Chapter 18
The Songbird
Sewell.” I managed to keep steady in the doorway without floundering about. My father always called it gaining sea legs. Even on our longships, when the tides awoke, it took a fair bit of balance to keep from spilling over the rails.
I lifted the supplies like a boon from battle, a triumphant grin on my face when I found the man still breathing.
“Tricky, little fox,” Sewell said weakly.
I knelt beside him, inspecting the wound. Shallow, as he said, but hells, there was a lot of blood. I placed a gentle hand on the hilt. “I think we’ll be safe to pull out the blade without you bleeding out, but it’s not going to be pleasant.”
“Pull it straight, little fox.” He winked in one of his bouts of clarity.
“No pressure.” I chuckled nervously and padded some of the linens around the blade, ready to catch the blood that would come. Hand around the hilt, I grinned. “I’m starting to think you know—” I yanked the blade free.
Sewell howled his pain but blew out rough breaths when I stuffed the wound with linens.
“—exactly what you’re saying.”
“Think what you think, little fox” was all he said before the door clanged against the wall.
“Don’t touch him!” Celine shrieked. Blood was twisted in her braids, matting her hair together in clumps, rain dripped down her cheeks, but she seemed more disturbed at the sight of Sewell on the ground.
She crossed the space in three sure strides and rammed her elbow into my ribs, knocking me aside. “What did you do?”
Frustration gripped me like a vise. I swiped a lock of hair from my brow and shoved her back, returning my hand to the bloody linens on Sewell’s side. “What I did was help after he fell on a knife with all that damn rocking.”
I’d planned to reprimand her more, toss a few insults at their carelessness perhaps, but clamped my words off when I caught sight of the tremble in Celine’s chin.
Mere moments ago, the woman had false shaved teeth in her mouth. Now, at the sight of a little flesh wound, she was…weeping?
“Thunder Fish,” Sewell said, beaming at Celine. “Save your rain.”
Celine swallowed. “I’m not raining. Maybe a little since I’m so damn mad at your stupid ass. What were you thinking going and getting stabbed? I ought to cut you off, old man.”
“Cut him off?” A flare of protectiveness jumped in my chest.
“Yes, cut him off.” Celine studied me with a bit of irritation. “Who do you think supplies the man with his favorite sour currants?”
Sewell smacked his lips and let his eyes roll back in his head. Even Celine snickered.
I set to work, wrapping one of the long linens around Sewell’s waist while Celine helped secure the binding in a tight knot over his belly.
“He’ll need stitching,” I said.
“Aye.” Celine stood, hands on her hips. “I’ll tell the king, but we’ll need to tend to it until we can get him to a boneweaver.”
“What the hells is a boneweaver?”
“What do you call the folk who fix your ails?”
“A healer?”
Celine paused, confused, then shrugged. “I like ‘boneweaver’ better. Help me get him up. We’re needed onshore.”
My blood felt too thick for my veins, but I buried the unease and focused on Sewell. “I heard Bloodsinger could heal wounds. Why not heal his own crew?”
“Taxing, that blood healing, and he’s detained at the moment.” Celine scooped an arm under the cook’s shoulder. “Now hurry. The king doesn’t want you left alone on his ship. We’re all headed ashore, except you, old man. We’ll see to it you sleep in the king’s bed.”
“Sweet songs, Thunder Fish.” Sewell grunted when he staggered to his feet. The movement soaked the bandages with a new fountain of blood, but he didn’t do more than wince and wrap an arm around Celine’s shoulders.
I followed behind, prepared to steady the man should he stumble on the stairs.
Sewell pinched his lips and muttered something about eel tempers.
Celine told him since he’d be sleeping in the king’s bed, it made him the king of the ship for a day.
She seemed at ease with talk of invading Erik’s chambers, and I resented how it made me think that Bloodsinger might not be a tyrannical fiend.
Once the cook was settled in the king’s chamber, Celine led us back to the lower deck. The door carved into the hull was lowered. Smoke choked the freshness of the breeze, and foam on the tides was tinged pink.
“Get in.” Celine gestured at a rowboat. Much as with the main ship, nothing about the common boat was simple.
It was shaped like a jagged arrowhead and the rails were spiked with bits and pieces of what looked like fanged teeth.
Some were chipped and cracked from wear, but it only added to the viciousness, and the oars were like knives, ready to slice through the waves.
Sweat gathered under my arms, my palms, at the nape of my neck.
I’d tried to embolden myself at the masque, until I froze when Bloodsinger made himself known.
Then again in the feed cart at the fort when I’d smashed his leg, until Rorik came, and I went boneless.
I was empowered to chastise the Ever King for his wretchedness, until now.
Why would Bloodsinger drag me off the ship? I’d disobeyed his command. He’d been furious. A dozen different ways he might make me pay took hold and choked the air from my lungs.
“I think someone ought to stay and keep watch over—”
“Get. In.” Celine yanked a roughly made sword from a leather sheath. Only halfway, but the threat was clear. “I got no orders saying I can’t take a finger or two. Maybe an eye. Patience is long gone. Now get in.”
I clenched my fists but complied. Celine took one oar, I took the other, and with great digs into the bloody water, we heaved the boat into the open tides.
On the shore, walls of fire toppled sod huts, a tower made of thick beams, and what appeared to be a worship center made of posts carved in runes arranged in an intricate pattern.
Amidst the flames and tangle of smoke, the ship’s crew kept tossing other men into a huddle near the water’s edge. Drawn blades meant there was no question blood would taint the sand soon enough. I cursed myself for leaving my knife in the kitchen.
Once the boat struck a sandbank, Celine hopped over the side, knee-deep in the waves. “Out,” she said, and secured the oars.
I followed her onto the sandy shore. A dozen paces away, a shadow materialized from the dust and haze. His gait was staggered, but when Bloodsinger stepped free of the smoke, I saw why.
One hand gripped firmly on a thick rope, he dragged a bloodied man by the ankles. The man had a similar build and an injured leg, and Erik limped as he heaved his prisoner.
The sharp tang of bile burned my throat at the state of the man:a gash from the corner of his mouth split his cheek halfway open, two fingers bled from the tips—I doubted they were still intact—and small knives were rammed into the backs of the man’s arms.
With every tug, the hilts of the blades would shift and twist in the flesh, drawing out raspy, angry shouts of pain.
Brutal. Cruel. Mesmerizing.
I had a twisted captivation with Erik Bloodsinger. I despised him in one breath, and in the next, I couldn’t turn away from his cold, beautiful face. What created such a creature as him? What motivated such brutal punishments?
I knew war. I knew execution. But Erik seemed to enjoy the bloody game more than the outcome.
Low sobs peeled my gaze away from the king for a moment. My chest squeezed. Men and women, children and elders were gathered to one side.
They wore simple clothes, most barely covering their bodies. Their hair was rolled in tight cords or shaved close to the scalp. Those who were grown wore piercings laced with slender gold chains from lip to nose to ear.
Wives wept against their husbands’ bare chests. Some children whimpered, their glassy eyes locked on the burning huts, watching their village crumble.
I blinked back to the man in Bloodsinger’s grip.
He’d been the one to cause this devastation.
A strange sensation took root low in my stomach.
Heavy and coiled, like a barbed knot of thorns, it bloomed through my body until it reached my lips.
The corner of my mouth twitched into a smile, into a cruel thrill that the man responsible for the tears of littles was paying his dues.
Never had I embraced gore, but a shiver danced down my spine. I wanted the man to suffer. For a moment, I wanted him to suffer more than I did Bloodsinger.
I didn’t know this side of myself.
Truth be told, she frightened me.
The Ever King dropped the rope. His captive let out a haggard breath. One simple wave of the hand from the king, and two crewmen hooked their arms beneath the prisoner’s and levered him into a rough stance on his knees.
“The seas,” Erik said, dark and low, as he accepted a knife from Larsson. He glanced over his shoulder at the prisoner. “Lucien, whose voice commands the seas?”
The prisoner spat his blood. “Hard to tell these days, Erik.”
“Is it, now?” Erik turned, a thoughtful pinch to his face. “It hardly boggles me. I wonder why it is such a struggle for you.”
Lucien scoffed but said nothing.
Erik stalked in front of the man, a beast to a mouse.
With every step, he tapped the blade against his palm.
“What is your purpose in coming to Skondell? The only thing I can gather is you’re here for the lotus, no doubt for nefarious reasons.
” The king came to a halt in front of the man. “Who financed your campaign?”
“Ah, king of the seas, you sail beneath your own dark banner. You know no privateer worth his weight gives up his financiers. Makes for bad business.”
“Hmm.” Erik inspected the blade in his hand. “This is a rather dull knife.”
Odd thing to say. Odder still was the way Lucien’s eyes widened in horror.
I startled when Erik lunged at his prisoner. He might’ve limped from whatever injury I’d caused, but I was right about my theories—Erik Bloodsinger was a snake, swift and deadly, always waiting to strike.