Scimitar War (10 page)

That scent
, he thought, breathing deeply of the faint aroma. He brought the box up to his face and sniffed carefully. The scent of teak wood, but something else, something sweet and cloying…he sniffed again, but couldn’t place it. Perhaps leftover perfume on the lady’s garments?

Frustrated, he closed the box, replaced it in the drawer and continued his search. The only other space in the suite was the balcony, and a quick inspection yielded nothing once again. Not knowing what else to do, he filed the information away in his mind and left the room, disappointed. He might have better luck when he searched the count’s quarters, but that would have to wait until Norris was not in residence.

≈

Huffington watched Upton move from Camilla’s balcony back into the room, then cautiously eased out of the shade of the tree he had been using for cover. The last thing he wanted was the spymaster to see that he had been spying on him, or to note which direction he was now headed. He strode past the shipyard and took the well-used trail that led into the jungle.

He smelled the tar pits long before he saw them. During the tour of the shipyard Camilla had given the count on their first arrival on the island, she had extolled the benefits of having a nearby source of the material used in making creosote and naphtha. Tar had been harvested from these pits for years, bucket-load after bucket-load. Huffington had no desire to harvest tar, but the tar pits would serve his purpose well.

Carefully surveying the area, Huffington made sure that no one was around. A small wooden crane with a metal dipper bucket was mounted at the end of a dock that jutted out over the noisome black pit. Here workers would fill yoked buckets to be taken back to the shipyard. With the shipyard out of commission, nobody had been here in weeks. He stooped to pick up a large stone, then ventured carefully out onto the dock, squinting and breathing shallowly against the thick stench.

After one more glance around, he knelt, opened his satchel and withdrew a white bundle: Camilla’s bloodstained nightgown wrapped around two pairs of her shoes. Laying it onto the dock, he opened it up, put the stone on the shoes, then retied it tightly. He dropped the bundle over the end of the dock and used the dipper bucket to push it under the surface. With any luck, the incriminating evidence would sink straight to the bottom and remain undiscovered forever. And if it ever was hauled up in a bucket of tar, it would be impossible to tell that the gown had ever been white, much less bloodstained.

Thankfully, his suspicious nature had gotten the best of him and he’d discovered the nightgown while retrieving the lady’s shoes.

Huffington rose, shouldered his satchel, and headed back to the keep. No doubt Upton had completed his own search of Camilla’s rooms by now, and he didn’t want to raise the man’s suspicions by being conspicuously absent.

Chapter 6

Hydra

“That’s it!” Camilla said, squinting into the afternoon sun at the three masts and dark hull of the big galleon. Behind her, Paska and Tipos whispered nervously. They had readily told her the location of the largest cannibalistic tribe. The island on which they lived was also one of the few with a protected anchorage deep enough to admit the galleon they sought. But they had protested loud and long when Camilla ordered them to bring her here. They wanted to go to Vulture Isle to gather a war party from their own tribe, but she had insisted.

A cordon of coral protected a deep lagoon on the island’s windward side. The winds were stronger here, and the swells broke high against the reef crest, pouring milk-white foam across the shallow back reef. A clearly visible channel into the lagoon cut through the reef further south. It seemed narrow, but if the galleon had made it through, undoubtedly
Flothrindel
could, too.

“Take us in!”

“Right,” Paska said hesitantly, nodding to Tipos. “Get ready to jibe her, Tipos. I don’t wanna waste no time.”

“Fine, but you can bet dat dey gonna see us comin’.”

“Don’t worry about that, Tipos,” Camilla said. She wished she felt as confident as her words. “Even if they don’t see us now, they’ll find out soon enough that we’re here.”

Camilla clenched the rail tightly as the boat picked up speed; though she had lived on Plume Isle most of her life, she had little real experience sailing.
Flothrindel
rode the tumultuous seas like a cork bobbing on a rippled pool. The gap looked treacherous, but Paska and Tipos had grown up on the ocean, and she trusted their abilities.

“Tipos,” Paska called, “we be ready?”

Tipos had been shifting lines here and there, and now he took two of them in his hands and nodded. “Ready!”

“Okay, den. Here we go!”

Paska pushed the tiller hard over, and
Flothrindel
rounded downwind. Tipos slacked the leeward sheet as they came around. The big mainsail jibed, Paska shortening the sheet to dampen the force of it, but the boat heeled over sharply until she adjusted the sail. Now the two sails extended on opposite sides of the boat, like the wings of a great white bird pulling them downwind at a roaring pace.
Flothrindel
surfed the big swells as they raced toward the gap in the reef. In a flash they were through. The waves immediately abated, though the wind remained at full force. Paska turned them toward the anchored galleon and Tipos trimmed the sails. Camilla took a deep breath, and tried to calm her pounding heart.

“Well, dere you are, Miss Cammy,” Paska said as they approached the big ship. “Don’t look like nobody aboard, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Where you wanna go?”

“As close to the beach as you can get.” She eyed the clear turquoise water. The thought of wading ashore, immersing herself in the saltwater, sent waves of revulsion through her. This new sensation, she knew, came from the demon. Camilla scanned the dense wall of jungle. There were no signs of the cannibals yet, though that didn’t mean they weren’t hiding in the deep shadows beneath the verdant vegetation. “Once I’m gone, pull into deeper water in case you have to flee.”

Tipos looked up in appalled awe as they passed close by the huge galleon. “I’m t’inkin’ we should be doin’ sometin’ to dat ship before we go, so dey can’t be usin’ it again.”

“We could burn it,” Paska suggested.

“We don’t need a fire,” Camilla said. She hated to use her power on this, but Tipos was right; leaving the cannibals an intact ship meant that they could collect more prisoners, and no one in the Shattered Isles would be safe. “Just keep us close to the ship.”

Reluctantly, Camilla reached inside herself to where the demon’s magic lay hot and seething. Drawing on the power, the feel of it both revolting and seductive, she bent her thoughts to the ocean, cursing it and demanding that it obey. She forced the sea against the galleon’s hull, closed upon it like the jaws of a great beast until the timbers groaned and cracked. The water beneath the ship churned, and with a sudden crunch, the hull collapsed inward. The galleon lurched as its hold filled with water and it settled to the sandy bottom. The three great masts canted as the ship heeled over. The damage was nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a lot of time, materials, and skilled labor, but the cannibals had no such skills, and would never be able to refloat the ship.

Camilla released her hold on the power, shuddering as she suppressed another wave of hunger.

“Bloody hells!” Tipos muttered, staring first at the ship, then at Camilla.

“Anchor the boat,” Camilla commanded hoarsely, gripping the rail so tightly that her nails split the wood. Though destroying the galleon had taken little effort, it had drained her. She felt like an empty husk, a raging hunger that demanded satiation. She had fed on only one of the two marines the night before—she had had to kill the other quickly to silence him—and had hoped it would hold her over until she was well away from her friends. But now, the sound of three hearts beating so strongly—so close—lured her. She had to feed soon or risk the grisly fate of the demon’s last host. If she did not feed the demon, it would feed on her.

“Hurry!” she urged.

Camilla both hated and needed the fear in her friends’ faces as they complied with her plea. She had briefed them on her condition, and had been horrified at how they recoiled from her when she mentioned the name Hydra. But she wanted them to fear her, if only to keep them safe.

Paska steered toward shore, then turned the boat into the wind. Tipos furled the jib and dropped the small anchor over the bow, paying out rode until they had backed nearly to the beach and the keel bumped the sandy bottom. He left the mainsail up, but slacked the sheet so that the canvas flapped in the breeze.

“Dat’s as close as we be gettin’, Miss Cammy.”

Camilla stepped up to the cockpit seat, then to the rail. She glared down at the sea and let slip the reins on the demon’s loathing. The water parted, leaving a strip of bare sand from the boat to the shore. She stepped off the transom, landed clumsily on the hard sand, and hurried to the beach, not slowing until she was well above the waterline. She heaved a ragged breath as the water closed behind her. Her friends were safe. She pushed back the hunger, straightened her shoulders and turned to Paska and Tipos.

“Wait here,” she said, “and be ready. As soon as the captives reach the beach, get them into
Flothrindel
and leave. Take them to Vulture Isle. Do
not
return here or try to find me. And if I return to the beach alone, regardless of what I say to you, flee as fast as you can.”

Paska and Tipos stared wide-eyed, and then nodded. Without another word, without even saying goodbye, Camilla turned and strode up the beach.

≈

A shiver of dread quivered Broadtail’s fins, and he let the ancient scroll he had been studying slip from his slack fingers. The sharkskin parchment drifted to the floor of the comfortable nook that he and Silverfin used for reading and rest. This was not the first time he had felt this nebulous trepidation. The previous night, he had been awoken by a sensation he had not felt in many seasons. Then he had dismissed it as anxiety over the still-unknown fate of his son Tailwalker, but now he realized what it was.

*What is wrong, my husband?* Silverfin signed, laying her own scroll aside, the concern on her features illuminated by the pale glow crystals that lit the nook. *You are as pale as the inside of an oyster’s shell!*

*Something is manipulating the sea,* he replied, trusting his finely honed senses. He shivered again and flipped his tail in agitation. *Some magic.*

*The seamage?* she asked as she joined him, her slim fingers caressing his fins in solace.

*No.* He returned her caress, but his countenance remained dire. *This is different. The sea is being tormented, forced into submission.* He looked to his wife and saw that she understood.

*Is it the same as before?*

*I do not know, beloved. It feels the same, but Seamage Flaxal Brelak herself told me that the creature who wielded that foul magic was destroyed. We saw its filthy corpse sink into the deep, remember?*

*I remember, beloved, but such creatures are often more spirit than flesh.* Silverfin was learned in many types of lore, and the legends of the demon of which they spoke were ancient. It had been summoned to the smoking island by landwalkers a very long time ago, and for many seasons its power had kept the mer at bay, forestalled their wrath against the marauding landwalkers that inhabited the island. *Perhaps the beast’s spirit survived.*

*If so, this is dire indeed, for Seamage Flaxal Brelak is still far to the south. Only she has the power to confront such a creature.* Broadtail recovered his baldric and trident and swam to the exit. *We must find this threat, so that when the seamage returns, we may tell her where it lairs.*

*Need you go yourself, husband?* she asked, and he fluttered his gills in gentle laughter at her worry.

*No, beloved, I need not go myself. We have warriors aplenty who have sea sense strong enough to find the source of this evil. I will send out scouts.* He swam to her side and caressed her fins. *I’ll return soon.* He flipped his tail and swam from the grotto, intent on discovering this new and dire threat.

≈

Dura cursed long and hard in dwarvish as the leather tightened around her wrists and ankles. The cannibals had bound her to a rough-hewn wooden frame, the same one to which all who had preceded her to this fate had been bound. It was black with bloodstains, and reeked of old, rotten blood and offal. She refused to even look at the ground in front of the frame, so thick were the flies and gnats. Her gorge rose in her throat, but she swallowed and cursed anew, struggling against the grasping hands and spitting into those grinning, shark-toothed faces. By the time the last bond had been cinched tight, her wrists and ankles were already raw. Unfortunately, she knew that these were only the first of many pains to come.

She had hoped for a quick end, but it was not to be.

The jeering, hooting crowd of cannibals backed away from her. Only one remained; the woman Dura had kicked in the groin two days before. She wielded the very same obsidian knife, and there was no humor whatsoever in her feral grin.

“Well, this is jist gonna be bloody boatloads of fun, ain’t it?” Dura managed to keep her voice steady, but only barely. Her gut roiled with fear, threatening to overwhelm her stoic anger as her executioner approached. She’d seen what they’d done to the others, and knew what she was in for. She made herself a single promise: “I won’t scream.”

But looking at the knife and the vengeful grin on the woman’s scarred face, she doubted it was a promise she could keep.

≈

Hundreds of footprints led up the beach to the trail at the jungle’s edge. Flanking the entrance stood two bamboo poles thrust deep into the sand, each topped by a polished and grinning human skull, the totem of the cannibal tribe.

Stepping onto the trail was like stepping into a dark, primeval world. The dusky light failed to penetrate the thick canopy, and the roar of the surf, so loud on the beach, faded with each step. From far ahead in the deep jungle came the sound of distant drums, shouts and cries. Camilla’s eyes adjusted quickly, and with a flicker of the demon’s power, the jungle around her snapped into crystal clarity, each leaf and frond distinct. Flashes of crimson among the foliage drew her attention, the blood-heat of living creatures that scampered, flew, and crawled through the trees and undergrowth. Her hunger quickened. She supposed that she might feed on them, but the thought was unappetizing. The demon craved only human blood.