Storm of Sharks (3 page)

‘I’m blind.’

His bare feet slapped against the cold stone flags, each step bringing him closer to
the tower’s summit. Moonlight reflected off the dark walls of the winding
staircase, the brickwork’s definition growing sharper as he neared the roof.
Weary legs lifted him ever higher, his limbs possessed by a life of their own,
carrying him inexorably towards the star-dappled heavens. The spiralling rope
banister ran through the palm of his blackened hand, skeletal fingers grasping and
hauling him the remaining few steps, out on to the top of the Bone Tower.

The wind tugged at him, threatening to send him staggering over the edge. The
wizened lightning rod, scorched black by the elements, groaned in its housing where
it was bolted to the parapet. He was aware he was dreaming, but the creaking metal
and sensation of the air rushing around him was sickeningly real. He could smell the
ice on the breeze from the snow-capped mountains, taste the blood and smoke of
battle from far below and feel the cruel, cold caress of the Sturmish
elements as the north’s ill winds bit into his flesh. He
stepped closer to the edge, the city of Icegarden suddenly sliding into view as he
came to a halt beside the crumbling crenulations.

The fires burned to the south, the White Bear’s fortifications tasting the
flaming pitch of the Lion’s army. The battlefield spread across the
Whitepeaks’ slopes, great swathes of icy meadows now turned to rivers of
churned slush as spring’s unavoidable appearance aided the Bastian advance on
Icegarden. Campfires twinkled out in the Badlands, home to Lucas’s mighty
force. Closer to Icegarden the beleaguered camp of the trapped Bearlords huddled,
its fires far fewer, its numbers greatly reduced. His eyes didn’t linger upon
his enemies. They weren’t the reason for his midnight stroll.

He lifted his right foot into the air,
raising it until it landed on the white stone parapet. The brickwork was rough and
uneven against his sole, the sensation chillingly realistic.
Just a dream,
he reminded himself. Even so, he fought his body’s desire to lift the
other foot, to follow its brother up onto the tumbledown stones. Another blast of
wind buffeted him.

I’d like to wake up now,
he told
himself, his subconscious mind sharp enough to banish the nightmare when he’d
endured enough. Only the dark dream wouldn’t relinquish its hold on him. His
right leg straightened, and he drew his left up into the air to land beside it on
the parapet edge. He looked down, his toes curling over the top of the uneven stone
block, the void beyond. The vertigo he’d endured as a child suddenly hit him
hard, grasping his heart and squeezing tight. His knees trembled, one more gust
hammering at the pale flesh of his torso, prodding, poking at him, pushing him
forward.

Then came the whisper:

I can kill you whenever I wish …

Hector felt the world turn, his stomach
lurching as something hard hit him in the guts. He was flying through the air, stars
spinning overhead before his back hit the cold hard flags of the Bone Tower’s
roof. Beside him lay the panting figure of Ringlin, chief among his Boarguard. The
man’s arm still rested across Hector’s stomach, the tall soldier’s
quick thinking having caught the young magister. Ringlin had pulled him to safety, his
grasp squeezing the air from his lungs, yanking him back from a fatal fall to the palace
rooftop hundreds of feet below.

‘My lord,’ gasped Ringlin,
withdrawing his arm, breathing hard as he crawled onto his knees. ‘The
roof … what were you thinking?’

Hector lay where he was, staring up at the
twinkling sky, fingers twitching spasmodically as breath steamed from his lips.

‘I
wasn’t … 
thinking
. I thought I was dreaming.’

Ringlin unbuckled the brown cloak from
around his shoulders, draping it over his master.

‘You turning into a sleepwalker? Had a
friend of mine back in Highcliff who was one o’ them: walked straight off the
jetty and into the harbour. They found his body the next day, but not before the crabs
had nibbled him to pieces.’

He reached around Hector, helping the
Boarlord sit up straight. Ringlin dabbed at the back of the magister’s head, his
fingers coming away bloody from where Hector had struck the flagged roof.

‘Sorry about that, my lord. Small
price to pay, though, eh?’

‘Indeed,’ agreed Hector,
woozily, trying to gather his senses. ‘How did you know I was in
danger?’

‘You passed a chambermaid in your stupor:
she came to alert me. I figured you didn’t sound yourself so came looking. I just
followed the trail of confused servants and it led me here.’

‘Thank you, my friend,’ said
Hector, struggling to his feet, the Boarguard helping him rise. It felt odd that Hector
should consider Ringlin a friend, especially in light of the circumstances that had
forged that friendship initially. The death of Hector’s brother Vincent had
brought Ringlin and another rogue, Ibal, into his service, the two men having worked for
the slain Boarlord. His brother had been killed by Hector’s own
hand – an accident, though that fact counted for little in the eyes of his
twin’s ghostly vile that both haunted and served him. Hector had been trained as a
magister, a healer, but had turned his back on the fairer arts of late, concentrating
his knowledge on the realm of necromancy. After his death, Vincent had returned in the
form of this vengeful vile, a spirit that in turn tormented and comforted Hector. As for
Ringlin and Ibal, what had started out as a distrustful business arrangement had grown
into something more. Whether it was a genuine fondness, Hector was reluctant to say. His
last true friendship hadn’t ended well, he figured, thinking back to Drew.

‘Reckon you had another of those bad
dreams? You’ve been having plenty lately.’

‘This was no dream. I witnessed
everything, Ringlin. I was locked away inside my body, seeing everything as clear as you
before me now. It was as if I was … 
possessed.
As if something had
taken hold of me …’

His words trailed away, his mind leading him
back towards Vincent.

‘Grim words, my lord. You fear
it’s your brother, don’t you?’

Ringlin was no fool. The rangy rogue had
frequently witnessed Hector’s struggles with the Vincent-vile. At first,
Hector’s outbursts must have appeared to the Boarguard as deranged babblings, the
magister arguing with the voices inside his head. In time a pattern had appeared, the
outbursts intensifying whenever Hector channelled his dark magicks, often hissing his
brother’s name in anger. The young Werelord now stood at the height of his powers,
seemingly in total control of the vile. Vincent’s torment had all but ceased by
day, the spirit dutifully obeying Hector’s commands as and when it was called
upon. The nights, however, were another matter.

‘Perhaps,’ said Hector, his
voice lacking conviction. He knew full well that the vile was behind his perilous
sleepwalking. But how far would his brother take things? Why would the vile send him to
the top of the Bone Tower, a footstep away from death?

‘Is he listening to us now?’
asked Ringlin, glancing across Hector’s shoulder as if the vile might suddenly
become visible to him for the first time.

‘He’s always here; he never
leaves me,’ whispered Hector, ‘athough he remains suspiciously silent at
present. Where are you, brother? Why so shy all of a sudden?’

Hector had become used to Vincent’s
presence since his death, haunting his every deed and bending his ear. The banter
had dwindled in the last few months, since Hector had seized Icegarden
from Duke Henrik, attacking the White Bear’s city with his army of Ugri
warriors.

‘Do you finally know your place,
Vincent? Is that it? You realize my power is absolute?’

Ringlin shifted awkwardly. ‘It may not
be wise to antagonize your brother, my lord, especially with your night walks still
unexplained.’

Bless him,
thought Hector,
he
still doesn’t realize that Vincent sees and hears
everything
I
do
.
He may be silent at the moment, but there isn’t a thought passes
through my head that he doesn’t feed upon
.
Is that not so,
brother?
The vile remained ominously silent. Hector shivered, despite
Ringlin’s brown cloak.

‘We shall speak in greater detail
regarding my brother later,’ said the Boarlord, clenching his black fist, the skin
drawing tight over the knuckles. He stared out over the land beyond the city walls.

The beleaguered camp of the Bearlords lay
below, temporary home to Dukes Henrik and Bergan, while further away the fires of the
Catlord forces burned. Hector had once been a friend of Bergan, the Lord of
Brackenholme, but those days were long gone. The Boar had sided with the Lion for a
brief time, before news of the Catlords’ treachery had reached his ears. Lord
Onyx, the Pantherlord who commanded the king’s armies, wanted him dead, having
sent the Werecrow Flint to carry out that very deed. Onyx had seen the power that Hector
wielded, his mastery over the dead, and rightly feared the young Wereboar.

But Hector had chosen his own path now.
Flint and his
Werecrow brethren had become unexpected allies, the Lords
of Riven also fearing treachery at the hands of the Catlords. The Crows had spent too
long as the whipping boys in Lyssian courts. Alongside Hector, the greatest necromancer
the Seven Realms had ever known, they would forge a magnificent new future in which Boar
and Crows ruled over all humans and therians, mastering the mountains and the lands
below.

Hector’s eyes narrowed as he caught
sight of something moving across the sky in the distance, the moonlight catching its
pale wings as it circled the Catlord camp. Ringlin spied it too.

‘Another of the Catlords’
allies,’ said the Boarguard warily. ‘An avianthrope of Bast, no doubt.
Perhaps a Cranelord? Their numbers grow daily, Onyx calling upon the aid of fellow
Werelords from his homeland. I fear the force he’s gathered down there, and
exactly what it’s made up of. What creatures do you suppose he’s mustered to
his side? And how soon before they finally strike out and crush the
Bearlords?’

‘Spring is here,’ replied
Hector. ‘Perhaps Onyx still fears the advantage that Henrik and Bergan have of the
higher ground. The Sturmlanders know the Whitepeaks better than any force, especially an
invading army from the jungle continent. The weather may have become that bit more
tolerable, but even with far greater numbers the Bastians would be fools to rush their
attack. They play a waiting game: they intend to starve the Bearlords and the Sturmish
out of the mountains.’

‘You do realize, my lord, that the
Beast of Bast still wants you dead? You’ve betrayed your oath to Lucas, taking
Icegarden for your own and siding with the Crows. You’ve as good
as signed your own death warrant: once Onyx and his army have vanquished the Bearlords,
surely we’re next.’

‘Next to be vanquished?’ Hector
laughed. ‘And I thought you were a gambling man, Ringlin.’

‘I like a wager, but the odds sound
stacked against us. Just
look
at the size of that army!’

Hector nodded, appreciating the point his
man made. ‘I don’t disagree; that’s a frightful force Onyx and Lucas
have gathered, but you underestimate the hand we hold. Not only do we have the
impregnable walls of Icegarden surrounding us, but we have my Ugri warriors from Tuskun
bolstering our ranks alongside the recently arrived Blackcloaks of Riven. And all the
while their Crowlord masters control the sky. It would be sheer folly to mount an attack
on my city. We truly hold all the aces.’

Even shivering and in shock from his
terrifying sleepwalk, Hector couldn’t help but feel good. After all the trials and
terrors he’d faced, his fortunes seemed to be on the turn. He had an army of
brutal warriors at his disposal and powerful allies in the Crows, who seemed to both
respect
and
fear him. And somewhere, deep within the Strakenberg mines, the
ancient artefact known as the Wyrmstaff remained hidden. With such a staff in his grasp,
who knew what magicks he could unlock? What host he might be able to command? Hector had
prisoners within the cells beneath the palace, prisoners who
knew
where that
staff was. It was only a matter of time before he held it. His enemies could call for
his head all they wanted: he was safe in Icegarden.

‘And what if the word from the Crowlord
is true, my lord? Does that not affect your plans?’

Hector winced, Ringlin’s words like a
knife to his back. He knew full well what his Boarguard referred to. News had reached
Icegarden on Flint’s dark wings, information that Hector was struggling to
comprehend: Drew Ferran, the last of the Grey Wolves of Westland and the first real
friend he had truly known, was alive. A severed hand was all that had been recovered of
the Wolf in the Horselord city of Cape Gala; the remainder of Drew’s body had
never been found. Most believed he’d been eaten alive by the undead horde who had
swarmed the citadel, while a rumour persisted that he’d escaped. That rumour had
gained momentum in recent weeks, strengthened by numerous sightings.