Blood Storm: The Books of Blood and Iron (16 page)

“So glad you made it!” Hector boomed.

“Darling! I wanted to say that,” admonished Sharlee.

“You got to shoot the elf,” the man reminded her, “so I get to make the entrance. Next time we’ll do it the other way.”

“Sharlee!” Aisa struggled in her golem’s implacable grip. “Why are you doing these things? I thought we were friends.”

“Never, honey,” Sharlee purred. “I’m a little surprised you didn’t notice. Now you’re going to do as you’re told. Right down to the ship you take on your journey.”

“What journey?” Danr demanded. The four golems held him with eight hands, all of them as hard and heavy as iron chains. Danr strained against them—he couldn’t help himself—but they wouldn’t move. “What do you want? Let Aisa go, and I’ll give it to you.”

“I know you will,” said Hector. “And I’ll be quick, because I know you appreciate that.” He paused, giving lie to what he had just said. “We want you to bring us the power of the shape.”

The words hung like poisoned water droplets in the air. No one spoke for a long moment. The friends traded confused looks.

“So I think you need to explain a little more,” Talfi said from his own golem. “But let me get that arrow out of Ranadar first.”

“And give him his glamour back? Hardly,” Sharlee said.

Danr clenched his teeth. “Explain fast. You may think these golems are strong, but they’re only clay, and clay breaks.”

“No . . . ,” moaned the dwarf. He was cradling the golem’s head in his lap.

“This is the half-blood who looked at me with a true eye and told me how to behave.” Hector strolled over to Danr and looked up at him. “You may have beheaded a city of elves, boy, but it’s not a half-blood’s place to give me advice.”

Calmly, as if he were picking a flower, he sank a fist into Danr’s groin. Pain burst through Danr and coiled in
his lower abdomen like a cold snake. He tried to double over, but the golems held him upright.

“Shit,” Talfi muttered.

“I’ll give
you
some advice, troll boy,” Hector said in the same soft, amiable voice. “For months, I’ve had you watched, and I know you’ve spoken with Death since the Battle of the Twist. My wife told me that once I planted thoughts about the power of the shape in your head, you would go crying to Death about it. She has a soft spot for you, so she must have told you where to find it. You and your slattern will fetch the secret of the shape magic and you will bring it here to us, and only us.”

“That is quite a chain of logic,” Aisa said. “You take a lot for granted.”

“No,” Sharlee said. “You common people are terribly transparent to anyone who bothers to look.”

“If we are so transparent,” Kalessa said in a too-even voice, “how did you miss the fact that we would never go on such a journey for a pile of wyrm shit like you?”

Hector said, “Hokk, if you please.”

Grumbling, the Hokk the dwarf produced a set of iron wrist shackles. With surprising deftness, he clapped them on Ranadar’s wrists and drew the arrow out of Ranadar’s shoulder. Ranadar cried out again, and once again, Talfi tried to escape his golem, to no avail.

“Let me go to him!” Aisa demanded as blood ran down Ranadar’s shoulder.

“Of course. We aren’t barbarians here,” Sharlee said. “You’ll find what you need in that pavilion over there.”

To Danr’s surprise, the golem released Aisa, who shot Danr a look before she hurried into the pavilion and came out with bandages, dressings, and other supplies. Her golem followed, remaining a pace behind.

“Here’s what’ll happen,” Hector said. “We’re giving you the mermaid. With our blessing.”

“Because . . . ?” Danr asked suspiciously.

“Because she will guide you to the shape magic,” Sharlee said. “That’s why we had her captured in the first place. We’ve already sent a number of slaves and servants and hirelings to find the secret, and none of them ever came back. But you, Danr—you and Aisa are heroes of the Twist. It’ll be a small thing to fetch us the power of the shape.”

Danr worked his jaw. “There’s going to be a threat here somewhere, I know it.”

Sharlee gestured to the golem holding Ranadar. It hoisted the elf over its shoulder and without ceremony, tossed Ranadar into the empty mermaid tank. Ranadar, bound by the iron shackles, was barely able to land without injuring himself. Talfi shouted Ranadar’s name.

“Water,” said Sharlee to the golem. It trudged over to a well and windlass several paces away.

“What are you doing?” Aisa demanded.

The golem cranked the windless, hauled up a dripping bucket from the depths, extracted a cup from the bucket, and trudged over to the tank. It climbed the ladder, emptied the cup into the tank, and headed back to the well for more. Ranadar watched, but was too weak from the iron to do anything about it. A quiet horror stole over Danr.

“At the rate the golem is working,” Hector said, “it will take four days and nine hours, give or take an hour, to fill the tank to the point where your friend won’t be able to breathe, though that will depend on how well he can swim with those shackles on.”

“You’re the boy who lives forever,” Sharlee said to Talfi. “If he dies, you’re going to live a long, long time without your true love.”

Hector asked Danr, “Will you let your best friend mourn a loss that will pain him even after your bones are dust?”

It was a direct question. “No,” Danr said. “We’ll get you the power of the shape. If you promise to let Ranadar go when we bring it.”

“Danr!” Aisa said. “We can’t trust them!”

“We’ll find the power of the shape and bring it here,” Danr repeated dully. “You have my word. And you know I can’t lie.”

“Indeed!” Hector clapped his hands. “I knew I could count on you! Didn’t I say they would do it, Sharlee?”

“You did, darling. I’ve never met a more intelligent man.”

“Which is less a compliment than you might think,” Aisa sniped.

Hector ignored her. “So. You’ll sail immediately. We have arranged for a ship—”

“What about the storms?” Talfi said.

“Captain Greenstone owes us a great deal.” Sharlee glanced at the golem, which was climbing the ladder to the tank again. It dumped a second cup of water and tirelessly headed back to the well. “She’ll brave the storms. With the merfolk’s help, you’ll muddle through, honey, I’m sure.”

“But if we just wait a month or so,” Danr said, thinking fast for once, “we could—”

“Are you familiar with the work of Carolan of Dansk?” Sharlee interrupted.

“I’m . . . not,” Danr had to reply.

“Garon the Venerated? The Books of Dust? The story of Old Lady Pearl?”

Danr blinked at her. “No.”

“Then you’ll have to take our word, our carefully researched, very expensive word, that the power of the
shape is in the Key, and the Key is only open during the stormy season.”

“The Key?” Talfi said. “What in Vik’s name is that?”

“You’ll understand when you get there. You had better go now. The tide goes out at sunrise.”

“Except”—Hector held up a hand—“the orc woman will also remain as our guest.”

Kalessa’s head came around. “What?”

“If you don’t return in time and the elf drowns,” Hector said, “we will empty the tank and start over with the orc, just to ensure that you don’t give up. That gives you nine days, more or less. Be grateful for the extra time.”

“Sister,” Aisa breathed.

“Danr, honey,” Sharlee asked, “I know your first thought is that you should run to Prince Karsten and tell him about this. Isn’t that so?”

Damn it.
Another direct question, and he couldn’t avoid it. “Sure. Karsten likes me, and he’s just looking for an excuse to dump the debt the crown owes you. The guard will arrest you for kidnapping, no matter how many golems you have, and I’ll watch and laugh while they burn your house.”

“I can’t blame you,” Sharlee said. “There are other factors you don’t know about, but just to keep you honest, one of the other golems will shadow you out there and will remain in contact with one of the golems back here. We will always know who you talk to and what you do. If you betray us, both your friends will die immediately. Do you understand, half-blood hero?”

“Yes,” Danr was forced to say.

“So you set up a fake mermaid auction just to lure us here?” Talfi said.

“I do love a good party,” Hector said.

“Ludicrous,” Aisa spat.

“Effective,” Sharlee countered. “We needed to ensure
that you knew where the mermaid was and that you’d try to sneak in without telling anyone where you were going so we could conduct our business in privacy. Honestly, Hector, these are the people who found the Iron Axe?”

“The irony,” Aisa said softly, “is that we were already planning to seek the power of the shape. We would have brought it to you if you had simply asked as a friend.”

Hector shook his head. “Never give your enemies a choice.”

“Never make an enemy where you could have a friend,” Danr corrected.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if the world really worked that way?” Hector said.

The golem emptied another cup of water into the
tank.

Y
nara the mermaid didn’t speak during the awful walk through the city to Bosha’s Bay. Instead she clung to Danr’s neck with arms of iron. She smelled of seaweed and saltwater, and not at all of fish as Danr expected. Her muscular tail curled around his body, and that felt weird, indeed it did. He was careful not to stare at her bare breasts. Aisa and Talfi followed, also without speaking. Danr was sure they were all thinking the same thing—that Ranadar’s tank was filling with a terrible steadiness.

The golem followed as well. Its footsteps were even and precise, and its azure eyes glowed a faint blue beneath the runes carved into its head. Danr had no idea whether it was craft or magic or both that made it move and see and hear. He didn’t much care. All he cared about was getting Ynara down to the docks so they could go on to the next step. One step at a time was the key. If he looked at everything at once—needing to return with the power of the shape before Ranadar died—it overwhelmed him with impossibility. But steps he could handle: bring the mermaid to the bay; find the ship; talk to the captain; sail to the Key; find Grandfather Wyrm; use the squid ink to bribe the power of
the shape from him; return in time to keep Ranadar from drowning.

Was this to be his life, lurching from one crisis to another? He was a farmer, for Rolk’s sake. A farm was home, and all he wanted was the simplicity of plowing rich earth in the spring, planting small seeds, and coaxing them to grow while a small herd of cows lowed in the upper pasture. Even better if that farm was close to the ocean so Aisa could befriend the merfolk. A calm, predictable life without visits to Death, without unexpected journeys, without kidnappings and threats.

“I hope he’ll be all right,” Talfi said, not for the first time.

“He will be,” Aisa said firmly. “And so will Kalessa. We saved the entire world once, you know. Saving an elf and an orc will be simplicity itself.”

Danr nodded in agreement, but felt a tiny flicker of gladness that it was Ranadar instead of Aisa in the tank, and then he felt guilty over that gladness. He certainly didn’t want Ranadar to drown or even be hurt—the elf had proven a good friend and ally, even if he was a bit snooty. But Danr was still glad it wasn’t Aisa, and he prayed Talfi never asked him a direct question about it.

“Are we nearly there?” Ynara asked. Her tail’s grip around his waist was weakening. “The air is becoming painful.”

“The docks are just ahead,” Danr said. “You can probably smell the water.”

“I can. It hurts to scent it and not be in it.”

“How long can you last outside the water?” Talfi asked.

“It hurts after several minutes,” Ynara replied. Her voice was low and musical, like liquid silver. “After an hour, I will probably lose consciousness. Once that happens, death follows quickly.”

“Do you need to be immersed, or can you be doused?” Aisa asked. “I know little of the merfolk, and . . . I am curious.”

“Dousing will delay death, but it is difficult to breathe the air for a long time, cousin.” Ynara exhaled shakily against Danr’s chest. She felt light, like foam. “My people once walked on land, you know.”

“Before the Sundering, yes,” Aisa said.

“A tiny few of my people still can.” Ynara exhaled hard again. “The power of the shape still runs among some merfolk.”

Danr halted in surprise. The golem stopped, too, and its eyes never left him. “Then maybe we could talk to them! It would be less dangerous than seeing Grandfather Wyrm. Can you take us?”

“It will not help you,” Ynara sighed. “The merfolk who can change their shape can only do it once, and they cannot change back, and it is not a secret they can share. Either you are born with the talent, or you are not.” She closed her eyes. They were masked by her tattoos. “We must hurry now.”

“Sorry.” Danr hustled forward again. The golem followed.

The streets around the Docks never quite slept. Enormous beer wagons, too big for day traffic, lumbered over the cobbles. One was pulled by a troll, though it looked like a toy behind him. Bakers worked at night so their wares would be ready by morning, and the smells of new bread mingled with oven smoke. Danr caught sight of more than one group of thugs, but when they saw Danr was a head taller, with muscles like a sack of cantaloupes, they sank back into the damp, chilly shadows.

Ships creaked and loomed in the dark like twisted trees. Some were hung with yellow lanterns. Occasional shouts
and laughter floated about, and once, a distant scream. Each dock had at its head a statue of one of the Nine, starting with Olar, the king of gods, and moving through Grick, his queen, to Belinna and Fell (the warrior twins, who counted as one god), Urko, Rolk, Kalina, Halza, Vik, and Bosha. Tikk, the tenth god, was the Stane interloper and trickster who had changed himself into a fly and perched on Grick’s vulva so he could appear at the moment Fell was born and be welcomed among the gods as Fell’s brother before anyone noticed the deception. Still, he had a dock, because no one wanted to offend him. When an eleventh dock was built, the city had put two statues of Olar on it, and called it Two Olar. A twelfth dock became Two Grick, and so on. They were now up to Four Halza. It had become customary for the captain to make a donation to the temple of whatever god’s dock his ship was docked at. This caused a certain amount of friction among the temples over the naming of any new dock, since each one became an instant and steady source of revenue.

Hector Obsidia had said the
Slippery Fish
, the ship he and his wife had coerced, was moored at Three Bosha, and that was where Danr headed. The mermaid became restless as he padded closer to the water, and twisted almost frantically when he passed the trio of knee-high Bosha statues at the front of the dock. One statue showed Bosha in her aspect as a mermaid. Four ships were moored farther down the dock.

“The water,” Ynara whispered.

“Wait.” Talfi put a hand on Danr’s arm, and his face was hard. “First, you have to swear that you’ll take us to the Key, that you won’t just swim away and leave us.”

“Talfi—” Aisa said.

“The Key?” Ynara’s voice was barely audible. “You seek the Key?”

“Swear!” Talfi said again. “Or Danr won’t put you in the water.”

Talfi had a point. Danr halted, the mermaid still in his arms. Her hair was dry, her tail was limp, and he wondered if he truly could stand here on the dock and let her die in his arms. The golem continued its dead blue stare. Were the Obisidia couple watching and listening right now? Laughing at them? Vik! He wanted to reach into the golem’s head, through it, and grab Hector and Sharlee by their throats.

“Swear!” Talfi said again.

“I . . . swear,” Ynara whispered.

Danr knelt at the edge of the dock and let Ynara drop from his arms into the murky water with a soft splash. For a moment she floated there, limp as a dead flower, her hair splayed about her head. Aisa put her hands to her mouth, and Danr touched her shoulder. Then Ynara jerked to life. Water exploded in all directions, catching Danr in the face with salty spray, and she was gone. The water rippled and smoothed around the dock pylons. Danr, Aisa, and Talfi watched the surface with concern.

“She will return,” Aisa said. “She swore.”

But there was no sign of the mermaid.

After several moments, Danr said, “I think we’re on our own.”

“She betrayed us,” Aisa whispered. “I did not think she would do such a thing. Not a mermaid.”

“The merfolk aren’t perfect,” Danr said. His hand was still on her shoulder. She reached up for it, and he knew she was drawing comfort from him. It made his throat thick.

“What do we do now?” Talfi asked.

Danr straightened, and Aisa dropped her hand. “We go to the
Slippery Fish
. Captain Greenstone may know where
to go. If she doesn’t, we’ll sail into the Iron Sea until we find the Key ourselves.”

“And what about Ranadar?” Talfi said.

“We’ll just have to hurry.” Danr looked at the sky. Dawn was coming, and he realized he was missing his hat—and other things. “Talfi, you’re the fastest. Run back to Mrs. Farley’s and grab some extra clothes. Don’t forget my extra hat. And—I can’t tell you how important this is—bring the bottle of squid ink.”

Talfi put his hands in his hair. “Vik! I forgot all about that!” He turned and sped away, faster than anyone Danr had ever seen.

“That’ll give him something to keep his mind off Ranadar,” Danr said. The sky was lightening now, and the docks were coming to life. Bells rang on the ships, and shouts from the sailors and merchants who sold to them rose from the docks.

“You think like a leader,” Aisa said with a nod. “I am impressed.”

Danr shook his head. “I’m no leader.”

“You sell yourself short, my Hamzu,” she said. “You are more far-sighted and intelligent than you give yourself credit for. Where is that ship?”

The
Slippery Fish
was moored at the end of the dock. The sailor on duty at the gangplank didn’t want to let them on board until Danr mentioned the name Obsidia, whereupon he vanished through some kind of door, though Danr doubted sailors called it that. He knew as much about ships as he did about mining molten lava. The deck rocked a little beneath Danr’s feet, which felt decidedly odd, as if it might decide to tip him over.

From the door emerged a woman. A large woman. She was nearly as tall as Danr, and certainly as wide and muscular. Short black hair framed her face beneath a heavy,
wide-brimmed hat, and her lower jaw jutted pugnaciously forward, showing heavy lower teeth beneath a small nose. Her skin was swarthy, just like Danr’s. She wore a loose white shirt belted over bright red trousers, but she went barefoot. Danr stared in disbelief. It was like looking in a twisted mirror.

“You’re half Stane,” he blurted out.

“Takes one to know one, kid,” she grunted.

“By the Nine,” Aisa breathed.

Danr felt as if he’d been poked in the stomach with a feather. “I thought I was the only one!”

“Really?” She raised a thick eyebrow. “You must have grown up in the ass crack of nowhere.”

“I . . . well . . . ,” Danr stammered.

“And why is my first mate standing around starin’, Harebones?” she bellowed to the first sailor, who had followed her onto the deck. “We sail when the ball-licking tide goes out, so get those Vik-shit sailors up here!”

“Yes, Captain!” Harebones rushed away.

“You gotta keep an eye on those men,” the captain said with a wink to Aisa. “Lazy sods who can’t keep their hands out of their trousers, every one of ’em.”

“Indeed,” said Aisa.

“Sharlee, the armpit of Halza, told me we had to take passengers into the Iron Sea or she’d cuts my tits off with a dull knife, but I gotta say, I had no idea one of them would give Fell himself a run for it.” She swept her hat off and, to Danr’s consternation, took his hand and kissed the back of it. “Captain Greenstone at yer service.”

“Uh . . .” was all Danr could manage. His face felt as if it might catch fire. He couldn’t call Captain Greenstone pretty, but she owned the salty air around her, and ropes that came down from the masts seemed to lean out of her
way. Something about her made him feel privileged just to be standing near her.

“The stammering one is named Danr,” Aisa put in. “Our friend Talfi will arrive presently. The golem here has no name that I’m aware of.”

“Golems.” Captain Greenstone spat at its feet. The golem didn’t respond. “Dwarfish spies and bad luck on a ship.”

“Aren’t Stane bad luck on a ship?” Aisa asked.

“Sure. Bad luck is why I’m in the debt of the Obsidia bitch.” Captain Greenstone hadn’t released Danr’s hand yet. Danr wasn’t sure what to do about that.

“My name is Aisa,” said Aisa, coming between them so Greenstone would have to drop Danr’s hand. “We are together.”

“Really?” The captain raised an eyebrow again. “That’s disappointing. Half the half-bloods I meet are uglier than I am, and the other half are rotten in bed. You got a brother, handsome?”

Danr was starting to regain his composure. He was handsome? Kalessa had called him that once, but he hadn’t quite believed it. “Yeah, but he’s a full troll and I don’t see him much.”

By now, sailors were boiling up from belowdecks. They swarmed around the deck, hauling ropes and raising sails and doing other things with the rigging that Danr’s farmer eyes couldn’t follow. Danr was surprised to notice that several of the crew were female, though now that he thought about it, this made certain sense on a ship with a woman captain.

“So why’re we heading into the Iron Sea during storm season? The Obsidia bitch”—she leaned toward the golem when she said this—“weren’t too specific.”

“We need to find a place called the Key,” Aisa said. “In the middle of the Iron Sea.”

“Yeah, good. Where’s that on a chart?”

Danr spread his hands and thought of Ranadar in the tank. “We were hoping you would know.”

“I don’t sail the Iron Sea if I can avoid it, handsome. A thousand years since the Sundering, and it’s still stormy, even when it ain’t storm season. Only the merfolk know the place.”

“We had a merfolk guide, but she . . . left,” Aisa said. “Perhaps we can speak to the merfolk in the Iron Sea.”

“There’s a time limit,” Danr put in. “We—”

“Attention! New information,” said the golem.

Captain Greenstone stiff-armed the golem and it flew backward, fetching up on its back on the deck. The sailors paused briefly amid the creaking ropes, then went back to their work. “Oops,” the captain said. “Startled me. I didn’t know it talked.”

The golem got to its feet, unperturbed, and walked stiffly back to Aisa and Danr. “New information,” it repeated. Light flowed from its jewellike eyes and coalesced on the deck. A miniature version of the tank with Ranadar in it appeared on the deck. The whole thing reminded Danr of the table he had found in the elven throne room in Palana. Ranadar sat wretchedly in the bottom of tank, which now had perhaps an inch of water in it.

“Nice,” Captain Greenstone observed. “Who’s that?”

“He’s mine.” Talfi jumped aboard from the gangplank with a pair of sacks over his shoulders, out of breath and red-faced. “Is he all right?”