The Deepest Ocean (Eden Series) (34 page)

“What?” Jash didn’t look away from the warship, from the white froth streaming out in its wake.

“If we lure them out into open water, I can sink that ship. Whatever is in its hold, that’ll hurt nothing but the greatshark, if your galleys are far enough from it.”

There
is
a greatshark?
Jash knew then she could never be sure unless she actually saw the creature, but he had a point about the open water.
Daystrider
could not give pursuit; the ship would sink at any moment, and if its captain’s last act was to torch the hold, the galleys had to be out of range. Fury and frustration bit into her gut, because she knew how the other captains would see her actions—she would be running away rather than taking the enemy on in a fight.

Veck fought, and where is he now?
They were almost out of the inlet now, so close to escape, but the battlehorns kept crying out, long howls that brought sweat to her skin.
What’s happening? What do they see?

Yerena’s head rang like a bell, and her face was numb where the captain had struck her. That was good, because her arms felt caught between two millstones slowly grinding her flesh away. It was a relief when the cabin door opened and the Tureans came in. Although she knew they would kill her too, Tureans did not scare her as the coral-creature did.

The three Tureans were all dressed alike, in clothes streaked blue-grey, but she was used to reading certain nuances—in Whetstone, where emotions were buried deeper than cadavers, that skill was a necessity. And in Whetstone, their leader would not have stood out. His face was not so much calm as blank, because he had no emotions to bury.

When the hands released her, he moved to stand before her. “I am Nion Vates.”

Was she supposed to know his name? She said nothing and tried not to think of the torture ahead. She could lock with the shark, putting her mind in a safe place while her body was abused, but enough pain might drag her back into her own flesh.

“Bring her,” Nion said, and the other men grasped her arms to drag her to her feet. They released her at once, their teeth showing at the searing friction of sharkskin that looked smoother than glass.

Then one of them produced an iron chain and locked it around her neck. “You mainlanders are used to this, aren’t you?” He gave it a yank. Yerena went sprawling to the floor, and struggled to stand. “Or do you only like it when the Unity holds the other end?”

Nion walked out and the other Tureans followed him, with her in tow. Although the few sailors they passed seemed too preoccupied to notice her, she was humiliated nonetheless, being led like a dog.
Don’t be absurd.
If that was the least of what they did, she could be grateful.

They unlocked a door and filed in, but the smell inside hit her nostrils before she stepped over the threshold. She stopped motionless as her eyes adapted to the sight within, and the Turean holding her chain jerked it hard, bringing her to her knees. She didn’t feel the impact.

“Hascer,” Nion said. “No need to hurt her.”

Yerena pulled herself to her feet, struggling to hold her gorge. Julean Flaige lay on a table, held down by ropes that crossed his shoulders and knees, but what she couldn’t look away from were his hands, or what was left of them. The table was wide enough for both his wrists to be tied flat by his sides, and blood oozed from his hands to trickle along grooves cut into the wood. The steady drops fell into large scallop shells on the floor.

“What have you done to him?” she said. His eyes were closed, and the slow movement of his chest was the only sign that he lived. It might have been more of a mercy if he had died.

“We’ve put his blood to good use,” Nion said, “to make the sacred wine and as an offering to the sea.”

Yerena turned to him, the chain clinking around her throat. “Please, let him go. I’ll tell you anything you want to—”

“Of course you will. Or he’ll lose more than just a few fingers.”

Begging wouldn’t help—more likely it would make them see her as weak—and Seawatch hadn’t trained her on what to do when bargaining for a man’s life. Other than to stay calm and think, which was Seawatch’s answer for everything.

“You’ll kill him anyway.” She stalled for time as her thoughts ran in a dozen different directions at once. “Won’t you?”

“Do I have any reason not to?” Nion stretched a hand out and another Turean gave him a knife. He laid the edge against Julean’s throat, and Yerena’s vision went so white the room might have been bathed in lightning. She bit down on her tongue until the pain made her focus again and fought to maintain her self-control, though comportment and deportment weren’t likely to hold fast if she had to watch a man being murdered.

“What do you want?” she said. Julean’s eyes were half-lidded now, as though he felt the steel against his throat but didn’t have the strength to react to it.

“What only the gods can give us. Are you the gift?”

“Gift?” She wasn’t hearing right. In the closed reeking room, stifling hot and baked hotter by the sunlight from the window, her senses reeled. A fly or two thrummed over the table.

“The goddess of the sea will send us a woman in whom her powers will be manifest. Through her mouth all the waters of the world will flood to drown our enemies.”

Yerena had been silent many times in her life as a result of Seawatch training, but it was the first time she had been struck speechless. All she could think was that he was mad, and she had no idea how to deal with a lunatic. If she pretended to be a woman sent by his goddess, would he expect her to prove it by causing a tidal wave then and there? Or would the other Tureans—because surely they couldn’t all be insane—see through the lie and kill her?

The man holding the other end of the chain shook his head. “She hasn’t even eaten the godsbread, Nion. Or drunk the wine.”

“She will, if she is the one.”

Yerena remembered him saying they had made the wine with blood, and she had to fight down another wave of nausea.
One step at a time
. If they wanted her to eat their food—which hopefully hadn’t been laced with mind-affecting drugs—she could do so. She’d faced enough difficult tasks in the past, so what was one more?

“I will,” she said, “if you let him go.”

Nion changed his hold on the knife so his fingers were wrapped around the hilt. “If you are our gift, you feel nothing for our enemies. If you are an avatar of the gods themselves, the living or dying of common flesh could not concern you.”

That’s where you’re wrong
. Common flesh? Her shark was even more common—it was an animal, worth less in coin than a cow in any market—yet it mattered more to her than even the Unity, more than anyone else on Eden except for Darok. Whether or not the Turean who faced her was insane, she wouldn’t trade her caring for common flesh for any amount of power.

“I want your answer.” Nion lifted the dagger over Julean’s chest. Julean’s eyes were still half-open, and they swiveled in her direction, but he gave no other indication that he noticed what was happening. She opened her mouth to speak, though her mind was blank and she didn’t know what she was going to say.

Hascer stood beside her at the side of the sacrificial table, gripping the end of her chain, but abruptly he reached forward, eyes bright with magpie interest. Something gleamed against the damp, filthy cloth at Julean’s hip, a delicate chain that had spilled from his pocket, and Hascer plucked the silver strand away. It came up dangling a metallic drop that seemed to shine with an inner light, swaying like a pendulum. Nion glanced at it too.

Julean’s eyes opened fully and he swept a leg sideways at Hascer. There was little force in the kick—he had no leverage, let alone strength—but the Turean jerked back. Yerena grabbed the links of her chain and yanked it away, recoiling as the other end slipped free.

Nion’s head turned and Yerena dropped to the floor. She came back up with a shell bowl in her hand, warm fluid slopping over her fingers, and she flung the contents in his face.

He hissed in fury and brought the dagger down blindly. Yerena heard Julean’s hoarse groan—a sound torn from a throat too raw to scream—but she had no time to see how badly he had been hurt before the other two Tureans drew their blades. The sacrificial table was between her and one man, but Hascer was well within reach. He slashed at her neck.

The curved blade, sharp and heavy enough to split wood, struck the iron chain wrapped around her throat and slid off it with a thin metallic shriek. Yerena reeled with the impact, her shoulder colliding painfully with the wall, but she had already closed a hand around the chain, just where it hung against her belly. She lashed the other end out and it whipped across the bridge of Hascer’s nose.

As he staggered back, a cry rang out from above. “
Back water
,” someone screamed in the distance, “
get us away!
” The other Turean glanced at the open window, but Nion’s eyes burned in a red mask as he wrenched his dagger free from Julean’s shoulder.
Unity help me,
Yerena thought desperately.

The galley lurched beneath them as a hundred oars plunged into the sea and dug through the waves. Nion’s feet slipped on boards wet with blood and he sprawled on the floor. Yerena turned at once, bracing her shoulders against the wall. She brought one leg up and drove the sole of her foot against the edge of the heavy sacrificial table with all her strength.

The muscles in her thigh wrenched agonizingly and sinews burned like white-hot wires, but the table rocked, teetering on two legs. Then Julean rolled to the side opposite her as best he could. The table toppled, and its other edge came down on Nion’s back as he struggled to rise.

Bone crunched audibly. Yerena’s leg started to fold under her—it couldn’t bear her weight—and she dug her fingernails into the wall behind her to keep standing. If the other two Tureans came at her, one on each side, they could cut her down in seconds. Even the thick sharkskin of her suit wouldn’t hold up against their machete-like blades.

They were staring down at Nion, though, horror in their eyes, and she knew it was her one chance.

“Get out,” she said quietly, but all the authority Seawatch had taught her was in her voice, all of the confidence and composure she had to feel when she controlled one of the mightiest predators of the sea. “Get out and take him with you.”

One Turean slammed his cutlass back into its scabbard and retreated towards the door, but Hascer hesitated. He was the one who had fastened the chain around her neck, and a livid mark stood out on his face where it had struck him.

“Bitch,” he said, and the cutlass blurred in a two-handed chop, aimed at her waist and hard enough to cut her in two. She saw it coming and tried to sidestep, but her injured leg gave way. She went down and the blade missed the top of her head by a fingerspan, biting into the wall instead. Someone was whimpering in pain, but the scream from the deck above was louder.

“
Away!
” Distant though the voice was, the ring of hysteria in it was unmistakable.

“Get out!” Yerena shouted with all the force she could muster, and startled herself with the volume of her voice. The other Turean turned and ran to the door, but Hascer wrenched his cutlass free and threw it at her.

Yerena flung her arm up. The blade struck her a glancing blow that slashed through sharkskin and flesh alike, but Hascer didn’t bother to seize the advantage as he hurried to Nion’s side. The strike had been vicious and petulant at once. He dragged the table away.

Still bound to it, Julean didn’t make a sound and Yerena could only hope he was unconscious. Blood ran hotly between her skin and the watersuit’s sleeve as Hascer gathered up Nion’s limp body and hurried from the room without a backward glance.

Exhaustion swept over her, pulling her down more strongly than quicksand, but she struggled up. Julean, she had to free Julean, and the two of them had to leave the galley. Dragging one near-useless leg, she limped to the other side of the table and crumpled to her knees.

The injury to her arm was not much more than a shallow slice, but Nion had plunged his dagger hilt-deep into Julean’s shoulder. She decided against drawing it out, because he would probably die from the blood loss if she did so. He lay limply in his bonds, eyes half-closed and mouth slack as she sawed through the ropes, ignoring the commotion above decks.

The ropes gave way, and his body sagged to the bloodied floor, lying motionless. Yerena slapped his face lightly, but there was no response. His skin burned with fever. She said his name in a voice sharpened with fear before lurching to her feet. First she had to bolt the door and then she could get him awake.

The door swung open with a creak and Quenlin Fench stepped in. “Yerena Fin Caller,” he said with the formality taught in Whetstone.

She responded just as reflexively. “Kovir—”

“I don’t go by that name any longer.” He smiled, slipping hooked thumbs into his belt. “I hoped you would be here. Your Denalait ship is so much driftwood and your shark couldn’t fight off a snapping turtle. I’ve won.”

Darok shoved one end of the oar beneath the boulder and leaned hard on the other end, teeth gritted. The stone had dropped like a meteor on the deck. He didn’t know how many of his men it had killed, but one of them might be saved. Rojer’s leg was trapped beneath the great granite mass and if it could just—be—levered—away—