Jon Grimwood - The fallen blade

"Ask," she demanded.

"Save us from that." Tycho nodded to the admiral's ship and the ring of Mamluk vessels around them, beyond arrow's distance. As if Atilo's crew had any arrows left or the strength to fire them.

"You think it's that simple?"

"Isn't it? You said I'd call. You were right."

"You're saying it took a reputation in ruins, a victory for the Mamluks, soldiers preparing to die, a dead friend, and your loved ones preparing to be raped or killed, and not knowing which to hope for, before you'd accept help?" Her voice was mocking. "Tell me exactly what you want."

"Giulietta saved."

"Who knows what that means? Giulietta safely back in Venice? Ensconced as the chief wife to the sultan, bearing his heir and commanding his seraglio? Cleanly dead, and removed from the coming horror? What do you want?"

"I've told you."

"No," she hissed, voice hard. "You haven't. So I'm going to ask one final time. What do you want?"

"The Mamluk fleet destroyed," Tycho answered without thought. "The Mamluk ship destroyed and our ship safe. With all in her," he added, suspecting the stregoi would trick him if he worded his wish badly.

"What will you pay?"

"Anything," Tycho said.

A'rial grinned. "Right answer."

As the Mamluk kettledrum grew louder, and their galley slaves worked the oars to its rhythm, A'rial grabbed Tycho's hand, holding it in a vice-like grip. Her nails were black, her knees scraped and bare. Around her neck hung a yellowing bird's skull, with large eyeholes and a dagger-sharp beak.

"You pay the price freely? This you must state."

"I'm still waiting for you to tell me what it is," he said, flinching as the red-haired child turned on him, her eyes sharp as broken glass.

"You know my price," she hissed. "Pay it, or not."

Tycho looked at her.

"State you pay it, or let me return home. You cannot summon me, and then quibble." There was a fury to her words far more dangerous than shouting. He wondered, not for the first time, how old A'rial really was.

Whether she was human.

But who was he to ask those questions? And she was right. He knew her price. Although he imagined it was Alexa who really wanted it, and A'rial was simply her instrument.

"Take my life instead," he begged.

A'rial shook her head dismissively.

"My soul then."

Pushing her face close to his, she mocked, "What makes you think you have one? Or ever had one? Swear it by the goddess or Giulietta dies…"

He should have remembered there would be a full moon.

Pale as his skin, huge and poised just above the horizon. The sun might be sunk in its glory, firing a final sliver of horizon with sullen flames, but the moon had a whole night ahead of her, and a red-haired acolyte on the deck of a losing ship, taking promises in both her mistresses' names.

"I will make Alexa an army," Tycho said. "I will embrace who I am."

Stepping on to the prow of Atilo's ship, A'rial stood tall, brought her clenched fists to her forehead in a strange salute, then flung them back, with her fingers still clenched, her arms angled back and down like the wings of a bird.

Winds whistled around her.

Lightning cracked from an unbroken sky.

The storm began instantly. Clouds gathering on the dark horizon, banking and racing at impossible speeds towards the Mamluk armada like heavenly cavalry. Mamluk archers blinked to find spray in their faces. The crescent pennant above their admiral's galley flapped so hard it sounded like cannon fire. Beneath Tycho's feet, he felt the San Marco lurch as wind filled her sails and she listed dangerously.

"Lower the sails," he shouted.

Atilo stared at him.

"My lord, drop the sails. Hack down the masts if you must. But get the canvas down and get Giulietta and Desdaio below… Please." Maybe the final word helped. Because Atilo snapped out orders to cut the sails free, and hurried the women towards a hatch. Only returning to his post when they were below.

"What have you done?"

Thunder rolled across the sky, lightning lanced seawards. A Mamluk ship in the ring around them lost its mainmast as jagged fire split the wood, and sails tumbled before anyone had time to lower them.

"My lord, go below."

"Tycho…"

"I must do this."

"What have you done?"

"Paid the price demanded to save those I love."

Tears rolled down Tycho's face, harried by the wind. He could taste their sourness in his throat, and feel emptiness under his ribs where someone had cut open his chest and was replacing his heart with ice.

"Go," he ordered.

Atilo looked shocked.

"Or stay," Tycho growled. "And die. Those are your choices."

"Those are my…?"

"You think we will distinguish between friend and enemy when the killing grows fierce?" He indicated A'rial in the prow; fierce winds gusting away the arrows aimed at her, her arms stretched back, her face raised to the sky.

She was mouthing incantations. Her fingers dancing as she pulled clouds across the sky and split ships in two with strikes of lightning. A lift of her chin produced a cliff-sized wave that crushed three ships, and faded just as quickly. In a flurry of waves and thunder she'd set about reducing the Mamluk fleet to a single vessel. There had never been a storm like it. And right in the middle, red hair streaming, stood the little stregoi, her face running with rain that filled her mouth and dashed from her chin like a million tears. She was laughing.

When he looked back, Atilo had gone.

Tycho wanted to be there, on the Mamluk galley, facing his enemy, ripping out the bastard's guts. To think it was to be there. Stumbling, he glanced down, seeing the waves behind him. Fear filled his throat as he fought to balance on the rail.

How he got there didn't matter.

"Over there…" A Mamluk archer shouted warning.

And Tycho stopped his arrow in mid-air, wrapped his fingers around it before the arrow could fall, and stabbed hard and fast into the neck of a man-at-arms who was advancing, short sword in hand. Twisting, Tycho felt barbs turn before he ripped the arrow free, tossed the dying man aside and hurled the arrow at the chest of the archer who'd fired it.

The arrow flew so fast it disappeared.

And then the archer was staring in shock at the shaft jutting from his mail coat. Tycho killed him, almost as an afterthought. The crack of the archer's neck lost under the howl of the wind, the crash of the waves and the roar of blood in Tycho's head.

He could feel hunger inside him. It stared through his eyes. Filled his mind. Its vision sharpening as the western horizon darkened, the final traces of daylight drowning below the waves. The Mamluk ship with its galley slaves, slave master and admiral became a frieze of red. Frozen, as time hiccuped and the sea slowed to a sullen roil, and the beast tested the bars of its cage.

"Do it," said a voice in his head.

A'rial, Tycho decided. Unless he was talking to himself.

So many people to kill. So many throats to tear out, so much blood. He could drown himself in the red he'd spill on this one ship. They were firing arrows at him. The wind took most of them. The few that came close he swatted away, not even bothering to return them.

"I said do it." Definitely A'rial. She sounded crosser this time.

Should he? Could he, and remain who he was? He knew the answer to that. The few times he'd embraced the moon's rays he'd felt a sliver of ice enter his heart. Enough of those slivers and his heart would freeze. He couldn't unlearn the lessons that changing taught him. And after he became himself again, the memories of what he'd been remained. But how could he save Giulietta without changing? He would have to accept his destiny.

Become the last of the Fallen. The last of his line.