Storm of Sharks (32 page)

‘An eye for an eye,’ she called
back as she went.

Drew trudged up the steps to the aft deck,
not for the first time feeling the weight of responsibility heavy upon his
shoulders.

The three commanders of the armada stood
examining the vast sea chart laid out before them. A fourth figure kneeled before them,
his bony figure sprawled across the giant scroll. Four sabres pinned the enormous map to
the deck. Count Vega, Baron Bosa and Captain Ransome all looked up as first Whitley and
then Drew joined them.

‘Couldn’t you find a bigger
chart?’ Drew joked.

‘Incredible, isn’t it?’
said the eccentric old navigator, Florimo, from where he crouched. Clean and changed
after his incarceration aboard the sea fortress, he was now every inch the dandy. His
white garments were accented by an enormous pink feather that protruded from the
bandanna that capped his head.

‘It covers the entirety of the Lyssian
Straits,’ he continued, ‘from Haggard to Port Stallion.’

‘It’s good to have you aboard,
Lord Florimo,’ said Drew to the sailor. ‘I hadn’t met any of your kind
before.’

‘A Ternlord?’ said the
navigator. ‘We’re a proud, solitary breed. Ocean travellers, star readers,
map enthusiasts and whatnot. Frightfully exciting folk. Was a time there wasn’t a
ruler in the Seven Realms who didn’t entertain a Ternlord in court, so fascinating
were the tales of our exploits. We were once considered Lyssia’s greatest
explorers, you know?’

‘Long, long ago, eh?’ said Vega
with a smile.

‘That’s quite a decoration you
have there, Lord Florimo,’ said Drew, pointing to the drooping pink feather on his
head. ‘Where does a chap find such a thing aboard a pirate ship?’

‘My gratitude’s to Bosa for
that, my boy,’ said the Weretern. ‘He’s got a chestful below! And you
can drop that Lord nonsense. I was never one for flowery talk and highfalutin
titles.’

Drew didn’t miss Vega’s grin at
that.

‘These maps also give us a fine
insight into the Bastian coastline, as well as all in between,’ said the
flamboyant Baron Bosa, his jewelled fingers rattling as he clapped his hands together.
‘Quite remarkable, really.’

‘It’s certainly a coup,’
said Captain Ransome. ‘Very little’s known about Bast; its waters are
uncharted by Lyssian ships.’

Drew knelt beside Florimo and ran his hand
over the scroll. It felt smooth and leathery to the touch.

‘What’s it made from?’

‘The flayed skin of some poor
beast,’ replied Bosa. ‘Or some poor soul, I suspect. Judging by the
resilience of the scrolls, I suspect this came from a butchered
therianthrope.’

Drew recoiled and stood, instinctively
wiping his hand on his thigh after contact with the map.

‘You say scrolls, plural? There are
more of them?’

‘Six in all,’ answered Ransome.
The elderly pirate had been rewarded for his service with the captaincy of the
Nemesis
. ‘One charts Lyssia, and is as fine as any map in the Seven
Realms. The rest seem to cover the jungle continent and other lands, Sosha knows
where.’

‘To think,’ said Vega,
‘when we first encountered the Catlords twenty years ago we thought them savages.
How wrong we were: they’re terrific tacticians, incredible ship builders and a
fighting force to rival anything in Lyssia. In addition they’ve mastered the black
powder and have travelled to the edges of the known world.’

‘And found their way back
again,’ added Whitley.

‘So what have we discovered?’
asked Drew.

Bosa and Ransome both looked to Vega,
clearly the expert when it came to acquiring information from prisoners. The Sharklord
smiled. Weary and wounded though he was after his ordeal, he was slowly becoming himself
once more.

‘Some of the brig’s residents
are more talkative than others,
especially this fellow,’ he
said, clicking his fingers as two of Ransome’s marines led a manacled sailor
across the deck to Drew.

‘The name’s Hobard,’ said
the prisoner. ‘Captain of the
Motley Madam
.’

‘I know your ship,’ said Drew,
casting his mind back to the pleasure vessel from Ghul’s harbour. ‘The
two-master?’

‘Indeed she was. Poor girl got burned
up proper in that fire.’

‘Our hearts bleed for your loss,
Hobard,’ said Vega, clutching his chest. ‘Tell Lord Drew what you told
me.’

‘Right you are, Count Vega,’
said the man nervously. ‘You only got a bit of the Cat fleet up ’ere, see?
Just a small amount of what Sea Marshal Scorpio brought with him. He must have fifty
warships still off Calico.’

‘Scorpio?’ exclaimed
Whitley.

‘Commander of the Bastian fleet, my
lord,’ replied Hobard.

‘Fearsome devil,’ added Bosa.
‘A Werelord of the Sea, and that’s the name he goes by. I don’t expect
his parents gave him that name …’

‘So if fifty warships remain in the
southern sea, and there are ten Bastian ships among our number – where are the
rest?’ enquired Drew. ‘Vega, you said that there were over a hundred in
their armada when they first attacked Lyssia.’

‘I expect many returned home.
They’ll have been transporting the Bastian army, remember. They’ve served
their purpose in that regard. The remaining force is the sharp end of Onyx’s naval
might, and they’re anchored off Calico’s doorstep.’

‘Could we attack them?’ asked
Drew hopefully.

‘We number but two dozen, more than half
of which aren’t dreadnoughts,’ replied Vega. ‘It would be suicide to
draw the Bastians into battle.’

Drew looked up the mainmast to the black
flag that fluttered at the top.

‘They’re hardly going to attack
their own, though, are they?’ he said with a smile.

‘You propose we surge into the heart
of the Bastian navy, sailing their ships and flying their flags?’ said Bosa, his
jowls wobbling and eyes bulging.

‘Indeed.’

‘Splendid stuff!’ gushed the
Whale of Moga. ‘I do love a good ruse.’

‘We’ll need the signal codes to
get anywhere near Scorpio’s fleet,’ said Vega.

‘There’s mates o’ mine in
the brig who can help you there,’ said Hobard earnestly. ‘We might be
skippers o’ boats that served Ghul, but we never signed up with no Catlords. We
know what flags to fly in what manner, y’see, so’s not to raise
suspicion.’

Vega nodded.

‘Take him below,’ said Ransome.
‘Pick out those who can help us and have them brought up. Let’s see if any
of them want to earn their freedom.’

Hobard smiled as he was led away, his
manacles rattling as he disappeared below decks.

‘Can we trust him?’ asked
Drew.

‘The man’s a fool, but straight
enough,’ said Ransome. ‘He and I were both in Ghul’s service at the
same time. While my
Leviathan
was hunting you down, Vega, his
Motley Madam
was busy running contraband under Lucas’s nose, skimming
the top off the Lion’s taxes. Ghul might’ve worked for Onyx and Opal, but he
was still a thief and pirate at heart.’

‘So Hobard and his friends can give us
the codes for safe passage,’ said Bosa, ‘as well as alerting us to whatever
tricks the Bastians have up their sleeves.’

Sudden screams below startled them all.
Ransome was the first to start running towards the hatch. Drew followed, feet thumping
the steps as they descended through the gun decks
.
Sailors exchanged wary looks
as they rushed by, following the cries rattling through the warship’s innards,
leading them straight to the brig. Bursting through the doors into the dark prison
chamber, none were prepared for the sight that awaited them. Whitley crashed into
Drew’s back, gasping in shock as Bosa let loose a cry.

The iron gate was thankfully now closed,
with the one surviving marine slumped against the wall, far away from the barred
partition. Within the holding cell, his companion had been slaughtered. In addition, the
dead and dying bodies of eight prisoners lay, motionless, twitching or breathing their
last. Opal stood over them, the cutlass of one of the marines in her manacled grasp. At
her feet lay Captain Hobard, his throat torn from his body. Though Opal wasn’t
transformed, the manacles that prevented her from shape-shifting hadn’t restricted
her horrific assault. Her chin glistened where the blood of the skipper of the
Motley Madam
stained her jaw.

‘I’m afraid none of my
acquaintances will be able to assist you, Wolflord,’ she said with a snort.

Drew felt Whitley’s hand grip his
forearm, her fingers almost transforming into claws and puncturing his flesh.

‘I warned you, Drew,’ she
whispered quietly, choking on the hate that had risen in her throat. ‘An eye for
an eye. It’s the only way.’

Beneath the palace of the White Bears lay
the Chapel of Brenn. The frigid world above sent chill winds through the corridors,
while the fires of the Strakenberg vented heat from below. The sacred chamber was the
oldest structure within Icegarden, carved out of the caves by the first ursanthropes who
founded the city. The ancient Dragonlords might have lived on the fire mountain long
ago, but with the passing of the great lizards, Brenn’s children had inherited the
world and made it their own. From here the Bearlords had built up and out, over and
through the Whitepeaks, reaching skywards with their colossal citadel as the city grew
around it. Spiritually, the tiny chapel of the Bearlords was the beating heart of
Sturmland, the first pawprint in the snow.

In a domed room that reached thirty feet at
its highest point, the walls were covered with crumbling mosaics and fading
frescoes, featuring scenes from Brenn’s saga that shaped the
fabric of therian religion. Candles sat in alcoves, casting their gloomy light across
the chamber, their wax running to the floor like static waterfalls. The altar in the
chapel’s heart was purely ceremonial, as sacrifices were a long-abandoned
tradition from less civilized times. The granite table was where Brenn’s priests
conducted their sermons and prayers, and when a lord or lady of Icegarden died,
tradition dictated that the body should lie in state upon the altar for a week.

Queen Amelie lay on the stone slab, draped
in a white funeral shroud. A brazier burned at the altar’s head, smoking incense
filling the air as its glowing coals illuminated the dead queen’s body. Hector sat
slumped on the floor beside it, staring at the shadows as they danced across the crooked
walls. The pain in his chest was constant. Healers had been put to work, draining the
blood from his lung and stitching him up, but it would take a magister to repair the
damage inflicted by Manfred’s antler. He would have attempted the magicks himself,
but his mind and body were fogged as if he were gripped by fever. He might have been
alone but for the constant whispering in his ear, his brother’s spirit always
close at hand with words of torment.

She threw herself upon your dagger, dear
brother,
said Vincent. Hector could hear the smile in the vile’s voice.
Try not to dwell upon it.

‘I lashed out. I didn’t know
what I was doing. I should never have had the accursed dagger out in the first
place!’

Ah, that blade’s a tricksy thing, dear brother, as I learned to my own cost in
Bevan’s Tower. You remember, don’t you?

Hector closed his eyes, willing the spirit to
be silent, but the image was emblazoned on his mind’s eye: he and Vincent, locked
in an embrace, the jewel-encrusted weapon buried deep in his brother’s heart.

That’s
two
therianthropes
that gaudy knife’s claimed the lives of now, Hector, and it isn’t even
enchanted! They’ll be naming it a thing of legend before long, you mark my
words.

‘I was confused. I never meant to hurt
anyone.’

You meant to hurt Bethwyn, brother. You thought she was marriage material once,
didn’t you? How quickly your mood changes.

His brother’s demented spirit giggled.
Since the death of Amelie, the vile had been animated as never before, thriving on
Hector’s discomfort.

‘You did this,’ the magister
whispered, glancing up at the corpse on the altar. ‘Every poisonous word
you’ve whispered led me here.’

That’s a bold claim, brother, considering it was your hand that plunged the
knife into her heart. So quick to shift the blame. Nothing’s ever your fault,
Hector. You were always the same, even as a child.

‘I don’t claim to be
blameless,’ said Hector, sniffing back a sob. He tugged the glove off his left
hand and threw it on the floor. Turning the gnarled black limb from side to side, he
regarded it with disgust.

‘I’m weak-willed. I let you tell
me what to do, allowed you to run roughshod over good reason and common sense. If
I’d been stronger, I would’ve silenced you sooner.’

Silenced me?
the Vincent-vile
echoed scoffingly.
You still think you control me? I’m not some djinn you can
force into a stoppered bottle.
I’m your shadow, Hector,
everywhere you go. You’d be lost without me!