Harbinger: Fate's Forsaken: Book One (27 page)

“You aren’t
allowed to have one passenger,” she retorted. “And for the price I’m willing to
pay, I think you’ll find the room.”

He looked at the
heavy purse at her belt and shifted his weight uncomfortably. “You don’t
understand, miss. If the Duke finds out, I’ll lose my place. And in these times
that might as well be a death sentence. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to find
passage elsewhere.”

Kyleigh’s hand
went to her sword, but Aerilyn stepped in before she could get them all killed.
“Please, sir. Our business is very important and we haven’t got much time.
Couldn’t you see it in your heart to help us? At least until the next port?”

Under the spell
of Aerilyn’s eyes, it was amazing how quickly the soldier softened. “All
right,” he grumbled. He took the purse Kyleigh handed him and tucked it quickly
into his pocket. “This way.”

They followed
him to the back of the boat, where a small canopy had been stretched over the
space between two stacks of crates. “You’re to stay here at all times. If you
need to relieve yourself, tell one of the guards. They’ll escort you to the
railings. Otherwise, stay put and don’t make a ruckus.” He lowered his voice.
“The seas aren’t safe anymore, especially for our sort of boat.” With that, he
marched away — leaving them to get settled for the night.

Their space
under the canopy was a far cry from an inn. Even when they camped in the
Valley, Kael could sprawl out in every direction. But now he had Aerilyn’s
shoulder pressed against his side, squishing him into the solid wood of the
nearest crate. Jonathan was laying lengthways and already asleep, judging by
the heavy breath he kept blowing into the top of Kael’s head.

After a bit of squirming,
he found that if he rolled over on his side, he could get some space. He turned
towards the crate and noticed that it had the sun of Whitebone branded into the
side of it. He was tracing the burnt edges with his finger when he heard
Aerilyn hiss:

“Kyleigh, are
you mad?”

“Last time I
checked, no,” was her cool reply.

“Well the last
time
I
checked, we were stuck on a
ship carrying goods from the desert. And do you know what they make in the
desert?”

“Sand?”

“Jewelry!”
Aerilyn said, with no small amount of exasperation. “Gold, silver, diamonds
— these crates are probably spilling over with treasure. Did it ever
occur to you that treasure practically makes us a beacon for,” she lowered her
voice, “pirates?”

Kyleigh snorted.
“Pirates are just an old fisherman’s tale.”

“No they aren’t!
Didn’t you hear what that guard said, about how the seas aren’t safe anymore?
Gold
was hardly enough to get him to
bring us along. And I’m telling you, it’s because of the pirates. We should get
off this very instant. I’m sure we can find another ship to travel on —”

“Have you ever
met a pirate?”

An indignant
gasp. “Of
course
I haven’t! They’re
not exactly the company one invites to tea. Besides, merchants are the sworn
enemies of pirates. We actually work for our coin, thank you very much. Pirates
are naught but drunken thieves — and they’ll kill you and hang your body
from the mast of their ship.”

Kyleigh laughed.
“Oh, please. Why would they do something like that? Just think of the mess. We
aren’t getting off,” she added, “so you might as well get some sleep. I promise
things will look much less deadly in the morning.”

Part of agreeing
not to cause a ruckus meant that Jonathan was absolutely banned from playing
his fiddle. When the captain threatened to throw it overboard, he stuffed the
instrument hastily into his rucksack and sat on it. Not long after that, he
found a pack of cards — and made it his personal duty to teach Kael how
to play.

On the front of
each card was a painted image of a person or a beast. The highest card in the
deck was the King. He glared out from under his crown and clutched a
vicious-looking dagger in his right hand. There were four Kings and each ruled
over a different color suit: black was the strongest, followed by red, then
blue, and finally green.

It took Kael a
few hands to figure it out, but soon he could hold his own at the table —
much to Jonathan’s dismay.

“And here I
thought you’d be a purse,” he grumbled as Kael collected his winnings: two
bread slices and a slightly wrinkled plum.

“What’s a
purse?” Aerilyn asked.

“A bloke who
can’t really play and just winds up paying the rest of the table,” Jonathan
explained. He tossed a black knight out in the middle. “You might as well hand
over your cheese, gents! There’s not a card left among you that can trump him.”

Then Kael played
the black dragon and his mouth dropped open in shock. “You’re a villain,” he
said accusingly. “A cold-stomached killer!” He threw his cards down and rolled
over on his back, clutching his heart.

And Aerilyn took
the opportunity to punch him in the gut.

They passed the
long days at sea playing whatever games Jonathan could think of: Madman’s
Crumble, Scalawaggle, Ditch the Witch, and Burnt Pecan were just a few. Though
Kael strongly suspected that Burnt Pecan wasn’t a real game: Aerilyn had never
heard of it, and the rules kept changing in Jonathan’s favor.

As long as he
had something to occupy him, Kael didn’t think the journey was all that bad.
But the moment he ran out of things to do, he began to notice how miserable he
was.

Never, in all of
his life, had he been forced to live in such cramped quarters. He’d always had
the wilderness to escape to, the wide-open land to run across and plenty of
trees to hide in. But on the merchant ship there was no escape, and it wasn’t
long before he began to feel like a rabbit caught in a snare. If Jonathan had a
tune stuck in his head, he hummed it until it got stuck in Kael’s. If Aerilyn
asked him a ridiculous question, he couldn’t pretend like he hadn’t heard her
— because she was always sitting right at his elbow. The soldiers would
sneer at him, call him a mountain rat or a redheaded stork, and there was
nothing he could do about it.

“If there’s one
thing I’ve learned, it’s that you never want to clock a man in the middle of
the sea,” Jonathan warned when he’d muttered darkly about their heckling. “If
his mates decide to toss you, it’s a long, cold swim to shore.”

“I don’t know
how to swim,” Kael admitted.

He shrugged. “So
it’d be a short one, then.”

For once, the
only person who didn’t annoy him on an hourly basis was Kyleigh. The boat was
small, and the further out to sea they went the larger the waves became. So the
vessel rocked back and forth in unreliable patterns, sloshing them around like
the last sip of ale in the bottom of a tankard. And Kyleigh’s stomach didn’t
take well to the movement.

Her face was
always tinged some shade of green. She had a difficult time keeping her rations
down and spent most of her days laying on her side with her hood pulled up,
trying to sleep. He actually felt sorry for her, and he got her a cup of water
anytime he could.

Eventually, the
long days would fade away and then the nights were mostly pleasant. He’d had no
idea just how big the sky was, but out in the middle of the sea, the stars were
magnificent. They danced the length and breadth of the sky, winking back at
them knowingly. He wished he could see the world all at once as they did. He
imagined his troubles must look ridiculously small from up there. But from
where he stood, they were monstrous.

Aerilyn put on a
brave face during the day, but darkness left them with little light and nothing
to do — except brood. So when night fell, her thoughts must have turned
to Garron. Her bravery would melt away and be replaced by tears. Kael often
woke to the sounds of her quiet sobbing.

He knew how she
felt. When the sky went dark, thoughts of Tinnark would swim before his eyes.
He would toss and turn, worrying over Amos, wondering if Roland was safe … and
regretting that he wasn’t with them. Sometimes he worried that he would never
see them again. Sometimes he thought about jumping overboard and swimming back
the way he came, giving up this mad quest for the wolf he knew.

So even though
Aerilyn kept him awake, he couldn’t begrudge her tears. If anything ever
happened to Amos, he knew he would cry — death was the only thing a boy
from the mountains was allowed to mourn.

*******

On the fourth
day, Kael woke up and immediately thought he was going blind. He rubbed his
eyes, turned his head this way and that, but no matter how he strained all he
could see was a cloud of white. The air smelled strange, too — like moldy
stockings.

He waved his
hand across his face, and the white moved. It felt … slimy, and it made his
palm itch. For a split second he could see his feet, then white crept over them
again. That’s when he realized he wasn’t going blind: the ship was sailing
through impossibly thick fog.

He remembered
very clearly what Jonathan said about the fog on the seas:
Ships sail into them, and they never sail out
.

He could tell by
the many worried shouts coming from the deck that the Duke’s soldiers felt the
same way. Armor rattled as several pairs of feet rushed from rail to rail,
almost as if they were expecting an attack. Above him, he could hear one of the
guards snapping at the man who steered the ship.

“Are you blind,
you great, stupid gull? Don’t tell me you didn’t see it — you couldn’t
miss a fog like this from seven horizons!”

“I swear I went
around it,” the man said, an edge of panic in his voice. “I set me course and
put it to the rudder. But it kept creeping up on us, even moving against the
wind.” His voice was shaking now. “I tell you, I’ve not seen fog move like that
in all my years. It ain’t natural.”

Kael decided it
was time for Kyleigh to wake up. He reached blindly, feeling in her direction.
When he brushed her armor, her hand shot up and clamped on his arm.

“It’s me,” he
hissed, before she could twist it off.

“Oh.” She
loosened her grip but didn’t let go. After a moment, she seemed to realize
their predicament. “What in blazes …?”

“It’s fog,” he
said as she sat up. “Look.” He waved his arm, ignoring how it made him itch,
and the white retreated enough for them to glimpse the deck.

“Wait a moment
— do that again,” she said.

When he obliged,
enough cleared that he could see her face. For some reason, she was grinning.

“Help me wake
the others, and make sure they stay quiet.”

In the time it
took them to get everyone up, the fog cleared a little. They could now make out
the shadows of men as they ran back and forth across the deck. Several times a
loud
clang
would make them jump,
followed by a body striking the floor and the muttered apologies of the man who
managed to stay on his feet.

The soldier who’d
taken their coin was barking for his men to fall in line. Kael thought his
voice was coming from the ship’s wheel at first, but then it sounded again from
the bow. It was the blasted fog, blocking their view and throwing every sound
in the wrong direction.

Then all at
once, the ship went silent. It was like someone had gone and dropped a wet
blanket over their heads. The running and the shouting ceased, the men lined up
at the railings froze. Not a whisper passed among them.

He was about to
get an arrow ready when Kyleigh stopped him. “I wouldn’t do that.”

Every instinct
in his body was screaming for him to get ready for a fight. His heart was
thumping so vigorously against his ribs that it made his hair stand on end.

“Listen to me.”
The shadow of her hood dulled color of her eyes, but made them no less serious.
“This isn’t our fight — but if you draw your bow, it will become ours.
And I promise we won’t win. Whatever happens, you must stay back with the
others. You must protect them. Will you swear it?”

He’d already
failed once, and he wouldn’t do it again. So against all reasoning, he ignored
his instincts and dropped the arrow back in its quiver. “I swear it.”

She smiled.
“Good man. Now get behind me.”

They waited
several long moments before someone on deck cried out: “I hear it! It’s on the
port side!” And a whole company of soldiers abandoned their posts to run to
across.

“I don’t hear
anything,” someone said after a moment.

“I swear I heard
it,” the man insisted. “It was a strange, creaking sort of noise.”

“Seas help us,”
another man gasped. “It’s the ghost of the leviathan, I know it is! The great,
bloody monster is opening his jaws to swallow us!”

Someone smacked
him, and he yelped.

Then a hollow,
groaning sound, almost like the final gasp of a rotted tree tipping over, came
unmistakably from the starboard side. Swords hissed as they flew out of their
scabbards and a horde of feet pounded for it.

They stopped
their charge just as the whole boat began to shake. There was a clap of thunder
— ear splitting and sharp. The world turned on its side as the deck
rocked violently. Bodies tumbled overboard; screams were cut short as the waves
sucked hapless men to their deaths.

Aerilyn rolled
into Kael with a squeal, pinning him against a crate. While he fought to right
himself, the boat groaned and stayed tilted at a dangerous angle. The ropes the
sailors used to tie down the cargo trembled as the weight of gold and silver
pushed them to their limits. One rope finally gave out.

It snapped, and
the large crate it held broke free. It flew towards them, urged on by the slant
of the boat. Panic gave him the strength to put his hands under Aerilyn and
shove her out of the way, but he was too late to save himself.