Chapter 31 Alaric #2
“Get what’s worth taking,” I said, my voice low, dangerous. “Then burn the rest.”
The last of the crates was being smashed when the lookout’s voice cut across the deck. “Ships! Three—no, four—coming fast from the east!”
The crew froze for half a heartbeat before the Marrow herself seemed to jolt under us, eager for the chase or the kill.
I was already moving. “Back aboard, now!”
We crossed the gap in seconds, boots thudding on our own deck. The crew spilled into position, everyone moving on instinct—rigging checked, powder primed, steel drawn.
Garen was at the rail, his spyglass fixed on the dark shapes closing in. “They’re keeping tight formation.”
“Show me.”
He passed the glass without a word. Through the lens, the fleet came into focus in the moonlight—black sails with a symbol I knew too well. A white sigil painted like a brand across every one.
Out of the darkness, a fleet emerged.
Four long warships cut through the black water, their prows rising high and ending in snarling serpent heads, gilded eyes flashing as they caught the moonlight. The hulls were dark wood ribbed with iron, riding low to the waterline—built for speed, and for killing.
Along the rails, heavy oars struck in perfect rhythm. Thud. Thud. Thud. A thunderous heartbeat that grew louder as they closed the distance.
Moonlight slid over the weapons secured beneath them—polished spearpoints, iron hooks for boarding, curved blades forged to shear rope and flesh alike. The serpent figureheads seemed to stir in the shifting shadows, carved jaws gaping, gilded fangs poised to strike.
Their sails were deep as midnight, streaked with gold that burned like fire on water. At the center of each, stark against the dark, snarled their mark—a wolf’s head, muzzle lifted in a silent howl, its fur twisting into storm-wrought lines.
I knew that wolf. It was the last thing too many crews had seen.
The Covenant.
A familiar heat crawled up my spine, part rage, part hunger. “Positions!” I called, my voice carrying clear across the deck. “Load powder! Ready steel for boarding!”
Movement erupted across the deck. Men ran to the cannons, checked their pistols, drew blades against whetstones with a hiss that matched the wind.
I turned and caught sight of silver in the corner of my eye—Nerina, already moving toward the starboard rail to see for herself.
“Below,” I barked, closing the distance. “Now.”
She stopped, defiance flashing in her eyes. “No.”
“I’m not asking,” I said, my voice low but lethal. “You go to the hold, you bar the door, and you don’t come out until I come for you.”
“I’m not hiding,” she shot back.
The memory of the siren’s slit tail and the eyeless fae burned in my mind, tightening my grip on the rail.
“Did you see that ship back there?” I snapped. “The siren in the crate?”
My voice dropped, rough with restraint. “That’s exactly what the Covenant will do to you.”
My eyes burned into hers. “Below deck. Now.”
“Don’t,” she snapped. “Don’t use her to scare me into obedience.”
“Why can’t you just listen to me for once?” The words came out harsher than I meant, my frustration fraying into something close to pleading. “Why can’t you do what I say?”
“Because I’m not yours to command,” she said, every word like a knife between us. “You don’t get to lock me away and pretend it’s for my own good.”
This morning's memory burned in my gut. The look on her face when I pushed her away, the way her voice had broken…
it was still there between us, raw and festering.
Saints, she never listened. Not when I warned her about the crew, not when I told her to stay out of danger.
I hated that about her—hated how she ignored every damn order I gave.
But I loved it, too. Loved that wild, stubborn fire that burned hotter than my temper ever could.
It was the same fire that would get her killed if she stayed.
Exactly the kind of shit that will get me killed.
“Hold or fight,” I said, my jaw locking, “but if you stay on my deck, you follow my orders.”
She nodded.
The Covenant’s lead ship fired a flare—green fire arcing into the night sky. The light painted her face in ghostly color, turning her silver hair to molten metal.
I turned toward the oncoming fleet, blood pounding. “Positions!”
The first volley screamed through the air, the sound high and slicing, followed by the gut-punch crack of iron slamming into wood.
The deck lurched under my boots, the jolt running up my legs.
Splinters flew like shrapnel, stinging my face.
Somewhere behind me, a man cried out—a sound cut short by the next booming cannon blast.
The air thickened instantly with the stench of burnt powder, acrid and bitter, mixing with the salt of the sea and the rising copper tang of fresh blood. Smoke curled through the rigging, making the moon look fractured.
The Covenant ships closed in, their blue-and-gold sails blotting out the stars.
Grappling hooks flew across the gap, the wet thunk of steel biting into wood followed by the groan of the Marrow under the sudden strain.
The lines pulled taut, dragging the two ships closer until the boards beneath my feet trembled.
“Boarders!” Garen’s voice thundered, ragged with urgency.
They came fast—boots hammering on the deck, heavy armor clanging, the hiss of blades cutting through air. Wolf-head crests gleamed on breastplates slick with spray and blood, and their eyes burned with the fever of the kill.
The first came at me with a curved blade, the edge catching the light just before I knocked it aside.
My cutlass punched into the soft place under his jaw, the steel meeting almost no resistance before it burst out the back of his neck.
Hot blood hit my cheek in a fine mist, salty and metallic on my tongue.
Another soldier’s shadow loomed to my left—he reeked of rot and old mead as he swung. I ducked, my dagger driving up into his ribs until I felt the grating slide against bone. His groan was wet, bubbling, and I shoved him back hard enough that he toppled over the rail into the dark water.
The deck was chaos—steel on steel ringing, bodies slamming into the boards, the sickening crack of bone under boots.
Flashes of silver drew my eye—Nerina, her hair whipping around her face as she buried a blade in the gut of a man twice her size. The sight sent a surge of conflicting heat through me—pride tangled with fury. She’d never listen. She’d die before she hid.
A roar split the din.
A hulking figure barreled toward me, axe raised, its blade already dark with old blood.
I barely cleared his swing—the impact cracked the deck where I’d stood a heartbeat before, planks splintering under the force.
My cutlass took his knee. He howled, collapsing, and I drove my dagger up beneath his jaw.
Warm blood flooded my wrist.
He spasmed once, then went slack.
A spear lunged for my gut. I caught the shaft under my arm, twisted, and yanked hard. The man stumbled forward into my reach. One clean cut—my blade opened the back of his neck—and he folded without a sound.
The deck was already slick. Seawater and blood pooled together, boots skidding, bodies tangling at the ankles. The air reeked of salt, iron, and wet leather.
To my left, Marisol took a spear through the shoulder and kept fighting anyway, head butting her attacker before splitting his skull with a boarding axe. Near the rail, two of my crew dragged a Covenant climber back over the side, his scream cut short by the sea.
Another axeman charged me, beard matted with blood, weapon raised high. Moonlight flashed along the curve of the blade. I ducked under the swing, felt the wind of it brush my hair, and drove my stiletto up beneath his ribs.
His breath left him in a wet gasp.
They came in waves—shields slamming together, spears stabbing from behind the line. A round shield smashed into my side, hard enough to crack something. White pain flared. I staggered.
I grinned through blood in my teeth, caught the rim of the shield, and wrenched it aside. My cutlass punched through the man’s throat. He fell at my feet, gurgling.
Somewhere behind me, Nerina shouted through the chaos.
I turned just in time to see her dart around the arc of an axe, the weapon too heavy to be quick but close enough to shear her hair as it passed.
Rage went cold and precise in my veins. I carved a path toward her.
Each kill was a step—throat, spine, knee—until the axeman dropped with my dagger buried between his shoulders.
Her eyes met mine for a heartbeat. Bright. Defiant.
I almost told her to get below deck again.
She was already turning, already moving, wild and unyielding as she faced the next attacker.
The Marrow sighed beneath us as more Covenant poured over the rails, their numbers relentless. Garen’s roar cut through the din, barking orders as he drove his shoulder into a shield wall—but even he was being forced back, boots sliding in blood.
The deck was becoming a slaughterhouse. And the Covenant ships weren’t done coming.
Breaking through the dark—the largest Covenant warship, a pirate vessel built for both worship and war, it's figurehead a carved wolf glinting gold in the moonlight. Midnight blue sails snapped above it, marked with the Covenant’s sigil, and iron cannons lined her sides like bared teeth.
And standing at the bow was a man I hadn’t seen in years.
Veyrion.
He stood at the prow of the Covenant’s lead ship, the same way he’d always stood in a fight—like the outcome had already been decided, and he was just waiting for the rest of us to catch up. His hair, pale gold and bound in a tight warrior’s braid, was streaked with blood that didn’t look like his.
His eyes hadn’t changed—cold, ruthless, and the same shade of winter ice that could kill a man faster than steel. Black paint curled across his temple and down his cheek, cutting through the scars that mapped the rest of his face. His hands, calloused and scarred, gripped the haft of a bearded axe.
A wolf padded at his side, big as a damn pony, silver fur bristling, eyes locked on me.
Veyrion moved first. Always did.
Once, he had been my brother in all but blood. Now, he was the blade aimed at my throat.
He vaulted the rail, the bearded axe whistling past my ear in a blur of steel and wolf-hide. I caught his shoulder with mine, drove him back a step, but he twisted, slammed the haft into my ribs hard enough to rattle my bones.
"Still breathing, Dreyses?" His voice was colder than the steel between us, but his eyes—ice-blue and unblinking—searched my face like he was looking for the man he used to know.
"Disappointed?"
He shrugged, unbothered.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Nerina—too close, cutting down Covenant warriors with that dagger like she’d been born with it in her hand. My gut tightened.
A shadow loomed behind her—a Covenant shield-bearer swinging a war pick.
“Behind you!” I roared, but Veyrion was already pressing in on me, axe and sword in a deadly rhythm. The wolf circled low, teeth flashing in the chaos.
We clashed—steel on steel, the shock shuddering up my arms. Every strike was meant to break bone. I gave him the same. Blood slicked the deck between us, boot soles slipping, the air thick with the stench of sweat, salt, and spilled guts.
Veyrion’s axe came within a hair of splitting my skull, the weight of it rattling my bones even as I caught the haft with my blade. He was stronger—always had been—and the muscles in my arms screamed as I shoved back.
"Still slower than me," he taunted, leaning in. Veyrion’s gaze slid past me—just once.
Not with surprise. Not with hunger. With recognition.
I opened my mouth to spit back—then felt the air shift.
A flash of silver and violet streaked past my shoulder. Nerina. Barefoot, wild-eyed, moving faster than the chaos around her. Before I could stop her, she was on Veyrion’s back, arms hooking around his neck, nails raking for his eyes.
His snarl was more beast than man, the wolf at his side snapping in fury. He staggered under her weight, trying to tear her free.
"Get off him!" I roared—not for Veyrion’s sake, but hers. She never listened. Saints damn her, she never listened.
She bared her teeth, voice rising above the din. "You think I’m just going to watch him kill you?"
Veyrion’s hands finally found her, wrenching her from his back like she weighed nothing. Her head snapped forward as he flung her across the deck—she hit the planks with a cry that cut through every other sound.
Something inside me broke.
I didn’t hear the clash of steel or the roar of the crew anymore. Just the thunder of my pulse, the red haze swallowing the edges of my vision.
I was on him before he could raise his axe again. My blade punched into the gap in his armor at his side, the bite of steel grinding against bone. He grunted, twisting away, but I drove him back with blow after blow, sparks and blood flying in equal measure.
"You touch her again," I snarled, every word a growl from somewhere deeper than my curse, "and I will tear your heart out with my bare hands."
His lips curved into something between a grin and a grimace, blood trailing from the corner of his mouth. "Ah, so that’s it,” he said. “All this… just to prove you can still love something.”
His gaze flicked past me to her—deliberate. “She must be something really special.”