In any other person, such a fight would have failed, for the Dark Heart’s brand was set with a fierce flame that none could erase. But Kral was not just a man. In his blood ran the magick that flowed through a mountain’s granite roots. And granite withstood even the fiercest flames. Though scorched by darkfire, the brand had not burned deep enough into Kral’s stony determination to make him ignore the cries from generations of his ancestors.
The Ice Throne was his family’s seat, and he would claim his heritage once again! Beware any who would stand in his way!
Turning to Tyrus, Kral ran a hand through his rough beard and eyed the pirate. “I will come with you,” he growled hoarsely.
Tyrus smiled and nodded, as if he had expected no other decision.
Kral’s brows darkened. The Black Heart’s compulsion still nagged at him, gnawing at his resolve. But he calmed the last of its heated demands with a soothing thought, a balm on the friction within: After he reclaimed his throne, he would hunt Elena down as a reward and shred her young heart. He would not forget his duty to the Black Heart—only delay it.
Kral hid a hard smile in his black beard.
Nothing would be denied Legion—not a throne, not even the sweet blood of a wit’ch.
THE PALE STALLION had been made ready, and the group now stood split into two parties—those on the docks wishing the others a fair journey and those on the boats watching friends ready themselves for a trek halfway across Alasea. Neither party was in good cheer. Faces were sullen at best, heartsick at worst.
Mycelle stared into the eyes of the one who seemed the most lost and alone. Before her, Tol’chuk stood at the foot of the gangway, his features damaged. Most thought og’res stoic and of little emotion. But Mycelle knew the signs that spoke otherwise. Tol’chuk’s fangs were fully draped by his down-turned lip; his eyes had lost their subtle shine; even his shoulders had fallen like shattered mountain cliffs after a devastating quake. “You could come with me,” Mycelle said softly, a hushed plea from her heart.
Tol’chuk sighed, a rattle of boulders. “You know I cannot,” he finally said. “The Heart of my people will allow me no other path.”
She touched his cheek. “I know. But I just wanted you to understand that I’d even snatch your strength from Elena for a chance of us staying together. Now that I have you in my life again, I’d give the land over to darkness to keep you at my side.”
Her words finally brought a sad smile to his lips. “Mother, you lie so well,” he said warmly, “and I love you the more for it.”
Mycelle stepped forward and placed her palms on his cheeks. She pulled him down and kissed him. “Do not be so sure what you know, my son.”
A voice intruded into their privacy. It was Meric calling from the ship’s rail. “The captain says we must be off with the tide. We can wait no longer.”
Mycelle waved her acknowledgment to the elv’in. Meric, his duty discharged, hobbled away on his cane with Mama Freda and her pet tamrink in tow. Aboard the ship, the small crew blew into purposeful activity as lines were stowed and the sails readied.
She did not have much time, but she could spare one moment more with her son. She and Tyrus had already organized their party, and they stood ready. Her gelding, Grisson, was saddled and tacked. Mogweed and Fardale sat atop the small wagon loaded with their supplies, flanked by Tyrus and his trio of Dro warriors mounted on their own horses. Kral already sat upon his black warcharger, Rorshaf, both horse and rider clearly anxious to depart with the coming dawn.
The other two horses, Er’ril’s steppe stallion and Elena’s small mare, had been loaded and housed in small livestock stalls in the boat’s hold. All was in readiness.
Except for a final good-bye.
Mycelle turned to gaze one last time into her son’s eyes. No words could lessen this pain. Mother and son simply collapsed into each other’s arms. It was like hugging a rough boulder, but Mycelle pulled her son harder into her embrace. She never wanted to forget this moment.
As she drew him tighter, memories of holding him as an infant clouded her vision, and a part of her responded. She felt the melt of flesh and bend of bone and soon found her arms reaching fully around his bulk. She remembered his father and the joy they once shared, and her body still continued to transform. The rip of cloth and leather whispered in her ears. She ignored it, unashamed.
Soon it was not woman and og’re who embraced, but mother and son, two ogres. Tol’chuk pulled back slightly, sensing the change. He stared, eyes wide and shining with tears. “Mother?”
Mycelle knew what he saw. A small og’re female. His true mother. Clawed and fanged, she smiled. Her voice was the grumble of the mountains. “You are my son. Never forget you are my heart. You are my proudest accomplishment. I look at you and know my hard life meant something.”
They embraced again as the dawn’s glow warmed the horizon and gulls cried to the rising sun. It seemed even the birds felt the pain in her heart—for somehow Mycelle knew this was the last time she would ever hug her son.
11
PANTING FROM THE pain, Flint knew he would have only one chance. He needed both Master Vael and Captain Jarplin close beside him. As they prepared the bone drill, Flint flexed his fingers in secret to work circulation past his unbound wrists. Sparks of agony danced before his eyes.
He had endured the first step in their treatment with only a single scream. A moment ago, Captain Jarplin had come at Flint with a dagger. Flint had cursed and spat at Jarplin, feigning that he was still securely tied. It would do little good to take out just the captain. So Flint had endured the agony when Jarplin had sliced the skin over the base of his skull, dragging the point cruelly against the bone. It had been no false act when Flint had screamed. For a moment, his vision had blacked, but he had fought the encroaching darkness, biting his lip and clutching his ropes.
Even now, he felt the blood running in thick rivulets down his neck, and the room threatened to spin if he moved his head too fast. “Jarplin, don’t do this,” he gasped out. “Be your own man!”
The captain only smiled.
His first mate, the yellow-skinned Master Vael, turned to Jarplin. “We’re ready.” His voice had a slight lisp through his filed teeth.
Flint had read of tribes on the islands off the coast of Gul’gotha where the savages fed on the flesh of other men, where they filed their teeth like beasts to better rip into raw flesh. It was said they worshipped the skal’tum, eating human meat and grinding their teeth to fangs to be more like the winged demons of the Dark Lord. Flint suspected here stood one of those foul islanders. He had already noticed that the man bore no hole at the back of his shaven head. No tentacled beast guided his will. The atrocities Vael performed were done freely by his own hand.
He was the true enemy.
Jarplin passed the fetid creature into Vael’s open palm. The first mate crossed to Flint and wiped the blood from his neck. Flint’s skin crawled with the cold touch of the man’s fingers. Vael then bathed the creature with Flint’s blood. The motion seemed to excite the tiny beast. Tentacles and blind, groping feelers tangled with Vael’s fingers as he continued the caress. “Prepare him,” Vael ordered.
Jarplin followed after Vael with the long steel drill. They now stood to either side of Flint. He could wait no longer.
Gripping his small hidden knife in one hand and the wooden struts of the chair in the other, Flint screamed and attacked. Leaping up, he swung the chair out from under him and slammed it into Vael. The scrawny man went flying. Without pausing, Flint spun upon the startled captain. Before Jarplin could raise the drill as a weapon, Flint lunged and struck out with a fist. Jarplin spun with the blow, but Flint continued his assault, leaping atop the captain’s back.
They crashed to the plank floor, an old board cracking under their weight. Flint grabbed a handful of Jarplin’s steel-gray hair. He used it as a grip to smash his face against the floor, panting as he repeatedly cracked the man’s head into the boards. He needed to win
soon, for he was weakening rapidly. “Submit, Jarplin!” he yelled in the captain’s ear.
But the captain refused. He lashed back with an elbow that caught Flint on the chin, sending twirling sparks across his vision. Flint lost his grip on Jarplin’s hair. The captain pushed up under him, Flint now riding his back like a wild horse. If Jarplin should get loose . . .
Flint raised his other hand; old instincts had kept the sliver of a knife still clutched in his tight grip. He had lived among pirates too long to ever lose hold of a weapon during a fight.
Without considering his next action, Flint again grabbed a handful of Jarplin’s silver hair and yanked it up, exposing the puckered hole at the base of the captain’s skull. He slammed the slim knife through the hole, then used the heel of his hand to slam the butt of the knife deeper into the skull.
Under him, Jarplin spasmed and threw Flint off his back. Flint rolled across the cabin’s floor, coming to rest beside a small desk. Jarplin convulsed a second time while still fighting to push onto his hands and knees. Blood bubbled up around the knife’s hilt. Agony stretched the captain’s face.
Then, as if some taut string had been cut, Jarplin fell limply to the floor. Facing Flint, his tortured features were once again relaxed as death neared. His lips moved, but no sound came out. Yet Flint knew the words his former captain formed: “I’m sorry.” At least for his last breath, Jarplin was once again a free man.
Flint went to reach a hand to Jarplin when something struck a numbing blow to his own skull. Flint’s vision blacked, and he fell forward to the floor. For a single heartbeat, his vision cleared. Dazed, he watched Vael step around from behind, cudgel in one hand, tentacled beast in the other.
“No,” Flint moaned as Vael retrieved the drill.
“You will be my new dog, and I your master,” Vael lisped in his ear as he knelt atop Flint’s back, pinning him to the floorboards. “When I am done, you will lick my boots.”
Too weak and dazed to resist, Flint could only groan as he felt the drill’s sharp point dig into the wound at the back of his neck.
Again he heard the sibilant voice of his torturer. “Since you will receive the last ul’jinn on board this ship, your friends below will serve in another manner. I believe that young girl will carve up nicely into several tender roasts.”
Flint tried to struggle, but he was still too addled. He felt his forehead pressed into the floorboards.
“Now hold still, my grizzled dog.”
Then steel bit into bone, grinding away the last of Flint’s consciousness.
HOLDING THE D’WARF hammer in hand, Elena stood over the collapsed body of the ship’s cook. His stained apron lay half ripped from where Er’ril had swung and slammed him into the wall. Like a sack of potatoes, the pudgy man had crumpled to the deck. Afterward, Er’ril and Joach had crept into the neighboring passage to check for other pirates, leaving Elena to stand guard over the cook. If he should awaken, she was to ensure the man’s continued silence with the hammer.
The boy, Tok, stood near the galley’s entrance, a fist tight with worry at his throat. “Is Gimli dead?”
Watching the cook’s chest rise and fall, Elena shook her head. “Just a bad bump on the head.” She fingered the hammer, running her hand over the carved runes on its long ironwood handle. If necessity warranted her using this weapon, the cook would have more than just a bad headache. She prayed he stayed unconscious.
Nearby, a pot on the hearth popped and gurgled with a thick stew, a fish porridge. Her own stomach responded to the warm smells. It had been a while since any of them had eaten. But they didn’t have time to tarry on such minor concerns—Flint’s single scream earlier had been all that had sounded. The silence afterward had worn on all their nerves as Tok had led them to their stored gear and then through crawlways and down cramped chutes to reach the galley.
From the doorway, her brother Joach appeared. “All clear,” he whispered. “Tok, lead us to the captain’s stateroom.”
The boy nodded, ripping his wide eyes away from the snoring cook. “It’s just a little farther.” He darted out of the kitchen.
Elena followed with Joach at her side. They found Er’ril a short way down the passage. He knelt over the body of another pirate, but this one was not breathing. Elena saw the reason why. A small sculptured iron fist had latched around his scrawny neck, throttling the man. As they approached, the iron fingers opened and released. It floated up as Er’ril stood. As the plainsman turned to them, he flexed the fist as if it were his own, which Elena knew it was in a way. The iron talisman had been imbued with the spirit of the boy-mage Denal and was linked to the plainsman. Er’ril could use it as well as his real hand when his need was great and his concentration focused.
“He came at me from around a corner. Surprised me,” Er’ril said, shrugging at the death he had caused. “I lashed out harder than I should have.”
“It’s Samel,” Tok said softly, eyes wide as he stared at the dead man. “He used to share his ration of sweetcake with me.”
“I’m sorry,” Elena said.
Tok shook his head. “After th-they put that thing in his head, I saw him kill Jeffers. Slit his throat without a thought, even though they were once the best of chums.” The boy turned to Er’ril. “Maybe it’s best he’s dead now. I don’t think he could live with what he’s done.”
Suddenly the man’s corpse jerked with a contorting spasm. Something pale and thick with trailing tentacles slid from under his head. It crawled like a slug across the planks.
Face twisted in disgust, Er’ril stamped his boot down upon the beast, grinding it under his heel. Its snaking appendages tangled and writhed at the leather of his boot, finding no purchase, then went limp. The stench of rotted meat filled the hallway.
Er’ril glanced at Tok. “Take us to the captain’s stateroom.”
Keeping his eyes averted, Tok stepped over the corpse. “This way.”
Hefting the hammer, Elena followed. Joach kept to his sister’s side in the narrow passage, his staff clutched in a tight fist.
After a short climb up a ladder and a turn in another hallway, they came upon a double set of doors opening into a larger cabin. Tok stood before the door. The boy pointed and mouthed the words, In there.
Er’ril nodded, eying the others for a moment to ensure their readiness. He raised a fist and knocked. The rapping seemed so loud in the cramped passage.
A voice arose from inside. “Begone! I ordered us not to be disturbed!”
“Master Vael,” Tok whispered, naming the speaker.
Er’ril raised his voice. “Master Vael, sir! We’ve captured a stowaway! I think you’d better come see!”
“Curse you all! I’m almost finished here and will be on deck shortly! Secure the prisoner with the others!”
“Yes, sir!”
Er’ril nodded to Elena. She stepped forward and swung the hammer overhead. Due to the magick in the weapon’s haft, it was as light as a broom. She brought it smashing down upon the oaken door.
Wood splintered and exploded away, clearing the doorway.
Er’ril was through the flying debris before Elena completed the arc of her swing. Joach was quick on the plainsman’s heels.
Elena stepped through the ruined threshold. Tok shadowed behind her. Inside she saw too much blood. The captain lay facedown in a pool of his own blood. The strange first mate sat atop Flint’s back, drill in hand, sweat upon his brow. His eyes were open with surprise as he stared at the rushing newcomers.
Er’ril had his sword at the man’s throat before he could blink. “Sound a word, and you’ll taste my steel,” he glowered. “Now get off my friend.”
Elena rushed to Flint’s side. He still breathed, but there was so much blood. The wound at the back of his neck still bled fiercely. She went to stanch it with her gloved palm when a long pale snake arose from the wound, sucking at the air. With a look of horror, she tore her hand away.
“You’re too late,” the yellow-skinned f
irst mate said, wearing a smile that exposed a row of filed teeth. “The ul’jinn is already rooted. The man is mine. If I die, so does he. So does the entire crew.”
“So be it,” Er’ril said, his face deadly. He tensed as he prepared to impale the Dark Lord’s lackey.
“Wait,” Joach yelled. “The man may know something. Something we can use.”
Vael spat. “I’ll tell you nothing.”
Er’ril’s sword arm trembled, its point dragging a red line across the man’s throat. Elena could read the plainsman’s thoughts. He wanted so desperately to kill this fiend who had tortured and molested his friend, but Joach’s words contained too much truth. As long as they held this one at bay, the rest of the pirates no longer posed a serious threat. If this yellow-skinned monster spoke the truth, a quick slash of his throat would kill the entire crew.
“Joach, tie this bastard’s arms behind his back. Tight.”
“What about Flint?” Elena asked. The old seaman had not moved. He just lay dead still. The tentacle of the beast probed like a blind worm through the grizzled gray hair at the back of his neck.
Tok answered. “It takes half a day for th-the thing to take control. He will either awaken then or die with the shaking fits.”
Elena lifted her gloved hand. “Er’ril?”
The plainsman knew what she asked. He nodded. What could it harm to try her magick to heal him?
Elena stripped off her glove and exposed her ruby stain.
Vael hissed at the sight and struggled in Er’ril’s grip. But Joach already had him lashed securely, and the plainsman had his sword tight at the man’s throat. “You!” Vael cried out. “You’re the wit’ch!”
Elena ignored him and turned to Flint.