Chapter 28
THE WORLD IS FULL OF CAGES
Arioch
Tyrin’s hand on my shoulder woke me.
I blinked, struggling to make sense of the foreign scents and sounds as I stood.
Dawn had barely crested the eastern horizon, painting the sea below our ledge in shades of amber and rose.
The air was thick with the sweet resin of the strange trees that flanked our camp, and the pier was empty.
The void left by my treasure had deepened overnight.
What little sleep I had managed was plagued by the phantom pull of something vital just beyond my reach.
“A ship,” Tyrin said, pointing east.
I followed his gesture to watch a broad, flat-bottomed craft with a shallow draft round the headland, its sails trimmed for the approach.
It was not the galleon. This vessel was squat and utilitarian, built for coastal waters rather than the open ocean, and it rode low in the water as though burdened by heavy cargo.
“I wonder if it is connected to the wolves,” I said.
Tyrin’s pale eyes narrowed on the craft. “We shall soon know.”
“Indeed.” I crouched beneath the shelter of a tree at the edge for a better view.
The vessel docked with the practiced ease of a crew familiar with this port.
Lines were thrown and secured, and the gangplank was extended.
Five figures emerged onto the pier. Two were in human form; one had the tusks of an orc; one hovered rather than walked down the gangplank; and the last stood head and shoulders above the others, with one eye in the middle of his forehead.
A cyclops. All were heavily armed. They moved with the wary efficiency of people accustomed to violence, scanning the beach and tree line for threats.
“Iron cages on the deck,” Tyrin said, keeping his voice low as he settled in beside me.
Following his gaze, I confirmed his sighting. The cages were equipped with shackles, and enough chain to bind a small legion waited on the deck.
My jaw tightened. “Slavers.”
“Undoubtedly.”
My great-grandmother had been captured by slavers as a hatchling.
A citrine in my hoard preserved her memories of the ordeal.
I had viewed it exactly once and sealed it away, unwilling to rewatch the horrors.
An iron muzzle had been clamped over her snout to suppress her fire.
The chains they had secured around her to prevent flight had done damage no healing could repair.
They had systematically starved her until she lacked the strength to resist, then displayed her before buyers who assessed her value as though she were common livestock.
Slavers should be gutted, their heads displayed on spikes, until the whole vile lot of them were driven to extinction.
As they gathered on the pier below, their conversation carrying on the still morning air, every moment of my great-grandmother’s suffering replayed unbidden in my mind.
“—thought they were meeting us here,” the orc growled in Arabic. “Where are they?”
“Patience,” one human replied. He was leaner than the others, with a shaved head, a scar between his eyes, and an air of authority that marked him as the captain. “The sons of Oannes know better than to miss a delivery. The wolves will fetch a price that will more than make up for any delays.”
“Three males and a female, you said?” the orc scratched beneath a tusk with a yellowed fingernail.
“They will keep the female,” the leader said. “Unless, of course, we can persuade them to part with her.”
The cyclops cracked his knuckles.
Something cold and dangerous settled behind my ribs. The little thief was mine to deal with. The slavers would have to find their entertainment elsewhere.
“There.” The hovering male pointed north.
I followed his gesture, and my breath caught. Thick, dark smoke billowed in the distance. At its base, the unmistakable silhouette of the galleon, black against the brightening sky, limped toward us, its mainmast listing at an acute angle.
“Is that the galleon?” Tyrin asked, squinting at the vessel.
“It would appear so.” The words came out flat, not betraying the rage icing over my veins nor the panic tearing at my chest.
What remained of the ship the wolves had sailed on was now ablaze and nearly unrecognizable. Flames licked at the rigging, and even at this distance, faint shouts carried across the water. The serpent surfaced beside the vessel, its massive coils tightening around the hull.
“It would appear the sailors have larger problems than a missed delivery,” Tyrin observed.
The agitation of the slavers mounted as the galleon listed, burning and battered, clearly in no condition to make it to the island. The leader swore and barked orders.
I watched the destruction with an unsettling tangle of emotions that I lacked both the time and the inclination to examine. The artifact’s safety was paramount. That was the source of the pressure building behind my ribs. The artifact, and nothing else.
Yet my gaze kept returning to the burning deck, searching for a flash of crimson hair among the smoke and chaos.
She could not die. Not here. Not now. I had questions that demanded answers. A treasure that demanded retrieval. I had yet to look into those defiant green eyes and demand an explanation of why she had repositioned her blades to spare my heart when killing me would have been simpler and wiser.
I was owed that explanation. Her death would steal it from me.
My wings strained against my skin, and my pulse hammered as though I were the one trapped on a burning vessel.
And yet… the artifact moved.
The sharp tug on my awareness was sudden, wrenching my attention away from the floating inferno and to the west. I leaned toward my húskarl, attempting to get a better view.
Tyrin noticed and followed my gaze to a dinghy bobbing on the waves. “The wolves?” he asked.
“I assume so.” The relief was immediate, flooding my chest with a warmth I refused to examine. My treasure was not sinking to the ocean floor, which was the source of my solace. The only source. I drew myself up. “Regardless, the artifact is on that vessel. I am certain of it.”
Below, a slaver shouted, pointing at the dinghy. The leader shouted orders, and two of his slavers scrambled back aboard the ship alongside him. The remaining two hurried to untie the lines.
They intended to pursue.
I lunged forward.
“M’lord,” Tyrin began.
But I was already off the ledge.
Cooling the air currents, I drew Silentium as I drifted from my perch, landing soundlessly on the concrete pier between the two slavers untying the ship.
They spun to face me. The orc reached for his blade with admirable speed.
I froze the air in his lungs before his fingers could close around the hilt.
He gasped and clawed at his throat, while Silentium relieved him of his head.
The human attempted to flee. Ice slicked the pier beneath his feet, and he slipped, slamming his head against the concrete. Like all slavers, he deserved to suffer, but I had three more to dispose of, so I beheaded him quickly.
The commotion sent their leader to the railing, his sword drawn, to investigate. With one look at me, his face drained of color, and he took a step backward, calling for his minions.
My húskarl dropped from above in his flight form, landing on the ship’s deck behind the cyclops. His axe bit into the enormous male’s neck, spurting blood from the wound, but not fully severing the head. Tyrin swung again, completing the job as the hovering male rounded on him with a wand.
The captain held his ground, which I might have respected under different circumstances. Muttering an Arabic curse, he gripped his rapier and charged.
I met his attack. Steel clanged as I blocked his strike.
He recovered and attacked again. I sidestepped, but he was much faster than he looked, and he nicked my forearm.
I parried his next thrust and then drove the tip of my blade into his thigh, piercing the artery.
Blood welled, filling the air with its coppery scent.
He cried out in pain, and his eyes filled with desperation as he lunged.
I batted the strike away and sliced his chest from shoulder to shoulder.
He collapsed to his knees releasing his rapier to clatter against the wooden planks of the deck. “Mercy.”
I scoffed. “What would a slaver know of mercy?”
“Please, I—”
I had heard enough. With a blast of magic, I froze him to the ship and checked on Tyrin. He had already dispatched his opponent and was battling two more sailors who must have been below deck. Tyrin ended both before I could even reach him.
We descended into the hold, finding no more sailors but several more cages, these with runes scratched into them to contain magical beings. All were empty, yet my mind flickered to Jameson and the torture he had endured.
The world was full of cages.
“Your orders, m’lord?”
“Sink it.”
“Gladly.”
I returned to the deck. The thud of his axe biting through wood followed my footsteps. Seawater gurgled as it flooded the hull. The vessel began to settle almost immediately, listing to port as water claimed the lower deck.
Abandoning the ship, we stood on the pier to watch it take on water. The deck disappeared first, then the kneeling, frozen captain, then the cages, and finally, the mast.
Once the last of the slaver boat slipped beneath the waves, I closed my eyes and followed the thread to my treasure. It was southwest now. The wolves had made landfall and were heading for the interior.
Toward the valley.
A shiver traced down my spine. Whatever slept in that valley had called to something deep inside me last night, and the thought of the wolves reaching it first set my teeth on edge.
“South,” I said. “On foot, so they will not see us coming.”
Tyrin grunted his acknowledgment and quickly cleaned his bloodied axe blade on the grass before we collected our things from our resting place.
We trekked past the coastline to a narrow plain where the vegetation began its assault on reason.
Trunks swelled into bulbous masses, as if each tree had swallowed a boulder and grown around it, their bark smooth and pale as bone.
Branches reached skyward, bare except for clusters of waxy leaves at the very tips, giving them the appearance of overgrown root vegetables that had been planted upside down.
“Bottle trees,” Tyrin offered, noting my fascination. “I have seen drawings, but the reality is....”
“Absurd.”
“I was going to say remarkable, but absurd is fitting.”
We continued inland, climbing gently as the plain rose toward the limestone plateau. Hardy white shrubs erupted with pink blossoms that seemed too delicate for such unforgiving terrain, yet they thrived in defiance of all expectations.
When I saw the first dragon blood tree, I stopped walking.
It stood alone on a rocky outcropping, its trunk thick and gnarled, supporting an impossibly wide canopy that spread in a perfect dome. A deep crimson resin bled from cracks in the bark.
Dragon’s blood.
My hand reached out before I could stop it, fingers hovering above the bark. Magic hummed beneath the surface. It was not the wild power of the valley, but something quieter. A heartbeat. A memory.
I knew these trees. Not from books, nor stored memories, but from somewhere deeper. A recognition that bypassed my mind entirely and settled in my bones.
“M’lord?” Tyrin had stopped several paces ahead.
“My mother kept a painting of one in her study,” I said, recalling the small canvas rendered in reds and greens so vivid they seemed alive. I had been too young to understand why she kept it, and she had died before I thought to ask.
Tyrin said nothing, but his expression softened.
The dragon blood trees grew more numerous as we climbed, dotting the ridgeline in clusters that resembled a council of elders gathered in quiet deliberation. The artifact pulled me forward with increasing urgency.
We were closing in on the wolves.
Silentium hummed against my back, eager for what lay ahead. For once, I shared my blade’s impatience. The hunt was nearly over.
Yet something told me the reckoning waiting at its end would be far more complicated than I had imagined.