Chapter 74
74
R HAIF WOKE INTO chaos. His head throbbed with each strained blink as he fought to keep his lids open. One eye went blind. He swiped at it in a panic, only to smear away blood and clear his vision—which still swam wildly.
The world was muffled, as if he were hearing everything underwater. He jerked higher, thinking he was drowning, only to realize his head had been half-submerged. He splashed up with a gasp. The muting cleared from his ears, replaced with a cacophony of screams, crying, howling, and a frantic pleading for help.
The world continued to spin, flaring brighter, then dimming. Shapes danced in and out of focus. Then hands grabbed him and yanked him higher.
“Hala nee ya nestala wenn!” was shouted into his ear.
He blinked a few more times, trying to force the world back into its proper place, tasting blood on his tongue. “Wha… What…?” A familiar face swam into focus. “Floraan…”
She leaned closer, searching his face as if she were reading a book. She seemed satisfied with the content and drew back, pulling him with her.
“You must help us,” she gasped. “Now!”
He swallowed down more blood, wiped his eye, took another breath to search around him. Then he remembered.
The crash…
He let Floraan lift him half up, then managed the rest himself. Sloshing for balance, he surveyed the wreck of the sailraft. Water climbed to his knees. Underfoot was a hazard of broken boards. The roof had crushed lower. The stern door had torn away, replaced with the bulk of the stern forge that had shoved up from below. Seawater steamed and hissed from its overheated bulk. Beyond, shreds of the gasbag floated in the lapping tide.
Floraan had hold of Rhaif’s hand and tugged him the other way, toward the bow. He turned and stumbled after her.
Kalder hulked to one side, one ear hanging low, ripped by something sharp. The vargr growled, still protecting the youngest of them. Henna clung to his ruff with both fists. Her eyes were huge, but her fear of his savagery had been replaced with a need for the same fierceness. She must have innately sensed that place of security.
“Before we crashed,” Floraan wheezed out as she pushed past the vargr, “Kalder shoved me, wrapped around Henna. Saved her.”
Only now did Rhaif notice the woman was cradling a limb close to her belly, her forearm crooked.
He tried to get her to stop. “You’re hurt…”
“It can wait.” She continued to the bow. “This can’t.”
Rhaif followed her to the front. As she stepped aside, it took Rhaif a moment to make sense of the sight. Then his heart pounded.
Fenn sat waist-deep in the water. His brow had been sliced open, showing bone through the flow of blood. But he was not the one imperiled. His right shoulder held Brayl’s head and upper body out of the water.
“Help us,” the navigator rasped.
Even in the shadows, Brayl’s face was a ghastly white, her eyes tight with pain. Her breathing panted through strained, bloodless lips. She could not move. A spar of draft-iron from the balloon rigging pierced her chest, pinning her in place.
“I can’t get it to move,” Fenn said, both hands tight to the bar. “Not on my own.”
Rhaif hurried over. He braced a leg to either side of Brayl’s submerged waist and grabbed hold of the draft-iron bar above Fenn’s hands. “You push. I’ll pull.”
Together they fought the spar, straining and cursing. They changed their grip, wrestled it all directions, but to no avail. The spear of iron—thick as his wrist—would not budge. It was lodged up top by the crush of the roof and impaled below, maybe as far down as the seabed.
Floraan recognized the truth. “We need more men. And tools.”
Rhaif backed a step, breathing hard. “Where?”
Floraan looked out the stern, to where a war was being waged, but it was no longer just the Hálendiian butchers. The sharp cries of the raash’ke cut through the bellows and screams, undercut by the low booms of cannons. The battle sounded distant, down the beach to the left, centered around one target.
“Iskar,” Rhaif said.
Floraan looked at him, clearly knowing what she had to ask but afraid to voice it.
“Someone needs to go over there and fetch help,” he finished for her.
Rhaif turned with a wince toward Brayl. Agony pinched her eyes. Fresh crimson flecked the corners of her lips. More blood stained the waters dark, spreading wider with each hard breath. Brayl glared through her pain and shook her head, but she didn’t have the breath to curse, to tell him not to bother. She was a pirate’s daughter. She knew death was near.
“Where would I even look for help in Iskar?” Rhaif asked.
“If there are any survivors, they’ll be holed up in one of our mag’nees shelters, protecting themselves from the raash’ke’s cries. I can tell you where to find such places.”
He had heard the stories of the attack a few days ago. He had inspected a few of those lodestone chambers himself.
For this very reason—in case there was another attack.
“I can find them,” he said.
“Go first to our house,” Floraan warned. She cupped a hand over an ear. “I have two shield-helms in a cupboard. I gathered them after the last time. From the dead who no longer had use of them.”
Clearly, she had taken extra precautions, too.
Fenn shifted higher. “If there are two helms, then I should go with Rhaif.”
Rhaif wanted to refuse. Prior to all of this, he had been a thief in Llyra’s guild. He knew how to skulk and move unseen. But any good thief could always use another set of eyes, especially with dangers on the ground and in the air.
“Henna and I can see to Brayl,” Floraan said. “And considering the dangers out there, take Kalder, too.”
Rhaif pictured the vargr tearing into the guardsmen. Still, he balked at leaving two women and a girl unprotected in a crashed sailraft. “There are dangers in these waters, too.”
“Nothing I can’t handle in these shallows. All the noise will keep the worst away. Even the raash’ke are unlikely to bother us this far out.” She waved Fenn up, ready to take his place. “All of you, go.”
Rhaif took a breath and nodded. He glanced at Brayl one last time. She still glared but managed a hoarse curse. He took it as a thank-you. He headed for the broken stern and the cooling ruins of the forge. He collected Kalder on the way out—or tried to. The vargr was reluctant to leave Henna’s side, and for the girl, that feeling was clearly mutual.
Floraan helped by calling Henna to her side. She then addressed Kalder with the scolding voice of a mother toward a recalcitrant child. “Tak ga, Kalder. Tak ga nya.”
The vargr curled a lip at her, then hung his head and swung to follow Rhaif.
Fenn waded after them, binding his gashed forehead with a scrap of gasbag sailcloth.
Floraan called after them. She had briefly inspected Brayl as she took Fenn’s place. “Wait! In that same cupboard, there’s a healer’s satchel. I have elixirs to stem bleeding and pain. If you can, bring that back, too.”
Rhaif turned to her. “While we’re at it, how about a couple bottles of sweet wine?”
She smiled at him. “If it’s not too much of a bother.”
He grinned back at her, then skirted around the forge. He led the others to the stern but held them at the threshold. The sailraft had crashed into waist-high shallows. Using every bit of skill and luck she could muster, Brayl had gotten them over the sea, instead of hitting the beach. Even this meager cushion of water likely saved their lives.
Rhaif glanced at Fenn, who nodded.
We owe it to her to take this risk.
Still…
The beach ahead was cloaked in smoke from the blasts and fires. The heavy pall had blown against the towering ice cliffs and rolled to either side. It had also swallowed Iskar. The village was only a brighter glow within the dark fog.
Screams and cannon fire echoed out. Near Iskar’s docks, one of the enemy swyftships had lowered in front of the village’s plaza. Its forges steamed but it had gone dark, as if trying to hide from the horde in the skies.
And with good reason.
A slipfoil sped over that smoke bank, wobbling uncontrolled, pursued by a winged shadow. The tiny ship slammed into the cliff, crushing its narrowed nose, then exploding into a fireball. Dark wings swept away the wreckage.
Lower down, a small bonfire lit the edge of the beach between them and the village. It marked another crashed sailraft, one that hadn’t had Brayl manning its wheel and hadn’t emptied its flashburn tanks. Bodies washed back and forth in the surf.
That could’ve been us.
Honoring the debt owed, Rhaif headed out. He waded through the shallows, hopping with his bad leg. He kept low and aimed for the cover of the smoke-shrouded beach. Fenn flanked one side. Kalder splashed along the other.
Rhaif watched the skies. No other sailrafts or slipfoils plied the mists or sped overhead with flaming forges.
The air had become the dominion of the raash’ke.
Off in the distance, one last vessel challenged that authority. The second enemy swyftship fired its cannons at the flock of raash’ke haranguing it. But the shot was wild, desperate. Its gasbag had been shredded down to a few baffles. It hung crooked in the sky. Dark shadows fluttered across its deck. Screams and cries echoed eerily over the water.
More raash’ke dove toward it, drawn by this sole torch in the sky.
Tinier black specks tried to wing away, abandoning the foundering ship.
Skrycrows…
But the raash’ke sped through them, nabbing them up. It seemed nothing was allowed passage through their skies.
Then—as if letting out one last gasp—one of the ship’s forges exploded, bumping the stern high. The fireball chased the raash’ke back for a hot breath, but as the blast rolled away skyward, the horde fell heavily back upon the ship. The last of the balloon was shredded. The back quarter of the ship was on fire. It spun a final wild turn, then crashed toward the sea, waving the shreds of its balloon in a trail of flames.
It hit hard, shattering across the water.
Still, the wreckage continued to burn, becoming a floating pyre to the dead.
Rhaif reached the shore and hurried into the smoke, followed by Fenn and Kalder. They ducked into the pall—and not a moment too soon. With the skies cleared of targets, the horde swept the mists and circled toward the glow of Iskar.
Rhaif cast one last glance at the ruins of their raft. It sat dark in the waters, just another shoal in this sea. He prayed it remained hidden and ignored.
“Let’s go,” Rhaif urged the others—and himself.
Before it’s too late.
R HAIF HOBBLED AND limped the last of the way, staying low in the smoky pall. His leg was on fire, his head pounded, and his lungs burned. He clutched a wet scrap of sailcloth over his mouth and nose, courtesy of the resourceful Fenn, who had gathered the bits before abandoning the sailraft and soaked them in the sea.
Rhaif wanted to curse the choking smoke, but it had kept them well covered. The only sign of the raash’ke was the occasional stirring of the black pall as their wings swept overhead. For now, the horde concentrated on the village, blanketing over the top, becoming a swirling black tempest lit from below. Even at a distance, their screams ate at his ears. Their louder bursts dizzied him.
Still, they’d made it—many others had not. While trekking across the beach, they had skirted around broken bodies, both villagers and Hálendiians. They also took a wide berth past the burning pyre of the crashed sailraft at the edge of the sea. Its flames briefly revealed a horrific sight. A raash’ke scrabbled out of its hold, dragging a screaming body, a survivor. Even still, the man tried to claw his way back into the flames, determined to burn to death versus being eaten alive. He lost that battle. The slavering crunch of bones chased their group farther into the smoke.
Rhaif slowed as they neared Iskar, wary, inspecting the way ahead. The village glowed fiery through the smoke. Its walls and outermost homes could be discerned through the haze. Firepots still flickered throughout.
He waved toward the Noorish corner of the village, where there were fewer flames—and hopefully fewer eyes. Fenn kept close as they skirted into the village’s outskirts. Kalder panted heavily, slinking low.
Occasional screams burst across its streets. Small hand-bombs exploded with sharp blasts. A bevy of crossbows twanged somewhere. Still, the raash’ke continued their piercing cries that ate through skulls and swooned the senses. Rhaif winced as they edged along the periphery of that strident dissonance. His feet wobbled, and his vision pinched from the noise. He rounded the last curve of the street, dragging a hand along a wall to keep upright.
Fenn gasped next to him and pointed. “There…”
Rhaif spotted the twin firepots that flanked a familiar doorway. The flames danced merrily, as if welcoming them back. But Floraan’s home—like all of Iskar—had not been spared. Its reed roof smoldered with embers and danced with flames. Still, they stumbled inside. Smoke filled the rafters. The heat was a stone oven.
Rhaif rushed to the cupboard near the home’s hearth. He yanked open the doors and rummaged through its contents. He quickly found the shield-helms with their lodestone-filled earpieces. He shoved one at Fenn’s chest. The navigator donned it, his eyes closing with relief. Rhaif did the same. The world mercifully muffled. His head cleared of its dizzying haze in a few breaths, though he could still feel those cries itching across his scalp.
Rhaif searched and found a satchel that clinked with small jars and bottles. This had to be the healer’s bag that Floraan had mentioned. He passed it to Fenn, who clutched it to his belly. The navigator’s face was pallid—at least what could be seen of it. Blood covered most of his face, running from under the binding across his gashed brow.
Kalder panted heavily, hoarsely. There had been no damp covering for his nose and mouth. The vargr’s eyes squinted against those awful cries.
Rhaif had already made a decision while crossing the beach. He voiced it now. “Fenn, get that satchel to Floraan. It’s Brayl’s best chance. I’ll look for some men and come as quickly as I can.”
“But—”
“No. You’re in no shape. Neither is Kalder. Take him with you. I must head deeper into the village. He’ll do me no good slumped and passed out from those cries. He can at least help protect you on the way back.”
Fenn looked ready to argue, but the navigator was no fool. He exhaled hard and nodded.
They set off again, ready to separate. Back on the street, Kalder tried to follow Rhaif, but he shouldered the vargr toward Fenn. “You go with him, you big oaf.”
Kalder glared at Fenn, then rumbled back at Rhaif, showing a glint of teeth. The vargr’s eyes glowed fiery. Rhaif didn’t know if Kalder wanted to keep close out of loyalty or to stay in the village and search for his missing pack members, Graylin and Nyx.
Or maybe he just doesn’t like Fenn.
Still, Rhaif knew someone the vargr did like.
“Henna needs you, Kalder.” He pointed in the direction of the abandoned raft. “Go to Henna.”
Those fiery eyes narrowed, then looked off into the smoke.
“That’s right. Go to Henna.”
With a sharper growl, Kalder turned toward Fenn.
“I’ll get him there,” Fenn promised, hugging the satchel. “But make haste yourself.”
Rhaif pictured the blood pooling through the water around Brayl. “I will do my best.”
Fenn nodded and took off, drawing Kalder with him.
As they vanished around a corner, Rhaif headed the other way. He seated the helm’s earpieces more firmly in place. Ahead, a firepot lay on its side, spilling a river of flaming flitch. He leaped over it and ducked into the smoky pall.
Time to be a thief in the dark.
A LIFE TIME LATER— or it felt that way—Rhaif climbed out of the depths of another empty mag’nees shelter. He had already inspected two others.
Where is everyone?
By now, the village had gone ominously silent. Even the raash’ke had stopped their dreadful keening and had begun a silent hunt. All that remained in the streets were bodies, intact or torn. Occasional shouts or screams echoed, but they were so rare that they made him flinch each time.
Off by the water, a bomb blasted, followed by angry bellows.
Rhaif winced.
Someone’s still fighting.
He inspected the street outside and slipped into the smokiest shadows along one side. He edged down the wall. He had covered his face and arms with oily ash to hide any shine from his skin. He carried a bag over a shoulder, holding all that he had managed to pilfer from homes and structures.
Along his route, he had taken advantage of every bit of cover, ducking into doorways and out back windows, avoiding the open streets as much as possible. He gathered what he needed along the way, fabricating on the fly.
Llyra had drilled into all of her thieves the cornerstones of their vocation: flexibility, ingenuity, resourcefulness. Few schemes ever went as planned. One had to be prepared for the unexpected.
Still, above and beyond all that was one foundational imperative.
Don’t get caught.
To that end, Rhaif aimed for a sprawling dark villa. He felt too exposed on the street. He rushed toward its door, only to have its roof, two stories above, explode forth with a sweep of huge black wings. He backpedaled as a massive raash’ke burst from its roost inside the home. A scream trailed in its wake.
Rhaif gaped as an armored stallion was ripped out of its hiding place. Its broken neck jostled loosely as the raash’ke swung away with its prize. But it wasn’t just the horse. From the saddle’s stirrup, a knight hung, flailing his arms, his steel-clad ankle twisted in the leather. He wailed and thrashed to no avail. As the raash’ke flew off, bits of loose armor rained down in its wake, leaving a trail of ghastly clanging.
The doleful ringing only reinforced Llyra’s dictate.
Don’t get caught.
Rhaif hurried through the empty streets, ducking away where he could. Even muffled by the helm, his ears remained sharp. So, he heard the voices as he neared a last corner. He stopped and peeked around the bend into the sprawl of Iskar’s open plaza.
Rhaif had hoped he would not have to come here. But he knew of no other lodestone shelters.
Just this last one.
Still, he hadn’t been the only one to seek out this spot. He heard an angry outburst, explosively loud in the quiet. He recognized the timbre of that outrage.
Darant…
The pirate cursed hotly.
Rhaif wanted to rush over and dive into the shelter. But the plaza was too exposed. Raash’ke swirled and spun high above. They were mostly fixated on the enemy’s beached swyftship. Its balloon had been ripped down. Fabric draped over its deck and one side of the hull. With its forges cold and the ship grounded, the horde held back, more guarding it than threatening it.
For now, the bats ignored those gathered in the shelter, likely having recognized the futility of reaching the prey inside. Outside the chamber, the bomb-blasted bodies and broken wings of three raash’ke gave testament to that pointlessness.
Rhaif shifted back, taking a deep breath, knowing he had to get closer, but he knew the risk of such an endeavor, especially with the thieves’ maxim burning in his head.
Don’t get caught.
As he stepped back, his heel hit a large rock, kicking it away. But it was no stone. A head, torn from its body, rolled twice, then stopped, dead eyes staring up. A circlet dislodged from its crown and spun farther, bumping across its imbedded gemstones, then toppling sideways.
Rhaif cringed, horror-struck, recognizing what lay at his toes.
The head of the Reef Farer.
He gulped down his panic and peered around the corner. He pictured Berent and his consort, Ularia. The last time he had seen their faces was back at the ice cave. When the raash’ke attacked, they must have fled for better protection.
One of them didn’t make it.
A sharp voice cracked through his shock.
“He knows where the others went,” Ularia snapped darkly. “His companions wouldn’t have left without letting this one know. Kill another of his crew and his tongue will loosen.”
“Who next?” a gruff voice demanded, the accent Hálendiian. “Who should we choose?”
Rhaif formed a fist, knowing what he had to do. With a grimace, he dashed low around the corner. He needed a clear view into the room without anyone seeing him.
Llyra’s voice filled his head, warning him to be cautious—and resourceful.
He reached the edge of one of the blasted raash’ke carcasses. He lifted its slack wing and crawled beneath it, ducking out of view. The space reeked of sulfur, moldy fur, and shite. Still, he dropped lower and squirmed under the span of bone and leather. He reached its far side and used the back of his hand to raise the fringe enough to peer out.
The entrance to the mag’nees chamber lay directly ahead.
Inside, torches and lanterns glowed, revealing the truth. It was no longer a shelter, but a torture room. Four bodies lay on the floor, rolled haphazardly to the side. He recognized all of them, including Herl. His ale-loving friend’s throat had been slit ear to ear.
Rhaif spotted his brother, Perde, on his knees in there. Both eyes swollen shut, holding a broken arm to his chest, his wrists in chains. More of the crew suffered similar abuse. They were all surrounded by Hálendiians in armor.
Held at the front, on his knees, Darant glared up. He spat through the ruins of his mouth. “I’m not telling you nothing. You can go fekk yourself, Ghryss.”
The gruff leader leaned his nose close. The man was clad in armor, too, along with the cape of his command. From his scarred and ruddy features, he was a hard man that few dared to defy.
Ghryss snarled darkly, “We shall see.” He waved to his men, who dragged up another prisoner. He turned to Ularia. “You had better be right about this one, or your pointy-eared head may be joining the others we removed.”
Ularia kept her back straight, refusing to bend at these threats.
Ghryss scowled. “You’re lucky you bought your life with knowledge of this shelter. But such goodwill could end if you’re wrong.”
Rhaif ground his teeth. The Nyssian had clearly sold out the others, even the Reef Farer, all to spare her own skin, aligning herself with these Hálendiian butchers.
“I’m not wrong,” she answered coldly as she stepped aside for the new prisoner.
The captive was thrown down hard.
Still, Glace rose to her knees, a hard sneer to her face. Her hair and head were yanked back and a dagger thrust to her throat.
Rhaif’s leg flared with pain as he remembered that—like Brayl—this sister had also saved his life at the site of a crashed sailraft.
“Tell us where the others are hiding,” Ghryss hissed at Darant. “Or we’ll carve this one down piece by piece.”
Rhaif closed his eyes with despair. He had come here to save one of Darant’s daughters—now the pirate might lose both.