Sea of Revenants (Nysta Book 6) Read online

  A wave slid up behind the boat, dragging the vessel along its crest. The elf felt her stomach lurch as the boat angled sharply then lifted with almost equal intensity before rolling steadily for a while. The seasickness which had plagued her the first few days was almost gone. Squeezed from her body on a river of adrenaline and fear.

  She’d managed to eat some of the crew’s porridge this morning, which they’d been happy to share. Since fighting began, they’d seen her as less of a paying passenger and more as one of them. Especially when, without a word, she’d taken a place at one of the oars to keep the numbers even.

  It hadn’t been easy. Her body was used to different kinds of labour.

  Muscle across her stomach and down her back ached after only a short while. Hands, toughened by a life of fighting, still managed to pick up a few blisters. But the ship needed speed when the winds had died down, so she rowed without complaint. Earned respect in at least a few pairs of eyes.

  Balanced by contempt in a few others.

  Her violet eyes found the captain, arm tied useless to his chest with a filthy bloodsoaked bandage. One of the draug had torn him open from elbow to shoulder. Only some quick thinking by the sour-faced raider called Nemo had kept him alive.

  All the same, he lay at the rear of the boat, pale and eyes closed. Spent the night studying stars and compass. During the day, he watched the sun.

  “I’ll get you home,” he said. Too often.

  No one believed him anymore, but they weren’t going to tell him that.

  The sky above was mostly blue, streaked with flimsy patches of white and grey. With summer creeping away, it didn’t translate into warmth even in the prow which captured most of the light.

  The two remaining female raiders, dark-haired Ainu and blonde-haired Saja, had shuffled forward from their usual positions to fill the places of some of the dead. And possibly to be closer to their passenger. They’d given her some lessons on how to work the ropes and to participate in some of the lesser duties.

  She knew she’d never be good at it, but forced herself to learn as quickly as much as she could.

  The cold had been terrible during the night. Made worse by the lack of awnings. Maks had begrudgingly advised the crew it wouldn’t be a good idea. If the draug breached the sides of the boat and they all got caught under the awning, they’d have no chance against the undead creatures.

  Instead, they slept closer than normal, pressed against each other where they could.

  And they had extra blankets, though some refused to use those which had been owned by the dead.

  At night, Ainu pressed against the elf and snored loudly. Loud enough that the elf had more than once considered putting a knife through the young woman’s throat and dumping her overboard.

  Nysta would always end up turning onto her back to look through the rigging at the stars. Felt a wave of peacefulness she was unable to touch, as though the emotion wasn’t hers.

  As though it was just out of reach.

  She’d stare at them for hours, lost in thoughts she couldn’t recall in the morning.

  At other times, she still found herself thinking of her husband. Lost to her now. His body resting in the dirt near a small cabin alone in the Deadlands. Did Talek’s spirit watch her from the Shadowed Halls.

  Had he seen everything she’d done?

  What did he think of her? Was he ashamed of how quickly she’d returned to the ways of killing?

  Sitting now in daylight, bathed in the fractured beams of sunlight against the prow, she toyed with the small wooden box and wondered if she’d ever know what it meant.

  What it was for.

  And what had been unleashed to drill into her skin and which now haunted her flesh.

  Recently, a cleric had torn her shoulder apart with fire. Seared it back to the bone. It had almost completely healed now thanks to those worms of shadow. But even with that, she wasn’t sure if it was Talek’s last gift or his curse.

  At thought of the recent injury, she winced. Memory of the pain still made her unconsciously careful with the arm as though afraid the scar tissue would split open again. Knew it wouldn’t, but couldn’t help the fear of it from trickling down her neck.

  The rowing had helped. Had reinforced the frightened part of her mind that the joint was okay. That, beneath the wide dark-coloured scar, everything was normal.

  Whatever normal was.

  The scar had been worth it, she told herself. In receiving the scar, she’d ensured the cleric who gave it to her had not survived.

  “Nysta? Are you okay?”

  Pushing the small box into its pouch, the elf’s gaze shifted to Ainu. “Fine.”

  The young woman moved across several thwarts with the ease of someone born to the sea. An ease the elf was jealous of. Even after weeks on the bobbing water, she still felt uncertain with her footing.

  Stretching out a hand, Ainu offered a small bowl filled with thick soup. A narrow chunk of heavy sourbread rested on top. An island in a steaming puddle. “Eat this. Halvir says it’ll put hair on your chest. It won’t, really, but it’ll help keep you warm. We all need to be warm right now.”

  “Obliged,” the elf said, taking the bowl. As she pulled a wooden spoon from one of her pockets, she caught Halvir watching eagerly. The large man had taken the cooking duties since the ship’s cook, Revi, had fed the draug with his own body.

  Knowing what the big man was waiting for, she dipped her spoon and lifted steaming soup to her mouth. It tasted awful. Salted fish in heavily-spiced and fermented brine. But she noticed a few others eating with glee, so allowed it must be some kind of local food and not an attempt to make her puke.

  She threw the man a slight nod and he took that as a sign of approval. Grinned proudly before uncorking a bottle of wine and passing it around.

  At least the bread was okay, she thought. Dry and chewy. Filling.

  And, as Ainu had promised, the spices worked to warm her body’s core. Enough so that, an hour later, she shrugged free of her blankets and set to helping the two women shift the sail as directed by Maks. The one-eyed man moving into the vacant slot of command while the captain struggled to stay alive.

  Sea spray spattered her face and the oilskin coat she wore. Cold combined with salt to sting.

  “Did you hear the others?” Saja asked. “We might make the Crossbones tomorrow.”

  Ainu wrestled with the ropes. “I can’t wait to see dry land. I’m gonna find the first inn I can find. I ain’t coming out for six days. Seven, maybe. Fuck it. A whole month. You wait and see. I’m gonna drink until I can’t see Dolmek’s face anymore.”

  “You shouldn’t think about that,” Saja said. “It wasn’t your fault. The Madman takes his toll of us. That’s how it’s always been. How it’ll always be. Besides, Dolmek went to Temple a few years ago.”

  Dolmek had been the last to die.

  The handsome young raider was popular with the two girls. He’d died trying to stop one of the draug from dragging Ainu from the boat. It’d had her by her hair and was about to clamp jaws around her shoulder when he’d cleaved into the crook of its neck with an axe.

  Not far enough to cut its head free, the axe stuck hard. Unwilling to let his weapon go, he was pulled off balance enough that another of the undead creatures had grabbed his arm and wheeled him over the edge.

  He’d shrieked before the splash. Horrified and desperate.

  Ainu said she’d seen his face beneath the waves. Eyes wide with fear.

  Mouth screaming, she said, but there was no sound.

  “I just didn’t think it’d be like that.” She scrubbed angrily at wretched tears. “It should’ve been me. Not him.”

  “Bullshit,” Nemo growled, pausing as he swaggered past. “Shouldn’t have been any of us. Draug ain’t supposed to attack. Ihan works the stone and the Madman stays below. And Ihan ain’t no different to any of the other priests who came before. They all do what the Madman likes. That’s the terrible price they pay to
keep us safe.”

  “What if it’s revenge for something?” Saja finished her knot and looked up to the sail which buckled in the wind as if trying to escape the clutching fog. “Maybe the captain pissed Ihan off?”

  It was Halvir who answered. “I can’t see how. I ain’t ever heard of Ihan telling the draug to attack anyone. He’s a priest. All he does is cut out a few hearts here and there and keeps on building. I met him once, and he didn’t seem to give a shit about much else. Most times he just looked as empty as a draug. Had to wait for him to finish cutting a block out of the cliffs before he’d talk to me.”

  “He weren’t always like that,” Nemo said softly. “But Halvir’s right. Priests don’t tell the Madman what to do. It don’t work that way. They just work the stone.”

  “Well, can you think of any other reason we’ve been marked?”

  “Only one.”

  Halvir turned to the elf as Nemo spat deliberately overboard. “Reckon you can see some of the lads think you’re to blame. Guess you heard that the first night and they weren’t too quiet about it. But the draug don’t seem to be after you specifically. So, I reckon it ain’t you. Reckon you’re just unlucky enough to be on the Ox when he’s been marked. Can’t say Nemo here’s convinced, though. He figures you’re bad luck. I figure he just has a thing against elfs.”

  “Fuck you, Halvir,” Nemo hissed. “I ain’t got a thing against long-ears. I met my share in Dragonclaw and they ain’t all bad. No worse than most men. But she’s trouble. Look at her. All wrapped up in knives like that. Only one kind of feller does that, and it ain’t a friendly one is it? Maybe this ain’t her doing. But ain’t nothing good is gonna come from keeping her around. Mark these words for truth. Anyone who likes knives like she does, I don’t trust.”

  “She’s done alright by us so far,” Halvir pointed out. Then shrugged at her as Nemo swung away. “He won’t do nothin’. Knows we need you. Rest of us mostly respect what you do. Just because we work a boat for most of the year, it doesn’t mean we believe any old superstitious shit.”

  “You have to admit we know nothing about her,” Maks said carefully. “She could’ve got up old Ihan’s goat and we’d never know. Like you said, Halvir, those priests ain’t exactly right in the head to begin with.”

  The elf let Ainu take over the rope she’d been trying to tie off. Didn’t feel ashamed about it. Sailing wasn’t what Nysta had been trained for.

  She nodded her thanks to the girl, then stepped out of the way, grabbing some of the rigging for balance. Finally looked to Maks, who was eyeing her as if expecting a response.

  Shrugged. “Ain’t sure who this Ihan feller is, but I’m pretty sure we ain’t ever met.”

  “You’re not from the Crossbones,” the big raider allowed. “So you don’t know the way things are. Can’t blame you for that.”

  “And, to be fair, you know about as much about us as we know of you.” Halvir said as he moved closer down the boat, eager to continue the conversation. “Reckon you know enough to guess we ain’t normal traders. So it ain’t fair to be judging you for your choice of weapons. Or how good you fight.”

  She’d heard enough in Southlight to know the Crossbones was an archipelago of mountainous islands south-west of Dragonclaw and that it lay somewhere in the heart of the Sea of Blood. Infested with raiders who preyed mostly on Caspiellan ships further south, and smugglers who worked both sides.

  Rumours of slavers peddling flesh to the Southern lands were hot on the tongues of Southlight gossips. There were also stories of raiders who’d travel further down the coast in search of spoils, sailing a savage path of looting and slaughter which was known to leave Rule foaming at the teeth.

  She figured this was true with the crew of the Blue Ox.

  “You fight better than most sailors I met,” she allowed.

  “Sure, we can hold our own usually. We’ve been together a long time. Most of us are from the same island. Place called Temple. Ain’t a creative name for it. It’s call that because it’s where the Madman’s temple is.” He lifted a foot onto one of the thwarts and leaned forward to be heard over a rush of waves. “Ihan’s what keeps the Crossbones together, Nysta. He ain’t the only priest any more than the Madman’s the only god. We’re a strange place, I guess. Can’t even stick to one religion. But no matter what anyone says, he’s what keeps the Caspies from coming up and killing us all. See, it ain’t our fighting which keeps them away. Or their ships being better than ours. No, it ain’t that. It’s the draug. And Ihan’s the Madman’s priest. And maybe he doesn’t have as much pull as we think. How much pull can you have with a mad old spirit of the deep? But at the end of the day, he’s the one who’s got just enough maybe to be pointing them where to be. And that’s usually at the Caspies.”

  She frowned. “He’s a spellslinger, then?”

  Maks snorted. “Ihan? Don’t need to be a mage to be a priest. He’s just a man. Crazy man, of course. But you’ve got to be to talk to a lunatic god.”

  “He’s more than that,” Halvir said. “He looks out for the Crossbones. Keeps the temple clean and when someone’s gotta talk to the Madman, he’s the one who does it. No one else can. The Madman’s not called the Madman for nothing. And Ihan’s got a way of speaking with him ain’t no one else has got. He speaks the old spirit’s tongue, you see. So, the fact they’re on our ass right now tells us only one of two things have happened. Either we’ve pissed Ihan off somehow, or…”

  “He ain’t got any pull with them anymore,” she finished with a grim click of her teeth.

  “Yeah. You said it. And either way, that ain’t making our odds of survival look so great.”

  She thought of how smug the sailors had looked when the lights had first appeared. How they’d smirked at her when she leaned over the edge for a worried look. And when she asked what they were, how delighted they’d been to try frightening her with ghost stories about the Madman who lived beneath the waves with an army of draug at his back.

  For them, the fog with its mystical lights had always been sign of their dominance.

  Their strength.

  Now? Now they felt what many felt when they saw the lights boiling in the dark.

  Fear.

  She tightened her grip on the ropes, watching the murky yellow fog in the wake of the Blue Ox. It was definitely getting closer. Tracking the small boat with relentless speed.

  “How long before it catches us?”

  “The Ox ain’t a fast ship,” Halvir said. “She weren’t meant to be. I ain’t ever heard of anyone outrunning the Madman for long. That said, we’re making good time. Possible it’ll not reach us until morning. Also possible we’ll make the Crossbones by morning, so it could be close. But if we lose the wind again, then we’re fucked and the draug’ll have us in their mouths by midnight.”

  “Shit.” Ainu visibly slumped.

  Saja, eyes still on the elf, seemed surprised by her impassive expression as she reached down for her blanket. “You don’t look worried.”

  “I ain’t. Reckon by then we’ll have frozen solid,” she said, lip curling slightly upward. “Means we ain’t got a chance of losing on account of us all being a bunch of cold-blooded killers.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Halvir got it wrong.

  Though the wind didn’t die down, the draug hit the small boat before midnight.

  First warning came when something heavy ricocheted off the hull. Did no damage, but left the small boat shaking as it speared desperately toward a glimmer of hope sprinkled across the horizon.

  Ainu assured her they weren’t stars.

  “That’s home,” she said. “We can do this. We can.”

  The crew hadn’t been able to sleep. They worked the sail and some argued for rowing, saying the wind wasn’t strong enough. Telling Maks they could row faster.

  But Nemo didn’t look convinced, and the elf didn’t know enough. All the same, she pushed through the small throng. “Will they catch us if we row?”


  The captain was the one who answered, though his voice was weak. His life was draining steadily and there was a terrible stink around him. The kind of stink which comes when a wound turns bad. “They’ll catch us even if we were flying.”

  “Then we don’t row,” she said. “If we do, we’ll all be fucked before the fighting starts. Best to be ready instead.”

  “Ready?” Maks ran the word across his tongue. “Sure. Ready. Ready as we can be.”

  The first draug clawed quickly up the side of the boat and tried to climb inside. Skin white and shredded by reef and rock to show dark meat underneath. Meat tainted by the necromancy keeping them alive. Long matted hair and eyes bulging grotesquely from their sockets.

  Madness reflected in depthless pupils.

  Black blood dribbling through gaping holes in undead flesh.

  The creature opened its mouth, showing splintered teeth. Let out a ghastly hooting roar which spoke of unquenchable thirst. As the sound emerged, dark black fluid drooled from its mouth and hung slack off its jaws.

  Maks split its head in two with his axe. Crushed one half of its face with his heel as he kicked the creature free. The draug fell back into the sea with a splash but was quickly replaced by another.

  And another.

  Where some of the other raiders fought with barely-hidden reluctance, Maks waded in with a frenzy of strokes and venom in his eyes. Like he was taking every step the draug took as a personal insult.

  The elf carried an axe of her own. Not comfortable with the weapon, she allowed it had more reach and was more efficient against draug than her knives. Still, she kept Queen of Hearts in her left hand and the blade tore hungrily into undead flesh. Black tentacles hissed and snarled as they tore chunks of skin and putrid meat free when the blade struck.

  Her axe chopped through limb and torso and, as she felled a small draug with less teeth than most, she couldn’t help wishing Melganaderna was here with the brutal axe called Torment. She had no doubt the young axewoman could have torn her way through wave after wave of draug with that thing.

  Probably with her eyes closed.

  But Melganaderna wasn’t here.