Ruler, Rival, Exile (Of Crowns and Glory—Book 7)

by Morgan Rice

  There were rocks like the teeth of some great creature by the entrance to the passage. Lizards basked on them, some almost as long as a tall man. As Ceres watched, one pounced on another, tearing at it so that blood glistened in the sunlight.

  “We’ll have to take the sail down for now,” Ceres said, and her brother went to help her. With the sail up, they would be moving too fast to avoid the rocks.

  She dared to hope then that maybe the Passage of Monsters was just a myth built on dangerous rocks and predators waiting on them. The gaps between the rocks were narrow enough that even their small boat had to pick its way carefully between them. Ceres could easily imagine boats running aground if they didn’t know their way through them.

  The water beyond the rocks was a different color of blue than the rest of the ocean. It was darker, like an ink stain, as though there were some deep trench running below, far deeper than the rest of the ocean floor. Ceres saw kelp floating on the sea in broad mats, sea birds landing briefly to pick at them.

  She looked down and saw things in the water then. Creatures with arms and legs, but with webbed fingers and feet.

  “Women!” one of the combatlords called. “Beautiful women! Maybe the Passage of Monsters isn’t so bad after all!”

  He leaned over the side of the boat to look down, and Ceres turned to call to him.

  “Keep back, you don’t know what those things really are.”

  He didn’t pull back though. “What’s the worst that can happen? Hey, Brax, maybe we should get out our fishing lines and see if we can catch ourselves—”

  The creature that leapt from the water wasn’t human; had never been anything close to it. Covered in scales, it sprang from the water with the power and agility of a dolphin, shrieking as it came in a register that froze Ceres in place for a moment as it leapt.

  It had claws too, and teeth, all wickedly sharp. It slammed into the combatlord, grabbing at him and tearing, dragging him back into the water in a burst of blood and violence that made Ceres think of the lizards on the shore.

  “Sirens!” her father called. “Brace yourselves!”

  It was too late to save the combatlord. Already, the creatures below were tearing at his body beneath the water, ripping it to shreds and turning the waves red with their efforts. Right then, all they could do was try to save themselves.

  “Row!” Ceres yelled to the others. She watched her father and the combatlords grab oars, while she stood in the middle of the boat, her blade at the ready. It made sense that they should be the ones to row, because they were the strongest, but it meant that they weren’t there to fight. It meant that she and Thanos, Sartes, and Leyana had to protect them. Her brother and the girl had bows, arrows nocked, but Ceres knew that she and Thanos would have to do most of the work of keeping the creatures from coming aboard.

  More of the creatures leapt from the water, and Ceres had no more time to think.

  They came shrieking, and again, it felt as if those shrieks were designed to stun those they attacked. Ceres had a moment of being caught in the horror of the thing coming at her. Then she ducked, bringing her blade around two-handed to smash into the creature. Another jumped at her and she thrust, skewering it and flinging it back into the water.

  She saw an arrow flash past to dig into one of the beasts as they leapt out of the water. Sartes reloaded, while beside him, Leyana fired her weapon, catching another of the beasts. Ceres saw one coming up behind her, lunged forward, and cut the head from the siren as it clambered over the side of the boat.

  Thanos was cutting at the creatures as fast as they could come. One clung to one of the oars, and Ceres saw him stab it. Another climbed over the stern, skulking toward them. It fell, and Ceres saw Akila stabbing from where he lay on the deck.

  They kept coming. Perhaps this was their tactic, to throw themselves at a ship in the hope that some would survive to feed. Perhaps it didn’t matter that their dead were littering the water, because they could be eaten just as readily.

  Ceres kicked one back, spun to avoid another, and then hacked with her blade at stomach height. She fought with the long blade she’d stolen, clearing swathes of the deck each time she swept across it. The creatures fell back then, and Ceres saw one dive for the water before Thanos’s blade could reach it.

  “We’ve beaten them!” Sartes said.

  Ceres wished that she could go along with his enthusiasm, but right then it didn’t feel as though they’d won. She’d been in enough battles to know what it felt like when one side ran, and right then, there had been no reason for the monsters to flee.

  Unless there had been, and she just hadn’t seen it yet.

  “There’s something else coming!” she yelled. “Hold on!”

  The serpent burst from the water almost as Ceres said it, its great maw gaping wide as it swallowed up some of the dead in the water. It rose and rose, its body seemingly endless as it came out of the water in an arc. Ceres guessed where that arc would end.

  “Hard to port, now!” she yelled, grabbing for an oar. She pulled with all the strength she had, and the skiff moved, jolting to one side, riding the creature’s wash as it shifted direction.

  The sea serpent’s head plunged down into the space where the boat had been, sending water spraying up into the air to wash over the side. She saw Sartes and Leyana firing arrows into the scaled side of the beast, but next to its massive bulk, the arrows might as well have been splinters.

  “Arrows won’t help!” Ceres called out. “Bail!”

  They got the message, using buckets to try to get the water off the boat before it was swamped. Ceres fought against the oar she held, sending the boat in yet another new direction as the sea serpent emerged from the water again, this time close enough that Ceres could have reached out to touch its flank. She snatched up her sword, cutting a bloody slice through it and barely managing to hang on to the hilt as the creature’s momentum nearly dragged it from her hands.

  More creatures came in then, and Ceres found herself thinking of the feeding frenzies that formed around shoals of mackerel or other fish, where sharks or dolphins began it, but soon every creature in the sea joined in. Raptors flew in over the carnage, while the sirens started to leap from the waves again, and something with tentacles reached up from the waves.

  Ceres tried to fight and row at the same time, and it was nearly impossible. She struck a siren with the oar, knocking it back into the waves, then put in a couple of hard strokes to dart the boat to starboard as the sea serpent struck again. Around her, she saw the others do the same. One of the remaining combatlords hacked at the passing sea serpent with an axe, while her father struck at a tentacle with his forge hammer, and Sartes shot down one of the circling raptors.

  “We need to get out of this place,” Thanos yelled above it all, swinging a blade to hack down another of the monsters closing in on them.

  The monsters didn’t seem to care whether it was the inhabitants of the boat or each other hitting the water; they devoured whatever fell. Presumably, that was how things worked here in the Passage of Monsters, with all of them eating one another until only the most terrifying survived.

  “Row!” Ceres called, and they pulled at the oars as hard as they could, breaking free from the grip of tentacled limbs, crushing sirens that came too close. She called out changes to direction more or less at random while the sea serpent rose and fell, plunging into the waves in a way that sent up great gouts of water to swamp the ship. When one of the sirens managed to scramble aboard, Ceres pushed it back, then went straight back to rowing.

  “We need the sail back up,” she said. She looked around. “Sartes, Leyana, can you do it?”

  She didn’t like leaving it to the two youngest there, but right then they needed everyone stronger to row. Ceres pulled at her oar, only occasionally lifting it long enough to jab at one of the creatures trying to get aboard. All the while, Leyana and Sartes worked at the sail, hauling it up and tying it in place once again.

&nbs
p; They scythed through the water with their sails and oars working in concert. Now Ceres could leave her oar, moving to the tiller to try to guide the small ship. She still didn’t dare take it in a straight line, because while the smaller creatures weren’t keeping up with them, the sea serpent was still plunging in and out of the water at them, darting around the boat, only just missing it.

  It brushed the side of the boat and Ceres heard oars snap, splinters sent flying. She couldn’t pause to see if anyone was hurt then, because if the creature got any closer, they would all be dead. Instead, she aimed the boat for the gap at the other end of the Passage of Monsters, hoping against hope that it would be enough.

  “It’s too tight!” her father yelled. “We won’t make it.”

  Ceres set herself against the tiller, hoping he was wrong.

  Something splashed in the water. It took Ceres a moment to realize that it was a rock. Rocks were tumbling from the walls of the passage now, and Ceres guessed that they were being knocked clear by the thrashing of the sea serpent below. She jerked the tiller to the side just in time to avoid the beast as it rose again, then brought it back on course, trying to fit it between one of the gaps in the rocks.

  It was too close. Her father was right—they would crash into the rocks, splinter against them, and die. Ceres had misjudged it. She…

  A hand closed around the tiller. Ceres looked over to see Akila there, leaning against the tiller as much as holding it.

  “I’ve sailed these waters,” he said. “Hold true.”

  Ceres held to her course, and felt the rocks scraping past on either side. She heard more oars snapping as they splintered on the rocks, and she heard one of the two remaining combatlords curse as his oar was dragged from his hands, but she held it. Even when Akila collapsed to the deck again, she forced herself to hold her course.

  Almost as suddenly as the space between breaths, they were out in open water, beyond the rocks.

  “We made it,” Sartes said. “We made it.”

  Ceres dared a look back. She saw the sea serpent rise from the water one last time, but it was turning back toward the deep waters of the passage, plunging back with a final defiant spray of water. It wasn’t following. It couldn’t follow.

  It was a relief, but at the same time, Ceres could feel her heart beating almost fast enough to burst from her chest. They’d gone through the Passage of Monsters to try to stay safe, and now one of the combatlords was dead, torn to shreds by the beasts there. All of them had scrapes and cuts, either from the monsters or from the breaking oars. Ceres had blisters on her hands from holding to the tiller so tight, and she didn’t want to think about what damage Akila might have done to himself trying to help.

  Still, Sartes was right in one respect.

  “We made it,” Ceres agreed with a smile. “We’re past the passage.”

  “Which means we’re past Felldust’s fleet,” Thanos said. He came up to lift Akila from the stern of the boat, returning him to the center of the deck where he wouldn’t risk rolling into the waves.

  It had cost them one of the combatlords and all their oars, not to mention who knew how much other damage to the boat, but they’d done it. Now, there was only one thing to do.

  “Keep going,” Ceres said, and the others rushed to obey her. “Check how badly everyone is wounded and make sure we have as much sail as we can get up. We’re going to Haylon.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Irrien walked from his new chambers, pleased as only a conqueror could be. He strode with the confidence of a man with no rivals, leaving behind him slaves taken from the cream of the Empire’s noblewomen. Last night he’d celebrated, and it was true what the songs said: stolen wine always tasted better.

  He very carefully didn’t touch the aching wound in his shoulder. He’d cleaned it and bound it, hiding it away beneath his dark tunic. For today, and every day, he would be the strong leader that his people needed. He would play the part until he healed enough to be strong again.

  There was an entourage of hangers-on waiting as soon as he came out of his new bedchambers, of course. It was one of the curses of a leader that a man couldn’t be alone, because there were always those seeking favor, or influence, or simply instructions for their pitiful existences.

  There were priests and warriors there, the captains of his divisions, and at least a few merchants hovering like vultures waiting for scraps. There were more slaves around the edges of the group, looking frightened but ready, as they should. Irrien found himself wondering if they’d been slaves a few days ago, or if these were among the ones adjusting to the new realities of this world.

  He ignored them all for now, and none of them dared to speak. It was better to remind them of where they stood, rather than having to kill them later.

  He walked to a window, watching the slave crews and the paid builders raising statues and rebuilding walls. Already, there were small statues to him rising around the city, but the biggest ones were still at the stage of being footings, rising with stone block after stone block above the level of the houses. Irrien wouldn’t allow the people of Delos to forget who had conquered them.

  Below, he could see the slave lines and the carts of looted goods. There were markets for both in the city now, he knew, while his men were coming to him saying that they had seized this business or that house, paying their share or asking if Irrien wanted to make his claim in it.

  There was so much to organize now. Irrien stifled a sigh at the thought of that, but turned to those waiting for him.

  “Very well,” he said. “Let us begin.”

  They came forward with their requests, one by one. The priests who wished to convert Delos’s temples to their worship, granted, although they had to purchase their own sacrifices for the consecration. The soldiers whose men wanted permission to claim homes and their inhabitants?

  “I have already said that my men may take what they wish,” Irrien said. “So long as they pay their share. Taxes will be the same as in Felldust: a share to be paid by all of the free, and the strong take what they want from the weak who were here for the invasion.”

  It was so simple to say, but inevitably, there were details to deal with. Irrien was a strong leader, though, and he knew better than to let it all wash over him. He dove into the details, because he would not allow others to start to run what was his behind his back. That was the way men built their power bases and grew into things that could challenge their betters.

  “The laws of this land are now those of Felldust,” Irrien said. “My commands will be obeyed. Send men beyond the city to every hamlet, village, and farm telling those within that they now belong to me. The petty rules of this land no longer apply. Gather those who claim to be judges and execute them.”

  Felldust’s system was a simple one, and Irrien intended to take it further. His word was law. Beyond that, the petty grievances and crimes of others mattered not at all. If a man killed his wife’s lover, or slew a business rival, the only question was whether the death affected Irrien or those who begged his protection.

  The webs of taxation would become equally simple: Irrien’s men would pay him, and others would pay them. If his men could not take enough to make the arrangement worthwhile, they did not deserve to be his men.

  Irrien walked as he spoke, expecting others to keep up with him. Slow, nearly dead rulers sat in one place waiting for events to come to them. Strong rulers sought the opportunity to make their mark.

  Irrien saw one opportunity as he came to a framed map of the Empire put together, he suspected, on the rise of King Claudius to the throne. It showed the Empire at its fullest stretch, before the rebellions that had torn it apart. Irrien scanned the place names, noting the ones that used former emperors’ names, Karlinsford, Vespalston. There was even a Claudian River, no doubt named after some minor escapade. Perhaps the old fool fell from his horse there, in the years before his son murdered him.

  “There are names I wish changed on this map,” Irrien said
. “This shall be known as Stone’s Ford. This river shall be the Gods’ River. There will be more changes. Find me a cartographer.”

  “You want to change the very names of their lands, First Stone?” one of his men said. The man smiled. “A fitting humiliation, to leave them with the very words for their land changed.”

  “To leave them, yes,” Irrien said. He waved a hand. “Go. Fetch the mapmaker. You, bring the map with us. I have a use for it.”

  There were still those in his fleet who did not understand what he was doing here, or if they did, they understood it in a shallow way. They thought in terms of a swift raid, or at most, of a colony run from the dust of Port Leeward. It was the mistake his fellow Stones had made, and Irrien was grateful for it. It meant that they were not here, and he did not have to argue with his most dangerous rivals over what came next.

  He briefly looked out the window again. The most beautiful thing about it was that he could see the city, every detail of it laid out before him. It was not covered in dust like a bride wrapped on her wedding day, waiting for her husband.

  Even with the city in ruins, Irrien liked that about it. Every day now, he had men asking him about the arrangements to take looted gold back home, the representatives of the other Stones asking about their shares or demanding that Irrien should return to deal with pressing matters.

  None of them stopped to look at the city, free from dust; to feel the wind on their faces without the fear that the remains of the war against the Ancient Ones would scour their flesh. They complained about the cooler air here as if it were a curse not to be stuck in a boiling cauldron of a place.

  Perhaps it was time to make the truth clear.

  Irrien made his way down through the castle, past the kneeling slaves and the watching soldiers, past the windows with their bright sun and the statues of men who had no relevance now. The others followed after him like a shoal of scavenging fish in the wake of a shark, and Irrien’s amusement at their antics was almost enough to distract him from the pain in his shoulder.