Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago: Tales of the Lost Isles

by JOSEPH A. MCCULLOUGH

  Nah. Drowners don’t get hungry, and I’m starving.

  I take a moment to inventory my possessions, and even that’s luxury. Doesn’t take long to tally up a knife, tinderbox and medallion. I tilt the latter into the sunlight at the cave mouth, examining it properly for the first time.

  My da’ described it a hundred times before he took that last, fateful voyage, but seeing it for real still sends shivers down my spine. The imagery’s crude, geometric. A stylised sun eclipsed by the moon, surrounded by Drichean lettering. I can’t read the latter, but I know what da’ thought it meant – the medallion’s a key to the greatest treasure in the Archipelago, hidden in a temple vault on Vaanden’s Isle. I grew up on his tales of plunder and mystery, of gold and glittering gems. Swore he’d make me and mama rich, one day. Never did happen, though.

  Problem was, ‘Uncle’ Valdim didn’t want to share. Broke my mama inside when she heard what passed between ’em. I never saw the messenger who brought word. I only witnessed the aftermath. She took to her bed, and never rose. I’m made of sterner stuff. I’ll beat Valdim to his prize, then I’ll kill him. Simple as that. Then maybe I can go home.

  Or it was simple, anyway, back when I’d timber under my feet. Everything’s chancier now.

  Never mind. I’ll get da’s treasure – be it gold, gems or whatever, and I’ll return home rich. Wash my sorrows away in splendour, you’ll see.

  Breakfast is fruit, harvested from trees near the cave mouth. Sour apples and sourer bananas. Not my first choice, but castaways can’t be choosers, and I’ve no time for hunting. If this is Vaanden’s Isle – and gods, I hope it is – then there are bound to be Dricheans prowling around. Not sure what they’ll make of me, and I’d just as soon not find out. Da’ never credited those mariners’ tales of cannibalism and flaying, but he’s not here. I am, and I’ve taken enough risks of late. As low a profile as can be managed, that’s the way to go.

  I’m getting my bearings outside the cave when I realise I’ve less time than I realised. The tide’s all to hell and gone since I arrived – a golden beach stretches away beneath the cliffs. And anchored in the bay, patchwork sails reefed, lies the Moonrunner.

  Stifling a curse, I squat down behind a bush. Two tiny figures haul an upturned jolly boat beyond the tidemark. Three others stand apart. Quezan’s staring out to sea, distant as ever. Valdim, gentleman’s coat flapping in the coastal breeze and thunderous mood written clear across his brow even from this distance, glowers inland just as intently. And the third? He’s stripped to the waist and staked to the sand a short distance away from the abandoned jolly boat. It’s Theo – there’s no mistaking that shock of black hair. Too many failures in too short a time. He’s in for a deal of trouble when the tide comes in. If he lasts that long. There’s a reason I got well clear of the water before collapsing, even bone-tired as I was. Crabs hereabouts are a mite larger than the norm, and predatory with it.

  No tears for Theo. He’d have done worse to me, given the chance.

  Of course Valdim followed me here. What else could he do? It was that or give me – or rather, the medallion – up as lost to the seas. Does he think I’m strong enough to have survived? Or is it more that he’s hoping his treasure’s still in reach? Five years since he sent my da’ to Davy’s Tavern, and Valdim’s spent every day in between searching for a way through the shifting islands of the Ghost Archipelago. Course he’s desperate. Must be in a right state.

  Bad news and good, same as usual. Sure, it’d be easier without Valdim here, but at least he’s left half his rogues aboard the Moonrunner. Better yet, fortune’s fair wind has me ahead of my former comrades. They’ll be making for the temple, hoping to beat me there or at least catch me opening the vault. If my luck holds, I can reach the temple ahead of them.

  Keeping low, I ease back from the cliff face, and head inland.

  * * *

  The air’s thick and oppressive beneath the canopy. Every breath’s a hot wind in my chest, damp and bitter. Still, better that than making the same journey under the open sun. The sunshine’s brilliant where it pierces the leaves – however hot it is down here, it’s worse beyond. And anyway, the heat’s nothing compared to the constant avian shrieking amidst the treetops. I’m sure those birds are having a fine time of it, but they’re giving me a headache. They’re also masking any sound Valdim’s lot might be making. My former captain could be paces behind, and I’d never hear him.

  After what seems like an age, I finally stumble across the first of the sunken statues – little more than squared-off blocks stacked one atop the other. The uppermost stone always bears the eclipse symbol present on the medallion. The others are covered in broken Drichean lettering. Are they warnings? Instructions? Signposts on a long-abandoned pilgrim trail? I’ve no way to know. But I’ve never forgotten Da’s tales. The statues’ll lead me to my prize, long as I’m still headed uphill.

  I fancy I’m making faster time than Valdim’s company, but I’ve no proof and a whole trade scow’s worth of insecurities, so push myself harder, just in case. I’ve stopped jumping at every rustle of undergrowth by the time the beach is lost to sight. Whatever else Vaanden’s Isle holds, it apparently has a limitless supply of timid, short-furred monkeys who bolt at the first sign of anything larger than themselves. Sadly, there’s no ignoring the caterwauling from the treetops. It’s enough to wake the dead.

  Impatience lends confidence to my stride. Every sense I have is trained on the path behind, seeking some sign of Valdim’s pursuit. It’s an easier proposition than scouring the undergrowth to either side, which grows increasingly tangled the further behind I leave the shore.

  The trail swings eastward at the next statue. This one’s larger. Plaited flowers and scraps of worked gold are dotted around its base – offerings, I suppose, to whatever gods the Dricheans see fit to honour. I leave the tributes well alone. I’ve enough going against me without inviting divine wrath.

  A few paces beyond that, the birds at last fall quiet.

  My gratitude’s brief, extinguished when the undergrowth comes alive with the dozens of desperate bodies scampering for all they’re worth. Not away from me, as they have before, but towards, past and over me, in a torrent of tiny hissing voices and razor-sharp claws. Almost too late, I realise what’s happening.

  They’re running from something.

  A larger, darker shape crashes through the jungle from further uphill. I twist aside, the wind and the musky stench of it barrelling past my shoulder. Balance, already fragile from the simian assault, escapes me completely. I crash into a tangle of branches and go absolutely still.

  Standing in the centre of the path, inches from where I’m lying, is an enormous, bipedal lizard, its leathery hide a mix of mottled browns and green. The snapperjaws the Sterport wealthy use as guard animals worry me enough. This thing’s easily four times their size. Hells, it’s only a little shorter than me, crown to heel. Its teeth are longer than my fingers. And its foreclaws? They make my knife look like a toy.

  The lizard dips its head into the branches. Something screeches and falls silent.

  Heart in my throat, I embrace my birthright. As the fire in my blood grows, my limbs fade into the undergrowth, taking on the gnarled texture of tree bark, and the waxy, luscious greens of the bushes. My hair, spilled across my face during my fall, becomes pallid fronds.

  I daren’t even breathe, the creature’s so close. I silently urge it to leave, to chase down the rest of monkeykind its presence set to flight.

  The lizard doesn’t budge.

  It spins around, thick muscular tail whipping at the branches. Blood still trickling from its jaw, it tilts its head in a curiously bird-like gesture. One tawny yellow eye, slitted like a picture-book demon’s, stares into mine from inches away. Leathery nostrils twitch, sifting my scent from its regular prey.

  I tell myself it can’t see me. But it’s clear it can smell something amiss.

  Icy fear mingles with the rising fire in my veins. Ever
y instinct I have is telling me to run for it. Every rational thought warns me I won’t get three paces.

  I still daren’t breathe, daren’t do anything that’ll break the illusion. Sure, I’ve a knife, but that beast has five on each foot, and a hide thicker than leather to boot.

  I try not to think about the delicate green serpent twitching its way across my thigh, or the beetles using my brow as a handy shortcut between two favourite feasting sites. I’m hoping neither creature takes the lizard’s fancy, because a bite directed at them will take a chunk of me alongside.

  At last, the lizard’s eyes trump its sense of smell. Issuing a thin hiss, it lopes away downhill. I don’t breathe until its outline’s lost amidst the branches, and I don’t let go of my birthright until the birds strike up their yawling once more.

  * * *

  I take things slower from that point on. I confess, that lizard still has me rattled. It shouldn’t. I came through the raid on Sterport in one piece, and that was a bloody mess in every sense of the word. It was the beastie’s eyes, I think. Intelligent, but without the inclination to bargain. Nothing but hunger in its gaze. Not so different from Valdim, come to that.

  The path’s long since lost all pretence of directness, crossing a dried-up crevasse of a streambed, and looping back on itself as it crawls up the unforgiving hillside. I’ve just inched my way across a bridge of fraying liana ropes when a desperate cry draws my gaze down the sheer hillside.

  Tam stumbles out of the undergrowth and pitches face first into the streambed. He doesn’t move – less thanks to the fall, and more to the black-shafted arrows buried in his back. Ritha leaps over his corpse, broadsword falling from her grip as she claws at the opposite bank.

  A powerful, leathery shape crashes through the branches. At first, I wonder if it’s the same lizard from before. Then I realise it’s wearing a leather harness. The arrows in Tam’s back make the rest of the connection. It’s a hunter’s pet.

  A single leap carries the creature effortlessly across the crevasse and onto Ritha’s back. The luckless woman screams. Slitted yellow eyes gleam. Needle teeth sink into the base of Ritha’s neck. The scream chokes off. Lizard and prey tumble into the crevasse, the former’s tail thrashing like an enraged serpent. The steep banks of the streambed hide the rest from sight. Given the sharp reports of snapping bones, I think I’m glad.

  And yet, I can’t bring myself to look away. Tam and Ritha are gone, that’s for sure. What about Valdim? Could I be that lucky? The next rustle of branches confirms that I’m not.

  Valdim stalks towards the streambed with his accustomed composure. A dark-skinned corpse trails from his right hand, its upended quiver spilling a dozen arrows into the crevasse. I know at once his victim’s a Drichean, even though I’ve never seen one in the flesh. With the plaited hair, bronze collar and whorled white tattoos he can’t be anything else. There’s not a speck of blood on the body, no deep crimson to stain the sky-blue robes, and Valdim’s sword is still in its shoulder scabbard. Likely he broke the Drichean’s neck. I saw him do similar at Sterport, and plenty of others. Likes to show off his strength.

  Belatedly, I realise how exposed I am. One upward glance up, that’s all it’d take. Even with the path’s tortuous course, Valdim’s only minutes behind, and I’d be a fool to bet my stamina against his. He sees me, he’ll run me down.

  I back away from the precipice just as Quezan emerges. The Warden’s bleeding from a handful of tiny wounds, but none of it shows in his face. Then again, nothing ever does. He doesn’t even take a step back when the lizard leaps out of the crevasse and lands a pace or two ahead of Valdim. He just plants his staff against a tree root and regards the hissing beast with polite interest. Valdim lets the corpse fall.

  I should be running, I know that. Using the confrontation to increase my slackening lead. But I can’t look away. Call it whimsy, call it macabre interest, but I want to know how this plays out. My hand drifts to the medallion at my throat. There’s something pleasing about the thought of Valdim ending in the beast’s belly.

  I don’t have long to wait. The lizard cranes its head low, hisses anew, and springs. It’s a blur to me, a rush of teeth and claws as inevitable as the death they bring. Not so for Valdim. He sidesteps the beast’s charge. His sword slides free of its scabbard and hacks down, the killing edge slicing so deep that it all but splits head from shoulders. The lizard screeches and stumbles, momentum sending its dying body into a tangled-limbed tumble that stops a pace short of Quezan. Tail and claws thrash wildly at thin air, the motion so wild that Quezan takes a careful step back. Valdim mutters something that I don’t catch. Then he thrusts the point of his sword down. The thrashing stops.

  As Valdim dips to clean his bloody sword on a tuft of grass, I do what I should have done ages ago: I scramble back from the precipice, and follow the trail upwards as fast as I dare.

  * * *

  The trail comes to a halt almost without warning, emptying out into a vast, leafy clearing. Directly ahead, a colossal stone ziggurat reaches skyward, the obelisks on its wide, flat summit silhouetted against the brilliant blue sky. Vines and twisted bushes cling tight to gaps weathered deep into the rock by centuries of wind and rain. I know how they feel. I’m clutching tight to the hope that this won’t all be in vain. I’ve come so far. To fail on the steps of the very temple I’ve been seeking...?

  For a change, I’ve a fairly good idea how far behind me Valdim is. The screams have chased me on for the last half hour – them and the deep, angry calls that echo through the winds, summoning other Dricheans to the hunt. At least, that’s what they’re supposed to be. Judging by Valdim’s laughter, they’re more calls to the slaughter.

  I wouldn’t mind – what are the Dricheans to me, after all? – but he’s got the whole hillside alive with spears. I’ve spent more time hiding beneath illusion than not; pressing breathless against a tree trunk while Dricheans tracking parties thunder past, praying their hunting lizards don’t sniff me out. Already, I’m well beyond what I reckoned were my limits, and it’s costing me. By the feel of it I’m burning from within, flesh searing as beneath a brand. But I can’t stop now. Valdim won’t get Da’s prize. He won’t.

  But all the determination in the world can’t alter the facts. There’s a deal of open ground ’tween me and the ziggurat stairway, and a long climb to the summit. It’s only going to get worse the longer I wait.

  I let my grip on my inheritance slide. The sweet relief of the fading fire is almost enough to make up for the unshakeable and irrational feeling of nakedness. Not that it matters, open ground and direct sunlight don’t play well with my gift. I’d be tiring myself out for nothing.

  Hoping that the flanks of the ziggurat are as empty of Dricheans as they appear, I break from the cover of the treeline and run for the stairway.

  The steps are as worn as the rest of the ziggurat, but their treads are deep. Doesn’t stop my knees from aching before a score of steps have passed away behind me. I press on, climbing on all fours so that my arms take some of the strain.

  Fifty steps on, twice that to go, and I feel like I’ve been climbing forever. I sink against the stairway, the exertions of night and day come to claim their toll all at once.

  ‘There she is!’ bellows a familiar voice. ‘I’ll slice you to ribbons for this, my girl!’

  I peer down the ziggurat’s slope. Valdim’s racing towards the stairway, sword in hand.

  Quezan follows at a steadier pace, unconcerned as always.

  Valdim’s threat is all the reason I need to redouble my efforts.

  The weather shifts as I reach the summit. There’s no warning. Blue skies turn to thunderous greys, and the rain hammers down. The fluxsome weather of the Archipelago at work once again, no doubt.

  One hand scrabbles on suddenly slick stone but the other keeps its purchase. I haul myself off the stairway, knees cracking against stone. As far as I can see through the rain, the ziggurat’s top is almost completely flat, spoilt only wh
ere blocks have succumbed to the elements, and where a slender statue of dark stone rises from a pool at the very centre.

  I’ve seen that statue before. A hundred times in my da’s stories. A woman with a leopard’s face, arms raised in salute of a sun now hidden by clouds.

  I’m here. I’m finally here.

  Which is why it’s so unfair that I’m not alone.

  Three Dricheans stand between me and the statue. Two are plainly warriors, their sky-blue robes supplemented by segmented armour plates that gleam dully in the rain-haunted twilight. The third, standing between them, is old bordering on ancient. He leans heavily on a crooked staff, his back even now bent like a tree in a gale. The way I feel, he’s the only one of the three I could take in a fight.

  I clamber to my feet, shifting my weight for the inevitable fight to come. A fight I’m sure to lose. I keep my knife in an underhand grip, the blade concealed flat against my palm. They have the numbers. Surprise is my only advantage now. I recall my escape from the Moonrunner the previous night. The rain’s almost as thick now as then. If I can hold onto my gift long enough…

  ‘We know why you have come.’ The old man’s words are thickly accented, almost guttural, but they cut through the hiss of the rain. ‘But only the worthy may claim what you seek.’

  What is he babbling about? At least his guards haven’t moved. Waiting for me? Polite of them.

  ‘My da’ wanted me to have your treasure, old man. That makes me worthy enough, I reckon.’

  A quizzical grey eyebrow twitches. ‘And what does your companion say?’