Dead Stars - Part Two (The Emaneska Series) (13 page)

Wars are fought for one purpose only. Never mind causes and injustice, or even greed or land. Rubbish. Wars are fought to be won. They are not fought to be lost. And Malvus liked winning. He was close, he could feel it.

Tonight it felt as though he were storming the final stronghold.

Malvus approached the Evernia guardsmen that were standing on either side of the formidable gates. They were watching him closely. He nodded almost imperceptibly as he passed between them, and with a heave, they swung the gates shut and locked them with one of the great iron bars.

Council Malvus took the steps two at a time. He barely noticed the levels and floors passing him by as he jogged to the tip of the Arkathedral, where his chambers lay waiting. The Arkathedral was almost empty at that time of night. Even the servants were heading to bed. A few sleepy-eyed feasters were waddling back to their rooms, holding bulging stomachs and grinning at the memory of wine. They smelled of perfumes and silk.

Malvus strode to his door and stopped mid-pace. His foot dangled in the air, yet to find the floor. His hand hovered in front of the door, yet to find the handle. His door was ajar. He felt for the little sickle-shaped blade that was tucked under his belt.
Could Durnus be this underhanded?
he asked himself. He had once pondered simply killing the Arkmages off. Quietly, of course. An unfortunate accident perhaps. But no, it was unspeakable to execute an Arkmage, never mind both. Besides, it would have been too obvious, what with his tongue. It would turn his own followers against him, and the city too.

As he pushed the door open and strode into the candlelight, Malvus flicked the blade from its sheath and held it ready. His rooms were empty, dark. He padded around, cautious, knife held at the ready. But he needn’t have bothered. It was in his bedroom that he found his intruder. It was a woman, a blonde, all alone. She was sitting in a chair next to his expansive bed, entwined in shadow. The maids had lit the candles some time ago and now they were beginning to sag in their cradles.

‘To whom do I owe this rather unexpected pleasure?’ Malvus said. His voice sounded loud in the silence.

The woman turned her head, and Malvus recognised her as the blind woman he had seen at council, with that halfwit Farden. Guests of Farden and his uncle, so it had been whispered. Malvus knew to pay attention to whispers.

‘Does a name matter?’ she replied.

Malvus shut the door behind him. He didn’t lock it. Not yet. ‘So what shall I call you then, woman? I think it is only right that I know the name of my intruder.’

‘Call a whore a whore,’ smiled the woman, with a casual shrug.

Malvus raised an eyebrow. He had thought as much, from the way she held herself. The way she dressed. ‘I don’t remember requesting a whore.’

Jeasin turned to the window and away from Malvus. ‘I’m blind, Council Barkhart. They say that when you’re born without your eyes, the gods make up for it with other things.’

‘Such as?’

‘I can smell a tavern from a mile away. In fact, I can hear one below in the streets. I know there’s fog in the air tonight; I can smell its damp. I can taste the salt from those docks, where I can tell you’ve been. S’on your clothes.’ Malvus let the eyebrow fall. Jeasin raised her sightless eyes to seemingly look at the high, arched ceiling of his grand room. ‘And I can smell the danger in this old place too. Stinks of it.’

‘Danger? Of what?’ Malvus lifted up his dagger.

‘Change. Something I feel certain people aren’t going to like. Like that Arkmage. And his lapdog, Farden, for example.’ She said the last name with a face that wanted to spit.

Malvus smiled. He would have caught himself but the woman was sightless. He needn’t have cared. Releasing his grip on the sickle-blade, he strode to the side of the bed to look at her, to take her in. Despite her bedraggled hair, her simple, borrowed clothes, she was attractive enough. Blonde locks. Curled. Eyes of blue, green maybe. Hard to tell by the candles. Not the finest he had ever had, no, but attractive enough. She was of Albion stock too, by her accent and cheekbones. A foreigner. He reached out and raised her chin up with a finger. She didn’t flinch. ‘Perceptive, aren’t you? And what is it that you want from me? Why my room, and not another’s?’

‘I heard you in that hall of yours. I recognise a man in charge when I hear one.’ Jeasin rubbed her finger and thumb together. ‘They’ve always got the deepest pockets.’

Malvus wrinkled his lip, withdrawing her hand. ‘A common beggar, then. You came here for my coin.’

‘My only price tonight is a promise from you, Council.’

‘That sounds expensive. Promises usually are. A promise of what then, whore? I’ll bite.’

‘Just your protection, for now. Maybe a room in this Arkastle or whatever you call it. Fancy myself a lady of its court, maybe. If there will still be one, when you’ve finished.’

Malvus sneered. This was a woman he could understand. Direct. Selfish. Clever. ‘Self-preservation. I see. You feel the mountain sliding out from under you, so you want to find a sturdier footing.’

Jeasin nodded. ‘Sounds about right to me.’

‘Clever girl.’

‘I try,’ Jeasin said, getting to her feet and turned to face the councillor. With a smile and hands that moved with the confidence of practice, she slipped the straps of her dress from her shoulders. ‘I have your word then?’

Malvus said nothing. He simply went to lock the door.

“The Smiths and Pens of Scalussen were a ruling class in their own right. Not quite lords, born into land and power. Nor were they kings or queens, with royal blood passed down from vein to vein. No. Theirs was a hierarchy and position based on skill and skill alone. Theirs was a democracy of ability and wisdom. The finest Smith and Pen would ascend the ladder of authority, ruling until usurped by another. A perfect system? Perhaps not. Jealousy was also forged in the fires of Scalussen, in time. But that is true of all hierarchies.”

From the writings of the infamous, and anonymous, critic Áwacran

F
og had swallowed the north too, in one giant gulp.

It was the cusp of morning, and it was as though the
Waveblade
floated on the edge of a half-dreamt world. Featureless, smothering, the fog was thicker than a stew. Even the crow’s nest had been partially swallowed by it. Those standing at the wheel had to squint to see the bow. There was nothing to guide them save for the distant, muffled hiss of a beach, and the faint shadow that gave the grey some precious depth. Had it not been for the murmuring and slapping of the waves at her keel, the ship could have been flying through a dream.

‘Fog-giants,’ murmured one of the nearby sailors. ‘They’ll clobber us to bits. This is how they hunt, you see. They run ships aground and then have their way with them.’

‘No such things,’ hissed Roiks, from the step above him. Every whisper seemed loud on the deck of the silent ship. The whole crew could have heard a mouse cough.

The sailor turned, wide-eyed and earnest. ‘There is, I say. My cousin’s ship ran aground near Belephon. They were tinder in minutes. Said great fists formed out of fog and smashed ‘em to splinters. No survivors.’

‘Then how did your cousin come to tell you that story, hmm?’

That foxed the sailor. ‘Well…’

‘Pipe down!’ Nuka grunted from the wheel and all fell silent save for the waves, the creaking of the ropes, and the breathing of the sailors as they stood by, ready for anything. Tyrfing had the mages on deck, just in case.

Farden was standing at the railing of the stern, looking back at their bubbling wake as it disappeared into the fog. A length of knotted twine unravelled behind the ship, bejewelled with water droplets. Farden followed its brown length through the gap in the railing and onto the ship, where it slowly unwound from a little wheel. It squeaked as each knot left it.

‘Eighty-seven,’ whispered Gabbant, as he bent over the table that Lerel was poring over, maps and scraps of parchment spread out in front of her in no discernible order. She furiously scribbled down a few calculations with one hand, while the other gently wandered across a map of the Nelska coastline.

‘Three points to port, Cap’n,’ she called, and Nuka flicked the wheel.

Farden didn’t dare ask how she knew where they were. Their process looked far too intricate to disturb. Though the air was cold, a little bead of sweat had gathered on Lerel’s forehead. It sounded as though she hadn’t taken a breath in at least a minute.

Farden shook his head and wandered to the steps where Roiks and a handful of sailors stood ready for orders. They were whispering earnestly about something. Nuka was too busy to chide them again. Farden couldn’t help but listen in.

‘Wreckwitch.’

‘What?’

‘Wreckwitches. Siren bitches who draw ships into rocks with wind and fog, then once they’ve floundered they come aboard and drink the blood of the crew.’

‘Nonsense!’

‘It’s the truth.’

‘About as truthful as an Albion merchant, you are.’

‘Well, this ain’t natural fog, lads, so what is it?’

‘Who knows.’

‘Almost as if something don’t want to be seen.’

‘Njord’s balls, lads, we’re in league with the Sirens. Naught to fear from them.’

There was a moment as one of the sailors looked up into the fog. ‘Sure about that, bosun?’ he asked.

An eerie silence came and went. It was broken by the sound of Roiks snorting and then spitting something over the side. ‘Sure as a loaded die, lad. Now pipe down so the Cap’n can hear himself think,’ he ordered, and the sailors said no more. Farden turned to his left where his uncle stood behind Nuka and the wheel. He had been listening just like everybody else. The two mages swapped a look, one that ached with sudden suspicion.

There couldn’t have been a more inappropriate time for a dragon to roar, but it did, somewhere high and lost in the fog, leaving them with its rumbling echoes. Every neck craned. Every eye turned upwards. Nuka handed the wheel to nearby Hasterkin and stood next to Tyrfing. Farden had to step closer to hear the captain’s hushed words.

‘How long exactly did you say it was that the Sirens have been ignoring your hawks?’ Nuka mouth in the Arkmage’s ear.

‘Ignoring is a strong word,’ breathed Tyrfing, ‘but several months.’

‘I’m not one to put weight in the pockets of the superstitious sailor stereotype, your Mage, but I think it would be wise to…’ Farden lost the rest of that sentence to Lerel calling another direction.

‘Another point port!’

He turned back to find Tyrfing nodding. Nuka put his fingers between his teeth and blew hard. Farden had never heard a whistle so piercing. ‘To quarters!’ came the order. It was as if the whole crew had been simultaneously bitten by something with very large fangs. The deck erupted into a fountain of activity. Men scampered into the mast to tuck sails. Hatches were battened. Sheets of thin armour were slid across the scattered skylights. Men poured into the decks below and then promptly poured back out again, weapons in their hands. Rolled hammocks and blankets were shoved against the bulwarks. Water mages went to and fro, soaking the decks and the flanks of the ship. Pulleys rattled, ropes squeaked, and somewhere deep inside the ship cogs were turning.

Farden moved to the nearby railing. To his fascination, he saw the armoured hull peeling apart. Rows of hatches were beginning to creep open underneath the circular shields that were bolted to the bulwarks. In jolting increments, the wooden hatches were cranked and levered up and up until they all sat at a high angle. Crossbows and arrowheads began to peep out from behind chain-mail curtains. Some were held by the ship’s soldiers, some slid out on their own runners. It was a marvel of military machinery. Every inch of it screamed Tyrfing.

The Arkmage in question was running back and forth along the aftcastle, watching his mechanical marvels twitch and click. He was close to climbing the mizzen mast when Farden caught his arm. ‘Is this really happening?’

Tyrfing looked around. ‘Precautions, nephew.’

Farden winced. He trailed in his uncle’s wake as he hurried down the steps and under the mainmast. ‘Inwick! You and another, up to the crow’s nest! Heim…’ Tyrfing caught himself just in time. He grabbed Farden’s wrist. He wasn’t surprised to find it firmly armoured. ‘Find Heimdall,’ he hissed.

Farden didn’t have to. ‘There,’ he said, and pointed to the bow, where Heimdall was standing on the bowsprit with Loki. Ilios was still on his platform, but he was now wide awake. He and the gods were staring straight up into the impenetrable fog.

A great stillness fell over the
Waveblade
as the last rope was tied off and the last hatch raised. The entire crew fell silent as mice, listening only to the slapping of the waves beneath them, the cotton echoes of the fog, waiting, but for what they did not know, though most suspected it involved wings, and teeth, and claws. Some crouched, staring into the sky and the rigging. Others hunkered down and muttered prayers to Njord and Evernia and to whomever else was listening. Only Lerel spoke, giving headings to Nuka, and even she whispered. The
Waveblade
was as still as the fog it pierced.

A long howl from far above sent the crew into a fresh state of muttering. Anybody who had ever heard the roaring of a wild wyrm or dragon knew what it meant. Hunting call.

‘Silence!’ hissed Tyrfing, from the bow, the air close, like a jealous lover.

Farden was still pacing about, incredulous. He raised up his hood, as if he hoped the shadow of it would make his urgent eyes shine brighter. ‘Are you seriously expecting the Sirens to attack us? Have I missed some snippet of insanity while I was away?’ he mumbled to his uncle.

Tyrfing ignored him. ‘Heimdall? Ilios? What can you see?’

Heimdall was squinting. ‘Four of them. Cream-white. Curled horns. Nails like crumbled rock. Northern dragons.’

A memory bubbled up from nowhere. ‘Lost Clans,’ Farden said. He remembered saw-blade claws and lava-rock eyes, a silent dragon and a haughty rider’s grin.
Lord of the Castle of the Winds…