Slowly, Roque got to his feet. His ears were ringing, and he was covered in cuts and contusions, but he ignored all that, and the dire thirst that was still upon him.
There was a curious light down there in the hold, and a curious smell. He picked up his sabre and clambered towards the light. It was red, but pale, like a lamp. And the smell was that of turpentine, bitumen and a tang of hot resin. Where had he smelled that before? What did the odour remind him of?
Then he remembered. It was the dryness of sand and ancient dust, the odour of embalming wax and natron, as from an old tomb entirely buried in the desert. It was the smell of his nightmares.
Roque approached the light. There, by the glow of it, he saw wonderful things.
XXXIII
Luka ducked down hard, and Henri’s sabre scythed over his head. The Butcher fought with none of the skill and finesse he had owned as a man, merely slashing and striking about with sword blows of astonishing power. He did not even raise a proper guard. It took Luka every scrap of his agility to stay clear of the merciless strokes. Luka thrust in with his shamshir and landed several deep hits, but nothing seemed to slow Henri down. He did not raise a proper guard because no sword could injure him. Both Casaudor and Ymgrawl set in to support Luka as the deck-brawl allowed, but for the most part they were occupied in fending off the other murderous ghouls.
“What became of you, Henri?” Luka panted. “What did this to you? What foul sorcery has you in its thrall?”
There was no answer, except in the language of the sword, and Luka expected none. Like his crew and his ship, Henri the Breton was dead, transformed into a mindless, implacable instrument of destruction. Soon enough, Luka’s mortal frame would tire and slow, and then Henri would cut him down.
Henri hacked out a blow of huge force that caught Luka across the guard of his sword and tore it out of his hand. Luka dived headlong, partly to recover his weapon, and partly to avoid the next whistling blow from Henri’s sabre. It was a valiant attempt, but Luka fell short, the shamshir just beyond the reach of his clawing hand. He rolled, and Henri’s soughing blade bit into the dry deck where Luka had just been lying.
Seeing his captain in grave danger, Tende hurled himself forward, knocking two stiff ghouls aside, and buried the tip of his Ebonian axe deep into Henri’s left shoulder. The Butcher rocked slightly and, without even looking round at his new adversary, struck out with his left fist and sent Tende flying the length of the poop deck.
Luka had managed to grab his sword, and came up fighting. But Henri brushed aside the first two strikes Silvaro made, and then sliced his sabre into Luka’s left side.
Luka cried out in pain, feeling the cold agony of the wound and the hot drenching blood spilling from it. The sabre would have chopped clean through his torso, had it not been partially stopped by one of the spent wheel-locks dangling at his side on its lanyard. Even so, it was a crippling blow.
In desperation, more out of instinct than anything else, Luka punched with his shamshir to break away from the massive Butcher. The blade severed Henri’s right wrist, and his hand and his sabre fell upon the deck. Luka staggered back, believing that by disarming his foe he had at least bought himself a moment’s respite.
But Henri’s left hand lunged out and caught Luka by the throat.
The Butcher’s grip tightened, and he lifted the choking Luka off the deck. Blacking out, Luka lost his sword, and clawed at the arm holding him with his bare hands. He could smell the sweet putrefaction of Henri’s desiccated flesh. He could feel the bones of his neck grind and his windpipe close.
He could feel his death overtaking him.
There was a loud crunch, a violent lurch, and the grip released. Luka fell back onto the deck. He opened his eyes and saw Henri staggering backwards. The Bite of Daagon had been plunged tip-first into his chest.
“Sesto?”
“Get up, Luka,” Sesto urged, hauling at his arms.
“You did that?”
They stared as Henri took another step or two backwards. Where the Bite had opened his chest, thousands of white grubs and maggots were spilling out, as if it had been the pressure of them inside Henri that had bloated his flesh so.
Henri fell upon his back and, before their eyes, he rotted away, his flesh collapsing and blackening, his bulk evaporating into dust, until he was just a jumbled skeleton upon the deck with the Bite of Daagon lodged through its breastbone.
“The Butcher’s dead,” Luka breathed, leaning on Sesto for support. The wound in his side hurt like a bastard and he was streaming blood.
“But his men are not,” Sesto said. Around them, and down across the forward decks, the ghouls fought on with single-minded fury. The Lightning Tree had now managed to close with the Kymera, and had grappled itself to the starboard side so that Tusk’s crew could join the savage action hand-to-hand. But the fight to close had cost the Lightning Tree dear. Its decks were a place of ruin and broken bodies, and its masts and rigging were shattered and torn. The great ship was listing badly, and the infernal red fire seethed across its sheets and stern.
“The sorcery still remains,” Luka said. “Henri was a part of it, not the root. We must find the true source of the magic and destroy it, or even now we will not be the victors this day.”
“You’re hurt!” Sesto cried.
“I can find time to be hurt, later,” Luka snarled, picking up his shamshir and sheathing it so he could reload his presentation piece. “Come on!”
“Whereto?”
“To wherever on this damned ship the magic is hidden!”
They stumbled below, fighting off grisly foes that loomed out of the smoke and fog. The lower decks, choked with vapour and powder-fumes, were lit up by the cold, red light. It seemed to glow from the timbers themselves. Above and around them, through the decks, they could hear the constant clangour of feral war.
“Down here!” Luka cried out. He limped down the wooden steps that led into the afterhold. The glow was brighter. There was a strong smell of turpentine and wax. The air was so robbed of moisture, their tongues dried in their mouths.
Luka sat down on the lowest step. “Give me a moment,” he gasped, fighting the pain.
“Rest here,” Sesto told him. “I’ll check ahead.” Raising his sabre, Sesto edged down the cavernous hold, past shadowy stacks of rotten barrels and ballast, towards the light.
“Great gods!” he exclaimed.
“So you see it too,” Roque said. “Good, I thought I might be dreaming.”
The hind space of the Kymera’s great afterhold glimmered like a treasure cave. Great caskets of gold were stacked around, and with them statues and figurines all gilded and set with jewels. Some of the caskets were open, revealing the piles of coins and precious stones within, and also scrolls of fine parchment and antique weapons enamelled with cloisonné.
Roque Santiago Delia Fortuna stood in the midst of it all. The lupine Estalian looked sick and ill. His face was haggard, his skin drawn and blotchy, and his breath came in short, rasping gulps. He was leaning for support against a vast golden sarcophagus that lay in the centre of the hold space, the treasures piled around it. The casket was shaped in the form of a supine figure, arms crossed over its chest. Gemstones, enamels and bright paint gave a sort of life to the moulded visage on the casket lid. An emperor, perhaps, a king, a regal lord, with gold about his brow, and staring eyes lined with kohl.
“Behold, Henri’s treasure and his doom,” Roque said.
Sesto gazed about in wonder. “I’ve never seen its like,” he said. There was a style and quality to the treasures, to the weapons and the designs, that Sesto had not seen before. Strange pictograms were etched into the casket cartouches, showing slaves and river boats and oxen and long-billed birds. Everything was gold, enhanced by bars of white and pure blue, and occasional red. The golden statues, which seemed to stand guard over the great sarcophagus, were human figures with the heads of falcons, cats and rams. Two wore the faces of long-eared hounds or desert
dogs.
“Aye,” said Roque, “you’ve not seen its like in the Old World, my friend. This is loot from the sands of Khemri, plundered from some dust-dry tomb. It’s ancient. Older even than the cities where you and I were born.”
“Khemri…” Sesto murmured.
“This is Henri’s curse, Sesto. The fell cargo that he took from a damned treasure ship and, in so doing, damned himself and his men. The cursed grave goods of an ancient tomb king, his solace in the afterlife.” Roque stroked a hand across the carved face on the sarcophagus lid. “You, old one, old king, this is your doing.”
“How can you know this?” Sesto asked, stepping forward.
“Can’t you feel the malice radiating from this lustrous horde?” Roque said. “Evil and magic, summoned by a dead thing who did not like how his eternal sleep had been disturbed. It’s the dry dust of the tomb, Sesto, the trickle of sand. It has been calling to me in my dreams.”
Roque touched the scar on his shoulder, raw now from constant scratching.
“Your dreams?” Sesto said.
“My dreams. My dry, ghastly nightmares. Contact with this unholy treasure made Reyno a daemon, and I’ve been connected to it ever since he marked me with his talon.”
“What do we do?” Sesto asked.
“We break it. We destroy it. This gold, this matchless treasure, makes no man rich in anything except death. Help me.”
Roque had picked up a golden-handled adze from the mounds of treasure nearby, and began to employ it as a crowbar to prise off the lid of the sarcophagus.
“Are you sure we—”
“Help me, Sesto!” Roque cried, struggling.
Sesto grabbed another adze and set in beside the master-at-arms. Together, they heaved and wrestled, splintering the gilded wood of the lid, breaking ancient seals of wax and resin.
Slowly, slowly, the lid raised up. Foul dust billowed out from the dark cavity within, reeking of natron and embalming salts.
The lid slumped over onto the hold floor with a terrible shudder of wood.
The tomb king lay within, hands across his breast. Sesto had expected to see some hideously-shrivelled corpse, or dry, dusty mummifer, but the body that lay within seemed shockingly fresh. A boy, just a boy, no older than Gello. He was swaddled in linen wrappings that were as fresh and white as a summer cloud, and gold jewellery plated his forearms, chest and forehead. His skin, where it was exposed on his beringed hands and face, was pink and vital. His face was beautiful, dusted in gold, with extravagant lines of black around his sleeping eyes.
Sleeping, Sesto shuddered. That was it. This long-dead thing seemed only to be sleeping.
Roque reached out his hand and hesitantly picked up the amulet the tomb king wore across his chest, just above his folded hands. It was a heavy thing, fashioned in the shape of a winged beetle, the thick gold set with turquoise and ruby. The long, weighty gold chain dangled behind it as Roque pulled it free.
Roque made a sweet, low moan. “This is it, Sesto. This is the talisman, the seat of power. Oh, it sings to me! I have heard it oft times in my dreams, fragile voices singing in a tongue I do not know, though I understand every word. This is the very essence of the curse.”
Sesto nodded. “Then that is what we must destroy.”
“Yes, yes,” Roque said. He remained gazing at the amulet in his hands.
“Roque? Sir?”
The Estalian turned away. A sudden, dreadful alarm filled Sesto. He reached for his dagger, drew it out, but could not bring himself to plunge it into Roque’s back, even though every instinct told him he should.
“Oh, Sesto,” Roque said sadly. He turned back. The amulet was in his left hand. The dirk in his right had plunged deep into Sesto’s ribs.
Sesto gasped. A vice of white pain clamped his mind. He fell back, the dirk still embedded in him.
“Oh, Sesto,” Roque repeated. He looked aghast and, if there had been any water left in him, he would have been weeping. “You failed me. If you see me wavering, I said. Wavering or hesitating. I begged of you, to make your strike sure and clean.”
Sesto fell sideways against the sarcophagus and slid to the deck. Blood soaked his shirt around the dirk’s grip and ran out onto the boards. Against nature, the beads of blood began to stream counter to gravity, up the sides of the golden casket, and down within. The sleeping boy-daemon in the sarcophagus sighed gently.
“What have you done?” Luka Silvaro said, limping forward, his shamshir raised. “Roque, what in the name of the devil have you done here?”
“Just what I am bid, Luka,” Roque replied. Clutching the amulet in his left hand, he drew his fine sabre of watered Estalian steel.
“No closer, old friend,” he said.
“Gods,” Luka looked down at Sesto. “Gods, I offered you ivory for luck, Sesto…”
Luka glanced back up at Roque and shook his head. “Friends, Roque? Friends. Comrades. That’s what this fell cargo feeds upon. That’s what it delights in undoing and damning. Henri, Reyno, you and I. The fine bonds of the code and good company, cut asunder by this madness that pits brother and ally against one another.”
“Friends?” Roque smiled. “Friendship? You think it cares about that? The tomb king desires nothing except blood and gold. Friendship is just something that gets in the way of that appetite.”
“Then I’m another obstacle,” Luka said. “Toss away your sabre and set aside that abominable trinket. Or come through me to leave this hold alive.”
Roque slowly looped the golden chain of the amulet around his neck, scooping out his long hair to let it fall clear. The golden talisman now hung at his chest.
“I can’t do that, Luka,” he said. Already, Luka could see how Roque’s eyes were beginning to glaze, as if ice was forming across their surface to dull the colour of the pupils. His skin was beginning to stretch and wizen.
Luka lunged forward, ignoring the lancing pain in his side. Their blades struck together and rang out, blow following blow, feint and riposte, lunge and parry. Sparks flew off from the razor-sharp edges.
Luka Silvaro prided himself on his swordsmanship. He’d won every duel he’d ever found himself in, including some where he’d pretended to be a swordsman of lesser skill in order to goad an opponent into overconfidence. That had certainly been his tactic with poor Captain Hernan. Luka had wanted to make a point there, not slice the man to ribbons. But now he was sorely hindered by his awful wound.
And there was one swordsman in the entire breadth of the sparkling Tilean Sea that Luka acknowledged to be his better with the sword. They had fought many times, and Luka had always lost, though only ever in practice sparring.
Until now.
Roque Santiago Delia Fortuna was the most gifted swordsman Luka had ever met. The dance and feint of swordplay came naturally to him. He knew moves and parries that sword masters the length of Tilea and Estalia both would have gladly sold up their schools to learn. And his watered steel was the finest of weapons, far sounder, truer and sharper than Luka’s precious shamshir.
Right from the start, Luka knew he was outmatched. But still he fought, putting every erg of effort and every iota of finesse into his furious rallies. He was determined that he would not lose, could not lose. He thought of Hernan, bested in swordplay, but still staunch and heroic to the bitter end, sailing his ship into the face of doom. Likewise Silke, and Tusk, Sesto, and even Reyno, most like.
There came a time when skill itself was no longer enough. There came a time when a man had to learn from others about sheer courage and win out that way.
What mattered most was not a man’s talent, or his handiness with the steel. What mattered most was his heart, and the fibre of his soul. Only that measure could truly win the day.
Except here.
Luka sallied forward, riding a low parry into a half-thrust, and almost speared Roque through the throat. But the Estalian slid aside, executed a long lunge that pinned Luka’s shamshir against the side of the sarcophagus, and snapped it
below the hilt with a flick of his wrist.
Luka stumbled back, trying to ward himself with the feeble broken sword, and Roque lunged furiously, driving the entire length of his sabre through Luka’s left shoulder.
“Gods!” Luka grunted.
Roque ripped the sabre out, and Luka fell against the sarcophagus and sagged down.
Roque hovered the tip of his bloody sabre at Luka’s left eye. “I’ll make it quick, old friend,” he hissed.
Luka spat at him.
Roque pulled back his arm to strike. The golden amulet on his chest suddenly rose up, as if lifted into the air by some dark magic. Roque shuddered. His mouth gagged open, and white grubs spilled out.
The amulet fell to the deck, its golden chain broken. What had lifted it off his breast was a full hand’s span of blade from a tanning knife.
Ymgrawl dragged his long dagger out of Roque’s back, and the cursed Estalian fell over on his face.
Luka looked up at Ymgrawl.
“Too late for the pup,” Ymgrawl said, glancing at Sesto’s body. “But not too late for thee, I trust?”
“Help me up,” Luka said. Ymgrawl heaved Silvaro to his feet. Luka was shaking, unsteady.
He moved forward and picked up the fallen amulet.
“Now we break this. Hammer it apart,” he said. His voice trailed off.
Luka could hear distant chanting, frail singing echoing in the air. A scent of musk and spices, the slow wash of funeral dhows upon a tranquil river. Priests and oxen, pipes, heavy drums, the odour of fresh basalt tombs, open for the last time. The setting sun. The racing stars. A huge pyramid, rising above the bend of the river. A thousand voices.
The dry, dry grit of the piling sand.
He felt thirsty. Parched.
Blood, that’s what Roque had said. Blood. The tomb king was thirsty for blood. That was the curse it had put upon the Kymera, to kill, and kill, and kill again across the waters of the sea to find enough blood to slake its eternal thirst.