot out early?’

  ‘You’d better hope she’s in a generous mood,’ said the Romari, turning back to the fisherman. ‘Lead on, friend.’

  Whitley set off after Yuzhnik as the Romari and the young prisoner followed the fisherman deeper into the docks. She stopped, realizing that Drew hadn’t followed. The young Wolflord stood by the broken stocks, his hand held over his face. She dashed back to him, taking him by the arm.

  ‘Hurry, Drew. Now isn’t the time for dawdling.’

  ‘Believe me, I’ve no desire to linger,’ replied the youth, turning his tear-stained face to Whitley. His red-ringed eyes stared straight through her.

  ‘I’m blind.’

  2

  Deathwalker

  His bare feet slapped against the cold stone flags, each step bringing him closer to the tower’s summit. Moonlight reflected off the dark walls of the winding staircase, the brickwork’s definition growing sharper as he neared the roof. Weary legs lifted him ever higher, his limbs possessed by a life of their own, carrying him inexorably towards the star-dappled heavens. The spiralling rope banister ran through the palm of his blackened hand, skeletal fingers grasping and hauling him the remaining few steps, out on to the top of the Bone Tower.

  The wind tugged at him, threatening to send him staggering over the edge. The wizened lightning rod, scorched black by the elements, groaned in its housing where it was bolted to the parapet. He was aware he was dreaming, but the creaking metal and sensation of the air rushing around him was sickeningly real. He could smell the ice on the breeze from the snow-capped mountains, taste the blood and smoke of battle from far below and feel the cruel, cold caress of the Sturmish elements as the north’s ill winds bit into his flesh. He stepped closer to the edge, the city of Icegarden suddenly sliding into view as he came to a halt beside the crumbling crenulations.

  The fires burned to the south, the White Bear’s fortifications tasting the flaming pitch of the Lion’s army. The battlefield spread across the Whitepeaks’ slopes, great swathes of icy meadows now turned to rivers of churned slush as spring’s unavoidable appearance aided the Bastian advance on Icegarden. Campfires twinkled out in the Badlands, home to Lucas’s mighty force. Closer to Icegarden the beleaguered camp of the trapped Bearlords huddled, its fires far fewer, its numbers greatly reduced. His eyes didn’t linger upon his enemies. They weren’t the reason for his midnight stroll.

  He lifted his right foot into the air, raising it until it landed on the white stone parapet. The brickwork was rough and uneven against his sole, the sensation chillingly realistic. Just a dream, he reminded himself. Even so, he fought his body’s desire to lift the other foot, to follow its brother up onto the tumbledown stones. Another blast of wind buffeted him.

  I’d like to wake up now, he told himself, his subconscious mind sharp enough to banish the nightmare when he’d endured enough. Only the dark dream wouldn’t relinquish its hold on him. His right leg straightened, and he drew his left up into the air to land beside it on the parapet edge. He looked down, his toes curling over the top of the uneven stone block, the void beyond. The vertigo he’d endured as a child suddenly hit him hard, grasping his heart and squeezing tight. His knees trembled, one more gust hammering at the pale flesh of his torso, prodding, poking at him, pushing him forward.

  Then came the whisper:

  I can kill you whenever I wish …

  Hector felt the world turn, his stomach lurching as something hard hit him in the guts. He was flying through the air, stars spinning overhead before his back hit the cold hard flags of the Bone Tower’s roof. Beside him lay the panting figure of Ringlin, chief among his Boarguard. The man’s arm still rested across Hector’s stomach, the tall soldier’s quick thinking having caught the young magister. Ringlin had pulled him to safety, his grasp squeezing the air from his lungs, yanking him back from a fatal fall to the palace rooftop hundreds of feet below.

  ‘My lord,’ gasped Ringlin, withdrawing his arm, breathing hard as he crawled onto his knees. ‘The roof … what were you thinking?’

  Hector lay where he was, staring up at the twinkling sky, fingers twitching spasmodically as breath steamed from his lips.

  ‘I wasn’t … thinking. I thought I was dreaming.’

  Ringlin unbuckled the brown cloak from around his shoulders, draping it over his master.

  ‘You turning into a sleepwalker? Had a friend of mine back in Highcliff who was one o’ them: walked straight off the jetty and into the harbour. They found his body the next day, but not before the crabs had nibbled him to pieces.’

  He reached around Hector, helping the Boarlord sit up straight. Ringlin dabbed at the back of the magister’s head, his fingers coming away bloody from where Hector had struck the flagged roof.

  ‘Sorry about that, my lord. Small price to pay, though, eh?’

  ‘Indeed,’ agreed Hector, woozily, trying to gather his senses. ‘How did you know I was in danger?’

  ‘You passed a chambermaid in your stupor: she came to alert me. I figured you didn’t sound yourself so came looking. I just followed the trail of confused servants and it led me here.’

  ‘Thank you, my friend,’ said Hector, struggling to his feet, the Boarguard helping him rise. It felt odd that Hector should consider Ringlin a friend, especially in light of the circumstances that had forged that friendship initially. The death of Hector’s brother Vincent had brought Ringlin and another rogue, Ibal, into his service, the two men having worked for the slain Boarlord. His brother had been killed by Hector’s own hand – an accident, though that fact counted for little in the eyes of his twin’s ghostly vile that both haunted and served him. Hector
had been trained as a magister, a healer, but had turned his back on the fairer arts of late, concentrating his knowledge on the realm of necromancy. After his death, Vincent had returned in the form of this vengeful vile, a spirit that in turn tormented and comforted Hector. As for Ringlin and Ibal, what had started out as a distrustful business arrangement had grown into something more. Whether it was a genuine fondness, Hector was reluctant to say. His last true friendship hadn’t ended well, he figured, thinking back to Drew.

  ‘Reckon you had another of those bad dreams? You’ve been having plenty lately.’

  ‘This was no dream. I witnessed everything, Ringlin. I was locked away inside my body, seeing everything as clear as you before me now. It was as if I was … possessed. As if something had taken hold of me …’

  His words trailed away, his mind leading him back towards Vincent.

  ‘Grim words, my lord. You fear it’s your brother, don’t you?’

  Ringlin was no fool. The rangy rogue had frequently witnessed Hector’s struggles with the Vincent-vile. At first, Hector’s outbursts must have appeared to the Boarguard as deranged babblings, the magister arguing with the voices inside his head. In time a pattern had appeared, the outbursts intensifying whenever Hector channelled his dark magicks, often hissing his brother’s name in anger. The young Werelord now stood at the height of his powers, seemingly in total control of the vile. Vincent’s torment had all but ceased by day, the spirit dutifully obeying Hector’s commands as and when it was called upon. The nights, however, were another matter.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Hector, his voice lacking conviction. He knew full well that the vile was behind his perilous sleepwalking. But how far would his brother take things? Why would the vile send him to the top of the Bone Tower, a footstep away from death?

  ‘Is he listening to us now?’ asked Ringlin, glancing across Hector’s shoulder as if the vile might suddenly become visible to him for the first time.

  ‘He’s always here; he never leaves me,’ whispered Hector, ‘athough he remains suspiciously silent at present. Where are you, brother? Why so shy all of a sudden?’

  Hector had become used to Vincent’s presence since his death, haunting his every deed and bending his ear. The banter had dwindled in the last few months, since Hector had seized Icegarden from Duke Henrik, attacking the White Bear’s city with his army of Ugri warriors.

  ‘Do you finally know your place, Vincent? Is that it? You realize my power is absolute?’

  Ringlin shifted awkwardly. ‘It may not be wise to antagonize your brother, my lord, especially with your night walks still unexplained.’

  Bless him, thought Hector, he still doesn’t realize that Vincent sees and hears everything I do. He may be silent at the moment, but there isn’t a thought passes through my head that he doesn’t feed upon. Is that not so, brother? The vile remained ominously silent. Hector shivered, despite Ringlin’s brown cloak.

  ‘We shall speak in greater detail regarding my brother later,’ said the Boarlord, clenching his black fist, the skin drawing tight over the knuckles. He stared out over the land beyond the city walls.

  The beleaguered camp of the Bearlords lay below, temporary home to Dukes Henrik and Bergan, while further away the fires of the Catlord forces burned. Hector had once been a friend of Bergan, the Lord of Brackenholme, but those days were long gone. The Boar had sided with the Lion for a brief time, before news of the Catlords’ treachery had reached his ears. Lord Onyx, the Pantherlord who commanded the king’s armies, wanted him dead, having sent the Werecrow Flint to carry out that very deed. Onyx had seen the power that Hector wielded, his mastery over the dead, and rightly feared the young Wereboar.

  But Hector had chosen his own path now. Flint and his Werecrow brethren had become unexpected allies, the Lords of Riven also fearing treachery at the hands of the Catlords. The Crows had spent too long as the whipping boys in Lyssian courts. Alongside Hector, the greatest necromancer the Seven Realms had ever known, they would forge a magnificent new future in which Boar and Crows ruled over all humans and therians, mastering the mountains and the lands below.

  Hector’s eyes narrowed as he caught sight of something moving across the sky in the distance, the moonlight catching its pale wings as it circled the Catlord camp. Ringlin spied it too.

  ‘Another of the Catlords’ allies,’ said the Boarguard warily. ‘An avianthrope of Bast, no doubt. Perhaps a Cranelord? Their numbers grow daily, Onyx calling upon the aid of fellow Werelords from his homeland. I fear the force he’s gathered down there, and exactly what it’s made up of. What creatures do you suppose he’s mustered to his side? And how soon before they finally strike out and crush the Bearlords?’

  ‘Spring is here,’ replied Hector. ‘Perhaps Onyx still fears the advantage that Henrik and Bergan have of the higher ground. The Sturmlanders know the Whitepeaks better than any force, especially an invading army from the jungle continent. The weather may have become that bit more tolerable, but even with far greater numbers the Bastians would be fools to rush their attack. They play a waiting game: they intend to starve the Bearlords and the Sturmish out of the mountains.’

  ‘You do realize, my lord, that the Beast of Bast still wants you dead? You’ve betrayed your oath to Lucas, taking Icegarden for your own and siding with the Crows. You’ve as good as signed your own death warrant: once Onyx and his army have vanquished the Bearlords, surely we’re next.’

  ‘Next to be vanquished?’ Hector laughed. ‘And I thought you were a gambling man, Ringlin.’

  ‘I like a wager, but the odds sound stacked against us. Just look at the size of that army!’

  Hector nodded, appreciating the point his man made. ‘I don’t disagree; that’s a frightful force Onyx and Lucas have gathered, but you underestimate the hand we hold. Not only do we have the impregnable walls of Icegarden surrounding us, but we have my Ugri warriors from Tuskun bolstering our ranks alongside the recently arrived Blackcloaks of Riven. And all the while their Crowlord masters control the sky. It would be sheer folly to mount an attack on my city. We truly hold all the aces.’

  Even shivering and in shock from his terrifying sleepwalk, Hector couldn’t help but feel good. After all the trials and terrors he’d faced, his fortunes seemed to be on the turn. He had an army of brutal warriors at his disposal and powerful allies in the Crows, who seemed to both respect and fear him. And somewhere, deep within the Strakenberg mines, the ancient artefact known as the Wyrmstaff remained hidden. With such a staff in his grasp, who knew what magicks he could unlock? What host he might be able to command? Hector had prisoners within the cells beneath the palace, prisoners who knew where that staff was. It was only a matter of time before he held it. His enemies could call for his head all they wanted: he was safe in Icegarden.

  ‘And what if the word from the Crowlord is true, my lord? Does that not affect your plans?’

  Hector winced, Ringlin’s words like a knife to his back. He knew full well what his Boarguard referred to. News had reached Icegarden on Flint’s dark wings, information that Hector was struggling to comprehend: Drew Ferran, the last of the Grey Wolves of Westland and the first real friend he had truly known, was alive. A severed hand was all that had been recovered of the Wolf in the Horselord city of Cape Gala; the remainder of Drew’s body had never been found. Most believed he’d been eaten alive by the undead horde who had swarmed the citadel, while a rumour persisted that he’d escaped. That rumour had gained momentum in recent weeks, strengthened by numerous sightings.

  ‘Whispers of the demented and desperate, nothing more,’ said Hector, trying to dismiss the matter with as much flippancy as he could muster.

  ‘You
can’t believe that,’ replied Ringlin. ‘This came from men of Riven who faced the Werewolf in Stormdale, soldiers loyal to you. Lord Flint’s own brother fought him on the battlements.’

  ‘They must have been mistaken.’

  ‘How easy is it to mistake a lycanthrope?’ asked Ringlin, forgetting himself for a moment. ‘Remind me again how many Werewolves still live?’

  Ordinarily, the rogue might have expected a withering look from his master, but on the matter of Drew’s reappearance Hector couldn’t hide his mixed emotions. When in his mind Drew had been dead, his decisions had been so much easier. With his friend gone and the Wolf’s Council broken, the path he had to take through life seemed quite clear . He was to forge his own, a new path that ultimately led to him taking power not just over the Dalelands but further afield, right across Lyssia. If Drew did indeed still live, how would he react to the choices the young Boarlord had made? Hector avoided Ringlin’s gaze, as his bare feet gingerly crossed the cold flags towards the stairwell.

  ‘There are other lycanthropes who may yet live in this world, Ringlin. The White Wolves of Shadowhaven roamed the north not that long ago. Perhaps it was one of Queen Amelie’s kin that the Crows and Rats faced in Stormdale.’

  Ringlin paused, considering his words. ‘As I understand it, my lord, Flint was quite specific when describing the creature that fought alongside the Staglords. If Drew does live – and that hasn’t been confirmed, I know – then what would you do? How would your actions tally with your old friend?’

  Hector finally turned back to his Boarguard, sneering. ‘For a reformed footpad, you certainly have a way with words. Where did you learn such insight and diplomacy?’

  ‘On the streets, for the most part,’ Ringlin said, before adding, ‘and in your esteemed service, of course. You didn’t answer the question, my lord. What if Drew lives? Do you fear he’d disapprove of the path you’ve taken?’