James West - Shadow and Steel

Ulmek seemed unperturbed. “Then we will follow.”

“We do not know how to sail a ship!” Halan protested.

“No,” Ulmek agreed, “but our captives do.”

Telmon laughed all the harder. “I’d not help you if-”

Ulmek caught Telmon’s ear and wrenched his head to the side. His dagger flashed, and Telmon fell screaming to the rain-washed deck.

“You will help us!” Ulmek bellowed, flinging the severed ear into the Kelren’s face. “By the gods good and wise, you will sail this wallowing tub, even if I have to cut pieces off you until you do.”

As Telmon blubbered his newfound willingness, Leitos watched a foaming wave take the Kelren’s ear across the deck and over the side. What little pity he retained in his heart went with that bit of bloody meat. He let it go. For the sake of his Brothers and his father, he could not suffer any such feelings to stain his conscience.

For two sleepless days and nights, the gale blew and raged. By day, under leaden skies, the Night Blade always sailed ahead of the Bloody Whore , a misty shape at the edge of sight. At dawn of the third day, the Brothers found that the ship had vanished.

Now nearing sunset, the swells still wore foaming white crowns, and the rain came sporadically in pounding sheets, but the worst of the storm had passed. In the time since the night of the raid, four more Kelrens had lost their ears to Ulmek’s blade, before the rest decided that sailing the ship without objection was the better option.

“I still believe they yielded too easily,” Leitos said, looking down the deck. From this vantage, they could keep an eye on the sea-wolves busy sailing the Bloody Whore .

“Perhaps,” Ulmek allowed, haggard of face and eye. A wave boomed against the hull, sending up a curtain of salty spray. He caught a rope tied about the foremast to keep his balance.

“They cannot be trusted,” Halan said.

“Of course not,” Ulmek snapped. “I suffer them to live out of need alone.”

“And after our brothers are with us again, what then?” Halan asked, his bluff features drawn, accentuating the dark circles under his eyes.

Ulmek scrubbed a hand over his face. “When we have rescued Ba’Sel and the others, I will strike off the heads of these sea-wolves until my sword breaks.”

Halan looked to a rosy slash of clouds hanging low over the southern horizon. By the coming dawn, the storm would be a memory. “We are not seafarers,” he said slowly. “We are far from home, and getting farther by the hour. Kill the sea-wolves, and we will remain far from home.”

“Then I suggest you learn from them,” Ulmek said. “Make them believe we mean them no harm.”

Leitos turned his eyes on the five slavers who wore bloodstained bandages around their heads, those who had lost their ears. He doubted they would ever make the mistake of believing they were safe in the hands of the Brothers of the Crimson Shield.

Telmon glanced at Leitos, bared his rotten teeth in a grin. Sumahn, standing nearby, slapped the back of the slaver’s head. Telmon flinched, looking like a feral animal about to lash out, then abruptly bent back to coiling rope.

“What if we do not find the Night Blade ?” Halan ventured.

“We have no choice but to trust that we will find her where Telmon promised,” Ulmek said.

After discovering the disappearance of the Night blade , Ulmek had threatened to chop off a few more precious pieces of Telmon if he failed to explain how a ship could disappear. The slaver admitted that his comrades had likely dumped their cargo to make better speed. “To the south, there is nowhere else to go. I tell you true, they sail for the hunting grounds,” the slaver asserted, all the more believable because Ulmek had been a hair’s width from blinding the sea-wolf with the tip of his dagger.

“As do we?” Ulmek asked. The Bloody Whore sailed south, to be sure, but as none of the Brothers had ever ventured beyond sight of land, there was no way to know for certain if the Kelrens were sailing them where they claimed.

Telmon leered. “Soon, you’ll know Telmon does not lie. By midnight, unless the Whore strikes a reef and founders, she’ll be riding anchor beside the Night Blade ….”

Ulmek interrupted Leitos’s grim study. “The storm is letting up. You, Halan, and two others go and get some sleep.”

“What of you?” Halan asked. “As our leader, you can ill-afford to neglect yourself.”

Ulmek’s fierce expression left no room for argument. “I will take rest when our men are safe among us.”

More than food, the opportunity of rest pushed Leitos below decks to collapse into a smelly hammock in the crew’s quarters. The night of his testing, the battle against the Kelrens, and the many long hours standing on the deck of the Bloody Whore , all seemed distant, memories so vague as to be someone else’s.

As soon as he closed his eyes, Zera materialized before him, clad in snug leathers. The scorching heat of her green eyes dwindled to reveal a glow of sorrow. She seemed smaller, childlike, vulnerable in a way that he never could have imagined when she strode at his side across Geldain. He reached for her, hands dripping the cooling scarlet life that had once flowed through her veins. When he touched her, she became as smoke and ash, and drifted away….

Leitos startled awake and stared up into the gloom. It was not the first time he had dreamed of Zera, but each time it was as if it were the first. He feared his grief for her loss would always remain as fresh and raw as an unhealing wound.

Gradually, he became aware that the ship rode the sea more smoothly. They had passed through the storm. The door to the crew’s quarters stood ajar, letting in murmured voices and a little light. He thought it might be the handful of slavers Ulmek had ordered chained to the rowing benches, until he made out the voices of Sumahn and Daris. Leitos clambered out of the hammock and strode from the crew’s quarters.

He found Sumahn and Daris sitting on a pair of upended casks, swords out. They cut off talking when he came into sight, as if caught saying something they should not. Sumahn grunted in greeting, then went back to using the tip of his sword to scratch some figure into the deck.

Daris made busy honing his blade with long, even strokes. “About time you woke up. The rest are already topside. According to that Telmon, we are soon to drop anchor.”

“Take a seat,” Sumahn offered, and rolled a third cask Leitos’s way.

After settling on the small barrel, the trio sat listening to the whoosh of the sea passing along the hull, and the soft metallic whisking noise of Daris honing his blade. The longer they sat still, the more Sumahn’s face twisted.

Daris said, “Might as well let it out.”

He had barely finished before Sumahn began speaking. “I’m tired of always running about like bumbling lackwits. What are we doing, what is our purpose?” He stabbed the tip of his sword into the center of his crude design.

Daris glanced at Leitos. “You tell him, little brother. I have-many times-but it seems my words are wind.”

Leitos shrugged. “We are trying to rescue Ba’Sel, my father, and all the rest of our brethren.”

“I know that much,” Sumahn snapped. “What I mean is, what are the Brothers of the Crimson Shield doing in Geldain and in the world? For as long as I can remember, we run and hide, pricking the Faceless One where we can, but never causing real harm. We take in the rare urchin or escaped slave, but only those who are deemed worthy to fill our ranks. Ba’Sel speaks of some ancient treaty between him and a forgotten ice-born king, but adheres to that treaty only when it suits him.”