The Cradle of Ice (Moonfall #2)

Chapter 44

44

F ROM THE DECK of the barge, Nyx watched as the last of the wrapped bodies was lowered over a skiff’s rail and dropped gently into the water. Weighted by stones, it sank quickly away. She tried to follow its passage, but the form quickly vanished.

She leaned farther out, searching dark depths below for any sign of the Oshkapeers, for any telltale glow of bridle-song or other energy.

Nothing…

Worried, she forced her fingers to relax their grip on the rail. She gazed out at the steam-fogged waters. The hiss and bubble of boiling seas whispered over the waves. The heat stippled her skin with droplets. The air smelled of sulfurous brimstan, which turned her stomach, adding to her trepidation.

Around her, the lamenting elegy of the mourners had faded to a few voices. It was accompanied by the soft sobbing from the inconsolable. Otherwise, all others had fallen into a somber silence. Even those on the raft clustered in quiet groups, hanging on one another.

During the burial, she had noted the baleful glances cast her way, both from the skiffs and the deck of the barge. It seemed—despite Reef Farer’s best intentions—their presence among the bereaved, sharing their grief, was doing little to alleviate the smoldering resentment.

It confirmed Nyx’s earlier assessment.

We don’t belong here.

Still, she knew they would have to return again. She searched past the stern of the barge, toward the fiery glow in the mists that marked the distant town of Kefta. Daal had stayed behind and moored his skiff there, allowing Neffa and his other orkso to rest for a time.

A loud clang of a bell made her jump. She turned to where the Reef Farer stood at the prow before a large stone bell. He struck it again with a small hammer, then a third time. The sound reverberated in her chest. She rubbed her ribs to warm it away.

“It appears we’re heading back,” Graylin said, stepping closer to her.

He was proven right when their barge slowly swung around, pulled by the six orksos. The other skiffs followed suit, each turning like a needle in a compass.

As the flotilla headed back to Kefta, Graylin kept his gaze on the burial site. The hot mists had dampened his shirt to his chest, wetting his hair to his scalp.

“Did you sense any presence of the Dreamers?” he whispered.

“No, but I dared not probe with bridle-song. Not amidst all the grief.”

She had also held off for another reason. Ularia kept looking their way with narrowed eyes, her expression darkly curious. Nyx had sensed that the woman would pounce upon them at any misstep, any show of power.

Graylin turned to Shiya. “Do you sense anything?”

She shook her head. “But water muffles sound. Especially at these depths. It would take great strength for any song to reach the surface.”

Graylin glanced at Meryk, who stood off to the side with Vikas, clearly not wanting his words to be heard by Daal’s father. “If neither of you senses anything, maybe there’s nothing down there. We’ll risk everything by venturing out here again.”

Nyx might have succumbed to such reasoning, except for one detail. Daal. He had experienced something in the depths of these waters, something that had scarred and terrified him.

“The Dreamers are down there,” Nyx insisted. “I don’t know what they are, but they abide below.”

Waiting for us.

D AAL PACED A small circle at the end of a stone pier. He had wended his skiff through the moored and anchored boats of Kefta’s bay and found an open spot to tether up.

Nearby, Neffa and Mattis floated in their harnesses. He had fed them fistfuls of thumb-sized minwins. Still, they remained hungry, slashing the waves with their horns, but he didn’t want them to bloat. They had leagues to go before the day was over.

He stopped at the end of the pier and chuffed softly to the two orksos, apologizing for keeping them tied up. Neffa answered with a weary puff of steam from her nostrils.

It won’t be much longer, he promised her.

He knew the beasts’ agitation was not solely due to hunger and impatience. The two sensed his own anxiety. Or maybe Neffa remembered when last they’d plied the deep waters off Kefta’s shores.

Half a year ago.

The memory overwhelmed him, drawing him back.

He and his father had joined an armada of skiffs headed from Iskar to the seas surrounding the island. They came to hunt the massive keftas, the namesake of the town. Such beasts grew to the size of barges, requiring the coordination of many to secure one.

Even now, he flashed to waves washed red, a kefta fighting hard, speared and thrashing. Its flanks glowed and flickered in stripes of panic. Standing next to his father, he had balked with his own spear, a hesitation that had allowed the kefta to lift its tail and smash their skiff, breaking it apart.

He was thrown far, dumped deep into the sea. When he surfaced, the furious fight had moved on. Panicked, he swam toward the battle, only to be blocked by fins rising around them. A shiver of Kell sharks had been drawn by the blood.

In that moment, he knew his death had come, even accepted it.

Then Neffa burst under him, still tangled in the shreds of the skiff’s broken harness. She caught him on her back. He barely had time to snatch hold of the leather yoke before she buried her horn into the waves and dove deep, sweeping tail and wings to escape.

They were chased by the sharks, driven farther from the other skiffs. More hunters closed upon them, attracted to the thrashing. Daal didn’t try to guide Neffa, trusting in her instincts. She slashed at any threat, bloodying the waters, leaving a trail.

Finally, Neffa burst high out of the water. Daal lost his grip, too tired to hold on. He tumbled off her back, but his ankle tangled in a loop of leather. As she crashed back into the waves, she dragged him with her, driving ever deeper, into dark waters, where light never reached. Still, the hunters closed upon them.

Despite the pressure stabbing his ears, he heard Neffa’s distressed cries calling to other orksos for help. The sound echoed in his skull, shook his ribs. He held out for as long as he could, clamping his lips and trapping his breath.

Then he could last no longer.

He used the last of his air to add his voice to hers, screaming in the darkness for rescue. As his lungs gave out and water flooded into him, something finally answered their call.

But it was not any orkso.

The memory darkened his sight even now. He rubbed his eyes, realizing the dimming light had not been conjured by his recollection of that day.

Eventide had fallen.

Overhead, the panoply of hues across the ice had faded to dim swaths of blue. He blinked to readjust his sight. As he did, the distant dark fog brightened over the waters, flickering with flames.

It was the returning flotilla.

Daal took a breath, casting aside the shadows of that terrifying day. At last, his vigil had ended. The waiting was over.

Now comes the hard part.

T WO BELLS AFTER arriving at Kefta, Nyx still sat at an open-air stone table. She ignored the long platter at its center, piled high with steamed knots of some starchy tuber, fried fish, boiled eels, and oil-blanched weed.

She had no appetite, anxiety souring her stomach.

Instead, she took in her surroundings. The tribute grounds proved to be an interconnecting warren of wide streets, small squares, and more intimate courtyards. Walls, terraces, and balconies were all strung with the same white-blossoming strands of a sea plant that had adorned the barge’s rail. Hundreds of firepots and lanterns held back the gloom of eventide—if not the misery of those around her.

That was better assuaged with the free flow of sweet wine. Casks of ale formed pyramids at every corner. As throats loosened, tales were shared of those who had passed. Music echoed confoundedly throughout the labyrinth, rising from different stands of minstrels and wandering bards. They competed against one another in a discordant din.

Nyx’s head throbbed from the clamor and tumult.

Across the table, Daal looked no better. His face remained drained of color. He sipped at a cup of wine, but it was doubtful any passed his lips. It was the same cup his father had forced into his hands at the start of the feast.

Meryk stood across the small square, leaning on Vikas’s shoulder, talking into her ear. The quartermaster’s assignment was to draw off Daal’s father, get him well soused, to keep him distracted enough not to realize they had left. From the way he weaved when he straightened, Vikas had succeeded admirably. From here, she would stay behind with Meryk, making sure he grew none the wiser.

A hand gripped Nyx’s shoulder, making her flinch.

“It’s time,” Graylin said, nodding over to Daal.

She stood and glanced around. “The Reef Farer and his consort?”

Graylin had gone off to spy on them in a neighboring plaza, where dignitaries from each village had gathered. “They are well occupied and deep into their cups. At least, Berent is. Ularia is practically holding him upright in his chair.”

Daal came around the table, pulling up the hood of his oilskin slicker. He had supplied the same to all of them. Even Shiya stood in the shadows, decked from head to toe, her cloak masking her features. The bronze woman had donned it by the docks shortly after stepping off the barge, allowing their group to disappear within the throngs crowding the grounds.

“Let’s go,” Daal said, and led them off.

They hurried down dark alleys and side streets, avoiding the growing exuberance where—at least for this one night—grief was being drowned away. The four of them reached the plaza that fronted the bay. It was mostly empty. A few drunken stragglers wandered the edges, arms around each other’s shoulders. Someone heaved in a corner, while two mates laughed bawdily nearby.

“My skiff this way,” Daal said, and hurried toward one of the stone piers.

He only got a few steps before figures appeared ahead, shedding from the shadows. Three men blocked their way, another two appeared behind Nyx and the others. The group came armed with cudgels and knives.

Across the plaza, the stragglers noted the confrontation and hurried off. They were apparently sober enough to sense the bloodshed to come and wanted no part of it. Even the sick man had been dragged off by his friends.

With no eyes upon them, the stockiest of the group pushed forward to confront Daal. He slapped a hooked gaff into his calloused palm. He spat as much as spoke, reeking of sour ale. “Rel’n dar nare Noor?” He waved his gaff to encompass all of them. “Nee Noor wrench ka!”

Daal held up his palms, trying to placate the angry group. “Bakna, nee wrench pa’kan.”

Clearly, Daal had recognized the Panthean. The group must be fellow villagers from Iskar who had come to seek vengeance, or at least make their group suffer as much as the Crèche had.

Daal spoke rapidly, seeking any means to talk them free.

Before he got far, the hard ring of a bell sounded behind Nyx. She turned to see one of the assailants stumble away from Shiya. Her hood had been knocked askew. A wooden cudgel fell from the man’s stunned grip. Shiya lunged out and snatched the assailant’s neck. Bronze fingers closed around his throat and lifted him off his feet. He flailed in her grip.

Graylin pulled his sword free, flashing the bright steel.

The show of strength succeeded where Daal’s diplomacy had failed. The one called Bakna stepped away, holding his gaff wide, plainly relinquishing the field.

Nyx let out a breath, one she hadn’t known she was holding.

But it was not over.

Graylin sprang forward. In a blur of cloak and steel, he slashed Bakna’s throat and continued past the man. He stopped between the other two and stabbed his sword into a chest. As he yanked it free, he flipped the sword’s hilt in his palm and drove the blade under his own arm to impale the other man.

Before either could more than mewl or gasp, Graylin spun on a toe, with his steel held wide. Both throats were cut deep, silencing any cry.

In that stunned moment, bone crunched behind Nyx. She ducked and turned. Shiya tossed her strangled man aside and closed on the other, who tried to flee. But no one could outrun such a being. Shiya reached him in a breath and snapped the man’s neck.

Graylin dropped to a knee before Nyx and Daal. His eyes flashed with the same cold steel of his blade. “We need to make these bodies vanish.”

“Wh… Why did you…” Daal stammered. “Bakna was giving up.”

Even Nyx was stunned by the cold-blooded slaughter.

Graylin gripped both their shoulders. “Daal, did you not say it was death to be caught trespassing upon the Dreamers? If so, there can be no witnesses to our departure.”

Daal unlocked his neck enough to nod.

Graylin turned to Nyx. “And what we attempt now? Is it worth that price?” He pointed to the bodies.

Nyx swallowed and nodded, too.

Graylin stood, addressing them all. “We can’t let word of us leaving Kefta reach the wrong ears.” He faced Shiya, who joined them with her two bodies in tow. “Can you ensure no one else saw what happened?”

She searched around. “Some had fled.”

Nyx pictured the drunken lot.

“Did any of them linger?” Graylin asked. “Stay to witness what transpired?”

Shiya’s lids lowered slightly. A hum built in her throat, warming her neck. She stoked it brighter—then cast out a glowing wave of bridle-song. It swept the plaza and traveled up streets and alleyways and through open windows. Then, in the next breath, it rebounded back to its source.

As it did, Daal ducked from it.

Nyx remembered performing something similar in the hold of the Sparrowhawk, using an echo of her bridle-song to strip the shadows and reveal all that was hidden, including life in all its myriad forms.

“No one else is nearby,” Shiya confirmed.

Graylin nodded and grabbed the arms of two of the men, but that was all he could manage. “Daal and Nyx, you must take the other.”

“Take them where?” Nyx asked with a shudder, still stunned by the sudden brutality, still struggling with the cold necessity of this act.

Yet, she also knew she must eventually grow this callous. From here, the path forward would only grow harder. And beyond any doubt…

More deaths will follow.

Daal had collected himself enough to point toward the stone pier. “My skiff. Large enough for all. The seas will take the dead, whether inked or not.”

Nyx bent down and grabbed a slack arm.

Let’s pray that does not include us.