Using his staff as a crutch, Joach headed out of the cavern.
There would come a time to reveal his secret. But for now he would keep the knowledge close to his aching heart, next to the memory of a tawny-haired girl with the softest of lips.
In her chamber, Elena settled into a chair by the coals of the morning’s fire. The others took seats or stood by the hearth. A trio of servants passed mugs filled with kaffee and set out platters of warm oat biscuits, sliced apples, cheeses, and cubes of spiced pork.
Er’ril took up position, close by her shoulder. If Elena turned her head, her cheek could touch the hand that gripped the back of her chair. But now was not the time to lean into his strength. Elena sat with her back straight, gloved hands folded in her lap. She kept the worry from her face. One moon’s time . . .
Harlequin Quail waited by the fire, staring into the coals as if reading some meaning in their last glow. He fingered a silver bell on his doublet until the servants departed.
The uproar at the council after the stranger’s pronouncement had made it impossible to continue. From the angered shouts and blusters of disbelief, the assembly would be deaf to reason until their shock wore off.
Then alarm bells had distracted the assembly momentarily. Word quickly reached them that an elv’in scoutship had crashed into the seas. Elena had called for a break in the war council.
Er’ril mumbled beside her. “Where is Meric?”
“He’ll be here,” Elena answered.
As if proving her words true, there was a knock on the door. A departing servant opened the way for the elv’in prince. Meric bowed into the room, taking in the others with a quick flick of his eyes.
The high keel of the Bloodriders sat in the chair across from Elena, his long black braid, peppered with gray, over one shoulder. His son, Hunt, stood at his side, tall and stiff-backed, his hawk tattoo bright in the hearth’s glow.
The other chair, closer to the fire, was occupied by Master Edyll of the mer’ai. The slender, white-haired elder held a steaming mug between his webbed fingers.
Meric nodded to each leader; then his gaze settled briefly on the motley-clothed stranger standing with Lord Tyrus.
Cocking one eyebrow, he turned to Elena. “I’m sorry I’m late,” he said with stiff courtliness. “It took a while to settle things at the docks.”
Elena nodded. “What happened? Word is that a ship crashed.”
“A scoutship, returning from the north, captained by a cousin of mine.” Though Meric’s face was locked in his usual stoic countenance, Elena noted the weary glint to his eyes, the mournful cast to his lips. Another member of his family gone. First his brother lost to the deserts, then his mother, who gave her life to save the last refugees of Meric’s home city. With the elv’in folk scattered to the winds, Meric was the one to bear the burden of his people here, the last of royal blood. The word “king” was whispered behind his back, but he refused to take up that mantle. “Not until our people are reunited,” he had warned all who pressed him. Now another death.
Elena sighed. “I’m sorry, Meric. This war bleeds all of Alasea.”
The high keel grumbled from his seat. “Then perhaps we should take the fight to Blackhall before we are bled dry.”
Elena knew the Dre’rendi were anxious to turn the prows of their mighty war fleet toward Blackhall. For now, Elena ignored the challenge in the high keel’s words. She continued to address Meric. “What happened to your cousin’s ship?”
Meric frowned and stared at his toes. “Sy-wen is investigating the wreckage with Ragnar’k as we speak.”
Elena sensed Meric was holding back something that disturbed him. “What’s wrong?”
Meric’s blue eyes sparked sharply from under his silver bangs. “I spoke to Frelisha as the ship tumbled. My cousin died bringing a warning back to us—word of betrayal.”
“Betrayal?” Er’ril asked. Elena felt the plainsman’s grip tighten on the back of her chair. “What did she mean?”
Meric shook his head. “She died, saying no more.”
Elena glanced to Er’ril. His gray eyes were stormy, but his iron countenance melted enough to offer her a reassuring nod.
Master Edyll spoke from near the hearth. “Your cousin’s message suggests there is someone in our confidence whom we must not trust.”
Elena’s gaze flicked to the bell-draped stranger. She was not the only one. The foreigner kept his back to them, staring at the fires, but Lord Tyrus recognized their suspicion.
“I vouch for Harlequin Quail with my own blood,” Tyrus said, straightening.
Master Edyll seemed not to hear the pirate’s words. He gazed into the dark depths of his mug. “Two messages from the north in one day. One hinting at a need to act swiftly. The other warning to be cautious and wary of those at our side. It does make one wonder which to believe. Maybe—”
A tinkle of bells interrupted the mer’ai elder. Harlequin Quail spun on a heel to face them all. His pale face had reddened; his gold eyes flashed. “Choices? You have no choices! You either bring your forces against the Black Beast by Midsummer Eve, or all will be lost.”
Master Edyll’s eyes grew large at his outburst, but the high keel laughed deeply, more thunder than amusement. “I like the fire in this fellow’s heart!”
Lord Tyrus stepped beside Harlequin, towering over the smaller man. “Do not judge a man by his appearance. You wound a great man by questioning Harlequin’s word. When I first came to Port Rawl and worked my way up the Guild, there was only one man whose word and heart I trusted.” Tyrus placed a hand on Harlequin’s shoulder. “He risked much to discover what defenses the Dark Lord means to set against you. You may doubt him, a stranger here, a fool dressed in bells, but do you doubt me?”
“I meant no affront,” Master Edyll said. “But in this dread time, even the word of one’s own brother must be suspect.”
“Then we are defeated before we’ve even begun. If we don’t trust those at our sides, what hope is there for victory? Even pirates trust their shipmates.”
Elena spoke up. “What of this word of betrayal from Meric’s cousin?”
Tyrus glanced to the elv’in. “No offense, Prince Meric, but your cousin’s warning means nothing to me.” He faced Elena again. “Until we have further elaboration, I refuse to go around eyeing each friend with suspicion.”
Meric surprisingly agreed. “When I first stepped onto these shores, I was suspicious of everyone and everything.” A shadow of a sad smile touched his features. “But I learned otherwise. I’ve watched a friend forged into an enemy and seen that same man win his name back.”
“Kral.” Elena nodded.
Meric bowed his head. “I agree with Lord Tyrus. Until we learn more about my cousin’s warning, we should proceed with an open heart. If we lose the trust in each other, then we’ve lost everything.”
Elena found her gaze meeting the golden eyes of the stranger. “Tell us then, Master Quail, what have you learned?”
All eyes focused on the small man. He spoke slowly. “While you’ve sat here licking your wounds, the Black Beast has been a busy worm in his volcanic lair. Though you thwarted his ambitions by breaking his Weirgates, do not deceive yourself that you’ve driven him from his goal.”
“And what is his goal?” Er’ril asked.
“Ah, now you’re thinking with your head, old knight. Ever since the Dark Lord arrived on your shores, boiling up out of the world’s crust in his fiery volcano, you’ve tried to drive him from these lands, an invader who must be vanquished.”
“So?” Er’ril scoffed. “What would you have had us do? Welcome him with open arms? Throw him a tea party?”
Harlequin barked with laughter. “That’s a party I’d love to be invited to.” Harlequin snatched up a mug of kaffee, holding it daintily and bowing. His voice changed to an oily whine. “More sweet crackers, Master Black Heart? Another dollop of cream?” He straightened, his eyes full of wry amusement. “Maybe your tea party idea could ha
ve ended centuries of bloodshed.”
Elena felt Er’ril stiffen beside her. She spoke before he burst out in anger. “Master Quail, please, what are you saying?”
“That you will never drive the Black Beast of Gul’gotha from these shores.” Harlequin set the mug on the hearth’s mantel. “Never.”
“Our forces drove him from A’loa Glen,” the high keel grumbled.
Harlequin faced the man twice his size. “You drove his lieutenants, simpering half-men with delusions of grandeur—not the Black Beast. And still you lost half your peoples.”
Elena felt a cold stone settle in her belly. The strange man was right.
“And Blackhall makes this island a mere cork in the bath by comparison.” He stared around the room. “Have any of you ever been to Blackhall?”
“I’ve seen it with scopes from the fringes of the Stone Forest,” Er’ril said.
“And we’ve maps and diagrams and sea charts,” Hunt added at his father’s side.
“Sea charts?” Harlequin shook his head and glanced to Lord Tyrus as if disbelieving the foolishness he was hearing. He faced them again. “I’ve walked those halls . . . as a jester, as a fool, entertainment for the upper floors of that hollowed-out mountain. There are over five thousand rooms and halls, leagues of corridors with monstrous sights at every turn. So listen to my words. What you, Er’ril of Standi, saw through your scopes . . . what you have mapped, Captain Hunt . . . it is nothing.”
Harlequin waved his foppish hat in the air. “It is a mere cap atop the true Blackhall. As much as you see above the waves, it is three—no, at least four—times that again beneath the sea.” He stared around at the others. “It is not an island you plan to lay siege upon. It is an entire land in and of itself, a country of twisted men, lumbering creatures, and black magicks. That is what you face.”
Silence hung in the room.
Then a single silver bell chimed among the hundreds adorning Harlequin’s attire. “I’ve brought you what help I can.” He turned to Hunt. “Better maps, more detailed charts of their defenses. For in such a monstrous place as Blackhall, a tiny man like myself, playing the fool, is easily overlooked. But even I, with all my skill, could only burrow down through the uppermost levels of the foul place, a sparrow scritching at the roof tiles.” He glanced around the room again. “Trust these words, if you do no others: You will never win Blackhall.”
Elena felt the world grow darker around her.
“Then why have us rush to our doom in a moon’s time,” Master Edyll asked, “if all that awaits us is defeat?”
Harlequin sighed sadly. “Because sometimes losing a battle is not the worst outcome.”
“What is worse?” the high keel asked.
Harlequin stared at the Dre’rendi leader as if the man were a child. “Losing the world.”
Voices started up in shock, but Lord Tyrus spoke up from near the hearth. “Listen to what he has to say.”
Harlequin seemed unaffected by the others and continued. “For centuries, Alasea has fought to drive the Black Beast from these shores. Your ancient Chyric mages drained the last of their blood magick to attempt this. Armies cast their lives upon these shores until the lands ran red. For five centuries, uprisings were crushed under his black fist. All to what end?”
“To free our lands,” Er’ril growled. “To shake off his yoke of oppression.”
“But did anyone ever ask why?”
Er’ril opened his mouth to speak, but his brow wrinkled in confusion. “What do you mean, why?” he blurted out.
Harlequin leaned against the hearth’s mantel. “Why did the Black Heart come here?”
Er’ril’s brow crinkled farther.
“It’s taken you five hundred winters to discover the Black Heart is not of Gul’gotha but actually an og’re, an ancestor of your friend Tol’chuk.”
“What are you getting at?”
“You don’t know your enemy; you never have. In Blackhall, you see an island and think you understand it, never guessing the depths that are hidden beneath. The same with the master of that island. You know nothing. Why did this og’re leave these lands long ago? Why did he appear among the d’warves? Why did he return with conquering armies and magick? Why has he held these lands for so long? Why did he position the Weirgates at points of elemental power around Alasea?” Harlequin stared hard at everyone, golden eyes aglow. “Why is he here?”
After a moment of stunned silence, Er’ril cleared his throat. “Why?”
Harlequin burst from his position with a jingle and cartwheeled head over heels, landing near and pointing his finger at the plainsman’s nose. “Finally! After five centuries, someone asked!”
Er’ril leaned away from the man’s finger.
Elena spoke up from her seat. “Why is he here?”
Harlequin lowered his arm and shrugged. “Mother above if I know.” He stepped back to the hearth, staring into the dying coals. “I just thought someone should wonder.”
Elena frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“None of you do. Until that changes, the Black Heart has the upper hand.”
Master Edyll straightened in his chair. “Now that we’ve been chastised for our blindness, perhaps you could tell us about this need for urgent action.”
Harlequin glanced back over his shoulder. “Under the full moon of Midsummer Eve, the Black Heart will accomplish what he’s been seeking to do these past several centuries. Though breaking the Weirgates slowed him, he has one last Gate, and he means to use it to finish what he started.”
Elena thought back on her time spent trapped in the Weir, watching the four Gates suck the energy from the world itself. “He seeks to drain the elemental energy from the Land’s heart. But why?”
“Why, why, why . . .” Harlequin turned and pulled his cap on his head. “That is a good question. You’re learning, my little bird. Why indeed?” He shrugged and winked at her. “I have no idea. But I do know the answer to another question.”
“What’s that?”
He waggled a finger. “No, not what . . . but where.”
Elena blinked back her confusion. “Where?”
“Where the Dark Lord means to act. It’s why I scooted my arse out of those black halls as soon as I could. I know when he means to act—the next full moon—and I know where!”
Er’ril straightened. “Where?”
Harlequin glanced between Er’ril and Elena. “Can’t you guess?”
Er’ril dropped his hand to his sword hilt. “Enough questions.”
“Said like a true warrior,” Harlequin said with a sigh. “It’s just that sentiment that got us here. Haven’t you been listening? There are never enough questions.”
Elena sat very still in her chair. One last Weirgate, the Wyvern ebon’stone statue. She pictured when last she had seen it, crated in the hull of a ship. A freighter bound . . . bound for . . . “Oh, Sweet Mother!” she gasped aloud, suddenly understanding. “The Wyvern Gate is heading to my hometown, to Winterfell!”
Harlequin shook his head sadly. “I fear I have worse news than that. The Black Heart has not been sitting idle as you’ve plotted, mapped, and charted away the days.”
“What do you mean?” Er’ril said, placing a protective hand on Elena’s shoulder.
“I managed a glance at a letter from the field, sent by the Dark Lord’s lieutenant, Shorkan.” Harlequin spoke amid a jingle of mournful bells. “The Weirgate’s not heading to Winterfell. It’s already there.”
2
Sy-wen leaned close to the seadragon’s neck as it swept through the deep water in a wide curve, banking on one ebony-scaled wing. Her dark green hair trailed out, matching the color of the kelp forest around them. This close to the island of A’loa Glen, the ocean bed was crowded with coral reefs, waving fronds of anemone, and dense patches of kelp. Schools of darting skipperflicks and luminescent krill parted before the giant dragon. Sy-wen twitched her glassy inner eyelids to sharpen her vision.
On
your right, Ragnar’k, she sent to her mount.
I see too, my bonded . . . Hold tight . . .
She felt the flaps of scale securing her to her mount squeeze; then the dragon lunged to the right, almost flipping belly-up to make the sharp turn. Sy-wen felt a surge of joy at the rush of water against her bare skin, the bunched muscle between her legs, the blur of ocean. The feeling echoed to the dragon and back at her, tinged with the beast’s own senses: the smell of kelp, the trace of blood in the water from a recent shark kill, the sonorous echo of other dragons out in the deeper waters where the giant Leviathans patrolled.
Sy-wen concentrated on their goal. Ahead, a large cloud of silt clouded the clear waters. The elv’in scoutship, piloted by Meric’s cousin, must have struck with considerable force to dredge up such volumes of sand and debris. She silently urged Ragnar’k to circle the area before going in closer.
The dragon glided in a gentle, deepening spiral toward the site. The ship had crashed into a trench, dragged by its iron keel straight to the seabed. All that remained floating atop the waves were a few crates, a broken section of mast, and a scattering of planks. The bulk of the broken ship lay below.
Meric had sent word to the mer’ai, seeking help. Sy-wen had left immediately from her mother’s Leviathan, where she and Kast had been visiting. She was not sure what Meric thought she might find, but she could at least search for the body of Meric’s cousin, to return her to her family. It was a sorrowful duty, but one she would not shirk.
As Ragnar’k swung around the far side of the silt cloud, the stern of the ship came into view; the current was slowly churning the sandy cloud away. The ship lay on its starboard side. The iron keel, forged by lightning, glinted dully in the deepwater gloom. When the ships flew through the air, their keels glowed a coppery hue of sunset. No longer. Here was just iron, dead and dim.
Ragnar’k tucked in his wings and used the sinuous motions of his body to slither over the ruins. A large gray rockshark, nosing around the ship, sped away as the dragon’s shadow passed over it.