Chapter Twelve
THE SEA RAVENS
For the space of a single heartbeat it felt as though Malus hung above an impossibly vast space, filled with howling wind and the rushing presence of a multitude of angry ghosts. Then an icy shock washed over him, like a torrent of freezing water and he fell.
He felt no rush of air against his body, only the un-moored feeling in his guts as he plummeted through darkness. The further he fell the faster he went, until it seemed as though he were coming apart from within, unravelling like a tumbling skein of muscle, flesh and veins. Malus focussed his terrible will to hold the screams at bay. Then without warning his foot struck solid wood and a harsh slap of cold sea air struck his face as he staggered across the heeling deck of a druchii ship under weigh.
Unearthly darkness still clung to Malus’ eyes as he lurched drunkenly across the deck. He blinked furiously, trying to see past the viscous blackness. Sights swam in and out of his vision, curious double-images that showed two or even three different versions of the scene around him. Malus saw the dark, polished deck of the ship gleaming in the early moonlight, then the image blurred and he saw the main mast cracked through and the debris of battle littering the blood-stained planks in the full light of day. He blinked and shook his head fiercely and when he opened his eyes again there were black-robed shapes rushing across the deck with naked steel in their hands. The shapes blurred, becoming bloody and torn, then resolved themselves once more.
The highborn clenched his jaw against a stream of curses and closed his eyes, focusing on steadying his feet against the rolling of the ship. What sorcery is this, he thought? Did the hushalta forever twist my body and mind, or is this something else entirely?
“Whatever it is,” he whispered to himself. “It stops, here and now.”
The words stirred the daemon, provoking it to slow laughter. “Here and now? There is no such thing, little druchii. If you cannot understand this then you are truly lost.”
Before Malus could reply, however, the thudding of boots across the wooden deck reminded him of more immediate concerns. The highborn opened his eyes and saw a score of druchii corsairs, armed with swords, bill-hooks and axes rushing towards him. Their faces were covered in heavy scarves rimed with frost, but there was no mistaking the anger and alarm in their dark eyes. The highborn raised his hands, showing open palms, only realising then as they continued to rush towards him that the crew had no interest in talking to him whatsoever.
The highborn’s first instinct was to reach for his swords, but he knew that if he did it would only confirm the crew’s worst suspicions. His disoriented mind raced furiously, trying to think of a proper response, but before he could speak the air crackled with electricity and a body thumped onto the deck behind Malus. The sailors recoiled and the highborn turned to see Hauclir on one knee before an oval-shaped crimson haze that waxed and waned in density just a foot above the deck. The retainer stared wildly about at his surroundings, his face a mask of pure terror.
“What manner of madness is this?” said one of the sailors, his eyes darting warily from Malus to Hauclir and back again. The air crackled with invisible lightning once more and the corsairs shrank back a step. The sailor glared sharply at the men to either side of him. “Stand fast, you black birds!” he commanded in a leathery voice and the corsairs regained a measure of resolve.
Yasmir and her slave stepped through next. The highborn staggered slightly under the burden of Urial’s spell, but with a blistering curse she banished the strange effects and straightened imperiously before the gawking sailors. Her slave, a pale human woman with bright red hair and vivid blue eyes, took one step and collapsed to the deck, convulsing uncontrollably.
“I am Yasmir, daughter of Lurhan the Vaulkhar of Hag Graef,” the druchii woman declared angrily, as though the band of armed corsairs facing her were more of an insult than a deadly threat. “And I wish to see my brother at once.”
The leader of the corsairs stepped forward, riding the heaving deck with the ease of a veteran sailor. “The captain has no interest in seeing you,” the man said with a harsh laugh. “I’ve the watch while he is below so you’ll be speaking to me, sea-witch, or I’ll have the lads see you off with kisses of steel.”
Yasmir drew back, her face luminous with rage as she reached for the long knives at her belt. Malus stepped forward, drawing the plaque from his belt. “I am Malus, son of Lurhan the Vaulkhar and I bear a writ of iron compelling your service in the name of the Drachau of Hag Graef! Put away your blades, or your lives are forfeit!”
The gruff-voiced sailor rounded on Malus. “You’re eight weeks’ sail from the harbour of Clar Karond and the only law on this deck is the captain’s.” Despite his bluster, the sailor’s eyes were growing wider by the moment as he struggled to understand what was happening. Malus knew that the man could just as easily give in to his growing unease and order his men to attack if something didn’t happen to change his mind.
That was when the air trembled with a hideous ripping sound, like a giant being torn in two, followed by a sharp thunderclap that sent nearly everyone on deck reeling. There was a bright flash of red light in the place where the shimmering crimson fog had hung, leaving Urial and six of his retainers standing in a tight circle on the pitching deck. If the former acolyte and his skull-faced men felt any distress at the effects of the spell, they gave no outward sign.
Several of the sailors fell to their knees, stunned by the blast of noise. Malus struggled to keep his expression neutral, even as his mind raged. Six men and every one a deadly warrior. Urial had lied to him!
Yet this was not the time for recriminations. Malus mastered his anger and moved quickly, taking advantage of the sailors’ stunned reactions. He rushed to the side of the corsair officer, speaking in low, insistent tones. “We’ve come a long way in an unpleasantly short amount of time on an important mission of state,” he said. “If you deny the power of the writ in favour of the captain’s law, then it is for the captain to decide what to do with us, not you.” Malus gestured sharply at the reeling corsairs. “Send these sea ravens back to their roosts and call out your captain. Believe me when I say he’ll speak with us once he realises who has come aboard.”
For a moment, no one spoke as the sailors picked themselves up off the deck and their officer struggled with the decisions laid before him. The only sounds were the cold wind whistling through the rigging and the groan of the masts under minimal sail in the face of the rough weather. The two moons broached like whales through the silver clouds scudding overhead, painting the ship in silver light.
The corsair shook himself out of his dreadful reverie and waved back his men with a curt gesture. He turned to Malus. “The captain is not to be disturbed,” he said, a little shakily. “He is below with his sea mistress.”
Yasmir’s slave let out a strangled cry, then went silent. Malus turned to see his half-sister standing over the human, her boot across the slave’s throat. The slave pawed weakly at her mistress’ leg, her body writhing as she struggled for air. Yasmir’s expression was beautiful and terrible to behold. “What did you say, seabird?” Her voice was cold as steel.
The officer’s eyes widened further and his shoulders hunched, as though realising for the first time who it was he was addressing. “Dragons Below take me,” he cursed softly to himself—or given whom he faced, perhaps it was a prayer. “I… I meant to say he is below with the first officer, dread lady” he said to Yasmir. “Deep in their plans, belike, charting our course for the coming week.”
“Where?” Yasmir demanded. Small white fists pounded desperately at her lower leg. The slave’s face was bright purple, her eyes bulging in their sockets.
“In… in the captain’s cabin, dread lady,” the officer replied dully. “But when he’s in his cabin the crew is not to disturb him—”
“Except for his first mate, evidently,” Yasmir said venomously. “Fortunately, we aren’t part of Bruglir’s crew, but his beloved kin! Abr
uptly she took her foot from her slave’s throat. The human rolled onto her side retching and gasping for air. Swift as an adder, Yasmir drew one of her long blades from its scabbard and took the slave by her hair. With a single, smooth stroke and the sound of a razor parting flesh the slave’s forehead thumped back to the deck. Blood poured from the human’s slashed throat in a swiftly spreading pool.
Yasmir straightened, bloody knife scattering red droplets across the lower half of her robes. “Take me to my darling brother,” she said with a terrifying smile. “Whatever the captain’s plans, I assure you they are about to change.”
As the procession filed swiftly through the shadowy central passageway of Bruglir’s ship, Malus had a moment to reflect that this made the second time in less than a day that he had barged into the bedchamber of a powerful and murderous druchii noble. It seemed an odd way to conduct affairs of state, but he had to admit it opened up interesting possibilities for the future.
While women marched to war alongside men they were expected to put down their weapons in time of peace and pursue other interests appropriate to their gender, like managing households or finding ways to murder their husband’s enemies. Notable exceptions to this rule were the priestesses of the temple and sailors on the black-hulled druchii corsairs. The call of the sea was a sacred thing to most druchii. They regarded the black waters with equal measures of reverence and fear, for it was the raging ocean that drowned their ancestral home of Nagarythe, ages ago and thus it was the only link they had to the glories of their past. As the ocean claimed their birthright, the druchii claimed the ocean itself in return, riding its waves to gather the plunder and the glory that kept their people alive. Though the druchii called upon their women to give up their swords in times of hateful peace, they would never ask them to give up the sea.
It had never occurred to Malus that Bruglir would keep a sea mistress. Many captains did, Malus knew, but he’d always assumed that Bruglir was as devoted to Yasmir as she was to him. All at once his tangled web of deception took on a wholly different dimension and his mind raced as he considered the many possibilities.
The pirate officer led the way, moving with the reluctant step of a condemned man with Yasmir looming over him like a thundercloud. Malus followed close behind, with Urial bringing up the rear. He hadn’t stopped staring at Yasmir since she’d taken her knife to her maddened slave and the expression on Urial’s face was one of almost rapturous desire. The sight was both pathetic and deeply disturbing all at the same time.
There was no guard at the captain’s door—for a man like Bruglir, it was a show of his own prowess that he needed no protection from daggers in the night. Eyeing the bloody knife still gripped in Yasmir’s hand, Malus wondered if that policy might be changing in the very near future.
The druchii officer stopped at the door, bracing himself and preparing to knock, but Yasmir put a hand to the side of the sailor’s head and pushed him aside with a startling show of strength. For a moment Malus thought she was going to put a boot to the thin panel door, but she turned the doorknob with fluid speed and stood in the doorway like one of Khaine’s ecstatic brides, arms spread and bloody knife held high.
“Hello, beloved brother,” Yasmir said in a cool and sultry voice. “Have you missed me?”
The captain’s quarters lay in darkness, illuminated by squares of moonlight that waxed and waned with the whim of the clouds. Two figures clutched one another on the broad bed, their naked skin limned with lambent silver. At the sound of Yasmir’s voice they leapt apart, one with a startled curse and the other with a yowl like a scalded Lustrian tiger. There was a rasp of steel and a woman stepped into the moonlight, naked as the blade in her hand. She was lean and hard as whipcord, her pale skin a dusky white from endless days at sea. Her body was made of hard muscle and scar tissue, a grizzled veteran’s share of desperate battles and bloodletting. Bruglir’s first mate had a striking, if severe face, marred by a long scar that ran from above her left temple down to her upper lip. The sword stroke had blinded her left eye and pulled her lip upwards in a permanent snarl. Her one good eye was black as jet and bright with fury.
“Begone, jhindara!” The corsair commanded, brandishing her sword. It was a short, heavy blade, broad and single-edged like a cleaver and nicked from hard use. “Try to take him and I’ll leave you squirming in your own guts!”
Yasmir’s laugh was easy and light. “Who is the witch and who the saviour, you scarred little churl?” She drew her second knife and seemed to float towards the corsair, her expression soulless and intent as a hunting hawk. “Dance with me and we will see who the Lord of Murder favours more!”
“Stand fast!” roared a commanding voice that brought both women up short. A tall, powerfully-built figure leapt between the two. Bruglir had his father’s height, standing half a head taller than Yasmir and had an unusually broad-shouldered frame that added to his imposing stature. The corsair lord very much resembled the Vaulkhar in his youth, with a chiselled brow and a hawk-like nose that lent him a ferocious presence even in repose. A long, black moustache hung down to his pointed chin, adding to his already fierce demeanour. “She is mine, Yasmir, part of my crew by oath and by blood and you cannot have her.”
Yasmir regarded her beloved with dreadful intensity. “She is yours, but are you not mine, beloved brother? Was that not the promise you made to me, the oath you renew again and again each time you return to the Hag?” Her voice rose in pitch and intensity, like a raging wind. And if this… this deformed wretch is yours, then by rights she is mine as well, to do with as I please. Is she not?” She leaned close to Bruglir, her lips nearly brushing his, her knives quivering in her hands. “Answer me,” she whispered. “Answer me.”
The room was about to erupt into bloodshed. It was a particular kind of tension that Malus could almost taste, like the charged air that heralded a sudden storm. Thinking quickly, the highborn stepped into the room, brandishing the plaque. “Actually, as of now all of you belong to me ,” he loudly declared. “And until I no longer have need of you, you will stay your hand or answer to the Drachau and our father upon our return to the Hag.”
Bruglir turned at the sound of Malus’ voice, his natural scowl deepening as he saw first Malus, then his brother Urial. “What’s this? The Darkblade and the temple worm both fouling the deck of my ship? He glared at Yasmir. “You brought them here?”
“No, brother,” Malus answered. “More the other way around. I’d thought you would be pleased to see your beloved sister, but it appears I stand corrected.” He eyed Yasmir carefully. “A druchii woman may take as many lovers as she pleases, but when a druchii man commits himself, he is expected to remain faithful as a measure of his strength. Honestly, brother, I expected better of you.”
Bruglir’s expression turned incredulous, then pale with anger. “I don’t know how you managed this, Darkblade, but—”
Malus stepped forward and held the plaque under Bruglir’s nose. “You haven’t been paying attention, brother. Listen carefully. I bear a writ of iron from the Drachau of Hag Graef, placing you and your fleet under my command for a campaign against the Skinriders. I act with the Drachau’s will in this and any man who bars my path will answer for it with his life.”
“The only law at sea is the captain’s law,” the first officer spat, her eyes still boring into Yasmir’s.
“But if the captain ever wishes to set foot in his home again—and still claim the mighty fortune he’s amassed there over the years—he’ll see the wisdom in making his law my law as well.”
Bruglir snatched the plaque from Malus’ hand, flipping open the cover as though he expected to find nothing there. His brow furrowed as he read the writing on the parchment inside and examined the seals thereon.
“There are ten of us, all told,” Malus continued. “I’ll require a cabin for myself and I assume Urial will require one as well. Sister?”
Yasmir still glared murderously at the first mate. She bit out her reply as though sni
pping veins between her teeth. “I’ll take her cabin,” she said. “It’s clear that she isn’t using it.”
“Do you take us for fools?” the first officer snapped. “You didn’t come by boat, but by sorcery. So there’s no one back home to know what actually happened to you. We can toss your innards to the sea dragons and sail for home—”
“Tani, enough,” Bruglir ordered wearily. The first officer glared hotly at her captain, but fell silent. “Get dressed and go topside.”
Tani nodded curtly. “Your will, sir.” She snatched a salt-stained sea robe from the deck by the bed and shrugged into it, never taking her eye off Yasmir and switching her heavy cleaver from hand to hand as she dressed. For a moment it seemed as though another confrontation loomed as Yasmir blocked the first officer’s path to the door, but at the last moment the knife-wielding druchii stepped aside.
Bruglir followed her to the door, then closed it in Urial’s face. He turned to Yasmir, holding up the plaque. “Is this some kind of forgery?”
Radiant and hateful, Yasmir shook her head.
“Then it appears my worst nightmare has come true,” the captain said sourly, throwing the plaque onto the disordered bed. He turned to Malus. “For the moment, you have me,” he said, his voice devoid of any emotion, though his eyes were pools of malevolence. “But this remit has its limits. Sooner or later, the Drachau will rescind it and then I will destroy you.”
Malus managed a smile. “I might have feared you more had we not also met your sea mistress,” he replied. “If I were you, I’d be more worried about your own odds of survival once the writ runs its course.”